Romans 1:18

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness...

Paul acknowledges that God has wrath. Webster says wrath is “retributory punishment for an offense or crime; divine chastisement.” Simply put, wrath is righteous judgment, retribution, giving sinners what they deserve. Without wrath, the Gospel is meaningless. Likewise, without sin there is no need for the Gospel. Why would we need salvation if there is no such thing as God’s wrath or our sin? To be technically correct, when we are saved, we are not only saved from sin, but from the wrath of God against our sin. Paul begins here to introduce the bad news, and he takes it seriously. He will take from Romans 1:18 all the way to Romans 3:20 talking about nothing but the bad news—that we are sinners and that God has wrath that’s being revealed; there is a consequence to sin.

Men are godless and wicked. Paul says that all of mankind, who all suppress the truth, are godless and wicked—impious and immoral. There is rebellion against both God Himself and His Word. There is no respect for Him as Who He is, as to His character, nor is there reverence for His Law, the decrees He has revealed. The wrath of God is against this irreverence. Nothing is worse than irreverence toward God.

Now we as Christians are not subject to this wrath. Paul here is describing the situation for mankind before anyone has been reconciled. He is telling the believers in Rome about the wrath of God against pagans, against those who profess no faith in the True God. Throughout the New Testament Epistles, written to believers, there is acknowledgement that “once you were not a believer.” Ephesians 2:3 “All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature [or our flesh] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.” Colossians 1:21 “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of [or as shown by] your evil behavior. But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation.” 1 Peter 2:10 “Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” Thus we can say that everyone has a conversion from false faith or non-faith to true Christian faith. We have gone from objects of wrath to objects of grace; from objects of justice to objects of mercy. But Paul is taking the time to explain that once we were not believers, and even now there are many who are not believers. And that being the case, God’s wrath is upon unbelievers, and it was upon us. Paul is explaining that here.

Men suppress the truth by their wickedness. There is no such person has an atheist or agnostic. All of mankind knows the truth. We just suppress it. There was a time when we suppressed it. Indeed, we may still do so today. We might think, “Did God really say…?” There will be people who cry out “Lord, Lord!” who suppress the truth, the reality of Who God is and what He has done. They cry out to a false god, one who did not create the world and does not sustain it, one who is merciful and loving but not just, one who cannot save, or maybe one who is certain to save but will not punish or be wrathful. Thus Christ will say to them at the end, “Depart from Me. I never knew you.”

There are a lot of people who think they will argue with God on the last day. They’re thinking that they’ll give Him a piece of their mind. Paul says that every mouth will be shut on that day, because there is no defense. We are created in the image of God, yet we were ungodly. We had the law of God written on our heart, yet we were unrighteous. We are in rebellion against God, everybody in the world, unless they’re in Christ Jesus. And even those in Christ were once not. Whether you like it not, that is the situation. We stand before Him without an excuse. We have nothing to say for ourselves. If you deny the bad news, the good news ceases to be good. And what’s worse, God ceases to be God. God’s justice is part of Who He is. We must worship all of God! When you pick and choose which attributes of God to cherish, you begin to cherish a false god. But although the bad news is true, we can be certain that the good news is true; God is faithful. The bad news can obviously be proven in this life; everyone knows they are imperfect. We are imperfect, and God requires perfection. That’s bad news! It’s suppressing the truth when we fail to acknowledge how bad our sin is. It’s suppressing the truth when we fail to acknowledge God’s Holiness.

The problem for the suppressors of the truth of God is not an intellectual problem, as many would claim. The problem is a moral problem. Why not murder? Because men know it’s wrong. Why not steal? Because men know it’s wrong. Morality exists, because men know the truth. Moral questions exist, because men suppress the truth. It is wickedness that causes men to suppress the truth. It is the sin nature inherited from Adam that causes people to deny the whole of truth. Some may acknowledge and even respect some aspects of the truth, but the totality of truth, the magnitude and fullness of God Himself in His glory, men deny. And the reason is a moral one—not an intellectual one.

Romans 1:17

For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."

Righteousness from God is revealed in the gospel. I would have written that God’s mercy, love, and salvation were revealed in the gospel. And those are correct. But Paul writes that God’s righteousness is revealed in the gospel. It is the very righteousness of God that has us in dire straits! The righteousness of God is what should cause us to fear Him. So what does Paul mean here? He means that God has saved us without compromising His justice. God has saved us by grace so that He has been perfectly righteous. God has not swept our sins under the rug. He has actually dealt with them. He has not just cancelled them. He’s liquidated them.

Now the wrath of God is a scary thing. Wrath is righteous judgment, or justice. And this is what we deserve. So it would be perfectly righteous of God to give us hell. Yet it is also perfectly righteous of God to save us by punishing someone else for our sins. And this is what gives Paul assurance. Paul says that God’s righteousness is the thing that gets him so excited about the gospel. God has righteously saved us by grace! He has caused the penalty for our sin to fall on His Son so that justice is served. And because justice is served, we can be absolutely assured. Because if God has put the penalty for our sin on the head of His Son, God cannot righteously require the penalty from us. The reason we’re secure from the wrath of God is because God would be unrighteous to punish us if He punished His Son for our sins. God, in His own design, has saved us by grace, by the work of His Son, by the righteousness of His Son, by the righteousness of His plan, and Paul was excited about that. And that’s what we’re going to be studying by God’s grace over the weeks to come.

Righteousness and faith: Paul tells us that in grace, God gives to us what He demands from us. God demands righteousness, and we don’t have it. Thus He gives it to us. He takes from us our unrighteousness; He gives us the righteousness of Christ. A channel or connector is needed to enact this transaction, this debit of sin and credit of righteousness. That channel is faith. The righteousness is by faith from first to last. The righteousness is from faith to faith. What God demands from us (righteousness / faith), He gives to us (righteousness / faith). Thus God’s righteousness is by faith from first to last (or from faith to faith). It begins with faith and continues to faith. This is perseverance! The gospel is that God removes His own wrath from us and gives us His own righteousness, all by the work of Christ on the cross through the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the meaning of SALVATION BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH. It is by grace that God has done this; His channel to accomplish it is faith. Faith is the glorious, gracious means by which God accomplishes His salvation among men. Why did He choose to conduct this transaction by faith? So that no one could boast. So that no one could take from God the glory that is all His in salvation.

The righteous will live by faith. The unrighteous become righteous through faith and maintain their righteousness by faith. Through faith, by the righteousness of God, we are justified, made legally righteous in the sight of God. This is justification—the act of declaring sinners righteous through faith in Jesus, a major theme throughout the next few chapters of Romans. The death of Jesus purchased not only a declaration of our right standing before God, but also a development of our right living before God, thus “the righteous will live by faith.”

By persevering faith, and by persevering faith only, we will be saved from judgment, from the wrath of God. God reveals righteousness for us that is first perceived and embraced by faith, and then has the effect of preserving the faith needed to be saved. The gospel saves believers, because the gospel keeps believers believing.

Finally, consider that justification (God’s righteousness completely imputed to us, credited to us legally though we are not really righteous) by faith is the foundation of glorification (God’s righteousness completely imparted to us; we really are righteous now!), which we will experience. Again, revisiting the Golden Chain of Salvation found in Romans 8:29-31: “Those God foreknew, He also predestined…Those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified. What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?” Who can separate us from His love?

Romans 1:16

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.

Paul is NOT ashamed of the gospel. Paul is certain of its truth. Paul is eager to share it, because he is loyal to it and confident in it. And why shouldn’t he be? See 2 Corinthians 11:23-26. He was convicted like no other, literally blinded by Christ’s light and softly spoken to by Christ Himself. Rome may have thought the believers within its limits were shameful, pathetic, pitiable fools, and if the resurrection of Christ did not happen, then they were right. But Paul, along with hundreds of other eye-witnesses, knew that Christ was resurrected, so the contrary was true. It is the unbelievers who are fools; it is the unbelievers who should be pitied. But believers are not to be ashamed. There is no shame in the gospel, no matter how foolish it may be in the eyes of the world.

Sometimes Christians are ashamed of the gospel because they want things that are different than the things that God wants for them. I often think myself ashamed of the gospel. At work, I struggle to speak it. I’m just afraid to let co-workers know how much the Lord Jesus and the gospel means to me, because I might be rejected. Not that I act like a pagan, but why can’t I be bold, unashamed, like Paul? I always justify my lack of boldness by turning to 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.” One of the early church fathers, Apollinaris of Laodicea, said, “The Son of God bore the shame of the cross on our behalf. It could not be but out of place for us to be ashamed of His suffering for us.” If I really believe that God’s Son died for me, bore my shame, how could I possibly be ashamed of Him around anyone for any reason? While Polycarp, an early church bishop, was being roped to the stake to be burned at age 86, they gave him one last chance to renounce his faith in Christ. He said, “Eighty-six years I have served Jesus Christ, and He has never done me wrong. How could I do Him wrong now?” Lord, make me unashamed of your power for salvation. Make me like Christ, who despised the shame of the cross (Hebrews 12:2).

The gospel is the power of God. The gospel, according to 1 Corinthians 1:18, “is foolishness to those who are perishing but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.” What is the gospel? It starts first of all with understanding the bad news. Mankind was created by God and in a covenant with Him; we owe loyalty to Him, but we rebelled against Him. As we rebelled against Him, we were plunged into a state of sin and misery.
There’s nothing we could do to help ourselves in that state. Thus, God in His providence from the very time of Genesis 3:15 set a plan in motion to redeem His people. He promised in the old covenant that He was going to send a redeemer. Jesus is that redeemer. Jesus is the incarnate Son of God who lived and died in our place that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Jesus not only lived and died; He was raised again from the dead as a pledge of our hope and resurrection and redemption. Jesus is now exalted, and He will come again to judge. So the gospel is all about what God has done for our predicament. But, in all the presentations of the gospel in the New Testament, it doesn’t stop there. Repentance and faith are demanded. What’s the response to the gospel? Believe, trust in Christ, and repent of your sins. This is the power of God revealed in Scripture, and however it’s presented, this gospel, the power of God, is very offensive to people in our culture today.

What is it about the gospel that is offensive? (1) The claim to absolute Truth, with a capital T. Today’s culture doesn’t mind if everybody has their own truth with a little t, but a capital T is dangerous, scary. (2) The claim that Christ is the only way to God. We want to believe that Christ is just one of the spokes on the wheel of faith that leads to the hub, where God is seated. Today’s culture thinks Christianity is arrogant, biased, narrow-minded, and even bigoted. They think it leads to persecution, intolerance, etc.

The gospel saves. The gospel message is the God-appointed means for salvation. It’s the instrument that God chose to save people from sin. What is salvation? By salvation, Paul means at least two things. Negatively, Paul means that salvation is God’s rescue of us from guilt, slavery to sin, the penalty of sin, alienation and eternal separation from God, and the wrath of God. Positively, the gospel is a bringing of us into a new relationship, a righteous relationship with God, whereby when we stand before God, we can be confident before Him. We’re accepted! But the gospel not only brings us into acceptance by God, it brings us into a state in which we are actually made holy. The Holy Spirit begins to work in us the life of heaven, so that we love the things that God loves, we hate the things that He hates, and we begin to even live like the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel brings freedom. Though we may have thought we were free when we were doing what we wanted to, we’re really not free until we’re doing what God wants us to do. In salvation, He brings us into an experience of true freedom, not freedom from obedience, but freedom to obedience. Salvation brings us to fellowship with God, into the presence of God.

The gospel saves all kinds of people. It is regardless of nationality, ethnicity, or cultural background. There is one way to be saved for all people. The Jews are the historic chosen people of God. They are the guardians of God’s special revelation, the Old Testament Scriptures. The Messiah and Savior, Jesus, came to the world as a Jew to Jews. Salvation is from the Jews, since everyone who is saved is saved by being connected to the covenant with Abraham by faith. The Jews were evangelized first when the gospel penetrated a new region. Regardless of Old Testament or New Testament, Jews could be saved only by grace through faith in the promised redeemer. Now, just because the Jews have first access to the gospel does not mean they deserve it more. On the contrary, neither Jew nor gentile deserves the gospel. It is a gospel of grace! And praise God that it truly is for ALL who believe; literally, this phrase would read, “everyone who continues to believe.” And who is it that believes? Why does one person believe and not another. If the difference is anything in man, then there is a problem.