#13. Romans 1:16 - Five Reasons Not To Be Ashamed of the Evangel, Part I

 Part II: The Conduct of Humanity

For not ashamed am I of the evangel, for it is God’s power for salvation to everyone who is believing…

The evangel is… well, it’s kind of funny in the sense that it solves everything, but apart from man’s operations. It won’t progress mankind technologically or economically, it won’t build you wealth, it won’t clothe you, feed you (or… water you, I guess..?) and it clearly won’t provide permanent comfort, because life is still life and Satan’s a little prick. In physical terms, it doesn’t really solve much.

Socially speaking, “Jesus” is becoming more of a “social preference” in modern America. Yet in Paul’s day, “Jesus” was radical. The proclamation of His name had a radical impact on every town that heard it – for better, or worse (and, considering how Paul’s story ends, I stress: for worse.)

So, with nothing to gain socially or physically, Paul boldly declares at the beginning of his letter that he is not ashamed of the evangel –, in the midst of members of Rome and his ex-Judaism pals.

First: the structure. Paul uses the word “for” four different times over the next three verses, and they will serve as the basis for our structure. I will unveil this structure when we reach the final verse of the structure – verse 18. In the previous essay, we covered the first “for.”

For: not ashamed am I of the evangel

The next “for” will finally unveil to us the grand theme of Romans. This theme is central to every teaching in Romans, spinning the argument we read into motion, and is thus central to this portion of the letter.

This theme is considered in five separate points, each of which we will cover in depth over the next few articles. They are given, not just as the theme of Romans, but also explain why Paul is not ashamed of the well-message he brings. We will go over each of these points here.  

Part One – God

First, Paul states that the evangel finds its origin in God. The only one that can properly initiate and drive this evangel to its successful conclusion is Him. This is not difficult for any to grasp, irrespective of their theological position.

This evangel is so special because it is of God (Rom. 1:1,) both in quality and its Source. Unlike the evangel of the kingdom that Jesus preached, which revealed information concerning the terrestrial kingdom promised to Abraham, the evangel of God reveals information concerning – you guessed it – God Himself.

The evangel’s focus on God is highlighted both positively and contrastively. There will be many good things given to us as we study and perceive the evangel, but we should not lose sight of the fact that these good things are given to us by God. If we lose sight of His blessing, then we lose sight of a fundamental aspect of His character, which is to be brief in His anger, yet lasting in His benevolence (Ps. 30:5.) This study – not solely Paul’s letter to the Romans, but all of his documented letters – will bring us to a realization of God (Eph. 1:17.) We will be considering many different aspects of His character. Through this, we will be straightened out on many common misconceptions about Him, that we may or may not have picked up from a shoddy translation or two. Specifically, we will be learning about the following aspects of God throughout Romans:

1)    God’s indignation (Rom. 1:18)

2)    God’s judgment (Rom. 2:2-5)

3)    God’s righteousness (Rom. 3:21-26)

4)    God’s love (Rom. 5:6-10, 8:35-39)

5)    God’s will (Rom. 5:12-19)

6)    God’s spirit (Rom. 8:1-9)

7)    God’s expectation (Rom. 8:20-25)

8)    God’s authority (Rom. 9:11)

9)    God’s sovereignty (Rom. 9:16-24)

10)                  God’s goal (Rom. 11:32-36)

11)                  God’s pity (Rom. 12:1-21)

Please note that the above list is not comprehensive. This is a brief outlining of some very deep topics that we will be considering. The binding term among all of them, of course, is “God.” Understanding even some of the above topics will offer us a wealth of information concerning who God is, through His heart, His spirit, His disposition, and definitive reasons for His actions.

How does He convey all of these concepts to us, dear reader?

In Christ.

We learn who God is by heeding His representative, the righteous Christ. The Son of God is at the core of the evangel on display. You can think of it like this (I say as I make an asinine analogy): Christ is the TV, and God is the one powering it. Christ is the Image, and God is the Original. Christ shows what God powers. Speaking of which–

Part Two – God’s Power

Yes, we are about to receive all of the above listed information concerning God. His perspective, His own words. Paul summarizes all of these individual talking points in one word:

Power.

Eeeeeveryone likes power. But we are not here to analyze Mad Men, or break down The Sopranos. Powerful as the real-life equivalents to those characters are, they cannot hold a candle to a true consideration of the power of God. All of the above aspects of God are summarized, here, but since they’ve been rapidly listed for you above, it’s much more difficult to tell if you’ve slowed down and really considered: what does “God’s indignation mean??” Or, what does “God’s righteousness mean??” These are questions that may not initially sound interesting, but they are fundamental in grasping God’s perspective.

God powers everything. Scripture does not mince words with this (Acts 17:25,) and anyone who deems otherwise (Christian or not) are considered foolish from God’s perspective, as we will see in the following verses (Rom. 1:18-23.) This is because, if you believe that God exists, that He made all of the science, spiritualism, and is the driving Force behind the energy in the universe, then it would be irrational to say, “Yes, all of these mind-boggling truths about God are amazing, buuuut I want to lay claim to my own personal feelings. God didn’t think or understand or plan these, because I did, and that powerful of a God couldn’t know anything about my thoughts and feelings about Him, nor is He able to make me change without me calling Him a divine Douchenozzle!”

God’s power is untraceable. Why? Because many who don’t know where I’m going with this could read the last 4 paragraphs and go, “Man, this ‘God’ character sounds like quite a show off, if He’s talking so much about Himself and His accomplishments.”

But He’s not. He’s talking about His Son. The evangel is His power, which is a fact that He states (it is hardly wrong to state a fact, and God takes the “rip-the-band-aid-off-quickly approach.) But the evangel itself concerns Christ. This is part of the key to recognizing the heart of God. For as powerful as He is (and His perfectly-crafted, balanced universe attests to this,) the evangel concerning His Son (which, to Him, is His greatest Achievement) is portrayed from man’s perspective as weakness!

Jesus was not portrayed as a strong, big-bearded Fellow who lives in the clouds with some other gods and sometimes zaps people with lightning when they piss Him off. When He arrived, He was not met with glorious fanfare and praise, but snoring pigs and mooing cows. He was not permitted to strike down His aggressors, but instead kneel at their ridicule, remaining true to the heart of the One Who sent Him.

This One, in not retaliating against victims of spiritual warfare, displays a true power – of patience and virtue unlike any other. This One came in weakness, and was crucified out of weakness (2 Cor. 13:3.) No human could ever do this for the sake of all. Martin Luther King Jr., for example, could hope for the future, but he could not justify the past. In contrast, Christ not only can and does justify the past, but, through His suffering, He ensures an expectation for the future, discarding worrisome hope with a peaceful certainty.

Through this One, we learn of God, and His power. This evangel requires an unnatural power to effect its salvific goals. It does not begin with God telling you that He saved you, nor does it begin with you telling God that you accept some offer. The evangel itself is news of a power that has already been imposed, and is being given to you at the most powerful moment for Him to do so. It took an unnatural power to truly kill the Son of God (Is. 53:9-10.) It took an unnatural power to rouse this Son of God from among the dead (Matt. 28:9-10.) It takes an unnatural power to deliver a dying being such as ourselves into life (Rom. 6:3-11,) and it takes an unnatural power to rescue us out of these dying bodies and into new ones (Rom. 8:10-11.) Yet the contents of the evangel unfold to such a degree that this becomes the case for believers.

The power of God is not, however, exclusively found in Paul’s letters. Paul’s evangel is radical, for sure, but I want to distinguish the kind of radical we’re talking about, here. This is a radically different message imparted from God, not a radical shift in God’s character. The New Testament God is the same as the Old Testament God. The difference is found in the perspective.

This is most notably shown in Israel’s history – which is what the bulk of the Old Testament is concerned with, relatively speaking. Take their deliverance from Egypt, for example. They were shown, unnaturally, that they had God’s favor. They were gathered in the desert and were headed toward the land promised to Abraham. They had, quite literally, the strongest motivation to listen to the laws that God would unveil to them, for their kingdom that they were going to own. This gift wasn’t “heaven,” the magical place you go to when you die. It was a kingdom that they would remain alive in and rule on the earth. It was a stronger promise than that of any other god. Every other god could establish a kingdom, sure, but could only flatter its occupants with shiny materials whilst usually brutally murdering those who disobey. These gods were not killers, but murderers, for they, unlike God, did not have the authority to permanently make alive.

Yet here is Israel – the smallest of the small. The scrappiest of the scrappy. The Rocky Balboa. All logic screams that they should be utterly annihilated by these gods and their empires, one of which being “Egypt.” But they aren’t. Israel survived, and they attested that they were led through the Red Sea on dry ground, shown a visual fire to guide them by night, and a visual cloud to guide them by day, all through the wilderness. They had the best of intentions, and expected the greatest reward known to man at the time.

And they begin to shit talk God.

Seriously! Today, we would kill to have the Almighty God give us obvious physical signs that He is guiding us, but alas, we are only able to infer at present. Israel, however, did have the obvious physical signs that He was guiding them, so they had no excuse for their progressively rotten demeanor. Watch this beautiful progression. First, read Ex. 14:30-15:2–

Yahweh saved Israel on that day from the hand of Egypt. Then Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the shore of the sea; and Israel discerned the great hand with which Yahweh had done this to Egypt. So the people feared Yahweh and believed in Yahweh and in Moses, His servant.

Then Moses and the sons of Israel sang this song to Yahweh and spoke, saying:

Let me sing to Yahweh, for He is august, yea august! The horse and its rider He heaved into the sea. Yah is my Strength and my Melody, and He became mine for salvation. This is my El; I shall adorn Him, Elohim of my father, I shall exalt Him.

Aw, look how beautifully wholesome this all is! This song binds Exodus 15, praising Yahweh for His beautiful accomplishment.

Boy, I wonder what happens next! Three days after that song, in 15:22-24–

Now Moses caused Israel to journey from the Sea of Weeds. So they… went three days into the wilderness, but they found no waters. When they came to Marah, they were unable to drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter… Then the people grumbled against Moses, saying: What shall we drink?

Now, don’t worry. Moses gets them water. A lot of it, actually. God uses this moment to show them, visually, that He is their Source; He is the One that provides drink, not Moses.

Anyway, here’s 16:1-3–

They journeyed form Elim, and the whole congregation of the sons of Israel entered into the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their going forth from the land of Egypt.

Then the whole congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and against Aaron in the wilderness; and the sons of Israel said to them: O that we had died by the hand of Yahweh in the land of Egypt, when we sat over the flesh pots when we ate bread to satisfaction, for you have brought us forth to this wilderness to put this entire assembly to death with famine.

So now they’re hungry. And, instead of believing in the God that could literally part an ocean, the majority get mad and throw a hissy fit instead of just praying for food to their God.

Notice, however, that their gripe is a little more spiteful, now. It’s so hurtful, in fact, that God documented this interaction, to keep a receipt of these early growing pains in His relationship with Israel. Here, His accomplishment (rescuing them from the hands of a brutal captor,) is undermined and even invalidated.

Once again, God brings them food. They didn’t completely follow His instructions about the food, at their own expense (Ex. 16:19-20,) but they had food. Still, they get so mad at times during their journey to Mt. Sinai that they get ready to stone Moses (Ex. 17:4!)

This increasingly toxic relationship reaches its climax when Moses takes a long, 40 day vacation on the top of Mt. Sinai. Israel, frustrated that only he gets to speak with Yahweh, grow cold. In defiance and anger (in spite of their provisions, becoming impatient,) the assembly went mad, instead worshipping idols. Observe the heart-breaking Exodus 32:1-6–

The people saw that Moses was tardy to descend from the mountain. So the people assembled themselves against Aaron and said to him: Rise! Make for us elohim who shall go before us, for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we know not what has become of him.

Then Aaron said to them: Tear off the pendants of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons and your daughters, and bring them to me. So all the people tore off the pendants of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron.

He took the gold from their hands and formed it with a graving tool, and made of it a molten calf.

And they said: these are your elohim, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.

When Aaron discerned this, he built an altar before it. Then Aaron called out and said: A festival to Yahweh tomorrow! So they rose early on the morrow an brought up ascent offerings, and brought close peace offerings. And the people sat to eat and drink, and they rose to make fun.

How brutally painful. This is betrayal, plain and simple – of the highest order, at that. Here, God’s achievement is both invalidated, and attributed to another god. They take all of the trust that God had clearly established, and wreck it. We see, in the very beginning of Israel’s history, that under the most convenient conditions, they still ended up proceeding in irreverence and unrighteousness, simply because the blessing did not occur on their time.

All of us are like this.

Not a single one of us would enjoy being in the desert. Even now, as I write this, I myself can’t help but sympathize with the majority who wandered in the wilderness. I mean, sure, there’s a promise made to their forefather, but how on earth are they supposed to grasp that this will happen? I’m sure their friends and family were dying around them; what were they to think, when Yahweh had not told them anything? They probably thought that God wasn’t moving fast enough, and that the very things they were expecting would not be fulfilled in those that had passed away. These Israelites had no ‘Christ’ to look at and go, “Oh! So this God makes alive as well, and that’s how this kingdom will come about!” They had to hope that God would do this with 0 frame of reference. They had to look at miles of desert around them, and realize that God would fulfill His promise. And instead? God doesn’t speak a word concerning the curse of death, and instead led them to a mountain, separated them from their guide, and told them to sit there before inflicting a bunch of laws on them for righteousness. To them, with zero context, this wasn’t love. They probably felt challenged, like they weren’t truly free from slavery at all, but just transferred from one lord to another.

Yet we sympathize with God in the Exodus account as well. For, yes, He has the authority and power to reveal Himself at any moment, yet He has already shown over the course of human history that this will not change this flesh’s disposition toward Him. When someone says, “If God is here, show me!” It is a blind cry that refuses to acknowledge that He has shown Himself, and He has documented His experience, called “Exodus.”

When our perspective is shifted – when, instead of grasping man’s point of view, we consider God’s point of view, we see a God that truly is hounded by beings that don’t understand Him, that hardly listen to the explanations He provides, having assumptions made about His character at all times, insults thrown His way, and, ultimately, is discredited for saving them from the hands of Egypt (Ex. 32:3-4.) How would He feel? When people mock and invalidate your achievements, are you not offended? If someone sang you a song in genuine thanks, and then marred that song by publicly discrediting you for the thing they thanked you for, then wouldn’t you just be revolted?

That’s what I thought. God thought so, too. We sympathize with this God, this God that has presented His love, but enacts the experience of evil, that we may be humbled through it. He is not your manager. He is not your deadbeat father. He is not your manipulative ex-girlfriend or your nasty coworker. He’s not your corporate overlord, or your governmental power. He is the only Authority figure that proves, through Israel’s history, that His love is unconditional.

We do not grasp this immediately. We do not immediately see this because of the pain in our lives, either individually or collectively. We have seen our lifespans decrease, drugs kill us faster, food and water get poisoned, families get torn apart, and either watched or experienced cancel culture (and regular culture) ruin lives. We initially see what the Israelites saw; a powerful God that, like the rest, will strike you down if you misbehave.

Yet here, we read of a true Message – one that transforms the weakness into a strength. One that shifts the perspective gratuitously, to snap you out of it. The weakness of Christ is the strength of God. God’s humility is displayed while He is discredited by a group of people that have already set out on demanding things in anger and disposing and mocking when they don’t get their way.

This is a message of Grace. This graceful message highlights what God is doing, as opposed to what man says that He is doing, or how man reacts to what He is doing. The message here is a present from God (Eph. 2:8-9.) It is the silver bullet answer that brings a permanent peace with a permanent life. This is a powerful message – an authoritative, legalistic power – that is imparted on His terms. He is the only One capable to wield this kind of power. As we study the evangel, we will grasp God’s perspective, and this means grasping the magnitude of His ability.

- GerudoKing