Romans 1:8-20

8    “First indeed I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, that your faith is proclaimed in the whole world.” (kosmo)

Paul thanks God because the faith of the Romans is talked about throughout the world. When the multitudes living in Rome, the seat of political power and religious paganism, began to hear and receive the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ, and eternal life, it became ‘news’ beyond their own borders. Their conversion was not a secret in the ‘world’, nor was the fact an isolated local reality that failed to affect those outside of their environment.

This knowledge is important because it is popular today to dismiss the accounts coming out of first-century Rome as unreliable because the common people supposedly could not read and were uneducated, simplistic, superstitious, and unable to communicate widely. This is not borne out by the evidence – repeatedly Paul records in his letters that facts pertaining to those to whom he writes, or about others with whom the recipients are familiar, were communicated across vast areas of geography. The gospels record that people from many miles away – including the magoi who were from the orient – were informed of Christ’s presence, and came to see Him. Boys in Jewish families were taught to read so they could read their Scriptures.

When Christianity first developed, Christians were widely persecuted by Jews, Rome, and pagans. Initially driven out of Jerusalem and Judea, they were chased from many cities, and when they fled they took their message with them, as well as the news concerning the other believers with whom they were acquainted. In the body of Christ, exultation greets every saved soul and every victory of Spirit in a life, or truth in a situation. This news travelled as well, just as it does today, with those who travelled sharing the joys and struggles with those whom they met. It is therefore not odd, nor unrealistic to believe Paul’s statement that their faith is spoken of throughout the world.

9         “My witness is the God Whom I serve (worship; latreuo) in my spirit in the gospel of His Son, how ceaselessly I make mention of you…”

– a devout Jew-turned-Christian would never use this statement carelessly.

The same God Whom Paul serves in his communication of the ‘good news’ is invoked by Paul as that certainty by which his statement is sure. His service is offered in worship of the one true God who appointed him an apostle. Paul’s labour for God is in the gospel of Christ – the proclamation of the person and redemption of the Lord Jesus. To this God, Paul says he continually prays for the saints in Rome – people he had not yet, but whose faith he had heard about from other places and people. Paul prayed for men and women who were complete strangers to him, and longed to meet them because he loved them in Christ.

10       “… always in my prayers beseeching if somehow at length (finally) I shall be prospered in the will of God to come to you.

Paul professes that he had regularly asked God to permit him to travel to Rome to meet the saints there. He could just go, but has both waited for and requested God’s release to go. Despite the anticipated benefit to either Paul or the Roman saints, Paul waited for God’s directive to proceed. Paul desired that his going be completely conforming to God’s will, “That I may be prospered in the will of God” to come to them. If he would go, he wanted God’s blessing, approval, and direction, that the visit be ‘prosperous’ for both the Romans and himself.

11           for I long to see you, that I may share some spiritual gift to you that you may be established …”

Paul desired God’s specific permission and blessing to go to visit those in Rome, because Paul wanted to provide the Romans some spiritual benefit by his being with them. Paul did not mention material benefit, but only spiritual. Paul’s purpose and goal was always to build new saints and to keep saints confident, and steady in both faith and life practice. Spiritual benefits are always first a gift from God; if we act contrary to His particular will in any situation, we may insulate ourselves from any benefit God may otherwise be pleased to provide.

By acting inside of God’s specific will for Paul’s interaction with the Romans, Paul could be a vehicle through which God would work spiritual benefit to the Romans, such that they may be built up and therefore strengthened and made firm in their faith.

12 “this is, to be comforted together among you through the common faith of both you and of me.”

Paul affirms that, not only will the Romans be encouraged by his coming to them, and their witness of Paul’s unshakeable faith in Christ, but he likewise will be ‘comforted’ to be among them and witness for himself the reality and quality of their faith. Their faith will be strengthened by his visit, his faith will be reaffirmed in theirs.

13  “I am not willing that you be ignorant brothers, that often I intended to come to you and was prevented until now,that I should have some fruit also in (among) you as also among the rest of (other) nations (ethnesin) (peoples)”

Paul is always concerned with the state of mind and heart of his intended audience.  He assured the Romans that his having not previously come to see them was not due to lack of desire or intention on his part, but rather he was prevented many times when he really wanted to come. He wanted to help them be fruitful (productive) and wanted to work for / in them as he had among other nations. (ethnesin)

14   “I am debtor to both Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to foolish (unwise)”

Paul says his responsibilities are not limited to a ‘target group’, but are equal to all men of all types in all circumstances. He uses a contrast of extremes between those considered worthy of honour and those considered unworthy: Greeks as the perceived epitome of ‘culture’ or high-thinking, contrasted to ‘barbarians’, of wise to unwise – to emphasize that he has a debt to all men regardless of external, material, and superficial distinctives.

Paul had held among Jewish society one of the highest-ranking roles as Pharisee. The sect considered itself above the common Jew, of greater import to God and of greater significance in their relationship to God. They perceived themselves, as the distributors of the teachings of God, to be far more worthy, more upright, more honourable than others, and entitled to considerations and privileges to which they specifically considered others unentitled. As a divinely-appointed apostle of Christ, Paul could be considered to hold a similarly honourable and note-worthy position within the church, and if the same attitudes that conditioned people’s views of other religious leaders were applied to Paul’s new appointment, he would have continued to consider himself better than and separate from those of lower or no ‘title’, and could have regarded society’s lower classes unworthy of his time or message. However, Paul was humbled when Christ confronted him going to Damascus, and came to know that he himself was as completely unworthy of God’s approval or consideration as the lowest of society’s rejects. God saved Paul from his own arrogance and worldly stupidity, showing him that everything he had gained by the world’s standards, by his nation’s standards, or by his society’s standards was worth nothing in God’s ‘economy’. Only a heart turned from sin to Christ in faith had any value in eternity, and it was possible for anyone to possess such a heart.

Moreover, Paul considers himself to ‘owe’ all men the charge of the gospel. He does not think it’s a good idea, but considers himself obligated to all men among all people groups and of all descriptions in the dispensation of the gospel. He appreciated that his own salvation cost him nothing, but came at great price to Him Who bought him back from death. His debt to Christ is to the value of the life Christ laid down for Paul’s redemption, and could not be repaid in any currency other than Paul’s faithful proclamation of Christ’s grace to whoever would listen, earning from that service the souls into heaven that would be the treasures that fill the storehouse of His Lord and King.

This is doubly significant to us, because it necessarily means that there are no restrictions on access to our sharing of the gospel based on material characteristics either. Background, manners, or achievements have no bearing on whether the gospel is open to any person, or whether any individual has the right to hear the gospel at least once. The uncultured or uncouth are not exempt from God’s grace, nor are they to be neglected when we sound the call to repentance and faith in Christ for their salvation.

15  “thus the eagerness (nominative) on my part (according to me) also to you the (ones) in Rome to good messagize.”

      “gospel”           ‘good message’; “good announcement/proclamation’.

As one burdened for all men, and knowing the Gospel of Christ to be the power of God to salvation to all who believe, Paul was prepared, in fact eager, to proclaim the Gospel to those in Rome as he had and would contine to do to all those to whom God sent him. By faith in Christ – only by faith and only in Christ – do we have access to God’s own righteousness conferred in place of our sin. Only by faith in Christ, for ‘the just shall live by faith.”

16     for I am not ashamed the gospel of the Christ, for (the) power of God is into saving/salvation to every believing (one) to Jew (judaan) first (proton) and to Greek (helleni). => For I am not ashamed the gospel of the Christ for power of God is into salvation…

As with other communities at that time, Rome consisted of both Jews and Gentiles, or non-Jews. Wide-spread misunderstanding existed among both groups regarding God’s requirements for acceptance by Him. The Jews believed if they kept the rules of the Law of Moses, that they would be justified before God. Non-Jews were religiously and culturally pagan, mostly pantheistic, believing that they had to appease their various deities through offerings and rituals and outward shows of submission and piety. Both groups failed to understand the real God, the fundamental conflict that existed between men and God, or the nature of man’s shortcoming at the root of the conflict. From earliest history, man has sought to make his own way independently of God, rejecting not only God’s authority and guidance, but His love and deity. Man was unfaithful, resulting in rebellious autonomy and outright violation of God’s holy character. Until man comes to know and have faith in God, no amount of following the rules, or performing outward show could possibly resolve the fundamental problem of a relational chasm between God and man caused and perpetuated by man’s failure to recognize God as God.

Into this dysfunctional situation and complete misunderstanding of the nature of the problem, came “Good News” that was revolutionary, quite different from what had been believed until that time: that God was calling men to Himself, and that He would impute His own righteousness to each individual who would come humbly to God in faith.

But what is the ‘Gospel of Christ’? Gospel means ‘good news’. Paul tells us that to everyone who has faith, the good news of Jesus Christ is the proclamation of God’s power to salvation for every believer. If one believes the ‘good news of Christ’, they are enabled by God to salvation.

 How could anyone who understands this ever be ashamed to share it? If we know we are justly condemned by the living God, and that God Himself has offered us freedom at His own cost and by His own actions, why would we be embarrassed to know or to tell this good news? God’s angels told the shepherds that the ‘good news’ was for all people, that “unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour who is Christ the Lord”. Everyone needs to know this as much as we ever needed to know it, and we should be thrilled at the privilege of telling those who don’t know.

The ‘good news’ of Jesus Christ to ‘everyone who believes’ is otherwise unqualified by Paul. No other criteria of identity or performance can be necessary for Paul’s statement to be true. The good news of Christ is that God’s power is unto salvation to all who have faith, both Jew and non-Jew. Everyone who believes and trusts God in Christ for salvation may receive it.

“to the Jew first” – God had made special promises to Abraham and his descendants on the basis of Abraham’s faith in YHWH. The Jews are not ‘out of God’s plan’ as some claim, nor is God ‘finished with ‘ them, nor are the prophecies concerning the Jews re-defined to refer to ‘spiritual Israel” as opposed to Abraham’s physical offspring who are national Israel. Rather, the good news – that God’s power is to salvation to all who have faith – is first to the Jews as to the people to whom God revealed Himself particularly in past history, and to whom He gave special blessings because their first father was faithful. (Jer 31:36-37; 33)

“and also to the Greek” Frequently the word “Greek” is used in the New Testament as a term of ethnic contrast to the title “Jews”, and refers generally to non-Jews. It is most reasonable, and consistent with the rest of what Paul has and continues to write, to understand his reference here to be “non-Jews”. That means there is no people-group who is excluded from the good news of Jesus Christ, which is exactly what the angels announced to the shepherds the nice Christ was born. (Luke 1)

17   for righteousness (justice) of God in it is being revealed (uncovered) out of faith into faith, according as it has been written, “the yet just(one) out of faith shall be living.”

Righteousness means to be wholly right; to do only that which is right. Paul declares that through the Gospel of Christ, God’s righteousness is revealed – His righteousness as absolute, and His righteousness in pardoning the guilty without denying justice. The Good News of Jesus Christ reveals the nature of God Himself, by showing that He is merciful to the weak sinner, while being a just judge of sin itself. To be wholly right, God cannot turn His eyes from wickedness; He cannot let anyone ‘get away with’ anything. A righteous God is obligated to punish wrong-doing. God found a way to be entirely just – an equal and relevant consequence applied to any choice – while still offering mankind the opportunity to live. He avoided injustice to the individual that would result in failing to punish, and injustice to the community in showing some sort of partiality to some sinners, or toward some sin, by rightly judging all sin equally and all sinners as equally guilty, sentencing all guilt equally with death, and covering all sentenced fines Himself when the innocent, perfect Christ endured the death penalty as a guilty criminal, then applied that payment to the account of every human being who comes to God in faith.

It is by faith that we receive God’s mercy, in which He transfers our sin onto Christ, and Christ’s righteousness onto us. Without faith, it is impossible to please God; we cannot work our way into God’s favour, nor earn His affection. But when we trust His word and have confidence that He Who has spoken is true because He is God, we become acceptable to God, and His righteousness is made available to a wicked sinner.

God’s righteousness in this judgment becomes evident to those all possess faith in Him throuhg His Son Christ Jesus. When we place our trust in Him, we see that He is completely righteous in His very nature, and we see His righteousness in His grace towards men.

The nature and fullness of God’s righteousness in the gospel is revealed ‘out of faith’ – everyone who proclaims the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ does so because of their confidence in Christ and His revelation of Himself and His atonement and their discovery of God’s unequalled righteousness in presenting that atonement. Likewise, when we believe what has been proclaimed and receive it for our own – which is our exercise of faith in God and Christ – we also come to see and understand the nature and extent of God’s righteousness in all these same ways. We who believe show God’s righteousness to the world around us, and those who receive come to see God’s righteousness in the gospel. Sharing goes from him who has (faith) and is received by him who comes to faith.

Habakkuk 2:4: context: Habakkuk lamented to God that his prayers had not been answered nor had God shown him the restoration of good in Israel, which had become morally wicked and spiritually bereft. In response, God advises him that he will see something he would never have believed if someone had told him: that the Chaldeans would come and overthrow the whole world, then assign their power and victory to their own demonic deities. Habakkuk wisely receives the rebuke of God’s admonition. He recognizes that God is just in giving retribution to Israel through the Chaldeans, but finds this unpalatable because as Habakkuk sees it, Israel is still ‘more righteous’ than those whom God will use to humble them. He doesn’t understand how God Who hates evil and will not countenance wickedness, would permit these lawless pagans who openly worship false gods, ascribing their power and victory to them, to overthrow those called ‘God’s people’. God’s answer to Habakkuk is that he is to write and to warn and to watch, that even if it doesn’t happen when H. thinks it should, it will come and he is to watch for it, and that Israel as a nation will succumb to their oppressor, ‘but the just shall live by his faith.” God pronounces judgment upon the Chaldeans, and on all who work evil, from which no evil-doer will escape.

From this context, Paul draws the assurance God gave to Habakkuk in the midst of His prophecy of destruction: that the just should live by his faith. When the entire nation would become subject to judgment, the man who was just would ‘live’ – survive, and retain life eternally – through his faith in God. In the same way that God proclaimed life to Habakkuk based on faith, the gospel of Jesus Christ reveals the righteousness of God from faith – those who have believed Him and received His salvation – to faith: those who, hearing the good news, do believe and live. Faith is the vehicle into life, provided and won through Christ’s cross.

18        For the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven on every irreverence and unrighteousness of men who retain (withhold; restrain; hold back/in) the truth in unrighteousness,

Paul continues using his emphatic tool, by contrasting God’s righteousness being revealed out of faith and into faith, with His wrath being revealed from heaven against all wicked behaviour, and contrasting those of faith with those who deny faith.

His accusation is sobering; he insists that God is indignant with men who ‘withhold the truth in unrighteousness’, because the very creation itself is a testimony to both the deity of God and His limitless power. These men are not left without a witness of the Truth, but choose to refuse the truth, preferring a lie that allows them to pursue, as they wrongly believe, their own desires with impunity. It is important to note that Paul says that these men know God, but they do not prefer to glorify Him as God. Their problem was not that God had not demonstrated clearly His identity and nature, but that they in their foolishness preferred to disregard Him, making up their own ideas about ‘worship’ and ‘spirituality’ so they could pursue whatever wickednesses they pleased while pretending to be unaccountable to God.

It has become popular to ignore or even deny God’s wrath. But the apostle Paul, whose ministry began with an encounter with the risen Christ, proclaims God’s wrath against sin as the basis for man’s need for salvation. A popular teacher’s speaking tour was entitled, “The Gods Are Not Angry”. He claimed that God is not angry with men, and that Christ died to show that God wants men to know it. Salvation, rather than being from condemnation and punishment for sin, is salvation from our self-destructive behaviour and attitudes, and from misplaced guilt.

But why would it cost Jesus His life to achieve a purpose of retraining human behaviour to a greater amount of self-acceptance and moral inclination? Would His ministry not have been more successful – and better received – if he had lived to old age teaching men now to be good? He could have trained His 12, then His 72, then His 120 and so on, how to go out and conduct seminars on “brotherly love,” “peace-making,” “charitable giving,” and “comforting the hurting”. Instead, He went to the cross at 33, in the prime of His life, and His apostles spent the next four or five decades proclaiming His death for men’s sins and salvation from God’s judgment of that sin to those with faith in His blood.

No, Paul declares with confidence that God’s wrath is shown from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who restrain God’s truth in unrighteousness. God is angry with sin, and has judged sinful men guilty.

19    Because that which is (the) known of God is apparent in (among) them for God has made it appear to them …

God is knowable. God Himself has revealed what may be known of Him to those who ‘withhold the truth in unrighteousness’ just as He has revealed it to those who have faith. God has not hidden Himself from men; knowing that He is and what He is like does not require special training, position, or insight. God has made His nature apparent to men in part through what mankind is like: the qualities and characteristics of humanity necessitate a Creator Who has not only the same kinds of attributes in a perfect form, but greater attributes. The nature of God is revealed in the nature of the man who was made in God’s image. As a consequence, sinful men who have rejected God have done so in full knowledge of God; ignorance is not an excuse.

Atheist Bertrand Russell said his defence if he encountered God post-mortem would be that God had failed to provide Russell with enough evidence of His existence. But God abundantly provides all men the evidence of both His existence and His nature, through the things He has done. That evidence is within every human being; our existence and our nature DEMAND a living, personal, and independent Creator with all the attributes of God as He has revealed them in His Holy Scriptures, because a lesser entity or non-personal quantity could never cause the existence of so complex a creature as man. That evidence is available to all men of all generations; only through refusal to see or believe can anyone deny the reality or identity of the only true God.

20    for the invisible (things) of Him from creation of the world, by the works being understood, are plainly seen, both His eternal (aidios: imperceptible; unknowable; not seen among men; or beyond comprehension) power and Godhead (divinity) so that they are inexcusable (defenceless)

Notice Paul’s statement of contrast: God’s invisible (things) – aorata which means ‘unseen’ – are clearly seen by what He has done. God’s invisible attributes are comprehended and “plainly seen” by His works, including His incalculable power and His divinity. Those things which God has done clearly reveal that God is and what sort of God He is! (why? How?)

Some of God’s ‘invisiblilities’ include: