Romans 1:14-15

I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome.

Obligated to whom? Greeks and non-Greeks. Cultured and non-cultured gentiles. All people! Why? What has “everybody” done for him that requires something of him? 1 Corinthians 9:16 “Yet when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” Paul is not indebted to God for His grace; rather he is indebted to the people of the world. God’s grace given to us does not indebt us to God. Because of the grace of God, we are obligated to share the gospel with everyone. There is no one who is any less or more deserving than us. And that makes us a debtor to all. Grace is free. God gives it freely; nothing is required to get grace—lest it not be free. When you hear good news about how to escape from a common misery, you become a debtor to tell the good news to others so they can escape the misery too. You owe it to them. Why? Because if you withhold the good news of grace from others, it’s as if you were qualified for it, and they were not, then you show that you have never known grace. Now we are debtors to God not because of His grace, but because we have stolen His glory by sinning against Him; and it is His grace that pays for those debts. God’s grace calls us out of darkness into the light and bestows eternal covenant love on us in order to create what it commands—faith. Grace makes us willing to believe. We will not believe without it; we are certain to believe once made willing by it. God’s grace creates our faith.

God sent His Son to die in my place, and He redeemed me from my sin. He united me to His Son so that now my heart is His Son’s heart. I want to think the way His Son thinks, I want to live the way His Son lives, and I want to do the things His Son wanted to do. What did Christ want to do? The Will of the Father. What is the Will of the Father? That people from all nations will come and worship Christ to the glory of God. Therefore, we should want to see the nations worshipping Jesus Christ; furthermore, Jesus has told us to go to all the nations. Paul was once an enemy of Christ; now he is His apostle. And Paul was overwhelmed that God would give a sinner like him that kind of an obligation. We should be too.

Paul was eager to share the gospel. The obligation was not burdensome for Paul; rather, it was a delight. It was voluntary slavery. Paul was eager to share the gospel—with believers! Are you eager to share the gospel with believers? With unbelievers? We don’t usually think about preaching the gospel to believers. Paul wanted to preach the gospel to these Romans, and they were already believers. Paul is not merely interested in getting professions of faith, as crucial as that is, by first-time preaching of the gospel. (My father-in-law is amazing when it comes to this!) Rather, Paul is interested in bringing to God the offering of sanctified gentiles—perhaps the “obedience of faith” is sanctification. It’s the gospel of grace that converts, and it’s the gospel of grace that sanctifies. We must tell people the gospel the first time; and we must remind people again and again of the meaning and implications of the gospel of grace. So the gospel of grace is what we preach to unbelievers, and the gospel of grace is what we preach to believers. That is what Paul says in Romans 1:15. He desires to preach not to get them saved, but to keep them saved through sanctification. Our faith feeds off the good news of the grace of God. And our obedience feeds off of faith. Therefore, to bring about the obedience of faith, we must hear the gospel of grace over and over.

Now, we don’t think of duty and obligation in terms of eagerness. We hear duty, ought, obligation, and we immediately cringe. There are a lot of people that will say, “Once you become a Christian, you don’t have to do anything; it’s just that you want to. You don’t have to obey the commands, you just want to.” That is incorrect theology. Paul says he’s under obligation. Does a husband have to love his wife? Yes. I hope he wants to, but he has to. Do parents have to love their child? Yes, I hope they want to, but they have to. Obligations don’t change when we become Christians. God’s commands are still there, but those obligations cease to be burdensome, because our hearts have been renewed. Paul is obligated and eager. There’s no contradiction between obligation and desire. Paul’s willing, but it’s also a command. He has to, but he wants to. Here’s an analogy:

Martin Jones is a junior executive. He’s sitting in his office, it’s early afternoon, he’s working on some accounts, he’s really kind of bored by the work he’s doing. His boss comes down the hall and says, “Jones, we’ve got a guy in town with huge potential, and I want you to do this. I want you to go out with Mr. Phillips over there. Head out to the country club, and play a round of golf with him.” Now Jones happens to love golf. And in fact while he was doodling on the notepad, he was thinking about golf. Now is he happy about going out to play golf with a huge potential client. He’s thrilled; he’s willing. Does he have to go? Oh yes, he does. His boss told him to. He has to, but he wants to. Paul’s mission statement as an employee of Christ and his life’s passion are one in the same. He loves his work. Do you?

So here is the summary of what we’ve done so far: grace came to us unconditionally and absolutely free from God when He called us to Himself and loved us as His own. This grace makes us debtors to everyone who, like us, needs grace, because not to share the grace we received would imply that we qualified for it and they don’t; and that would nullify grace. And what we share is the gospel of this great free grace. This is how we pay our debt to others: freely we received, freely we give. Every believer is a steward of grace to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of the glory of God’s Holy Name.

Romans 1:11-13

I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong - that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles.

Why the desire to visit Rome (Part I)? Paul wanted to serve, to minister, and to give spiritual gifts. He was unselfish. We want to go to church for what we get out of it. Paul wanted to go for what he could give to it. Paul tells them specifically that his purpose is for them to be strengthened—established in the faith—through spiritual gifts. Spiritual gifts come from the Spirit; Paul could not dole out spiritual gifts like Santa spreads packages—neither can we! But he knows that the Spirit can and will give these gifts as the gospel is preached. Paul knows these Romans are genuine believers. Yet he still wants a harvest among them. But he says for them to be strengthened, they need to hear the gospel. The gospel isn’t something that we listen to at conversion, the beginning of our Christian experience, and then it set aside to move on to something more profound. The gospel is to be infused throughout our lives as Christians. As our understanding of the gospel increases, our faith and trust in God increases.

1 Corinthians 3:5-7 “What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe–as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.” It is the Spirit Who brings growth, and that’s why Paul is so anxious to be there preaching and teaching the Word. The Spirit is the only One Who, through His gifting, establishes us in the faith. Yet Paul says, “I’m eager to be with you in order that you might be strengthened.” What’s Paul thinking?

Paul knows that the ultimate source of spiritual life and spiritual growth is the Holy Spirit. And he also knows that faith comes by hearing. The ministry of the Word of God is the Spirit’s ordained choice, the instrument, for how He brings people to faith. Paul sees no contradiction between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. Paul shows us his reliance on the sovereignty of God, and yet still holds to complete human responsibility. So often people who are unfamiliar with Calvinism think that Calvinists hold to God’s sovereignty only and not man’s responsibility. And that means that if God has chosen people, then they’ll come to Christ on their own. There’s no need for us to get involved. But that’s wrong. True Calvinism holds to God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. God must make us willing and able to respond, and once we are made willing in the day of His power, then we must respond. It’s the Spirit’s job to make people willing to respond to the gospel and grow in faith; but it’s our responsibility and our privilege to share the gospel. And so the coherence of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility are presented even in the way Paul talks to the Romans in this little passage.

Why the desire to visit Rome (Part II)? Paul here is humbly acknowledging that if he goes to the Roman church with a desire to bless and build them up, with a desire to encourage and establish them, the strange and true reality of it is that he will be built up. He will be blessed and encouraged. The irony of Christian service is that when you die to yourself, you find life. When you give yourself away, you find yourself. When you put yourself last, you find yourself first. When you devote yourself to serving others, you always receive more than you could ever give. And here the apostle Paul, maybe the greatest mind and greatest preacher ever in the Christian church, is saying to these Roman Christians, “As I come to give to you, one of the things that’s going to happen is that I’m going to be blessed by you, and our faith is going to be strengthened together as we fellowship.” What an incredible thought! And it’s true!

Paul’s ultimate goal in going to Rome was evangelism and edification. He wants fruit; he wants to see the fruit of believers growing in Christ. Perhaps fruit is the “obedience of faith” mentioned last time. Faith is only true faith when it is fruitful. There is no such thing as an unfruitful faith. There is no such Person as Savior Jesus Who is not also Lord Jesus. Do we, when we fellowship, strive to see fruit and produce fruit among our Christian brethren? Let us be committed to bringing about the obedience of faith in each other and among the peoples of our neighborhood and all the nations.

Space ripples discovery "changed everything"

Reuters published the title-linked article yesterday, and I want to comment on one particularly foolish statement made by the "star" of the article.

George Smoot and his co-worker, John Mather, were recently awarded the Nobel Prize for physics on account of their discovery of "cosmic ripples," or space ripples. Renowned cosmologist, Stephen Hawking called their discovery back in 1992 "the greatest discovery of the century, if not of all time." Smoot's comment about the importance of this research (involving dark matter and energy) and discovery is what I find to be absurd. He said, "It is extremely important for human beings to know their origins and their place in the world."

Now why, from Smoot's perspective, would it be extremely important for humans to know their origins and their place in the world? This statement reminds me of Caiaphas' prophecy as recorded in John 11:50-52. Caiaphas said, "You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish." John comments on his statement, "He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one."

Caiaphas, like Smoot had no idea that what he was saying was truly of vital importance. Of course, both men thought their statements were brilliant. No doubt Caiaphas and Smoot share the attribute of inflated ego. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 8:2-3, "The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God." And again in Galatians 6:3, "If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself."

So Caiaphas' statement was right on, just not in the way he intended. Likewise, Smoot's was right on, just not the way intended. It is critical for humans to know their origin and their place in the world. We as Christians know our origin from the dust of the earth and from the breath of God. We also know that our sin has brought us to this place in the world of being under the just wrath of God. Thanks be to God that we are rescued, as Caiaphas said, by the death of One Man for the entire nation - "the Israel of God" (Galatians 6:16).

But there is no logical reason for an evolutionary cosmologist like Smoot to see any importance in anything. Everything, for the atheist, is governed by chance and natural selection. Even our thoughts, according to their logic, are random chemical reactions determined not by ourselves as prominent evolutionary spokesman Richard Dawkins might like to beleive, but by the meaningless operation of a chaotic nothing.

Romans 1:8-10

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world. God, whom I serve with my whole heart in preaching the gospel of His Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God's will the way may be opened for me to come to you.

Thanksgiving comes FIRST. Paul begins all of his epistles, except Galatians (due to his urgency to write it) with thanksgiving to God. Why such a priority on thankfulness? We have received mercy, forgiveness of a debt that we could have never paid off, of which the designated penalty is death and eternal damnation. That’s why thanksgiving comes first. There is nothing we have that we shouldn’t be thankful for, for all is from God—both good and bad, as seen from our perspective.

Paul thanks God for the Romans, specifically because of their world-renowned faith; he thanks God for making the faith of the Romans known all over the world. Can we say here that Paul is thanking God for the faith of the Romans? Should we be thankful to God for faith, for the fact that we believe, and for the fact that others believe? Philippians 1:29 “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for Him.” 1 Corinthians 4:7 “What do you have that you did not receive?” 2 Peter 1; 1 Thessalonians 1; 1 Timothy 1:14; Romans 11:36. If faith is produced by us, not a gift from God, why would we thank God for it? If faith is not given or generated by God, how would it glorify Him? Rather, faith would glorify us, because we are the ones who generate it. I suggest that faith is not generated by us. Faith is a gift from God! Thus we can thank God for the faith He gives His people. Why pray for others to believe?

Paul was excited that the faith of the Romans was proclaimed worldwide. Do you know anyone whose faith is proclaimed worldwide? Billy Graham? Are you thankful to God or to the individual for that faith? Both? Are you excited to see "" "" becoming a Deacon, thirsting and hungering for the Word? He hungers for righteousness and desires to be like the Lord Jesus Christ. He wants more grace. Does that excite you? That sort of thing excited the apostle Paul. What causes you joy and thanksgiving tells a lot about what you care about and who you are. So our prayers ought to be filled with thanksgiving and rejoicing over the truth, and what the truth is accomplishing in the hearts of people worldwide.

Thanks to my God through Jesus Christ. Paul prayed to his God through Christ. What was his purpose in using the word “my”? Christ was Paul’s mediator, his intercessor. Paul had no right to pray to the Father, except through the Son. Likewise, for us. When we pray, our words are childish and imperfect, unholy to be quite frank. The Spirit translates our words into Godly words, and the Son prays to the Father, and the Father hears. Romans 8:26 “We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.” 1 Timothy 2:5 “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Hebrews 7:25 “Therefore [Christ] is able to save completely (or forever) those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them.” Hebrews 9:15 “Christ is the Mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.”

God is my witness: Paul’s oath. Paul “swears” with God as his witness that the Romans are on his heart in constant prayer. Should we swear? “As surely as the Lord lives…” God Himself swears often throughout Scripture. Isaiah 45:23 “By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked: Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear.” Notice He does so only in His own name. We can swear only by the name of God, for no other name holds any merit or value to enforce the oath. Do not swear by what is false, but only by what is true, and God is true. Have you ever heard, “I swear on my mother’s grave”? That’s idolatry. It credits attributes that only belong to God to others. Isaiah 65:16 “Whoever invokes a blessing in the land will do so by the God of truth; he who takes an oath in the land will swear by the God of truth.” Should we take oaths or make special promises? Leviticus 5:4 “If a person thoughtlessly takes an oath to do anything—whether good or evil—in any matter one might carelessly swear about—even though he is unaware of it—in any case when he learns of it he will be guilty.” Matthew 5:33-37 “Again, you have heard… ‘Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.’ But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is His footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” James 5:12 “Above all, do not swear...”

Thy Will Be Done. Paul prays according to the Lord’s principle and the Lord’s Prayer. Paul is reporting his desire to come to the Roman Christians, but he does so in explicit submission to God’s will. Paul makes it clear that he longs to be with these Roman Christians. He prays that God would bring him to the Roman Christians, but he is entirely submissive to the will of God. He wants to get there by God’s will. Paul had no idea when he wrote these words how or if he would get to Rome. Finally, at the end of his life, he gets to Rome as a prisoner who would be executed if he lost his trial. Paul was delighted, because God had long before given him a burden of heart to be with those Roman Christians, and he was entirely submissive to the will of God. Paul gives us a model here for submitting to the providence of God in life and in prayer, no matter what. Paul does not question that God is in control. He knows that the only way he’s getting to Rome is in accordance with the will of God. Notice that Paul, relying on God’s will, does not lead him to be passive and to say, “Well, if I’m ever going to get to Rome, it’s going to be up to God.” In fact, Paul had on numerous occasions tried to get himself to Rome. It’s just that the Lord had blocked those plans. Ligon Duncan, a preacher friend of mine, said, “You know, we talk about the Lord closing doors, and a lot of times it’s well, the Lord closed the door on that and we kind of mean that we rattled the knob and we decided that the door was closed. You know, the apostle Paul didn’t take that approach. When the apostle Paul came to a closed door, he tried to kick it down three or four times before he decided the Lord had closed that door.” That’s exactly what he did with the Romans. He tried to get to Rome numerous ways. He prayed continually that God would get him to Rome. And finally in the end the Lord got him there. Not just that he trusted in God’s providence, not just that he was active even though he trusted in God’s providence, but also that he was entirely submissive to that providence.

Romans 1:7

To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul wrote specifically to those “who are loved by God and called to be saints.” He wasn’t writing to anyone that did not fit this description. Is there such a person that is not loved by God and not called to be a saint? YES and NO. All men ever to exist are loved generically by God—they are made in His image—and all men have a responsibility to obey God’s commands to be saints, to be holy; at the same time, none will obey. As we’ll see in Romans 3, there are none who seek God. So God has loved some with a special love. It is this group that Paul is writing to in Romans 1. Paul doesn’t want Christians to say, “God calls me ‘loved’ because he loves everybody the same, and, since I am one member of the group named ‘everybody’, then I am also loved.” That’s not what verse 7 means. Paul says, “I write ‘to all in Rome who are loved by God.’” But he does not mean everybody in Rome. He is writing to those who are “the called of Jesus Christ.” I don’t mean that there is no love in God’s heart for other people. I mean that God has a special love for His people. He has a covenant love for His chosen ones. He chose them to be His people; and He made a covenant with them; and God sealed the covenant with the blood of Christ (Luke 22:20 and 1 Corinthians 11:25). The love of God for His people is utterly different from His love for any other people. God had a special love for Jacob that He did not have for Esau—and not because Jacob deserved it more than Esau; on the contrary, God poured out this special love on Jacob before either of the twins was born. This is the doctrine of election, and we’ll talk more about it when we get to Romans 8-11.

Our vision of the love of God must be enlarged, not reduced. In other words, if God loves “the called of Jesus Christ,” the church, with a special covenant love, don’t conclude that He is less loving than He would be if He loved all people with this same type of love. Scripture declares that God loves the whole world, but that He chooses his bride, “the called of Jesus Christ,” and loves her (i.e. Believers) with a special, precious, covenant love. God says in Jeremiah 32:40 “I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear Me, so that they will never turn away from Me.” Do you see what kind of love this is? This is more than the general love of invitation and offer. This is a love that puts the fear of God in the heart. This is the kind of love that works powerfully and effectively. This is not a general love for all; it is a special and precious love, a love that transforms and puts the fear of God in our hearts and keeps us from turning away: the new covenant.

This is what we should feed on daily. This is sweet and strong. To know that I am loved by the creator God of the universe in this special way is the very heart of my assurance. That God has called me, that He has shone in my heart to give the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, that He will work infallibly to keep me and bring me to everlasting glory–this is what it means to be loved by God. This is not the general love of God that offers eternal life to the world, nor is it the sustaining love of God that gives sun and rain even to His enemies. This is the love of God for His bride, His chosen people. He calls us from death to life, and He keeps us from falling away. This is the new covenant love of God. This is what Paul means in Romans 1:7 when he says, “to all who are loved by God in Rome.” And it is what God means when He says to believers today: “You are the called of Jesus Christ; you are my loved ones. I have chosen you for My own; I have called you; I have justified you; I will keep you; I will work in you what is pleasing in My sight (Hebrews 13:21); nothing will separate you from Me; because I love you with an everlasting love. You I love, just as I love my own Son, Jesus Christ.”

Romans 1:5-6

Through Him and for His name's sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith. And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

We received grace and apostleship to call Gentiles to obedience. Who is “we”? Paul and his traveling companions? Paul and his fellow apostles, such as Peter? Paul and those to whom the letter was written? All believers? This particular grace and apostleship was given so that Paul could call Gentiles into obedience through faith. The Gentiles were included! This is a primary theme of Romans. What does “the obedience that comes from faith” mean? The two choices are: “the obedience that comes from faith” (NIV), or “the obedience of faith” (NASB), because faith is the obedience that the gospel demands. “Faith” and “obedience that comes from faith” are both Paul’s goals in ministry. Is Paul talking about actual faith or obedience as a by-product of faith? Is obedience faith? Is faith obedience?

Regardless, the gospel is not something that we accepted and then went on with our lives. The gospel transformed us. If you have not received the gospel (note the difference between receiving and accepting), then you do not know Christ. You may have intellectually assented to the facts of it, accepted it as truth, you may know who Christ is, but you do not know Christ intimately. He has not become the most important Person in the world to you, and until He is the most important Person in the world to you, I cannot say with certainty that you have received the gospel. But God knows the heart.

There is no grace apart from Christ. Paul’s calling to be an apostle was a gift of grace. Grace is not God’s response to our deserving or meriting, neither is grace God’s response to our faith. Grace is God’s free gift; it is his enabling of us to believe and do good. Ephesians 2:8-10 “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God–not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Do you see that grace comes first? Grace is before faith and in order that we would have faith. You do not have faith in order to get grace. Grace must come first in order to believe. There are 4 primary views of how grace operates in salvation:

Pelagianism – (MAN ALONE)
Semi-Pelagianism (MAN FIRST; THEN GRACE)
ARMINIANISM (GRACE FIRST; THEN MAN)
CALVINISM (GRACE ALONE)

We’ll discuss the latter two views in great detail as we continue through Romans, as both Calvinism and Arminianism both try to uphold grace. Only one really does…

Why grace? Why is salvation / service / all that we are, why is it all by grace through faith? For the glory of Christ, the glory of God. For His name’s sake! God’s purpose in EVERYTHING is to glorify His name, to glorify Himself, to hold Himself high; and He will not be thwarted in that purpose.

You also are among those who are called. We said earlier, there is calling to a particular service; there is calling to salvation. What type of calling is this? This is a calling to belong to Christ, a calling to believe, to be saved. Are all people ever to exist called to salvation, called to belief, called to belong to Christ? Perhaps. Consider two kinds of callings to be saved: (1) The external call of gospel, and (2) The internal call of the Spirit. Are all people called in both of these ways? No. The Golden Chain of Salvation is found in Romans 8:29-30 “Those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son. And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified.”

Certainly not all men are called in this way, because not all men are justified. Do you see the connection? All who are called in this way are certain to be justified. So certain that Paul describes it in the past tense. It is as good as already done. God does not justify everyone. But He does justify all the called. What then is this call? The calling to salvation Paul mentions here is a special calling. It is the calling by which Abram was chosen. It is the calling that Jeremiah and Paul experienced. I would say that this calling was of the same sort as Christ having been chosen before creation. 1 Corinthians 1:9 “God, who has called you into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.” God calls certain people, and the aim of the call is to put them into fellowship with Christ. God will not miss the mark. His calling is fruitful. This call of God, as Paul uses the term, is special and particular. The people who receive this call in time are the chosen ones of God. When were the believers in Thessalonica chosen? 2 Thessalonians 2:13 “From the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.” When were you chosen by God to believe? From the beginning. When were you called? In time.

If God calls anyone, it is grace, free and totally undeserved. And He is not obliged to call everyone if He calls anyone, because He does not call any on the basis of human merit or human distinctive. All divine condemnation is just; all divine salvation is gracious. The fact that anyone is called from darkness to light is a wonder of grace. This theme will be discussed more as we progress.

We know from this intro and elsewhere that Jews and Gentiles are called. This was radical and offensive to the Jews. Does this include all Gentiles? Not necessarily. The text says “people from among the Gentiles.” Because not everyone is called in this special way, are we not to preach the gospel to everyone? Indeed we are. Jesus scattered the seed of the Word indiscriminately on every kind of soil. Paul did the same: he came to a city and he preached the gospel in the synagogue and then in the whole town square. He would call everyone to repent, without exception. Acts 17:30 “God commands all people everywhere to repent.” That is the universal call of the gospel, which is the same as evangelism and missions; it is not the call that Paul is talking about in Romans 1:6-7 and Romans 8:28-30, or Romans 9:24, which we will read down the road.

When the gospel is preached, why do some believe and some not? Why did you believe? 1 Corinthians 1:23-24 “We preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Paul preaches indiscriminately to all–God means for every ethnic group to be reached with the gospel. As Paul preaches to all and offers salvation to all, most Jews regard a crucified Messiah as a stumbling block and reject him. Likewise, most Gentiles regard a crucified Lord as foolishness, and they reject him. But in those two groups, some are called (a different call from the universal call to all). And the effect of this call is that Christ no longer looks like a stumbling block and no longer looks like foolishness; rather He looks like the power and the wisdom of God, just as the text says.

The special, particular, effectual call awakens the dead, gives sight to the spiritually blind, opens the ears of the spiritually deaf, humbles the proud, softens the hard, and brings forth faith. The call of God makes Christ irresistibly attractive, so that we willingly and freely believe. Until God effectually calls us and makes His light shine in our hearts the way He called light into being at the creation, we will not see “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God” (2 Corinthians 4:6) in the gospel. If we don’t see it, we will not love the light and come to it (John 3:19-20). But if and when we do see it, we will immediately come and cleave to Him and love Him and trust Him. That is what Paul meant in Romans 1:6. God said to our hearts, “Let there be light,” and thus we see His glory and come to Him and call on Him; He has saved us, forgiven us, and accepted us and poured out His love in our hearts. We were called by the Spirit. That is what has happened to us. We must understand this, if we are to understand the grace of God.