How do we respond to the Gospel? Romans 4-8
We respond to the Gospel with Repentance:
We have already
seen in chapter 2 that the intended response to God’s kindness shown by sending
Jesus as an escape from God’s own Judgment is repentance.
Romans 2:4 Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and forbearance and
patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?
Repentance of sins; this is God’s
desired response from everyone who comes to acknowledge the infinite kindness
demonstrated to the world by God when he sent his beloved Son to earth to die
in the place of his enemies. Who could do such a thing? The term “kindness” does
not seem quite emphatic enough to describe what it is that God has done. But we
need to remember that we have a bad habit of projecting our imperfect
less-than-adequate human experience of such matters onto God who is altogether
infinitely greater in all his attributes than we are or could imagine. Speaking
of the distinct divine nature of God’s Love and God’s wrath and our bad habit
of misinterpreting the anthropomorphic language in the Bible, J. I. Packer
writes:
The basis of
this habit is the fact that God made us in his own image, so that human personality
and character are more like the being of God than anything else we know. But
when Scripture speaks of God anthropomorphically, it does not imply that the
limitations and imperfections which belong to the personal characteristics of
us sinful creatures belong also to the corresponding qualities in our holy
Creator; rather it takes for granted that they do not.[1]
So, when we speak of the ‘kindness
of God’ we are not speaking of simple niceties performed between friends.
Rather, the Bible is speaking of an eternally deep patient compassion which
exceeds all human expectations and all human experience of relational acts of kindness.
And this divine kindness filled heaven to overflowing in response to the great
grief our sin brought upon our Creator, and then spilled over into the
righteous life, sacrificial death, and bodily resurrection of Jesus. This took
place at a defined point in history for the sake of saving God’s enemies (you
and me) from God’s own wrath and for the sake of God’s greatest glory. This
kindness at the very least requires from us the acknowledgment of our sins and
a turning away (literally what repentance means) from that sinful life and
toward the God who makes a way to be rescued from his just wrath and judgment.
But true repentance cannot happen
in a vacuum. Repentance is an act of
obedience to God’s command to do so. And the ability to do what God commands
requires belief and faith in the One who gave the commandment. This is the
response to the gospel spoken of in Romans chapter four.
2
Belief & faith;
the means to receiving God’s righteousness: consider Abraham
In Part One we learned that the
righteous person who trusts in God’s faithfulness. This is the next response we
want to explore. How should we respond to the gospel? We should respond
by believing in God’s message and putting our trust (faith) in his faithfulness
to carry out all he has promised – both destruction and deliverance. Such
a response of faith is required of all people no matter what their ethnic
background or inherited religious tradition. To illustrate this, the Apostle
Paul reminds his readers of the example of Abraham in Romans chapter 4.
Romans 4:3 For what does the
Scripture say? "And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as
righteousness."
Apparently,
there was a conflict in the church in Rome between the Jews who claimed to be
in right-standing with the Holy God due to being the physical descendants of
Abraham and/or being born Jewish and receiving Old Covenant sign of
circumcision in their bodies. But when we read in Chapter one that “the righteous man shall live by faith,” (1:17) this does not
mean that some people are just born more righteous than others because of their
ethnicity or inherited religious tradition or any other reason. It does not
mean that some people have a righteous bent within their hearts allowing them more
readily to respond in faith toward God but others do not. No, it has been
established in chapter 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the
glory of God.” So, no one is born with a built-in righteous bent that responds
to God in faith or even seeks after God. Such righteousness or right standing
with God comes as a result of faith not ethnicity nor even by keeping God’s law
outwardly.
Romans 4:13 For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be
heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of
faith. 14 For if those who are of the Law are heirs, faith is
made void and the promise is nullified;
So, coming into a right standing with God and
being delivered from God’s destruction comes not from ethnicity, or religious
tradition, or even keeping God’s laws but by faith. Now we need to make the
same clarification about faith that we did about righteousness. One may
continue to argue that perhaps this faith comes from within a person who is
just naturally more faithful than other people. To this Paul answers another “no”.
Why? Because even faith comes from God. Even the faith itself which enables a
person to respond to God in repentance and receive God’s righteousness
“reckoned” to him or her, comes from God. Notice how Paul phrases it in Romans
4:16…
Romans 4:16 For this reason it is by faith, that it might be in
accordance with grace, in order that the promise may be certain to all the
descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of
the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,
Just like Abraham almost 4000 years ago who put
his faith in God and it was “reckoned to him as righteousness,” a person’s faith
is what applies God’s promise of salvation to that person. Notice that it makes
the point that this occurred in Abraham’s life before he was
circumcised. This is to emphasize that Abraham in a sense was still a Gentile
when he was justified by his faith (vv. 4:10-12). God did it this way to show
that the promise of salvation is in accordance with grace (NAS), it is a
gift. The point Paul is making is that no one who finds himself in a right
standing before God, delivered from destruction, possessing eternal life and
citizenship in the Kingdom of God can boast one bit about it as if he or she
contributed anything to one’s salvation, not even father Abraham! (4:2) Paul
would make this same point in Ephesians 2:8-9 where it is made
abundantly clear that even the faith to believe comes from the grace of God and
so no one has a right to boast:
“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of
yourselves, it is the gift of God;9 not as a result of works,
that no one should boast.”
And this faith is not a static, one-time deal.
Abraham’s faith grew.
Romans 4:20 yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief, but
grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, 21 and being
fully assured that what He had promised, He was able also to perform.
22 Therefore also it was reckoned to him as righteousness.
And this
was not simply intended for Abraham. This is the way it is supposed work with
us too. Our faith is supposed to be reckoned to us as righteousness too and
it is intended to continue to grow just as Abraham’s faith did, only the object
of our faith is the sacrifice God has supplied in Jesus.
23 Now not for his sake only was it written, that
it was reckoned to him, 24 but for our sake also, to whom
it will be reckoned, as those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our
Lord from the dead, 25 He who was delivered up because of
our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification.
So, again, what is our response to the gospel? It is repentance of
our sins. This repentance can only happen when God has given someone faith to
believe by God’s grace. It is also to believe in faith in
Jesus Christ just as Abraham believed God. When someone does put his or her faith in Jesus and the promise of God to deliver him or her from judgment when he or she does, God declares that person as “righteous” in a right
standing with God.
Now this is not the end of the application of the Gospel Message. Many Christians make the mistake of thinking
that the gospel message only has to do with these initial responses. They
mistakenly believe that the gospel message only requires a response from
non-believers to initially put their faith in Jesus for salvation. But there
are still a number of on-going responses to the gospel message that God has
designed for the life of the believer. For the first of these we turn to Romans
chapter 5.
3We respond by having
Hope through tribulations (Romans 5:1-6
& 8:)
Romans 5:1 Therefore
having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ, 2 through whom also we have obtained our introduction by
faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory
of God.
Notice that the Apostle Paul makes the point clearly
that he is speaking here to people who have already been “justified by faith” (vs.
5:1). He is addressing people who have already responded in faith and
repentance to the gospel message of Jesus. Upon this basis he begins to
describe a way of life that all believers are to be characterized by in an on-going
response to the message of the Gospel. He says that we who have experienced
God’s grace by putting our faith in Christ, “exult in the hope of the
glory of God.”(vs. 5:2) (Exult = kaucw,meqa
or “boast” same as 2:17, 23)
Hope is a
future-oriented look of the heart. We don’t really say that we “hope” in
things that have already happened in the past. Yes, we might say things like,
“I hope the kids didn’t burn the house down otherwise I won’t be able to enjoy
the rest of this night out.” But we are still really expressing a desire for good
news in the future. Hope tells us that we can expect in the future
what our faith is presently sure of now (we “stand” vs. 5:2) based on
the demonstration of God’s grace in the past (“through our Lord
Jesus Christ” vs. 5:1). So when it says that our response to the gospel as
Christ-followers is to “exult in the hope of the glory of God” we know that the glory of God being
spoken of here has to do with some future exhibit of God’s glory based on a
past promise, like the promise that all believers will live eternally in God’s glorious
presence in the afterlife. The very thought of this promise will cause the true
believer to hope, no matter what the circumstances in life – even trials and
tribulations.
3And not only this, but we also exult in our
tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; 4 [=
faith now] and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope [for
the future]; 5 and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God
has been poured out [already in the past] within our hearts through the Holy
Spirit who was given to us [past tense again]. 6 For while we
were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly [God’s past
demonstration of love and grace]. (Romans 5:3-6)
So because of the past historical
fact that Christ died for us while were still helpless and ungodly enemies of
Jesus and objects of God’s wrath, we can have a full and sure hope for the
future that God will one day deliver us out of our earthly troubles and into
his glorious presence. Holding fast to this hope during times of tribulations
builds our perseverance, proves our character, and in turn, increases our hope
knowing that:“ we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him [Jesus]”
(Romans 5:9 c.f. 1:18). This theme will
be picked back up again in Chapter 8
4We respond by being
Baptized (Romans 6:3-11)
The next way we respond to the gospel is a matter
of identity. The church in Rome
was going through an identity crisis. It was split over ethnic grounds over
what makes a person a righteous follower of God.
“At issue is tension between Jewish and Gentile Christians in Rome…who
appear to be at odds regarding Gentile adherence to the Jewish law – especially
of the three basic means of Jewish identity [at that time]: circumcision
(2:23-3:1; 4:9-12), Sabbath observance, and food laws (14:1-23). What is at
stake practically is whether Gentiles must observe the Jewish law on these
points, What is at stake theologically is the gospel itself – whether “God’s
righteousness” (= his righteous salvation that issues in right standing with
God) comes by way of “doing” the [Old Covenant] law or by faith in Christ Jesus
and the gift of the Spirit.” (Fee/Stuart, How to Read the Bible Book by Book,
pg.318)
Who are you? What’s your name? To whose family do
you belong? Do you identify yourself with a particular political party? What is
the name of that greater community with which you are identified? Does it truly
represent who you really are? Can you honestly expect other people from
entirely different ethnic backgrounds and traditions to adopt your views on
these secondary things when they place their trust in Jesus? Is it justifiable
to wrap your faith up in these less important things? Do you question the salvation of other
Christians who do not hold your political views or cultural preferences? The
appropriate response of all those who trust in Christ’s sacrifice and hope in
God’s deliverance are called upon to publically identify themselves primarily with
Jesus. How does a person do that? Romans chapter 6 describes this response.
Romans 6:3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus
have been baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with Him
through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead
through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His
death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection, [6
knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of
sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin; 7 for
he who has died is freed from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we
believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been
raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over
Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin, once for all; but the life
that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to
sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.]
Notice that there is an
assumption here “do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus…” Everyone
who follows Christ Jesus is to be baptized in Christ Jesus. Why is this
important? Baptism is the outward public symbol declaring to the world the
inward reality of being identified first with Christ and no longer identified
as whatever you were before you trusted in Him. Jesus and his people are your
new family. Paul would write to the church in Corinth:
2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore
if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed
away; behold, new things have come.”
If you are in Christ then you
belong to him first and your ethnic identity, cultural identity, family
identity, and political identity is only a secondary matter (and they are a far
second). In Jesus, the playing field is leveled. There are no favored
students in the class of the Christian life we all bear the same name: Jesus. So,
let me encourage you, if you are trusting in Christ, to take the step of
identifying with Jesus and his family by being baptized.
5We respond with “obedience
from the heart”
When we have identified with Jesus we show Him
our love and devotion through obedience that comes from our transformed hearts.
Romans 6:15-23
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May
it never be! 16 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to
someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you
obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in
righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves
of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to
which you were committed, 18 and having been freed from sin, you
became slaves of righteousness…. 23For the wages of sin is death,
but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This is another on-going
response to the gospel. The gospel is not just a message or non-believers
to hear so that they might believe in Jesus. No, the gospel is also the message
of a way of life. It means that not only are we initially justified/declared
righteous through faith by God’s grace but we also live out our faith by God’s
grace. How do we live out our faith? We demonstrate our faith publically by
obeying God’s commands. We show our love to God by our obedience. So, in faith
that God has truly transformed our hearts we set out in life to keep God’s commands, to love the Lord our God with all
our heart, soul, mind, and strength and our neighbors as our selves. And we do
this as an overflow of love for God from our hearts. We don’t do it in order to
get saved. We do it because God has saved us. God desires obedience from the
heart not. He does not desire us to obey out of a sense of trying to earn his
acceptance. That is not the teaching of the Bible. Rather, God has revealed
that He himself saves a man by a “free gift of …eternal life in Christ Jesus”
and from such a life will flow true obedience from a transformed heart.
6We respond by agreeing
with God, (Chapter 7)
In Romans chapter Seven the apostle Paul describes a great
encouragement we can have even in the midst of our disobedient times. If indeed
we are united and identified with Christ then a war will begin in our hearts.
It is a war between sin and obedience to God. He starts by reminding us that if
it weren’t for God’s law (like the 10
Commandments) we wouldn’t know what was
sin and what wasn’t sin. The Law is a declaration of God’s character – in the law we find out what
God takes pleasure in and what he disdains. And it is not until we really begin
to try to keep the law that we realize just how terribly sinful we are.
“Christians” in the USA get upset when someone wants to remove the 10
Commandments from some public building but just how many of them truly keep
those commandments? Do they keep Sabbath time each week? Do they really refrain
from taking the Lord’s Name in vain? When you truly make an attempt at keeping
the law your utter sinfulness and inability to keep God’s law will be exposed.
Now, without Jesus, it is impossible to please God and you will not even be
able to discern between what is pleasing to God and what is not. But when you
put your faith in God the first thing you do is repent of your sins. You cannot
repent of sins you don’t believe are really sins. And when you continue to grow
in your faith you will fail to keep the law and this could discourage you. Paul
says, don’t be discouraged because if you realize you are failing then this
means you are actually agreeing with God that his Law is perfect and good and
your sense of needing to repent is actually evidence that you are indeed saved.
Romans 7:16 16 But if I do the
very thing I do not wish to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that
it is good… 21-25 21I
find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wishes to do
good. 22 For I joyfully
concur with the law of God in the inner man,
23 but I see a different law in the members of my body,
waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of
sin which is in my members. 24
Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus
Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the
law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.
In the end when we agree that
God’s law is good we are joinging God in his war against sin. We also are admitting
that God’s law condemns us. So we must cry out to God that we, though sinful,
have only one hope: Jesus Christ our lord…and that brings us to Chapter 8 which
starts out with the reassuring truth:
Romans 8:1 “There is
therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
7We respond
by suffering with trust & hope in future grace (Romans 8)
As we saw in chapter 5 now we have a more
filled out explanation of why we can have such an unwavering hope in God’s
future for us. True believers respond to the gospel message by enduring
and persevering through trials with joy and great anticipation for deliverance.
Romans 8:15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but
you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba!
Father!" 16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit
that we are children of God, 17 and if children, heirs also, heirs
of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in
order that we may also be glorified with Him. 18 For I
consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared
with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
If
you are trusting in Jesus Christ then you have repented of your sins and agree
that God’s law is good. If this is so then you are baptized in Jesus
and if you are baptized in Jesus then you are identified with Christ – (notice
the family language) you have been adopted into God’s family. And because of
the fact that this rock-solid truth that there is now no condemnation for those
who are identified with Christ Jesus is based on the work of Jesus on the Cross
and not on your own efforts, you can have hope for the future no matter what
happens today…no matter how bad the sufferings get here even if they begin to
resemble the sufferings Jesus went we know we can look forward to the glory he
now is experiencing in heaven and which he promises to bring us into in the
future. If you are in Christ you can respond to the gospel message by
responding to life with confidence that your present and future are in the
hands of God:
Romans 8:28-30 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to
those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed
to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren;
30 and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called,
these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
How
do we respond to the Gospel?
1. Ongoing Repentance
2. Ongoing Belief and Faith
3. One time Baptizism
4. Ongoing Obedience from the heart
5. Ongoing Agreement with God’s law
6. Ongoing Hope through sufferings
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