SALVATION THROUGH FAITH ALONE

Romans chapter 1 – verses 8-17

By David Woodbury

8 Let me say first that I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith in him is being talked about all over the world.9 God knows how often I pray for you. Day and night I bring you and your needs in prayer to God, whom I serve with all my heart by spreading the Good News about his Son.

10 One of the things I always pray for is the opportunity, God willing, to come at last to see you. 11 For I long to visit you so I can bring you some spiritual gift that will help you grow strong in the Lord. 12 When we get together, I want to encourage you in your faith, but I also want to be encouraged by yours.

13 I want you to know, dear brothers and sisters, that I planned many times to visit you, but I was prevented until now. I want to work among you and see spiritual fruit, just as I have seen among other Gentiles.14 For I have a great sense of obligation to people in both the civilized world and the rest of the world, to the educated and uneducated alike. 15 So I am eager to come to you in Rome, too, to preach the Good News.

Paul has a firm conviction that praise issuing from gratitude is basic to the Christian’s relationship with God and such a positive mindset is psychology sound. The truth is that when we come to know the authentic reality of forgiveness and a new life in Christ, we experience the great wells of gratitude and praise. No doubt as Paul took up his pen to write to the Christians in Rome he reflected from a heart full of gratitude to God as one who had been born at the wrong time. (1 Corinthians 15:8b) His life had been dramatically changed on the Damascus Road he was totally overwhelmed with God’s grace in his life, and as a result, his life overflows with gratitude and praise.

Paul commends the Christians in Rome and assures them of his continual prayers for them and his desire to come to them with encouragement and support. His world-view encompasses humanity at every level of life, civilized, uncivilized, educated and uneducated. The message God has given him to preach is for all humanity regardless of their place in the community.

Christian ministry is demonstrated by giving rather than getting. Paul clearly understood that integrated into his ministry was this idea of serving and supporting others. He longed to bring some spiritual gift that will help the Christians in Rome grow strong in the Lord (v11). While ever our focus on ourselves, our spiritual existence is dominated by what I can get, rather than what I can give. Consequently, we have missed one of the central tenets of the Gospel and the ministry of Jesus, who “came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:28)

The concept of mutual encouragement is very fundamental in his ministry (v12) and needs to be one of the foundations on which any authentic Christian assembly is constructed. There is mutuality within the Christian faith and the benefits are never just one-sided. As many Christians have found it is virtually impossible to bless without being blessed. There is a sense here in which those in the fellowship rise to the level of our encouragement and expectations.

Romans1:16-17

16 For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes—the Jew first and also the Gentile. 17 This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.”

In this letter to the church in Rome Paul confronts a dilemma that was to trouble, not only the New Testament church, but Christians down through the ages: the paradox between law and grace. It is to this challenge that he is to address in comprehensive detail, for in its tangled web lies the freedom of grace that he wants his readers to experience. Consequently, he spends a great deal of his discourse in proving that adherence to the law is not only humanly infeasible, but counter-productive.

Paul is flagging what is to become one of the predominant themes in Romans; that of salvation through faith alone in Jesus. In this justification before God through faith, Paul is expounding on the ministry of Jesus. “The just shall live by faith.” Note the simplicity of this statement: there are no conditions and qualifications attached.

Often we tend to think that salvation through faith in Jesus is very much a theology developed by Paul in the Book of Romans. However, in the narrative in Luke 7:36-50 we read of an immoral woman coming to Jesus and anointing his feet with expensive perfume. We are not told of her motivation but it certainly appears there is a real sense of seeking forgiveness for her sins. Certainly, those around were under no illusion about her character: “When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She’s a sinner!” (Luke 7:39 – NLT) Jesus is acutely aware of the woman’s motivation and her need: “I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven …” (Luke 7:47 – NLT).

Jesus unmistakably demonstrates in this exchange with the woman Paul’s claim to justification by faith alone when he says to the woman: “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” (Luke 7:50 – NLT) He requires nothing more for this woman’s salvation than faith alone. In this passage of Scripture, we see Jesus clearly establishing the great doctrine of justification by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. There is a genius of simplicity here which all too often goes unrecognised because of that very simplicity: “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Paul, a member of the despised Jewish race was going to the Rome of Nero, not just to the capital of a country but the seat of power in the then known world. While Jews had spread widely over the Roman Empire and had made their influence felt, they had failed to gain respect and were more often than not ridiculed and scorned. He would carry the message of someone who was no more than a local carpenter and who died like a common criminal in the company of robbers. Yet in all this Paul is unashamed and confident he has the power of God behind him.

This power of God to salvation was to become a dynamic that would transform lives and communities. The great tragedy of the church is that time and time again it has expediently fallen back on ritual, and while ritual can placate a community it can never transform a life or a society. Humanity is in need a dynamic, not rituals, and it was this dynamic of the power of God through his Holy Spirit that Paul sought to bring to the Christians in Rome.

In a world of conflicting ideologies and religions, Paul is proud and confident of the Good News about Jesus Christ. In that day Christianity was a fledgeling religion coming out of the Jewish religion and it faced ridicule and hostility, not only from the Jews but also from the other ideologies and religions that surrounded it. It many ways it is like the culture that exists in our society today where the Christian beliefs and viewpoints are often belittled, trivialised and negatively branded.

This concept of living by faith alone suffers from over-simplicity; it sounds too simple to be workable and true. The tendency of humanity is that they must secure peace with God through their own efforts; that nothing of such value can be achieved by doing something as simple as believing. Yet the reality is that believing in what cannot be seen or audibly heard is a far greater challenge, for it requires, not only a step into the unknown but also a total commitment of heart, mind and spirit to someone who is not visible or tangible.

Within this Good News about Jesus is the power of God at work in our world, saving all who would believe. Perhaps it is really understood best by those who have intentionally and resolutely committed their lives to him. When Paul uses the phrase; for the Jew first and also for the Greek, he is explaining that this Good News is for all humanity (for the Greek) and the process by which it comes (for the Jew first).

This Good News explains how we can be made right in the sight of God; that is becoming righteous in his sight. This process is accomplished from start to finish by the exercise of our faith and there is no other substitute for this process. The law had been tried and had been found wanting and Paul has come to the conclusion that to be righteous in the sight of God one has to exercise faith, and faith alone. It is through the exercise of this faith alone that a person has real life and righteousness in God’s sight. Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; But the just shall live [i.e. made righteous] by his faith. (Habakkuk 2:4)

Because God is a holy God he cannot tolerate sin and wickedness and his anger is directed against all people who intentionally and purposely would destroy his truth through their own sin and wickedness. Paul is not talking about Christians who may slip into sin on occasions, but rather those who deliberately set out to flagrantly, intentionally and purposely oppose God both in their words, deeds and actions. Much of Paul’s writings in the following verses are about a chosen lifestyle, be it those who turn their back on God, or those who say they serve him.

There is a sense in which people can often slip, almost unintentionally; into a lifestyle choice that will take them on a journey that could destroy their lives. Along the path of life, everyone makes lifestyle choices, and once those choices are embedded in their lives they become very difficult to alter. The sad fact is that many people have already made those choices before they gain the wisdom, knowledge and personal insight to have an appreciation of their outcome.

Quite early on in his letter, Paul has stated one of the great fundamentals of the Christian Faith: that a relationship with God is only possible through believing in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the son of the eternal God. It is not a complicated or complex action but rather one that requires a totality of the entire person, body, mind and spirit. When we come to a place of finally comprehending the enormity of God, then we can utter with the songwriter: Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.