Not Ashamed of the Gospel

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