WWUTT 1158 The Righteous Shall Live By Faith? (Romans 1:17)

It is in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ that we see the beautiful love of God that has been shown to us, and that while we were yet sinners,

God sent his Son to die for us when we understand the text. This is

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. Well, this week we've been in Romans chapter 1, specifically verses 16 and 17.

These are the thesis verses to the book of Romans. It's the whole reason why

Paul wrote this letter was so that the church in Rome would understand this. Romans 1, 16 and 17.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the

Jew first, and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed, from faith for faith, as it is written,

The righteous shall live by faith. Yesterday, we looked primarily at verse 16,

I am not ashamed of the gospel, and one of the things that I mentioned to you is that when you see these churches that are following this attractional model, that are doing these skits, or wild stunts, or putting together these programs, or adopting these philosophies and worldly ideas, delving into sociology in order to attract people into the church, they're doing that because they're ashamed of the gospel.

They don't believe that it is the power of God for salvation. They think the

Holy Spirit needs a little bit of help. So we've got to dress this up a little bit. Let's make this a little bit more attractive to people so we can get those unbelievers in here and bam, then we'll hit them with the gospel.

This is, I've referred to this many times before, and I'm not the one that has come up with this, but this is pragmatism is what it is.

Using these practical means to try to draw people into the church, and then the teaching becomes pragmatic as well.

It's not just the method, but even the teaching itself. So it seems like the church is doing these things to try to get people there, and then they're going to lay the gospel on them, right?

But as I quoted yesterday from 1 Corinthians 1 .18, the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.

So what happened was, a lot of these churches, 20, 30, 40 years ago, they started following the seeker -sensitive movement, this attractional model of getting people into the church, and then they were laying the gospel on them.

They would attract them by the thousands and then preach the gospel, and then, turns out, those people hated the gospel.

So they turned and walked away. So then the thinking became, well, how do we keep them here? See, we get them in the door, we're getting them in by the hundreds, if not the thousands, so how do we keep them here?

Well, then they had to change it more. The method wasn't the only pragmatic thing.

Now it was the teaching had to become pragmatic, and so we used carnal means to get them in, and now we have to use carnal means to keep them here, and eventually the gospel is completely lost.

It's not even there anymore. And what you will see in a lot of these attractional churches is the gospel becomes the social gospel.

Well, you just do nice things for people. You just be kind and polite, and that's the gospel.

That's doing the gospel. But that's works. That is a works -based salvation. They may preach faith in there, you have to believe, but faith plus works equals a different gospel.

It's no longer the gospel. You were ashamed of the true gospel. You had to dress it up a little bit and make it into something else.

So now you're preaching a false gospel. Remember what Paul said about this. So important was this, that he said it twice,

Galatians 1, 8 and 9, even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one that we preached to you, let him be accursed.

As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

The gospel is news, and it must be spoken. It's not doing things.

You know, there's that quote that was attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, though it turns out he didn't ever actually say it, but he's the one, his name is the one that gets attached to this quote.

It's preach the gospel if necessary, use words. Well, it is necessary to use words, so therefore you must use words when you are preaching the gospel.

Again, the gospel isn't just doing things or doing certain works or acting in a loving manner and therefore that's proclaiming the gospel.

No, the word gospel means good news. So it must be proclaimed. You don't turn on the news and watch people milling around and you have to figure out what they're doing in order to know what the news is.

You turn on the news and someone tells you what the news is. So the gospel must be proclaimed.

And yes, it will offend people. Jesus said it would. And he said, they will hate you because of me.

But we are not to lose heart because Christ has overcome the world. And we do not fear those who can destroy the body, but then after that can't do anything to us, we are to fear him who can destroy the body and the soul in hell.

And that is our Lord God. It's knowing that God is just. It's knowing that he will punish sinners, that we must proclaim the gospel for only that has the power to save a soul from death, from the judgment of God.

And they're transferred from this kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. They're no longer an object of God's wrath.

They're now a child in his love because they believed the good news that God sent his son,

Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for our sins and rise again from the grave. And whoever believes in him, turns from sin, repents, follows

Jesus, walks in his righteousness, they will have eternal life.

So this is the gospel that we must know and we must proclaim. And we must do it without shame.

For we know that this is the thing that saves. It doesn't need dressing up. It doesn't need any fancy schmancy frou -frou stuff on it in order to attract people.

It most definitely doesn't need to be feminized or sensitized in any way. You preach the gospel with all of the guts and glory that are involved in it.

Because after all, in this gospel, we're talking about a savior who was beaten and put to death on a cross.

He was tortured to death. But he did this, laying his life down for us. Allowed the creatures he made to put him to death for our sake.

So that all who believe in him will not have to suffer the wrath of God that he took upon himself when he died on the cross.

We will certainly die. This body will still perish, but the soul will not. We will live forever with God and glory.

And eventually, by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself, he's going to raise our bodies and make them like his glorious body.

This is all part of the glorious gospel that we've been given in the Lord Christ. And we have it right here in his word.

It is the word of God that is described as a sword that pierces through the heart, pierces through bone and marrow to the very soul of a person, convicting them of sin and then changing that person, slaying them in the spirit, not in the charismatic sense, falling on the ground, but they're slain in the spirit.

And that dead man is brought to new life in Jesus Christ. All of this through the power of the gospel, the

Holy Spirit that works in the heart of a person who hears it, is convicted of their sin, turns from it and follows

Jesus. Don't be ashamed of this message. It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the

Jew first, because that was who it went out to first, and then also to the Greek. Today, we get to verse 17.

I know I've spent an extra eight minutes here or something like that on verse 16, but we get to verse 17, for in it, in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed.

We know the beauty and the glory and the goodness of God through this message of the gospel.

As I've heard James White say, if you want to see the wrath of God, look at the cross, for God's wrath was poured out on his son there on the cross.

If you want to see the love of God, look at the cross. His wrath and his love meet there.

Jesus takes the wrath of God upon himself there with his death on the cross, and he demonstrates in the love of God, the deliverance that we have because Christ sacrificed himself for us.

Rose again from the dead, so he conquered the grave. We don't even have to fear death.

That is where every single person is going. We're all going to die, but what happens after that is if you believe in Jesus, you live with him forever in glory.

If not, you fall under the righteous judgment of God. He is righteous in his grace.

He is righteous in his judgment, but be on the side that receives the grace and mercy of God, not on the side that will be under the judgment of God.

So believing in the gospel, we see the righteousness of God revealed from faith and for faith.

It's by faith in the message of the gospel that we see the righteousness of God, and it's by faith that the righteousness of God is imputed to us.

Yesterday, I quoted 2 Corinthians 521. For our sake, he became sin.

Jesus became sin for us. He became sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

This is imputation, a double imputation that our sins were put upon Christ.

His righteousness is given to us. He dies for our sins. We live for him in his righteousness.

And now we are seen by God the Father as righteous because we have a borrowed righteousness.

We could not be righteous in and of ourselves. We needed the righteousness of Christ in order to be received by God, in order to be looked upon by him with favor.

The righteousness of God is revealed to us that we may even walk in it. We may have it.

We may possess it. We may know the righteousness of God, and it comes to us from faith by believing in God.

He has imputed his righteousness to us and for faith that we may grow in the relationship that we have with God, which we have by faith, by faith in his son.

We grow in the knowledge of God. We grow in godliness, Christlikeness. We grow in love for the people of God.

We grow in sanctification with the people of God. The church helping one another as we grow in holiness, for as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.

What a blessing of God that we receive this righteousness by faith, by believing.

And Paul is going to give examples even as we go on, namely, Abraham, when we get to Romans chapter four, that he believed by faith and it was credited to him as righteousness.

This statement, the righteous shall live by faith. This comes from the book of Habakkuk, Habakkuk 2 -4, in fact, and it's quoted three times in the

New Testament. Here in Romans 1 -17, also Galatians 3 -11 and Hebrews 10 -38, that the righteous shall live by faith.

And it is through faith. It's just a wonderful gift of God that it's not by our works do we attain righteousness.

We would never get there. But by his wonderful mercy, it's by faith in the finished work of his son that we have the righteousness of God through the gospel.

The righteousness of God is revealed from faith and for faith as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.

A story that goes along with this verse, Martin Luther, the great reformer, he hated

Romans 1 -17, hated this verse. And the reason was because he thought the righteousness in this verse was in reference to God's wrath.

Now, in some translations, righteousness is translated justice. And that's fine. Those words are often interchangeable in various translations of the

New Testament. For in it, the justice of God is revealed from faith for faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith.

But Martin Luther thought that that was in reference to God's wrath. And so he thought that God's wrath was revealed from faith and for faith.

And Martin Luther hated that idea because he's like, I'm a sinner and I'm under the wrath of God. This just makes

God look like a monster to me. How would that be good news? How would that be tied in with the gospel?

And it's not like he was reaching in coming to that definition or that understanding of Romans 1 -17, because look at what we have next in Romans 1 -18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.

Well, that sounds a lot like the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith.

The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness. And so Martin Luther is putting those two statements together, and he's seeing the wrath of God is revealed from faith and for faith.

And so he just loathed this particular verse, and he knew that you shouldn't feel that way about God, but he just couldn't help it.

It was the way he understood Romans 1 -17. Well, one time he was studying in the book of Exodus, and his

Greek was a little bit better than his Hebrew. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew.

The translation of the Old Testament into Greek is the Septuagint. So Luther would have been studying in the

Septuagint. And specifically, he was in the section of Exodus where God is giving

Moses instructions for how the Ark of the Covenant is to be constructed. He's given instructions on the tabernacle.

He's given instructions on the camp itself. So at the very center of all of this is the

Ark of the Covenant. And here is how God says to Moses, the Ark is to be made.

I'm in Exodus 25, starting in verse 17. You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold.

Two cubits and a half shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its breadth. And you shall make two cherubim of gold, the images of two angels.

Of hammered work shall you make them on the two ends of the mercy seat. Make one cherub on the one end and one cherub on the other end.

Of one piece with the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends. So this was supposed to be just one piece of gold, not constructing one angel and then attaching it to the top.

But the whole top of the mercy seat was just one solid piece of gold. The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another.

Toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be. So they're looking down in a bowing position.

And you shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark. And in the ark, you shall put the testimony that I shall give you, which was, of course, the

Ten Commandments. There I will meet with you. And from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony,

I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel.

And that's where Moses talked with God. The voice of God coming to Moses as he met with him face to face.

God was right there at the center of the top of the mercy seat between the two angels.

This was where God communicated with man. Mankind too sinful to be in the presence of God.

But yet by the grace of God, he comes and meets with a man, Moses, right there at the top of the ark of the covenant, the mercy seat.

You see that term come up several times in that section in Exodus 25, mercy seat. Well, in Hebrew, the term for mercy seat is kippur et.

One of those two words you probably recognize, right? Kippur, like Yom Kippur, the day of atonement.

So in Hebrew, the term is atonement place. That's what we have translated as mercy seat.

Now, remember, though, Luther was reading this in Greek. The Greek word for kippur et is translated.

He'll a starry on. And in Greek, that's the word that gets translated in English propitiation.

Well, in Romans chapter three, we have that word propitiation come up. I'm going to begin reading in verse 23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom

God put forward as a propitiation. He'll a starry on kippur et mercy seat atonement place.

God put forward Christ as an atonement place by his blood to be received by faith.

This was to show God's righteousness. Same word that we have in Romans 1 17, because in his divine forbearance, he passed over former sins.

It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

And when Martin Luther saw that his he wrote about it and said his heart had exploded within him because he realized that he had not been understanding

Romans 1 17 correctly. He had been seeing the wrath of God in that passage when the reality is that we have the grace of God in that passage for in it.

The righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith as it is written. The righteous shall live by faith in Christ, who is the gospel.

He is the atonement place. He is the mercy seat. He is that place where man meets with God by faith in the

Lord Christ. When Luther had come to this realization, here's what he wrote on Romans 1 17.

I began to understand that in this verse, the justice of God is that by which the person lives by a gift of God that is by faith.

I began to understand that this verse means that the justice of God is revealed through the gospel, but it is a passive justice.

In other words, that by which the merciful God justifies us by faith as it is written, the just person lives by faith all at once.

Luther said, I felt that I had been born again and entered through paradise itself through open gates.

Romans 1 17 in the gospel of Christ, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith as it is written.

The righteous shall live by faith and we continue our study of Romans from here.

This being our launching pad into the rest of this beautiful letter, deeply theological, revealing to us the righteous love, justice, the wonderful plan, his glory, all of this, the treasures that are bound up in Christ Jesus, which

God has given to us by grace. Let's conclude with prayer.

Our heavenly father, we thank you for this gospel once again, and I pray even what we have considered today in just these two verses.

It is opening our eyes to see the beauty and the love that you have demonstrated for us.

We are sinners. We are deserving of God's wrath. We deserve God's wrath. The Bible is not silent about your wrath.

It is laid out for us in the pages. And even as we're going to read here in Romans 1 18, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.

We know that we are going to die and we know that what we deserve at death would be the judgment of God, but you have been merciful to us and have shown us your love and affection for us through the giving of your son,

Jesus Christ living for us and dying for us that by faith in him, we would not perish under the judgment of God that we deserve, but instead we get to live forever with you.

And as we come to understand this through the gospel, we behold you all the more and our greatest desire and yearning is you walking in your holiness, desiring your righteousness revealed to us in the gospel of Jesus Christ by faith.

It's in the name of Jesus that we pray. Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the

Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study.

Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book. On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers.