What a great description of Christian faith. You could spend weeks in these few verses, and probably should as it’s so rich, so stirring, so profound and leads us to worship and service. If it does not then can I suggest you go back and deeply consider verse 17 again.
Why is the gospel so important? What is it that God’s wisdom, love and mercy deals with that makes the gospel so amazing? Why do preachers get so enthralled by the gospel, evangelists driven by it and hymn writers devote so much time to it? Changing that slightly, what makes the gospel necessary and challenging? What about those who reject the gospel?
Is there an inbuilt distrust of God, where individuals don’t want to give up their lives to another however great? Is it because there is fear, dislike and hostility towards religion? Is it because Christians are more and more out of touch with the modern world and it’s thinking appearing that they are outdated.
Whatever the world says about the gospel Paul seems to take the gospel very seriously. He wrote this to the church in Rome,
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Romans 1:16-18
So, using both passages, the serious thing which makes the gospel necessary is God’s condemnation of the World and its sin. It is God’s wrath, ‘revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. ‘The way out is through ‘reconciliation’ the preaching of this reconciliation is the preaching of the gospel.
Let me put it slightly differently. From what is it that we need to be saved? Certainly not “from ourselves” (although I have heard that preached). Some Christians would say from hell. In a sense, they are correct but why is hell a threat, and what is it that accounts for the existence of hell and the experience of those who end up there?
The answer is divine wrath (this is not a trendy theme). Our only hope is for God to save us from God! This is the great glory of the gospel, that God in his grace takes action in Christ to save us from his own wrath!
This is a little complex and I have lifted this statement from a commentary. “God is not pitted against himself in this marvellous act of mercy, for God honours God when his love makes provision to satisfy the demands of his wrath”
Divine justice and its expression in divine wrath against sin, to use Paul’s words, calls for the reckoning or counting of our trespasses “against” us (vs 19). So how is it that, instead, I am forgiven for my sins?
The answer Paul gives is in verse 21, that God made him (Jesus) to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Don’t ever think that the love of God means that the wrath of God was ignored. Because God is just and righteous, there must be a reckoning or “counting” of trespasses. But because God is loving and gracious, the “counting” or “imputing” and the punishment it entailed fell on Christ.
I’ve said so many times before that this is the reason why the psalmist declares that God “does not deal with us according to our sins” (Psalm 103:10) it is because God dealt with Jesus according to our sins!
Grace and mercy do not mean that sin is not dealt with, as if to suggest God merely swept our sin under his carpet and ignored the horrible offence of our rebellion. Far from it! God the Father “counted” our trespasses against His one and only Son and in doing so brought about the reconciliation.
This “counting” or “reckoning” of our sins against him is what he means in verse 21 when he speaks of Jesus being “made to be sin” on our behalf. Paul is saying someone had to suffer the penal consequences of the law. Our guilt is because of our trespasses, our trespasses have been imputed to him so that we, through faith in his sufferings on our behalf, might have his righteousness imputed to us!
We must not overlook the fact that all this was achieved by Christ who “knew no sin”. That as God He is without sin goes without saying, but what is of vital importance for us and our reconciliation is that as Man, that is, in His human state, Christ knew no sin. Now understand the weight and glory of the gospel!
So Paul says that God has given him the ministry of reconciliation, he means that he is a preacher of this peace. He ministers reconciliation to the World. He has a life saving, life changing message. It is not to tell men to make their peace with God, but to tell them that God has made peace with the World. The bottom line is that the gospel is not good advice, but good news. God has made peace, God has dealt seriously with His condemnation of sin, so that it no longer stands in the way of our return to Him.
When Christ’s work was done, the reconciliation of the World was accomplished. When men are called to receive it, they are called to a relationship with God not in which they would no longer have anything against Him but in which they would no longer have Him against them. There would be no condemnation from that time onwards to those who were in Christ Jesus. You see the gospel in firstly and primarily about God. In fact the gospel is always about God.
Becoming the “righteousness of God” (vs 21) is not simply a tall order, but an impossible one. Yet, there he says it: in Christ Jesus we have “become the righteousness of God”!
Man had sinned and God has suffered; God has made himself the sin of men, so that men can be made the righteousness of God
What a gospel, now go tell it!
Recent Comments