The Unexpected Gospel Is Nothing To Be Ashamed Of

10.25.20 Romans 1:16–17

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes—to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. 17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed by faith, for faith, just as it is written, “The righteous will live by faith.”

The Unexpected Gospel is Nothing to be Ashamed Of

When I was in college or seminary I went with my parents to visit with my old pastor who had retired. He was an old school type of preacher with a very deep voice. I think he stood about 6’4” with white hair and a very commanding presence. In truth, he was scary. What struck me upon our visit, however, was how kind and jovial he was to talk to. He told me a funny old story about when he was at the seminary. I had never seen that side of him. It surprised me.

Sometimes the same thing happens with people’s expectations from God. The Apostle Paul was sure that Jesus was an imposter who had deceived many people. He was on the way to Damascus to arrest the followers of Jesus, when he was suddenly confronted with a different Jesus than he expected. Jesus was alive and well. This was a powerful and scary thing for Paul. This vision of God changed his entire perspective of who God is and his whole system of salvation.

The same thing happened to Martin Luther. The Latin way of translating the righteousness of God is “iustitia Dei.” You could translate that as the justice of God. It drew for him a picture of God who gives you what you deserve. He is just. If God demands it, He demands it. If God threatens it, He makes good on His threat. There’s no getting around it. When he had heard the term, “righteousness of God,” he thought that it basically meant that God is fair. He gives people what they deserve, what they have coming to them. There was no bending Him or getting around His demands. You’re going to have to pay. Luther took God’s threats seriously and he honestly tried to do everything the Catholic Church told him to do, so he never felt righteous. He actually said he hated God for being God. But God had another vision of Himself that He wanted to show Luther.

Some say that children see God through their parents. God calls Himself “our Father.” But if your Father is mean and dictatorial, that is the picture you will get of God. If your parents are indifferent towards God and show no respect towards Him or desire for forgiveness, then you will be indifferent to Him as well. You will picture Him perhaps as a nice guy who gives you stuff once in a while. Nothing to worry about, unless you really need Him. If a child grows up with abusive parents or has to suffer the death of a parent, and they prayed for God’s help through the trauma, they might then think that God doesn’t care about them. He wants them to suffer. Different views of God come from different experiences that people have in life.

I get the sense that most people just don’t think about God much at all nowadays. The popular God of America is the TOLERANT God who demands nothing and allows everything. He loves everyone as they are. This is not the holy and righteous God of the Bible. So they don’t take God seriously. They don’t think God really expects anything out of us, that maybe He just wants us to be happy. They don’t think God really does much of anything besides maybe keep the clock ticking in this world. This is a problem! He’s much more than that! The Bible makes that clear.

Luther’s world didn’t treat God as if He were non-existent. They constantly faced death through plagues and war, and they were quite sure God was sending all of it on them. God was angry. God was just. Nobody could match up, no matter how much they did. Luther felt this more than most. But as an intelligent and gifted man, Luther was charged with teaching the Bible. He was terrified of God, but desperately he HAD to dig into it. God worked through the Word to open Himself up to Luther and show him another side that Luther didn’t know about.

In studying that term, “righteousness of God,” Luther discovered a different sense of God. It was one that Augustine had spoken of years before, and Luther was a part of that Catholic brotherhood. The idea is, that if God is unyielding in His DEMANDS, then God would also be unyielding in His PROMISES. So if He promises something, He will keep His PROMISES as well. He is righteous with His threats but ALSO with HIs promises. The gospel revealed how God promised that He sent His Son Jesus to fulfill the justice and wrath of God on the cross. Paul described it this way in Romans chapter 3,