Paul’s letter to the Romans – Part 2

Back to intro
Part 1
Paul starts his letter by explaining his commission from God; that he was called and set apart to preach the gospel of God. Before we go any further on our journey, it’s worth asking the question; what is the gospel of God?

In the scriptures we read the gospel mentioned by Jesus, Paul, Peter, John and the other authors with many different titles attached to its ending. It’s called the gospel of peace, the gospel of salvation, the gospel of the kingdom, the eternal gospel, gospel of God and the gospel of God’s son. Does this mean that these are all different gospels? Are there many gospels? Well, not according to the Apostle Paul; he assures us in his letter to the Galatians that there is in fact only one gospel:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel — which is really no gospel at all. Galatians 1:6-7

With this in mind, we can read Paul’s declaration to the Ephesian elders recorded in the end of the book of Acts to understand the very essence of the gospel; that the one, all encompassing characteristic of the gospel is God’s grace :

However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace. Acts 20:24

Paul’s divine commission was to be set apart to preach and testify about the gospel of God’s grace. That is the gospel; the only gospel. When, as Christians, we think that Jesus’ ‘gospel of the kingdom’ was somehow different to Paul’s ‘gospel of God’s grace’ we end up not only confusing ourselves but also our listeners. The truth is that God’s kingdom is God’s grace. God’s entire kingdom is founded upon his grace. God sits on a throne of grace. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of grace. Jesus came full of grace!

Jesus entered into a religious world that threw the term ‘kingdom’ around all the time as a way of judging the world and coercing others to get involved with their religious program. Jesus took that same term, but presented the ‘kingdom’ not as a physical place on earth, but rather as it truly is, an internal reality.

The revelation of the kingdom is not about morals; it’s about his grace; for out of his grace all good things can come to pass. The message of the kingdom is the message that God is the God of all grace; that is the message Jesus preached, and through Jesus that ‘grace reality’ is freely available for all who believe. God’s kingdom is not something external that we need to work to establish for him; it is something internal that he has already established in us.

Grace is the very nature of God. It is God’s nature that had always been misunderstood and rejected by mankind, but now revealed, and finally embraced, through the life of Christ. It is only through seeing the fullness of what Jesus did on our behalf, and understanding that this was actually God, that we can embrace the reality of God himself. The full truth of God is that grace is his nature; God’s Spirit is a Spirit of grace. Grace is what has been placed into every believer to empower them in life. We now have grace, which is the empowering nature of God, living in us.

Jesus revealed the gospel of God’s grace through his life, his teaching and ultimately his sacrifice upon the cross. It was Paul’s task to then reveal that same gospel in words that we, the church, could grasp and understand. Jesus lived in the reality of God’s grace, giving us the example of what a person’s life looks like that knows without a doubt that they are loved by their heavenly Father; that they are one with him and that he is pleased with them.

Jesus ultimately went on to establish the opportunity for all of us to also live in this glorious reality through his sacrifice and resurrection. After the resurrection, Jesus set Paul apart, a man who could have only become an apostle by grace, to make clear to the church this incredible good news. Paul also testifies to this in his final remarks to the church in Rome:

Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him— to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen. Romans 16:25-27

The gospel Paul was given to preach, although glorious and liberating, was one that challenged a lot of people who heard it. It not only challenged those outside the body of Christ, but also many who were part of the body of Christ too. Paul was accused by many leaders within the church of the day as attempting to simply wipe way the Old Testament and the legal requirements attached to it. He was charged with creating his own idea of God’s gospel by purposely ignoring the whole history of God in the Old Testament. Many claimed he was simply seeking to proclaim his own message, an ‘easy believing’ message, at the expense of ignoring the law and the prophets.

Of course Paul didn’t think this way at all. On the contrary, Paul embraced the Old Testament; not with a false understanding of it, but as he saw God’s true intentions within it. He never saw it as a written code describing how to obtain righteousness by works, but rather he saw the message of Jesus within it and how through Jesus the glory prophesied in the Old Testament was now available for the church; established for us through the perfect redeeming work of Jesus. The truth is that everything Paul preached can be found in the Old Testament.

The Apostle Peter also had this understanding when he looked into the Old Testament, he didn’t see the prophets preaching rules and regulation, but rather he saw that they were testifying to and prophesying about the coming of an era of grace for all.

Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. 1 Peter 1:10-11

In all Paul’s letters, we find him first looking into the Old Testament and finding the reality of Christ in the scriptures, with the help of the Spirit to make clear to him the mystery, and then sharing with the church the reality of Christ. He doesn’t act like an academic and reference everything he is quoting or referring to, he just speaks it like it is, but if you want to look, you’ll find the whole message Paul preaches is found in the Old Testament.

This is the point Paul makes in the introduction. He explains that this gospel he has spent his life proclaiming was in fact promised before hand through the prophets in the Holy Scriptures. Paul was making the point that his message was in no way simply a new idea; rather it is God’s eternal idea coming to fulfilment.

That certainly is good news for us today, because we can be assured that the gospel that we are grounded in and we rejoice in is not just a new idea, but rather it’s always been God’s idea. It has always been God’s eternal message to mankind, yet it had been misunderstood and had been a mystery until the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is now, in the light of Christ that it is being made plain to all of mankind.

Paul was declaring that now, through the power of the cross to establish it, and through grace God poured out upon Paul to present it plainly, we as the church have entered into the eternal reality of God. Now, as we look into the scriptures, we see this reality; we see the grace of God, the spirit of Christ and the story of Jesus everywhere!

(Continue Reading)