The ceremonials of the Jew’s religion could give no peace to Saul of Tarsus. The power politics of the Roman empire could offer no hope. The philosophies of the Greeks could present no deliverance from guilt, nor cleansing from defilement. He did not find the answer until that day when this rising star in Judaism was suddenly eclipsed by the glory of the risen Lord and the shattering revelation was given to him: “I am Jesus…” The sight of the risen Christ in glory blinded his eyes, but opened his heart to the wonder that this Jesus, whom he thought was disposed of, was indeed alive as His followers had taught.
Those were the balmy days of the Roman empire. The law and order imposed throughout the world had made travel relatively safe in preparation for the spread of the gospel message. The centers of administration that had been set up throughout the provinces, and where the populace gathered, provided suitable preaching points for the evangelists of the young Church. The network of famous highways–some of which exist to this very day–planned by Roman engineers and laid down in granite blocks by slave labor, made travel overland much easier than ever before.
Along these highways travelled merchants of every kind, including merchants of religion and philosophy. The old religions had failed to satisfy the longings of seeking souls, and the erudite philosophies of men were incoherent to the common folk, leaving them with their broken hearts and burdened souls. The welcome mat was out for any message that could effect morality and promise immortality.
Also spreading through the world came a people called “Christians” who claimed they had found a Saviour from their sins, a Satisfier for their longing hearts. This One had been crucified by His own people outside Jerusalem, but wondrously had risen from the dead three days later, and had then gone back alive into heaven. This was some kind of message! But wherever it went, lives were transformed; indeed the word came from Thessalonica that those plain followers of Jesus had “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6).
It is not surprising that those who opposed this gospel of the grace of God should endeavor to discredit both the message and the messengers. Who were these “Jesus” people–cannibals? Did they not speak of eating someone’s body and drinking someone’s blood? Traitors? Did they not challenge “the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus”?
Well, it was time to set out once and for all the Christian message and the Christian life. Time to set out in a document in orderly fashion what the gospel is, and what the gospel does. So the Spirit of God took up this man, Saul of Tarsus, now transformed into a new being named Paul, to write a letter to the church at Rome to answer that need of the moment and to provide a glorious exposition for the whole Church Age, so that no one, believer or unbeliever, need be in any doubt as to the facts and the force of the gospel.
So what is the gospel message? First of all, let’s consider what it is not. Before Nehemiah could build the walls of the city, he had to remove “much rubbish” which hindered the work (Neh. 4:10). I fear there is a great deal of rubbish in Christendom that is called “the gospel” and needs to be disposed of.
The gospel is not a tranquilizer for worried weaklings to help them sleep at night. It is not a mass of dead dogmas, deep frozen in some ancient cathedral to be carried as a burden through life and thawed out five minutes before death. The gospel is not a list of religious rules and regulations to be strung around the soul like a lucky charm in case of accidents. No, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is a message–and what a message! It is a living message from the living God for living people just like us, for people with sins just like us, for people with sorrows and heartaches just like us. It is the only message on the face of the earth with concrete promises and absolute assurances of an eternal inheritance that will withstand the impact of death and the collapse of the universe.
What then is the true gospel? As to its identity, it is called by some great titles right in this letter to the church at Rome.
Notice three in chapter 1.
The Gospel of God (Rom. 1:1)
This tells us at once the Source of the message. This glorious message was not devised by the disciples; it was not produced by the prophets nor patented by the patriarchs. It did not even have its advent with the angels, though it was spoken by an angel (Lk. 2:10). This message began in the heart of God.
But in His heart there reigned a love,
Which went beyond the realms above,
And thus He did this world destine,
To be the scene where it should shine.
In all its rich and full display,
For which the curse just paved the way,
A world which nought but sin did yield,
Alone could be a fitting field,
On whose dark scene to demonstrate
That love so free, so vast, so great.
–Wm. Blane
The Gospel of His Son (1:9)
This wonderful title tells us now not the Source of the message but its subject. This is what the message is about–the Person of God’s beloved Son. That is why we are to “preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness” (1 Cor. 1:23). So much of what claims to be gospel preaching today is ineffective because it is not the gospel at all. Learned dissertations there may be, eclectic sermons perhaps, carefully tiptoeing so as not to offend anyone.
Theological presentations we hear, doctrinally accurate, as clear as the moonlight and just as cold. Someone facetiously remarked, “I fear there is more power in the parking lot than in the preaching!” Why? Because there is a diversion away from presenting the Person and work of the Lord Jesus as the only answer to mankind’s dilemma, defilement, and destiny.
By the use of this title for the gospel, God is introducing to us infinite resources on which the preacher may draw to present the Son. He is Son of God, and that speaks of His deity. He is Son of Man, and that presents His humanity. What a subject to proclaim!
Doesn’t the gospel preacher already feel his heart stirred to tell this forth: the Son of God became the Son of Man. But then He is also the Son of Mary. O how that tells of His humility. Leaving the courts of glory and the adoration of the heavenly host, He took the form of a servant. Imagine the Son of God walking the dust of earth, eating a meal cooked in the back kitchen of a house in Bethany, washing His disciples’ feet, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. What a subject! What a mystery! What a message!
He is also the Son of David. That carries us back into the Old Testament, to the promises and the prophecies that tell us of His royalty. He was born a king, He presented Himself to His people as a king, He was crucified as a king; and when mankind sees Him again He will still be a king–the King of all kings! Dear evangelist, could you not preach a message about that King–born, rejected, proclaimed, and coming?
Still more, He is the Son of Abraham. This carries us back further in the Old Testament and thrusts us forward to a glorious future, speaking of the Lord Jesus and His universal ministry, for God’s covenant to Abraham was that in his seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
What expansive thoughts open up to the gospel preacher as he considers the blessed Son. In fact, He is called the Son of the Blessed. This presents more wondrous treasures for the evangelist to declare. Delighting in the joy of the Father’s heart, He intends to bring His own into that joy, and that joy into our hearts.
In a joyless, hopeless, helpless, godless world, the Christian has a message–the gospel of God who is its Source. It is the gospel of His Son, its glorious Subject. Why then have some departed from this Word from heaven to mumble over some pathetic religious alternative which is not only blase but boring?
Yet we find another eloquent title glistening on the sacred page.
The Gospel of Christ (1:16)
This beautiful title presents another facet of the treasured message, telling of its sufficiency to meet the need of the whole man. When God saves a person, He saves the whole person–body, soul, and spirit. The redemption of the body is not yet, but for the believer it is assured and will take immediate effect at the moment of the resurrection.
To grasp the significance of this title, we must go back to the beginning. God made man in His own likeness. That is, God is one, yet He is three in one. Not three Gods, but one God manifest in three divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So He made man like Himself in that man is one entity but threefold in his manifestation, being a body, a soul, and a spirit.
With the body we are conscious of the world around, by which we impinge on time and experience; with the soul we are conscious of self within and by which we feel emotion, and know ourselves. But it is with the spirit man has the capacity to know God above. This distinguishes him from the beasts. They have a body and are aware of their surroundings; they have a soul by which they fear their enemy and care for their offspring; but they have no spirit, neither speaking the word “God” nor thinking the thought “eternity.”
Sometimes the being of man is described as feelings, intellect, and will. However man “fell” in Eden. But what “fell”? The whole man fell. Not that every person is as bad as they can be, but that the whole person is affected–body, soul, and spirit.
At the Fall, the spirit fell into the realm of the soul and became subject to its emotions, so that the natural man cannot distinguish between that which is spiritual and that which is soulish. That is why the great religions of man’s devising always appeal to the soulish and emotional part of man. A man attending those forms of religion thinks he has had a spiritual experience when all the time it is only a soulish thing. The spirit is untouched. How then can this be remedied? By the Word of God for it is “quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit” (Heb. 4:12).
In Christendom today there is a great preoccupation with subjective feelings and the things that affect them–music, aesthetic buildings, and so on. Now it is not wrong for the soul to be affected–God made it–so long as we do not confuse soul and spirit.
The soul fell also. It fell into the realm of the body so that the natural man cannot distinguish between love and lust. To complete the Fall, man’s body fell under the dominion of sin and became a captive to it. Paul understood this: “But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members” (Rom. 7:23).
The intellect, feelings, and will were all affected at the Fall. The intellect became darkened because of sin; the feelings became unhappy because of guilt; and the will became evil because of disobedience. To minister to the need of His creature, God in great mercy ordained the offices of prophet, priest, and king. Why a threefold office? To repair the damage caused by the Fall. The prophet brought the light of the knowledge of God to the darkened intellect. The priest offered the acceptable sacrifice to remove the unhappiness of guilt and the misery of sin. Then the king came to rule the will in righteousness.
Now in these three anointed offices our Lord excels all others by an infinite measure. He is the Christ, the Anointed One, to save the soul, enliven the spirit, redeem the body; to enlighten the mind, rejoice the feelings, and rule the will. This is the “the gospel of Christ.”
No wonder this message is called “the everlasting gospel,” for eternity will not be too long to declare the glorious praise of such a Saviour, and such a message, and such a love of such a God! How sad, with only a brief hour in a week assigned to the gospel that in many places this glorious subject is seldom heard, or what is often heard is the uncertain trumpet. “For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?” And there is a battle all sinners face, a battle at the grave edge with the last Enemy.
The Lord Jesus revealed that there is a literal hell where the blackness of darkness makes sight an eternal futility, and the undying worm of remorse will make thought and memory an eternal insanity. It was to save the eternal souls of men and women from a lost eternity, that the divine Lover of souls died in anguish on the cross, “bearing our sins in His own body on the tree” and then rose up from the dead, the Victor over sin, hell, and the grave.
What a Person! What a work! What a message! What a power! The message has not changed; the value of the blood has not changed; the need of the lost has not changed; the Holy Spirit has not changed; God’s love for sinners has not changed. Need we ask: “What then has changed?”