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What Makes Salvation Great
You are about to spend time in one of the most important books of the Bible. For millions in every generation, God uses this book of Romans to change thinking, deepen faith, and comfort hearts. Before you dive in, ask Him to quiet your heart and awaken your mind to the greatest subject of the ages: His great salvation.Every Christian should make every effort to know Romans, for this book will ground your faith. It contains God’s great gospel manifesto, but we must begin by seeing mankind on our own as ruined creatures without God, helpless and hopelessly lost. The only remedy for our sin is the perfect remedy God provides in Jesus Christ for lost humanity.
This is the great message of Romans: God takes lost sinners—like us—and He brings us into the family of God and makes us His children. He does it not because we deserve it but because Christ died on the cross.
The gospel of Christ, the apostle Paul says, is the power of God to save everyone who believes. You can’t work for or buy this righteousness from God; you only can accept it by faith. Justification by faith means the subtraction of sin and the addition of righteousness—all so you might stand before God complete in Christ. God saves on no other ground than that you trust Jesus.
God uses many ways to communicate with us in His Word. First, He gave history, poetry, prophecy, and the Gospels, and now we come to a new section: The Epistles. The Lord speaks to us in these wonderful letters, whose primary purpose was to carry the gospel along Roman roads to the world.
This message is God’s good news. Man didn’t create it; it existed way before us. God promised it all through the Old Testament. The message is this: God loves mankind and has made a way to save mankind. The gospel is “concerning” Jesus Christ and what He has done. “Concerning” is the Greek preposition peri—also used in “periscope” and “perimeter”—and means “that which encircles.” Draw a wide circle around Jesus, and the gospel is what goes inside.
We are introduced to Jesus here by His full title: He is the Son of God, and He is Jesus Christ our Lord. In His humanity, Jesus is the seed of David. He is virgin-born because He is the Son of God with power. He is the risen One—when Jesus rose from the dead, it proved everything. The Resurrection didn’t make Him the Son of God, it simply revealed that He was. He is perfect humanity and deity—not any more man because He is God, and not any less God because He is man. He is God-man.
Jesus’ resurrection ensures He will someday return to this earth as the Judge and the King of kings and Lord of lords. He will put down sin, reigning on this earth in righteousness.
As Paul and the other apostles crisscrossed the colossal empire sharing the gospel, hundreds of thousands of people came to faith in Jesus Christ, believing God loved the world so much that He gave His Son to die that whoever believed on Jesus Christ will not perish, but have eternal life (see John 3:16).
As he did in every letter, Paul begins the book by wishing us God’s grace and peace (v. 7)—grace (charis), the Gentile’s greeting, and peace (shalom), the Jewish greeting. Paul extends his double blessing to everyone who will read this and then begins to teach.
ROMANS 1
1Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, 2(which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,) 3concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; 4and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead: 5by whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name: 6among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ: 7to all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.The Gospel of Salvation
8First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. 9For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers; 10making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you. 11For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established; 12that is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me. 13Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles.
