ROMANS 1
This epistle presents to us God’s glad tidings, not exactly as preached to the ungodly, but as unfolded to saints. It begins on the note of divine calling. Paul was a called apostle, and he wrote to those in Rome who were the called ones of Jesus Christ, saints by divine calling. This gives God His place as the prime mover in the work of grace. God has called certain persons, and the effect of the calling is that they have an appreciation of Jesus Christ. Now God would have all such to understand and be established in the great principles of His actings in grace through the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we have this wonderful epistle to establish us in the grace that has come to us.
The calling is entirely on the divine side. “Whom he has predestinated, these also he has called”, Romans 8: 30. It is helpful for the youngest believer who has an appreciation of Christ to know that the calling of God brought it about. An apprehension of God’s calling imparts stability to the soul. In addressing even an unspiritual people like the Corinthians the apostle laid emphasis on the calling. They, like those in Rome, were “called saints”. It is “to them that are called” that Christ becomes “God’s power and God’s wisdom”. He counsels the saints to consider [p. 2] their calling, and to see that it did not include “many wise according to flesh, not many powerful, not many high-born”, 1 Corinthians 1:2; 1 Corinthians 1:24; 1 Corinthians 1:26. What dignifies the saints is the divine calling.
God calls men by the gospel. Paul said to the Thessalonians, “He has called you by our glad tidings to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ”. Whatever the instrument used, it is God who calls; it is not the preacher but God. Paul speaks here of saints as “called ones of Jesus Christ”, verse 6. It is very sweet to think that if I have appreciation in my heart of Jesus Christ it, is because I am one of His called ones. There has been a personal activity on His part in relation to me that has singled me out from amongst men to be for Him and for God. It was not the preacher — not the one who spoke to me about my soul — but Jesus Christ Himself. He has spoken in a direct and personal way to me, and the sense of that moves the affections.
The effect of His call is that, Jesus Christ becomes a personal reality to one. The most, wonderful preaching in the world could not of itself bring that about. I do not say the Lord could not use it, but it is His own personal and powerful voice that makes Him a reality to the soul. A person called does not always come to light in a moment, but he has a secret in his heart that is powerful enough to break through every hindrance eventually. It has been known for a seed dropped into a crevice in a rock to have such power that even a huge rock has been rent by its growth. The call of Jesus Christ brings about something in the soul that must work its way out. We have examples in Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathaea. They were called ones of Jesus Christ, and the effect [p. 3] was that they came into view eventually as having appreciation of Him in spite of every natural hindrance.
There is something direct and personal in being called of Jesus Christ. It is easy to see that a “called apostle” was one whom the Lord took up personally, and upon whom He conferred grace and apostleship. But He has also called each saint. The calling is a divine one, and all the exercises and experiences of the soul stand connected with it. The effect of the call is that Jesus Christ is known by the soul as God’s salvation. The greatest good has been brought in by God for men by “the one man Jesus Christ”. That Man “borne witness to by God ... by works of power and wonders and signs, which God wrought by him”, is now made Lord and Christ in heaven. And the glad tidings of the day of Pentecost was, “Repent and he baptized, each one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for remission of sins, and ye will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”. How blessed to think of the saints as being “the called ones of Jesus Christ”! To such He has become a great and precious reality. One to whom there could not possibly be a rival, for none but He could deal with sin and death so as to be God’s salvation to the ends of the earth. He is the One in whom God has met the whole situation that has been brought about by sin and Satan’s power, and the One by whom the blessing of God for men has come in. Every one who knows Him thus, and believes on Him, has been called by Jesus Christ.
That call separates one from all the schemes, devices, and methods that, men have for putting things right. Every sane person would admit that [p. 4] this is a world where things are wrong, and most would admit that they are wrong themselves, but the world is full of schemes to put things right. When Paul wrote this epistle there were all kinds of things in the world, as there are now, which were thought of some value. There were moralists and philosophers, and an ancient religion that had been originally of God. But Paul stands out as a man separated from all these things, separated to God’s glad tidings. He has a theme, but it admits of no mixture. God’s glad tidings stands by itself, and will not link itself on to any other supposed good for man. Paul is not at liberty to mark out his own course; he is a “bondman”; he belongs altogether to Jesus Christ. For Paul there was but one Man — the Son of God, Jesus Christ. He alone, as God-given, can meet the situation. As subjects of the divine call we realise that everything centres in that one Man. The one called of Jesus Christ may have to learn ten thousand things, but he is assured that everything hangs on Him. The apostles had the sense that all hung on Him, spite of much dullness and ignorance; they said, “To whom shall we go?” The saints — called such by God — have the conviction in their souls that His Son, Jesus Christ, is the one Man who can bring in everything on God’s part for men. He can deal with everything that men are under by reason of sin. Whatever men are under, He can bring them out of it in a holy way. It is proved because He could bring people out of death, and if He can do that He can do anything. We need to get in our souls with God a sense of the reality of Jesus Christ. That is the starting point of everything, and nothing can be built in the soul except on that foundation. Paul says to the Corinthians — “Jesus Christ is in you”: he says, “Prove your own selves, do ye not recognise yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you?” They could not deny it. One called of Jesus Christ cannot deny that Jesus Christ is in him. This is not a thing that can be blown away by a gust of wind; the calling of God is a substantial divine reality that not all the power of Satan can disannul. The call of Jesus Christ is a call from heaven; nothing could be more effective than that.
I should like every young believer to get a sense of the reality of it. If we have an appreciation of Jesus Christ, we have it as a result of His call which establishes a personal link with Him. The initial thing from the point of view of Romans is the divine call.
The glorious Person to whom Paul was bondman came in on the line of all the ancient promises, on the line of God’s faithfulness. The holy writings had contained promises for many long centuries, and the coming of the Son of God into Manhood was according to all that had been previously announced by God. He came of David’s seed according to flesh. I have been struck by the fact that, in regard to the stability of David’s seed, God uses the figures of the sun and moon. Psalm 89: 29 says, “I will establish his seed for ever and his throne as the days of heaven”; and verse 35 says, “Once have I sworn by my holiness, I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me: it shall be established as the moon for ever, and the witness in the sky is firm”. God uses heavenly figures to set forth the stability connected with David’s Seed. If everything on earth were shaken [p. 6] to pieces it would not affect the stability of the sun and the moon in the heavens. The blessing that has come in now is described as “the sure mercies of David”, Isaiah 55: 3; Acts 13: 34. The calling links one with all the stability of that. What has come in on God’s part by Jesus Christ is marked by the stability of resurrection.
The object of this epistle is to confirm and establish us in the blessedness of what God has brought in for men in His faithfulness to His promises, and in His grace as a Saviour God. Faith is necessary on our side, as we see in verse 5. The calling is on the divine side, but along with it there is the obedience of faith on our side. This wonderful Person, this one Man, God’s Son Jesus Christ our Lord, becomes the Object of faith. Men come into obedience to God that way. God has made obedience very attractive by showing that it is the way of infinite and everlasting blessing. When we see the blessedness of what God proposes in the glad tidings, it leads us to judge our self-willed distrust of Him, and to come into obedience by way of repentance and faith.
The intent of this epistle is that we should be built up in the knowledge of God, and that we should see Jesus Christ in relation to God. God has intervened in that One man, His own Son; He has brought in a Man able to deal in divine holiness and power with everything that has been the fruit of sin. Jesus Christ can secure everything that is for the pleasure of God, and He can do it in a holy way. He was “marked out Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection of the dead”. The glad tidings come to us in all the value of the Person of the Son of God, and of the holiness that resided in [p. 7] Him. In Him holiness and power were found together. It is to be noted that resurrection power in the Son of God is “according to the spirit of holiness”. The disciples had a profound sense that He was “the Holy One of God”. He came in to touch everything under which man has lain, and to touch it in holiness, so that men might be set free from the power of everything they had become subject to through sin. Whether our state is one of just, lawlessness, or weakness, He can take us out of it. In the light of this we can understand the apostle being “separated to God’s glad tidings”. It stood apart from everything else and it had no rival. If the Son of God can take persons out of death, He can do anything. It is not Christ’s resurrection that Paul speaks of here, but of dead persons; the word “dead” is in the plural. I may be under a terrible power of sin, but if the Son of God can take men out of death itself, He can take me out of everything that is a manifestation of the power of evil, and He can do it in a holy way.
The service of the glad tidings is in behalf of Christ: when here He was the blessed Servant. In Mark’s Gospel we see the perfection of His personal service towards men, but now the same character of service is continued in the apostle — “By whom we have received grace and apostleship in behalf of his name”. The blessed service of Christ is being carried on, though He is not here personally. The grace of it was there as well as the divine commission. Paul had a divine commission and could come into the world as an ambassador for Christ, but the grace of the service was there also. He was prepared to labour, to suffer, to go through every kind of difficulty [p. 8] and sorrow and trial to carry on the service of the glad tidings so that men might know God. “His name” implies that Christ is personally absent: but the service is carried on in His behalf. When here Christ was not only prepared to serve but to suffer, and Paul had grace as well as apostleship to carry on the same kind of service. Apostleship is official, but if the vessel of gift is to be in correspondence with the gift there must be grace too. Paul got both the grace and the apostleship directly from Christ, and his activities were the activities of Jesus Christ representatively. He would say to the Corinthians, “Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me”, etc. If Jesus Christ were in them it was a proof that Christ spoke in Paul. It is in that way that God’s testimony comes to men; it is really a continuation of Mark’s Gospel. And it is in that way that God is delivering men from lawlessness and bringing them into obedience.
When people came into contact with Paul they saw a man who was imbued with divine compassions — a man prepared to suffer that they might be blessed. He was prepared to suffer every indignity, to be put in prison, stoned, beaten with rods; he was ready to go through all kinds of perils that men might know God: that was the gospel livingly presented. Think of God taking that way to bring men into obedience! That God should assert His rights, and what is due to Himself, in that way is very wonderful. He has approached men in a way that, wherever there is faith, rebukes all the lawlessness of man, and his self-willed distrust of God, and brings him into obedience. That is the object of the gospel. By way of faith man comes into right relations with God, because [p. 9] God can never cease to be God, In becoming a Saviour God and a Justifier, He is still God, and is entitled to command, and it is for the creature to obey. The preaching of Jesus Christ is according to the command of the eternal God, and it is for the obedience of faith. God would bring His lawless and disorderly creature into right relations with Himself by setting forth His authority in the way of grace and blessing through Jesus Christ our Lord. Faith is a new moral link between the creature and God. There was the original link of creation, but that link has been morally broken by the fall — though man has not ceased to be responsible. Now God proposes to put the link on again, and this time by His own wonderful intervention through Jesus Christ. God has come in by Jesus Christ where all was ruined by sin and death; He has brought in an object of faith — One in whom His grace and salvation are brought near to men, and faith in that blessed Person establishes a new link on man’s part with God. The calling of God and of Jesus Christ brings faith into action. God has made known the glad tidings of Jesus Christ His Son, and they go forth “among all the nations”. They are not limited to the Jew; and wherever repentance and faith are brought about it is the evidence of divine calling; wherever there is a work of God in man it manifests itself by repentance and faith. There was not the testimony of the glad tidings in the Old Testament: God gave many promises, but now we have the glad tidings. Paul says to the Galatians, “Before faith came, we were guarded under law, shut up to faith about to be revealed... But faith having come, we are no longer under a tutor”. From Moses the public [p. 10] dispensation was one of law, though there were also promises of God on which the people of God could lay hold. But God having now come out in righteous grace it is definitely the time of faith, and the glad tidings are preached for the obedience of faith among all nations. The righteousness of God is “on the principle of faith to faith”.
God has introduced a new principle according to which He can be known, and man can become righteous with Him. It is a principle that would never occur to the mind of man, for man would never have thought of being righteous with God except on the ground of his own works. But God in the glad tidings proposes to justify man without his making a single contribution. If the light of that comes into a man’s soul, and God becomes known to him in that way, it is seen to be the most blessed thing possible to be in obedience. It secures every blessing — righteousness, salvation, and the knowledge of God so that one can worship Him — and all brought near in pure and perfect grace, which is available for all men, for God is too great to be limited to the Jew. The creature having become fallen and guilty, if he is to be placed in righteousness with God it must be brought about entirely by God Himself, and how He does it is made known in the glad tidings.
God grants men repentance: He grants them the great favour, that they can own they have been all wrong; they have done their own will, they have sought their own pleasure, they have not glorified their Creator, they belong to a fallen race. But God has come in by His Son, “the one man Jesus Christ”, to make known His grace and salvation. God’s authority has taken that wonderful form. It is not [p. 11] a law demanding, nor a righteous judgment coming on offenders, but the salvation of God by His Son Jesus Christ. The question now is, Will men obey a Saviour God? This is not limited to the Jew; the testimony is rendered “among all the nations”. The called ones come into the blessing of it according to the pleasure of God.
When men have faith in Jesus Christ they begin to appreciate Him, and they become “beloved of God” (verse 7). It is most blessed to have the consciousness of being loved of God. “Beloved of God”, I take it, is connected with what had come to pass in their souls. It is a great contrast to what is said in this chapter of certain persons, that they were “hateful to God”. If there is appreciation of Jesus Christ in my heart it makes me an object of affection to God. There is a general and universal love of God, “The kindness and love to man of our Saviour God appeared”, Titus 3: 4. That is God’s beneficence. He is truly the great Philanthropist; He loves man, and the proof of His love is that He has provided salvation for man through Jesus Christ, His mercy comes in to save man. But when a man repents, there is something there that God can delight in — there is joy in heaven, and before the angels of God, when one sinner repents. When the repentant one is brought to faith in Jesus Christ and to appreciation of Jesus Christ, he comes under the affections of God, he is “beloved of God”. It is often a great joy to me to have the consciousness that Christ is precious to me, and to think what that means to God. He can look down and see one who was a poor wretched sinner deserving nothing but death and judgment, brought to appreciate the outgoings of His grace [p. 12] through Jesus Christ — brought to value Jesus Christ. Such an one is an object of delight to God, and divine affections flow out on him. Jude addresses the saints as “called ones beloved in God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ”.
God’s Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, is preached as God’s great intervention in grace, God’s salvation, and as faith in Him gets place with us, there is that which calls out upon us the affections of God. It is all the result of divine calling; no one comes to faith in Jesus Christ except by divine calling: it is what God has wrought. The one who believes in Jesus Christ comes at once in a definite and personal way under the affections of God. This is not general but personal and particular. Every saint ought to be able to say, God loves me, and to say it consciously. He loves me because of the appreciation of Christ which He has brought to pass in my heart.
We could not think of lawlessness continuing in one who had the faith of the glad tidings, because it, is “obedience of faith”. He really is recovered from lawlessness to be in obedience to God. No doubt if we speak of things practically there may be a good deal of lawlessness — that is, of doing his own will — in a believer, but the secret of that is that many have not really known the power of the glad tidings. They have received as much of the gospel as met their sense of need, without seeing that it came to them to give God His place with them, and to bring them into obedience to Him as known in grace. If people continue in lawlessness I am sure they are not established in the glad tidings, because the glad tidings rebukes all that, and checks it, not only in its outward manifestations, but in the root. It brings [p. 13] God, as known in grace, into man’s affections. How could God be known in my affections and I be a lawless man? The condescending gentleness of God is wonderful; He removes lawlessness not by crushing it by the thunder of His power, but by making Himself known in grace and salvation. Does it not make one think well of God? What can a man think of himself after he has seen himself in the light of Romans 3? But he will assuredly think well of God as known to him in grace and righteousness.
Then grace and peace are ever flowing out towards us from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. What we need is condition of soul to avail ourselves of the supply that is available.
The effect of all this being known is that the saints become like a city set on a hill — all the world talks about them. Paul says, “I thank my God ... that your faith is proclaimed in the whole world”. There was a company in the centre of the Gentile world in the light of a Saviour God, and Paul had intense interest in them. He had not seen them but he was serving them in a priestly way; he thought unceasingly of them in his prayers. Serving God in his spirit in the glad tidings of His Son would be priestly service, and it would be largely connected with prayer; serving in spirit would find its outlet in prayer. The danger with us is that levitical service is greater than priestly service; that is, there is more service manward than Godward. The quality of levitical service hangs largely on what is priestly. Paul carried on all his service in a priestly way. He speaks of “carrying on as a sacrificial service the message of glad tidings of God” — that is, priestly — “in order that the offering up of the nations might [p. 14] be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit”. Think of a man going out to preach with that in his mind all the time; thinking, I am going to bring them in as a holy offering to God! Paul had the deepest interest in these saints though he was not the instrument of their blessing. He longed to see them, to have an opportunity of serving them personally. He was quite conscious of the spiritual gift that had been entrusted to him, and he was exercised that they should be in the value of what he had spiritually. Whatever spiritual gifts any of us have, lay us under obligation to impart to others what we have by the grace of God. Paul by special grace had the fulness of the blessing of Christ; he says, “I know that coming to you I shall come in the fulness of the blessing of Christ”. He knew that they needed establishing, as we all do, and he was greatly desirous to impart to them some spiritual gift.
That is the spirit of all true service. Where should we have been as to the precious things of God if many servants of Christ had not imparted to us their spiritual gifts? Spiritual gifts are given that they may be imparted; and the more spiritual gifts are passed on the more material there is for what is mutual. Ministry is not exactly mutual, but it leads to what is mutual. The enjoyment together of the mutual comfort of faith is very sweet. Paul looked to have comfort by their mutual faith. What a blessed thing when saints are brought, through ministry and the imparting of spiritual gifts, to such a condition that they are a mutual comfort to one another. The great servant himself, who could assert his dignity as “apostle of nations”, could speak as one looking forward to being comforted by the faith that was in [p. 15] the Roman saints. Their faith was necessary to his comfort as his gifts were necessary to their edification. It is not what we know of Scripture, but the light of God in our souls, that makes us a comfort to one another. It is “each by the faith which is in the other”.
Paul regarded himself as under obligation to all men in regard to the glad tidings. This is a character of obligation created by the knowledge of God in grace. I doubt whether we feel as much as we ought the righteous obligation connected with the glad tidings. Paul says, “I am a debtor both to Greeks and barbarians, both to wise and to unintelligent”. While that was peculiarly true of Paul as having become minister of the glad tidings, and being apostle of the nations, yet in principle it is applicable to us all. In our measure we are under obligation to men to make known to them what we know of God. The grace Paul had received made him ready to discharge the obligation. He says, “I am a debtor ... so far as depends on me am I ready to announce the glad tidings to you also who are in Rome”. It is a great thing to be ready to pay one’s debts. “For if I announce the glad tidings I have nothing to boast of; for a necessity is laid upon me; for it is woe to me if I should not announce the glad tidings. For if I do this voluntarily I have a reward, but if not of my own will; I am entrusted with an administration”, 1 Corinthians 9: 16, 17. That is from the divine side, but here he is a debtor to men, and he freely owns his indebtedness to all sorts of men, and in discharging his obligation he is ready to go to Rome and preach the glad tidings there. The obligation was created by the attitude that God has taken [p. 16] up in regard to men, and it is due to men that He should be made known to them by those who know Him.
There are three beautiful statements here: “I am a debtor”; “I am ready”; “I am not ashamed”. They show the attitude of Paul’s spirit in relation to the glad tidings. A better knowledge of God, as brought to us in the glad tidings, would not only enlarge our sympathies and compassions, but would increase the sense of obligation towards men.
The glad tidings is God’s power to extricate men from the whole power of evil here. There is a power put at man’s disposal for his complete deliverance. As to the heathen world all was submerged in idolatry and vile lusts; moralists and philosophers could tell people what was right without being any better themselves; and the Jew boasted in God, and the light he had from God, but his ways were dishonouring to God so that people outside blasphemed God, for men always blame God for the sins of those who profess to know Him. These were the conditions which made the salvation of God necessary; God came in by the glad tidings to extricate men from every phase of the power of evil.
“To Jew first”. The Jews were “the sons of the prophets and of the covenant” — a beautiful designation. So, as Peter said, “To you first God, having raised up his servant, has sent him, blessing you in turning each one of you from your wickedness”, Acts 3: 25, 26. The faithfulness of God gave the Jew the first place because of the promises. Indeed, salvation in the Old Testament is almost everywhere for the people of God. But it was to go out, as announced prophetically, unto the ends of the earth.
[p. 17] When the Spirit of God uses a word in the New Testament it is generally helpful to see how He has used it in the Old Testament. “Salvation” is a word frequently used in the Old Testament. It very often signifies deliverance from the power of an enemy; it implies the helplessness and unsoundness of man in himself, and it also carries with it the thought of adornment with moral beauty.
At the Red Sea there was all the power of the enemy, utter weakness in the children of Israel, and before them the impassable waters. But they were told to “Fear not: stand still, and see the salvation of Jehovah, which he will work for you today; for the Egyptians whom ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more forever. Jehovah will fight for you, and ye shall be still”, Exodus 14: 13, 14. And afterwards they sang, “My strength and song is Jah, and he is become my salvation”, Exodus 15: 2.
It is noticeable how often salvation is spoken of in relation to the power of the enemy. Hence military figures are frequently used. “Jehovah is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my rock, in whom I will trust; my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower. I will call upon Jehovah, who is to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies”, Psalm 18: 2, 3. We read of salvation as a shield, a helmet, as walls and bulwarks. All this serves to show that there is a tremendous power hostile to man, from which he needs to be freed, and from which he cannot free himself. “For vain is man’s deliverance”, Psalm 60: 11; 108: 12. And we read, “Put not confidence in nobles, in a son of man (Adam) in whom there is no salvation”, Psalm 146: 3. There is no denying the presence of great [p. 18] power of evil in this world, a power adverse to God, and to man as God’s creature; but in whatever form that power may act, the glad tidings is God’s power to salvation for men.
Then there is unsoundness in man himself; there is no health (salvation) in his countenance until God becomes his salvation. The word “health” in Psalm 42: 11, and Psalm 43:5 is really “salvation”. We may see in Romans 3:9-20 how morally unsound man is, but, God’s power comes in to give him entirely new features — to set the light of salvation in his very countenance, and to give soundness where every moral disease had made itself manifest. What a contrast there is between what we read in Romans 3 and what Paul could say of the saints in Rome in chapter 15:14! “But I am persuaded, my brethren, I myself also, concerning you, that yourselves also are full of goodness”. The glad tidings had proved itself to be God’s power to salvation to them, and that made all the difference.
We get also in the Old Testament the thought of being “clothed with salvation” (Psalm 132:16), of being “clothed ... with the garments of salvation” (Isaiah 61: 10), and we read of the meek being beautified with salvation (Psalm 149:4). This speaks of adornment. Salvation includes being invested with moral beauty through the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, so that we may appear
“Like Thee in faith, in meekness, love,
In every beauteous grace”.
One can understand Paul not being ashamed of a glad tidings which was God’s power to bring all this about for those who were sinful men.
It is clear from the Old Testament that God’s [p. 19] salvation will be realised and publicly known in Israel in a coming day when “All Israel shall be saved. According as it is written, The deliverer shall come out of Zion; he shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob”, Romans 11:26. God’s way will then “be known upon earth, thy salvation among all nations” (Psalm 67: 1,2); “all the ends of the earth” will then see “the salvation of God” in the house of Israel (Psalm 98:1-3; Isaiah 52:7-10). The prophetic Scriptures abundantly testify how completely God will deliver Israel from all their enemies, and from all their unsoundness, and that He will clothe them with moral beauty. But all this is anticipated in the glad tidings preached today, which is God’s power to salvation to every one that believes. Paul said to the Jews at Rome, “Be it known to you therefore, that this salvation of God has been sent to the nations; they also will hear it”, Acts 28:28.
Believing the glad tidings is man’s link with God’s power for salvation. If people are not saved from what is evil they are neglecting the great salvation. One would wish that, as we read this epistle, we might believe it, so that it might be God’s power to us. What we have the faith of we can speak about. Paul believed and therefore spoke; he was not ashamed of the glad tidings. I think we have often to find, after professing to be believers for many years, how little we do believe the glad tidings, and no doubt that is the secret why so many fail to walk in the power and beauty of God’s salvation. The glad tidings covers a very great scope of blessing, and the link with it on our side is faith. The Holy Spirit is given to those who believe, but the power of the Spirit is not practically utilised beyond the measure of our faith.
[p. 20] Paul was himself a demonstration of the power of God’s salvation. He says, I “was a blasphemer and persecutor, and an insolent overbearing man”. “For we were once ourselves also without intelligence, disobedient, wandering in error, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. But when the kindness and love to man of our Saviour God appeared, not on the principle of works which have been done in righteousness which we had done, but according to his own mercy he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, which he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour” Titus 3: 3 - 6. As saved he walked in righteousness, holiness, and love. “Love works no ill to its neighbour: love therefore is the whole law”, Romans 13: 10.
Salvation and righteousness are often linked together in the Old Testament, and they go together in the glad tidings. The gospel comes to extricate man from the power of evil, and to invest him with moral beauty in place of his natural uncomeliness, and it also reveals the righteousness of God. If the Jew thinks of his past history he can only feel utterly ashamed, and say, “What shall we do, brethren?” (Acts 2: 37). If the Gentile thinks of his past history he can only tremble like Felix, or fall down like the jailer. Not one of us has any righteousness of his own, but “righteousness of God is revealed” in the glad tidings. It is well for us to understand thoroughly what this means.
God is righteous in all His ways. He is righteous in punishing the wicked, and in so ordering that men reap as they sow. He is righteous to take account of [p. 21] all that pleases Him in His people, and to compensate them for what they suffer from the ungodly. And the righteousness of God as spoken of in the Old Testament has very largely this character.
But there are scriptures in the Old Testament which refer to God’s righteousness in another connection. For example, we read in the last verse of Psalm 22, “They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done it”. What a marvellous character has the righteousness of God in that Psalm!
It gives us the utterance of Christ as the forsaken One, passing through the unfathomable sorrows of atonement, and of that dark hour when atonement was made. He has so glorified God in bearing sins, and suffering the judgment due to sin, that we find that those who fear God, and who seek God, are able to praise and glorify Him, and “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn unto Jehovah, and all the families of the nations shall worship before thee”. The “seed” and “generation”, the “people that shall be born”, of Psalm 22: 30, 31, would answer to the “called” ones in Romans who have faith, and to whom the righteousness of God is revealed in this wonderful way. He has provided One who could bear the judgment due to sin and to sinners so that He might become the praise of all those who seek Him. The Psalm does not speak in so many words of their being justified, but the fact that they praise and are satisfied and worship implies that they are. But we see plainly here the sufferings of Christ in atonement as the ground of blessing to the ends of the earth, and this declared prophetically to be God’s righteousness.
Another Old Testament scripture will help us to see the character of God’s righteousness in this way of grace. “My people, remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him ... that ye may know the righteousness of Jehovah”, Micah 6: 5. Balak would have had God’s people cursed, but the answer he got was: “Behold, I have received mission to bless; and he hath blessed, and I cannot reverse it,. He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen wrong in Israel”, Numbers 23: 20, 21. That was, as Micah tells us, “the righteousness of Jehovah”. It was really on the ground of the death of Christ — though that death was yet future — that God could in righteousness thus regard His people. The wondrous work of Christ upon the cross has so glorified God, so vindicated Him, that He can justify — or hold as righteous — every one who believes the glad tidings, and His righteousness is revealed in His so doing. It was “borne witness to by the law and the prophets” (Romans 3: 21), as we have seen in the scriptures referred to, but it is now “revealed” and “manifested”.
Is it not wonderful “glad tidings”, that the righteousness of God should be known to us in the way of mercy and grace, and in absolving us from every charge? So that sinful and ungodly men can be justified from all things that stood against them without any works of their own. It is entirely of God that this should be; His righteousness is revealed in it.
The Jews were “ignorant of God’s righteousness”, Romans 10: 3. That does not mean that they did not know that God was righteous. But they were ignorant of that which is revealed in the glad tidings;
[p. 23] viz., that in infinite grace God is the Justifier of every one that believes. Hence they sought to establish their own righteousness — as so many are doing today — and did not submit to the righteousness of God. God has revealed His righteousness in the way of perfect grace; it is for man, the guilty creature, to submit to it, and to find thereby the knowledge of God, and without it nothing can be built up in a divine way in the soul. It is a question of the light of God into which we come through faith. No natural process of reasoning could ever bring us to know the righteousness of God in justifying the ungodly. It is brought in “on the principle of faith”, and God was entitled to reveal His righteousness in that way. In no other way could it have been revealed to a fallen and guilty creature in the way of blessing. The sin of man has not deprived God of the right to take His own course, and His sinful creatures can rejoice that it has not. It is their only hope — their only outlet from ruin and condemnation. How we can glory in the righteousness of God as thus revealed! How we can boast in the blessed God thus known to us! Like the convicted and repentant man in Psalm 51, delivered from blood-guiltiness, we can sing aloud of His righteousness.
“How can man be just with God?” was asked by Job about two thousand years before Christ. The question is answered now; the whole secret and way of it is out; God has His own blessed way of bringing it about. His righteousness is “by faith of Jesus Christ towards all”, It is brought in “on the principle of faith” in contrast with any works or merit on man’s part, and no subsequent works or service of the believer make God one whit more [p. 24] righteous in justifying him. The ground of it was laid in the death of Christ, and nothing can be added to it by man; it is “righteousness of God”.
In a coming day the righteousness of God will be known publicly, for He will have judged all evil, and fulfilled all His promises of blessing. “Jehovah hath made known his salvation: his righteousness hath he openly showed in the sight of the nations. He hath remembered his loving kindness and his faithfulness toward the house of Israel: all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God”, Psalm 98: 2, 3. But at the present time God’s righteousness is not in public display; it is revealed “on the principle of faith, to faith”. On the ground of the death of Christ God can exonerate from every charge the creature who has sinned and come short of His glory, and reveal His righteousness in doing it. No claim of His throne has been lowered a hair’s breadth; His glory has been fully met; and now His righteousness is favourable to sinful men. But no reasoning on man’s part, no influence of natural religion, no exercise of conscience in itself, could ever reach the knowledge of this. It would be daring and wicked presumption on the part of a sinful creature to expect such an action of grace on the part of the Creator against whom he has sinned if it had not been revealed on God’s part. But being revealed it is known to faith, and to faith only. Our works or conduct have nothing to do with it; it is purely and altogether a question of how God has revealed Himself, and of the character in which faith knows Him. Hence it is written, “But the just shall live by faith”. It is rather striking that Paul should bring in this scripture here, because it suggests that the faith principle is something to live by. It [p. 25] is not simply that one is justified by faith at some particular moment, when one believes the glad tidings, but the one who is in the place of a just man with God lives on that principle. He has continuously before him the righteousness of God, and the way that God has dealt with sin in the death of Christ. This maintains self-judgment, and an abiding sense of the ground on which he is with God. It is the foundation and secret of true piety, and of a holy and happy life. If we do not know the righteousness of God thus there can be no solid peace, and no true enjoyment of the love of God.
There is not the slightest toleration of unrighteousness with God. On the contrary, “There is revealed wrath of God from heaven upon all impiety, and unrighteousness of men holding the truth in unrighteousness”. That wrath was revealed at Calvary, when the holy Sin-bearer was forsaken by God. The unrighteousness of men came before God there, one might say, in its totality, as taken up in grace by Him who was personally the righteous One, and the wrath of God was upon it. What men deserved has come upon One who took it up as sent by God for that very purpose, and in His bearing it, it has been revealed that unrighteousness must come under the wrath of God. A preacher of the gospel gave up, for a time, the Scriptural truth as to eternal punishment, but he returned to it because he found that he could no longer preach the atonement. The wrath of God upon all unrighteousness in the vicarious judgment-bearing of Christ on the cross is the foundation on which God’s righteousness can be known in the way of grace, but it is also the solemn witness of what will come upon men if they continue in unrighteousness and do not [p. 26] obey the glad tidings. We need to have the truth of this deeply laid in our souls in these days when men have such loose and human thoughts of mercy, grace, and love. The thought of mercy and grace has been gathered from Scripture, but in men’s minds these things get divorced from what happened at Calvary, and the truth is really held in unrighteousness. The heathen, the moralist, the Jew, the Christian all have some measure of truth — the Christian, as having the Scriptures, has the whole truth — but all, apart from divine calling, hold it in unrighteousness. If men speak or think of the love of God in such a way as to lose sight of the reality of His wrath they hold the truth in unrighteousness. The fact is that His love is known through His beloved Son having come as Man to drink the unspeakable cup of atoning sorrows, and to bear the wrath due to unrighteousness. It is on this ground that righteousness comes in for guilty men. “But to those that are contentious, and are disobedient to the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there shall be wrath and indignation, tribulation and distress, on every soul of man that works evil, both of Jew first, and of Greek”, Romans 2: 8, 9.
At the cross we see heaven’s estimate of unrighteousness; it is contrasted with any manifestation of God’s judgment in a governmental way in His dealings with men on earth. And if men do not avail themselves of the righteousness of God for blessing, on the ground of Christ’s judgment-bearing, they will most assuredly have to undergo for themselves “wrath, in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who shall render to each according to his works”, Romans 2: 5,6.
All men have some truth — even the darkest heathen.
“[p. 27] Because what is known of God is manifest among them, for God has manifested it, to them — for from the world’s creation the invisible things of him are perceived, being apprehended by the mind through the things that are made, both his eternal power and divinity — so as to render them inexcusable”. The widest testimony of God is in creation. “The heavens declare the glory of God... There is no speech and there are no words, yet their voice is heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their language to the extremity of the world”, Isaiah 19: 1 - 4. But, alas! whatever truth men have — whether as known in creation, or through conscience applying the knowledge of good and evil, or by the law, or the glad tidings — they hold it in unrighteousness. This evidences man’s state as fallen and departed from God.
The present world began with the knowledge of God, for the whole population of the world stood around Noah’s altar. But, “knowing God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful”. That is the secret and root of all the evil in the heathen world. Men did not glorify God, and they were not thankful. The result of this was that they fell into folly, and their hearts were darkened, so that they degraded God. They “changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of corruptible man and of birds and quadrupeds and reptiles”. The result of that was that God gave them up judicially to degrade themselves by vile lusts. It was not that their vile conduct led to their giving up God, but the dishonouring of God led to the vile conduct. They “changed the truth of God into falsehood, and honoured and served the creature more than him who had created [p. 28] it, who is blessed for ever. Amen”. All the corruption of the heathen world came in through that. It is most important in its bearing on us. The more light we have as to God the more needful it is that we should glorify Him and be thankful.
We have the light of all God’s testimonies, whether in creation, or in the knowledge of good and evil, or in the law, or in the glad tidings. Indeed, we might say we have all the light that God can give as to Himself. Now, if we do not glorify Him as God we shall surely fall into some form of idolatry. Our security and our happiness depend on our retaining God in our knowledge in the light in which He has made Himself known to us. If we give this up we may drop to any depth of corruption. It is very solemn to see that in the last days of the Christian profession the moral state is described by Paul in words almost identical with those which he uses here of the heathen world before Christianity came into it. See 2 Timothy 3: 1 - 5. If men do not believe the truth, but have pleasure in unrighteousness, they are sure to come under the solemn judicial dealing of God. “For this reason God sends to them a working of error, that they should believe what is false, that all might be judged who have not believed the truth”, 2 Thessalonians 2: 11, 12. This is exceedingly serious in view of the many forms of false teaching which are abroad at the present time.
But, thank God, it is still the day of salvation, and God is making known His righteousness in the way of grace, and faith has the gain of it. There is much external light, but all hangs on the place God has in the faith of our souls. To whatever depth of vileness men may have sunk, the righteousness and salvation [p. 29] of God are available wherever there is faith. Paul carried the glad tidings into the heathen world in all its moral corruption, and it proved itself to be God’s power to salvation. Look at the ten lepers in 1 Corinthians 6: 9, 10! And Paul adds, “And these things were some of you; but ye have been washed, but ye have been sanctified, but ye have been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God”. That was said of people who had been just as bad as those described in Romans 1: 26 - 32.
All men are accountable to God, and they are inexcusable, but God is revealing His righteousness at the present time, not in fastening the guilt of men’s sins upon them, but in clearing them of every charge. His power is on our behalf for salvation from all the power of evil under which we have fallen. As to the scope of the gospel, it is to be preached to every creature under heaven. Those actually reached and blessed are those called in God’s sovereignty. All that God is as revealed in grace is available on the principle of faith. God introduced a principle of blessing in Abraham that becomes available for all nations — the faith principle. “Know then that they that are on the principle of faith, these are Abraham’s sons; and the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the nations on the principle of faith, announced beforehand the glad tidings to Abraham: In thee all nations shall be blessed. So that they who are on the principle of faith are blessed with believing Abraham”, Galatians 3: 7 - 9. Blessing in Abraham is blessing on the principle of faith. Blessing in Abraham’s seed is blessing in Christ. “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves”, Genesis 22: 18. Men must be blessed in Abraham in order to bless [p. 30] themselves in the true Isaac. While all blessing is in Christ the Seed, it is only reached and possessed through faith.
We see in the latter part of this chapter that underlying all the corruption into which man has fallen is the terrible fact that he has given up God. “They did not think good to have God in their knowledge”. That is the root of all man’s wrong-doing, and he can only be put right by being recovered to the knowledge of God, and the glad tidings comes to bring this about. Repentance is the evidence that God has got His place, in some measure at least, in the soul of His sinful creature. The repentant sinner realises that he is away from God, and that his state and ways have been displeasing to God, but this conviction is ever accompanied by some sense of goodness and mercy in God, so that the soul turns to God. Repentance is “towards God” (Acts 20: 21), and there is joy in heaven and before the angels of God when a sinner repents, because it shows that he is being restored to God.
“And according as they did not think good to have God in their knowledge God gave them up to a reprobate mind to practice unseemly things”. ‘A mind void of moral discernment’ is the judicial result of men not thinking good to have God in their knowledge. Then all kinds of unseemly things are done, But when God begins to work in man He produces an exercised mind, as we see in Romans 7: 23, when the law of the mind is governed by the fear of God and the desire to do what is right in His sight. And then, as having the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and being set at liberty, the believer is transformed by the renewing of his mind. He can then [p. 31] take account with pleasure of the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, and prove it to be so by practically carrying it out. God then has His place in the knowledge of those who are the subjects of His compassion and grace, and the result is that they do seemly things such as are set forth in Romans 12 - Romans 15.