For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.  

Romans 1:18-19

There is an internal witness in us of God’s truth. The key statement relating to this lies in the phrase, ‘what may be known of God is manifest in them.’ The internal witness we have of the truth of God is there by His doing. To deny it and Him we must suppress it. Hence the earlier part of our text speaks of God revealing His wrath against all unrighteousness. Fallen humanity suppresses God’s truth in forcible denial of the witness He has placed within all of us. Therefore we, of necessity, must look to Him if we are being honest with ourselves. There is enough revelation of Him in creation to get us started. The revelation He has given in the Scripture shows us our sin and our need of a Savior. The Old and New Testaments point us to Christ, the only Redeemer. The gospel reveals the righteousness of God and shows us what He has done to rectify our unrighteousness. If we deny the gospel, we must deny all of God’s revealed truth. This eliminates the need for Christ. Thus, we either embrace God’s truth and His Son, Our Savior or we forcibly deny it and Him. There is no other alternative. Christ is the Continental Divide of humanity and of human history. We are either with Him or against Him. By His testimony, He is ‘the Way, the Truth, and the Life.’  

Our Glorious, Living God, 
we rejoice that You have revealed Your truth to us. 
We praise You that as we come to know Christ, 
we understand truth. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, The just shall live by faith.  

Romans 1:16-17 

Either we live by faith or by something else. We may live by sight, by dependency upon our works, or by our intellect. Paul, in speaking of the gospel declares, ‘The just shall live by faith.’ The just is the person whom God declares to be legally righteous in His sight and according to the standard of His law. In the upcoming chapters of Romans, he will clearly establish ‘there is none righteous, no, not one.’ He will also go on to establish that righteousness is not by works. How can he make this statement, ‘The just shall live by faith?’ The answer is Christ. Over the course of the upcoming book, he will prove the Person and work of Christ to be the only means by which God will regard anyone as righteous and that this comes by faith in Christ. When he formally treats the subject of justification, he says, ‘Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Taking that statement and laying it alongside our text we see that being just is inseparable from the Person and work of Christ. It is critical for us to understand this, lest we come to the conclusion that being just before God is by some other means or method. It is not faith, but Christ, Who saves, yet we place our faith in Him and He justifies us by faith. This is how we live.  

Our Holy and Wise God, 
we rejoice that You gives us faith, 
and justify us by faith. 
We praise You that you have given us Christ, 
in Whom we can have faith.  

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, The just shall live by faith.  

Romans 1:16-17 

The gospel reveals the righteousness of God. If we consider Paul’s articulation of the gospel in I Corinthians, it helps us to understand his remark about how in it the righteousness of God is revealed. He says, ‘For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.’ This statement refers to several things relating to the righteousness of God. If Christ died for our sins, then we understand that the penalty for unrighteousness is death. It also implies that God is righteous and we are unrighteous. Beyond that, He has done by Christ what is necessary to deal with our unrighteousness. As Christ puts it ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.’ Thus, God, being righteous, has dealt with our unrighteousness by providing Christ to be the substitutionary sacrifice for our sins which are the manifestation of our unrighteousness. This is how Paul can say of the gospel, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed. Therefore, we come to the conclusion that the only possible way for us, the unrighteous, to be just before God is by Christ. His Person and work reveal the righteousness of God. The good news for us is that God has done through Christ what is necessary to address the issue of our unrighteousness. ‘Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.’  

Our Great and Gracious God, 
we rejoice that the gospel reveals Your righteousness. 
We praise You that Christ is the key to our righteousness.  

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. 

Romans 1:16 

The gospel is ‘for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.’ As the Jews viewed the world, there were only two groups of people, the Jews and everyone else, whom they described as, ‘the Greeks.’ Thus, when Paul uses the phrase in our text he is, in effect, including everyone in the world regardless of their ethnicity, nationality, or origin. When he speaks of the Jew first, he is referring to the fact that the Jews received the revelation of Christ first. From Moses to Malachi, the Old Testament writers all pointed to Christ. The book of Acts details for us how the transition occurred of the proclamation of the gospel from the Jewish nation to the gentiles. Paul became the apostle to the gentiles. He proclaimed the gospel all over the ancient world up to and including Rome, the capital of the empire. Since those days, the gospel has gone out over the world with powerful effect. We know it succeeds everywhere by John’s description of who gathers around the Throne of Christ. He says, ‘After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’ This tells us the gospel is for everyone to hear. Regardless of origin, ethnicity, nationality, or culture, everyone should hear the gospel message. We have the privilege to proclaim that message as far and wide as we can. It will succeed wherever it goes.  

Our Good and Gracious God, 
we rejoice at the gospel message. 
We praise You that You have sent it out 
over the whole earth. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.  

Romans 1:16 

Paul was not ashamed of the gospel. What is this gospel of which he was not ashamed? He articulates it succinctly in I Corinthians where he writes, ‘For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.’ This is the gospel in its simplest form. It centers upon the Person and work of Christ. All else we understand about salvation is founded and grounded in the truth expressed in these verses. From this simple statement of the gospel we can travel back to creation, the fall of humanity, and the first prophecy of the seed of the woman. We can trace the unfolding of the revelation throughout the Old Testament as all the prophets give witness to Christ. We can hear the testimony of the four evangelists as they show us Christ as King, Servant of Jehovah, Son of Man, and Son of God. We can behold His wonderful works and hear the gracious words that proceed out of His mouth. We can see Him heal the sick, raise the dead, cause the deaf to hear and the blind to see. Nothing Christ has ever said or done has caused us to be ashamed of Him. He has done all things well, right up to and including His substitutionary, atoning sacrifice on the cross. Therefore, Paul was not ashamed of the gospel and neither are we. It is the good news worth proclaiming to all people to the end of the earth. Of it we shall never be ashamed.  

Our Good and Wise God, 
we rejoice that You have revealed Christ to us. 
We praise You that we have the privilege 
to declare His Gospel in the world. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning