Not Ashamed of the
Gospel
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. Romans 1:16
Paul was deeply interested
in the Christian Church at Rome. He longed to visit the Christians there in
order that he might impart unto them some “spiritual gift to the end that there
faith might be morally firmly established” and also that he might be comforted
by their Christian fellowship. But God in His wise providence had not seen fit
for Paul to visit the capital city, Rome. Paul was afraid that the Christians
in Rome might have thought that he did not want to visit them, so in beginning
his letter to them he commences by allaying there fears. He tells them he had
purposed to come but was led hitherto. The source of his desire to come to Rome
is found in his love for the gospel and in his confidence of its saving power.
Rome was a pagan city; the
evil forces of the world had their citadel there. Because of this the Christians
in Rome may have thought that Paul’s delay in coming to Rome was due to
timidity and fear, least the gospel might prove to be impotent and ineffectual
in the midst of the vice and sin centered in Rome. But whatever the cause of
Paul’s delay in coming to the city of Rome it was not due to any fear on his
part for he says unto them, in the words of our text, “For I am not ashamed of
the gospel: for it is the power of God unto salvation, to everyone that
believeth; to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”
“I am not ashamed of the
gospel” probably means that he is proud of the gospel. Oftentimes a negative
assertion bears more weight and authority than a positive statement. When Jesus
said, “This man is not far from the kingdom” He meant that the man was very
near to the kingdom. In speaking of a large city we often say, “It is no mean
city,” and thereby, we mean that it is a large and prominent one. Thus by these
words Paul no doubt means that he glories and rejoices in the gospel. The world
may have held the gospel in contempt but Paul honored and revered it. In these
words we see Paul’s feeling towards the gospel.
There were many reasons why
Paul might have been ashamed of the gospel. He might have been ashamed of it
because of its message. The author of this gospel was the member of a despised
and indestructible race. He had been born in a stable, He had been baptized
with sinners, He had been crucified between thieves, He had lived the life of
an obscure carpenter in Nazareth, and He had no great military victories to His
credit but had lived a life of peace and love. His only claim to recognition
was death upon a cross. And now His disciples claimed that through that death
on the cross salvation was offered to all. There was an offence to the gospel
message but Paul was not ashamed of it.
Paul might have been ashamed
of the gospel because the majority of its followers were illiterate men and
women. “Even the Christian teachers were wool workers, cobblers and fullers ---
the most illiterate and vulgar of mankind.” Paul, himself, was well educated.
He had sat at the feet of Gamaliel a great Jewish Rabbi. But the great bulk of
the Christians were ignorant and unlearned men and women. Thus the
intelligentsias of the day despise Christianity, the Jewish rabbis and Greek
philosophers, held in contempt the gospel because it called for simple belief
and not argument. The gospel was foolishness to the wise but Paul was unashamed
of it.
Very few of the followers of
Christ possessed earthly wealth. In those days men despised poverty and snubbed
the poor. The founder of the Christianity was a poor carpenter, its first
advocates were poor fishermen, it followers were made up of the lower classes
of society --- poor mechanics, slaves, beggars and peasants. The rich disdained
the gospel because it was free and their great riches we of no avail. Even
through the gospel attracted the poor Paul was unashamed of it because he knew
that in Christ they were the possessors of untold riches.
Christ had foretold that His
followers would be persecuted and reviled. And this prophesy was fulfilled.
There were many religions and sects in the Roman Empire but none save
Christianity was persecuted. Many times Paul had been persecuted. Concerning
his sufferings for the sake of the gospel he says, “Of the Jews five times
received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods and once was I
stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a day and a night have I been in the
deep.” In Paul’s day men paid with their life because they were willing to take
up their cross and follow in the footsteps of the Master. The world despised
this persecuted religion, but Paul was not ashamed of it. He cried, “Woe is me,
if I preach not the gospel.”
A despised message,
association with the ignorant and the poor, and persecution, all this did not
cause the great apostle to be ashamed of the message he proclaimed and the
Christ he served. On the other hand Paul was proud of his message and glorified
in the Christ of the cross: “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross
of our Lord Jesus Christ,” was the theme song of his life.
Paul was not ashamed of the
gospel because it was power that could do something. The farmer is not ashamed
of the little seed, shriveled, dried and ugly though it be, that he places it
in the ground. He knows that God has endowed it with hidden virtues that have
been denied to even the diamond and the ruby. He knows that there is life and
power resident in that seed, one day it will take root, grow and bring forth
abundant fruit. Paul was not ashamed of the gospel, for the gospel seed planted
in a receptive heart would bring forth abundant fruit.
The time in which Paul was
living was the time of Nero, the city to which he was writing was the city of
Rome, in which, as in a sort of moral sewer all the detestable wickedness of
the world festered. Paul was aware of the obstacles that would confront him in
the proclamation of the gospel in this wicked city, he was not reluctant to go,
he yearned to go and release in Rome the atomic power of the gospel. It was
this power and this power alone that could blast open the sewers of sin and let
in the healing sunshine of God’s love.
The Jews said that the
gospel was of Beelzebub, the pagan maintained that is was the power of
fanaticism, but Paul proclaimed it to be the power of Almighty God. As the
power of God it can do anything. It can overcome deep seated prejudices. Paul
knew this from experience, he was prejudiced against Christianity to the extent
that he punished Christians often “in every synagogue and compelled them to
blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them he persecuted them even unto
strange cities.” It is only the power of God that can blast and level the walls
of class and race prejudice in our country that can place in the heart of the
Russian a love for America, and in the heart of the American a love of the
Japanese.
The gospel is the power of
God that can blast pagan cults, religions and sects. Paul witnessed Diana of
the Ephesians lose many, many of her worshipers when the gospel was proclaimed.
In the short space of three hundred years the gospel displaced the pagan cults
of the Roman Empire. It is the power alone that can blast sin and overthrow the
false gods that we have here in America.
The gospel is the power of
God unto salvation. It was given to man for a specific purpose and to reveal a
definite aspect of God’s character. Nature reveals God’s power to create. The
gospel reveals God’s power to re-create. It is the power to make a Peter out of
a Simon, a proclaimer of the gospel out of one who persecuted Christians. It is
the power that will take a life battered and torn by the ravages and make it a
thing of beauty, a vessel fit for the Master’s use, a channel of blessing unto
all mankind.
The gospel of salvation is
the only power that can save us today. General MacArthur said, “Military
alliances, balances of power, League of Nations, all in turn failed … we have
had our last chance. If we do not now devise some greater system, Armageddon will
be at our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual
recrudescence … it must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.” In the
New York Times, Dave Boone said, “It looks as though man had better start
harnessing the forces of the Spirit, the power of the Holy Writ, and the
elections of the Golden Rule … the only atomic bombs that will save mankind
from now on are to be found there.”
We are not ashamed of atomic
power, although we may be ashamed of the use to which we put it. As Christians
we are not ashamed of the gospel which is the power (that can do something) of
God (which can do anything) unto salvation (which can re-create human lives).
The question is are we ashamed of this power over which you and I have control.
Paul was not ashamed of the gospel, better still; the gospel was not ashamed of
Paul. Paul believed in the gospel and he did his dead level best to communicate
its power unto others.
So often Christians say,” I
wish that there was something I could do to further the cause of peace.” There
are two things that each of us can do, things which are most important and most
necessary: we can live according to the power of the gospel, and we can do our
best to communicate its power by deed of life and word of mouth to others.
Are you ashamed of the
gospel? Is the Christ of the gospel ashamed of you?
Dr. Robert W
Kirkpatrick
Presbyterian Church
Saint Albans, W Va. September 22, 1946
