Paul's Gospel - Part 3

Over the past two days we've looked at the gospel as it is the power of God for salvation and reveals the righteousness of God. Then we saw that this revelation begins with the declaration that we have a problem; we suppress the truth about God, and in that suppression is all manner of ungodliness and unrighteousness. Let's not leave it there.

After the really, really bad news -- all are sinners without righteousness, without good, without even looking for God (Rom 3:10-12), condemned (Rom 3:19), and without hope (Rom 3:20) -- Paul shares the really, really good news -- we are "justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Rom 3:24) because God's wrath has been appeased by Jesus's blood (Rom 3:25) so that we are "justified by faith apart from works of the law" (Rom 3:28), both Jew and Gentile (Rom 3:29). Righteousness isn't achieved; it is "reckoned" (Rom 4:5). On the basis of His death and resurrection, we who believe that He was "delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification" (Rom 4:24-25) receive His righteousness. And it only gets better from there. Yes, it gets better.

We, the sinners without righteousness, have peace with God (Rom 5:1). We rejoice in God (Rom 5:11). "We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life" (Rom 6:4). "Sin will have no dominion over you" (Rom 6:14). "The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom 6:23)."We are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit" (Rom 7:6). "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Rom 8:1). The list goes on and on. God's righteousness goes on and on.

The gospel is the good news. It is the best of good news. Sometimes we get so used to the word that we lose sight of how good it is. Paul's gospel was not merely Paul's good news. He called it "the gospel of Christ" (e.g., Rom 15:19; 1 Cor 9:12; 2 Cor 2:12; Gal 1:7; Php 1:27;1 Thess 3:2) and "the gospel of God (Rom 1:1; Rom 15:16; 1 Thess 2:2-9 (3x)). And he carried it from the Jews to the Gentiles -- to us. Paul wasn't ashamed of this gospel because this gospel is the power of God for salvation. That power is generated by God as it reveals His righteousness. That righteousness has ramifications. Those ramifications can be good ... if we avail ourselves of the gospel. And we need not be ashamed of that gospel either.