Part 3 was a history of the church in Rome beginning with Romans 1:8 and Rome’s famed faith. Part 1 has links to the whole series.

Romans 1:16-17

For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, because it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first, and also for the Greek. For in it is revealed God’s righteousness from faith to faith. As it is written, “But the righteous shall live by faith” [Hab. 2:4].

Paul was defending his Gospel to the Jewish Christians at Rome. The Jews had been banished from Rome by the Emperor Claudius from AD 49 to 54 (biola.edu). The Jews were generally suspicious of Paul’s Gospel of faith. The Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 and Paul’s somewhat in hospitable welcome to Jerusalem in Acts 21 testify to this. In Rome, however, this would have been especially true because the Jews’ return to Rome and a completely Gentile church made them the newcomers.

Paul was ready to defend his Gospel, and while he was willing to explain it all the way from Romans 1:18 to 11:36, he had one central defense: “My Gospel is powerful. When people believe it they manifest the righteousness of God.”

What does it mean that “God’s righteousness” was being revealed from faith to faith? It can only mean one thing. Others–in this case, Jewish Christians–could see that people, especially Gentiles, were living righteous lives after believing his Gospel.

You cannot use “right standing with God” as an argument for the power of your preaching. No one can see your “right standing with God.” If you are going to argue that your preaching is powerful, you need to have something to show.

Paul shows us this truth in 1 Corinthians, speaking of both himself and others who might exalt themselves against him. For himself, he writes:

My speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith wouldn’t stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. (1 Cor. 2:4-5)

About others:

I will come to you shortly, if the Lord is willing. And I will know, not the word of those who are puffed up, but the power. For God’s Kingdom is not in word, but in power. (1 Cor. 4:20)

Jesus talked about this as well. He did not choose his words as evidence of who he was, but the powerful works he did.

If I don’t do the works of my Father, don’t believe me. But if I do them, though you don’t believe me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in the Father. (Jn. 10:37-38)

As he spoke of the future he would say the same of us, that it would be the things we did that would prove both that we belong to him and that he was sent by his Father.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (Jn. 13:34-35)

Not for these only do I pray, but for those also who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that you sent me. (Jn. 17:20-21)

It is our love and unity that prove the words of God to be true and powerful. Our love and unity testify to the world that we belong to Jesus and that Jesus was sent by God. It’s something we should remember every time we are thinking about separating from a church or participating in dividing one.

For my Roman Catholic and Orthodox friends, it is something you should think about every time you claim that the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon are ecumenical councils carrying authority for all Christians. No one knows, nor could possible know, exactly how the divine and human natures of Jesus interacted with each other. Those two councils were a divisive force against whole nations based on impossible questions and assertions.

With that little diversion, let me add another way we testify both to Jesus and to the truth of the Gospel. I like to call it the “Greater Commission” because it applies to every Christian, not just those who “go into all the world.”

Neither do you light a lamp and put it under a measuring basket, but on a stand; and it shines to all who are in the house. Even so, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. (Matt. 5:15-16)

Paul was not ashamed of his Gospel because “from faith to faith” the good works that glorify our Father who is in heaven were being revealed.

Remember, throughout Romans we will be keeping in mind …

Little children, let no one lead you astray. He who does righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. (1 Jn. 3:7)

Throughout Romans, theologians and pastors like to discuss whether Paul is talking about imputed righteousness (God overlooking our sin) or imparted righteousness (God making us righteous by his Spirit and grace). John tells us not to be led astray about this. There is no such thing as imputed righteousness without imparted righteousness. We will not arrive blameless at the throne of God without imputed righteousness because “we all stumble in many ways” (James 3:2).

To bring this back to Romans, Paul writes in Romans 4:8:

Blessed is the man whom the Lord will by no means charge with sin.

Who is that man? According to John, it is the one who practices righteousness.

Bonus from the Early Church: Jewish Rites and Salvation Without Righteous Living.

When Paul used the term “the works of the law,” he was not referring to the whole Law of Moses. He was referring to works that differentiated the Jews from Gentiles. Those would be (primarily) circumcision, their food laws, the Sabbaths and feasts, and their sacrifices. This is why Paul brings circumcision so much and why he mentions all but sacrifices in Colossians 2:11-17. (I think the definitive work on this would be Matthew J. Thomas’ Paul’s “Works of the Law” in the Perspective of Second-Century Reception (IVP, 2020, which N.T. Wright called “theologically explosive”).

Anyway, if you ever wanted to read Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho, a Jew, you would pick up that if a Jew were doing all these things, then he was, so to speak, eternally secure. God would not impute sin to such a Jew. (“Blessed is the man whom the Lord will by no means charge with sin” is from an Old Testament verse, Ps. 32:2.) Here is an amazing passage dealing with that subject:

So that if they repent, all who wish for it can obtain mercy from God: and the Scripture foretells that they shall be blessed, saying, ‘Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not sin;’²⁴⁹¹ that is, having repented of his sins, that he may receive remission of them from God; and not as you deceive yourselves, and some others who resemble you in this, who say, that even though they be sinners, but know God, the Lord will not impute sin to them. We have as proof of this the one fall of David, which happened through his boasting, which was forgiven then when he so mourned and wept, as it is written. But if even to such a man no remission was granted before repentance, and only when this great king, and anointed one, and prophet, mourned and conducted himself so, how can the impure and utterly abandoned, if they weep not, and mourn not, and repent not, entertain the hope that the Lord will not impute to them sin? (Justin, Dialogue with Trypho, ch. 141)

I thought this was worth bringing up not only because it is interesting, but because Paul will discuss this in chapter 2. If you have ever read Romans 2, and especially if you have read it over and over, then surely you have wondered why Paul accused the Jews of things like theft and adultery so freely!

It has to do with the above. We will get into this more when we get to Romans 2.