Bible Commentaries
Romans 1

Verses 1-2

Romans 1:1. Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apos­tle, set apart for the gospel of God.parThis is the only verse in which Paul has any­thing to say about himself. The moment he men­tions the Gospel of God, Paul is forgotten. (You know, it would be a wonderful thing if we who are ministering the Word of God could forget ourselves and exalt the Person of Christ and what He has done for us.)

When I begin to realize the tremendous work that Jesus Christ accomplished in order to bring you and me into a definite relationship with God, I want to say it just staggers my imagination.

Today, we have people who reject Jesus Christ as the Son of God. They reject Him as the Saviour. They say He is just a man, just a prophet, just a good teacher. But is it not an amazing thing that after 1900 years the human race has not produced another person like Him? With all our boasted knowledge and scientific investigations and all our schools and philosophies and psychology, we have never yet produced a man like Jesus.

My friend, you must come to the one conclu­sion the Bible comes to: “No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has explained him” (John 1:18). “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us . . . full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). He is the only begotten of the Father.

As we read and study this book of Romans to­gether, I want you to keep your eye on the Saviour just as this man Paul did. “Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.”

Again, I repeat it, once he mentions the Gospel of God, Paul goes off the scene. He wants you to fall in love with God’s beloved Son. And may I say that that is exactly what I, too, would like you to do.

I want every one of us just to fall really in love with our Saviour.

Friend, do you know Him?

Are you established in the Good News concern­ing His Son? Will you please read and reread the book of Romans?

Now, realizing that the first 17 verses of chapter one are introductory, let’s continue reading it— and forgive me if I repeat the first few words:

Romans 1:1. Paul, a bondservant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,

Romans 1:2. which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures.b

Here we have a three-fold statement about Paul himself regarding the relationship, the character and the dignity of his work. “Paul, a bond-servant of Jesus Christ.” This is his relation­ship to the Saviour. He recognized he was bought from the markets of sin and set free. Paul, once purchased, is also surrendered to Jesus Christ as his Master. He has no will of his own, no mind of his own, no possessions of his own, no time of his own. Everything he has belongs to Christ. Nothing is kept back.

Now, that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to use my will, my mind, my possessions or my time for myself. It means that Christ is the Master and I’m His bondslave. And may I say, the measure we are thus before God is the measure of our usefulness to God.

I personally believe it is possible for a Christian to take that place voluntarily, to surrender himself to the Son of God as a bondslave. And then I be­lieve he grows in knowledge as he continually yields various areas of his life over to the Lord.

Paul writes in chapter 12:1, “I urge you there­fore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice.” That’s an act, once for all, a giving of yourself to Him. And, after that, we progress in understanding and pro­gress in experience and progress in knowledge.

There are some people, for example, who question your salvation unless you are wholly abandoned to the will of God. My friend, I dis­agree with that. Relationship is a matter of accep­tance of Christ as Saviour. The matter of growth— the matter of giving areas of our life over to Him— comes according to our knowledge.

I have been a Christian for more than 70 years. I believe that, years ago, as far as I knew, I gave myself to the Lord. I would love to have called my­self a bondslave of Jesus Christ. But I want to say this, that, as we go along in the things of God, we learn more and more from the Scriptures of the desire God has for our lives.

Sometimes I ask God’s people, “Do you believe that Jesus Christ is absolute in all authority?”

And they answer, “Why, of course He is.”

But if we acknowledge that He is absolute in au­thority, then we must give Him absolute obedi­ence. This is what Paul means when he says he is a bond-servant. It isn’t everyone who is a bond-slave of Jesus Christ.

You say, “Well, Mr. Mitchell, I serve the Lord.”

Yes, we all try to serve the Lord. But I’m going beyond that. I want to know what place He has in your heart and your life, your will and your mind and experience.

But there’s a danger sometimes that we become so occupied with the things of Christ, our experi­ence with Christ and our service for Christ that we miss being in blessed fellowship with Him—where He is the center of our life. In fact, I would say, just in so far as you give the Lord Jesus His right­ful place in your heart, in your life and in your love, just insomuch can you be really a bondslave of His.

Now, Paul was also called an apostle. In 1 Corin­thians 9:1 he tells us, “Am I not an apostle? . . . have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” He defends his apostleship as given by a risen Christ. This is his office. Being a bondslave is his relationship. He is called to a ministry. He is God’s messenger.

You remember, our Lord said in John 17:18, “As Thou didst send Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.” What for? To be ambas­sadors. We have that in 2 Corinthians 5:20: “We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”

In 1 Corinthians 9:16-17, Paul said, “Woe is me, if I do not preach the gospel! . . . I have a steward­ship (a responsibility of the gospel) entrusted to me.” This man was an apostle. He was called to be one of God’s messengers. He was called to a minis­try.

And may I say, my Christian friends, whoever you may be, God has called you to a ministry. I didn’t say to be a preacher or even a so-called mis­sionary or evangelist. But every one of us Chris­tians has been called by God to communicate the precious good news of the Gospel to our genera­tion by our lives, by our words. If we don’t, how are people going to hear?

And, by the way, if you are witnessing for the Saviour, be sure your life matches up to what you are saying. People watch a person who is a Chris­tian to see how he is living. They’re not backward in going out of their way to try to make you fail God. I know that. The world sets traps for your feet so it can say, “You’re no better than the rest of us.” But that doesn’t change the situation. If you have really accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour, you have a job right where you live to communicate the Word of God to somebody else.

Now, there’s one more thing in the verse. Paul is not only a bondslave and an apostle, but he was separated unto the Gospel of God. This was his duty; this was his position before God. He was separated to no other message—man had no part in it. You see, all the religions in the world want you to do something, to merit something. The Gospel of God is telling people not what you can do for God, but what God has done for you.

Now, it’s true we do things for God because we love Him. But Paul has only one great message: God has done something for man.

“But, Mr. Mitchell,” you say, “you are pretty nar­row.”

That’s correct. I don’t object to being called that one little bit. Our Lord could say in Matthew 7:13-14, “The gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who en­ter by it. For the gate is small, and the way is nar­row that leads to life.” What I’m talking about is that He has separated you and me unto the Gospel of God. It’s God’s Gospel. It’s God’s Good News, a message that can’t be improved on, a message that must not be distorted, a message that manifests to men the divine provision for their acceptance of the Living God. It’s high time we believers got this message across to this age.

We have no earthly right to minister or even to live if we digress from the message God has given to us in His Word. We’re separated unto the Gospel of God. Remember, God’s Gospel is God’s provision. It is God’s method. It’s not some­thing that man has created. It’s not something that man has worked out or that he philosophizes about. Man hasn’t a thing to do with it.

My friend, you can have all the degrees that every university can put upon you, and you are not sufficient enough nor do you know enough to add one thing to God’s provision. I hope I have made myself clear.

Now, this Gospel of God is not something new.

Verses 3-4

Romans 1:3. Which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy scriptures,

Romans 1:4. Concerning His Son. . . .

You remember, our Lord said to the Jews of His day in John 5:46, “If you believed Moses (had you believed the prophets), you would believe Me; for he wrote of Me.” When He met the two disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24:25, He said to them, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!”

See, friend, God has news for man. The law of God says, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” and “The wages of sin is death.” Ephesians says we were dead in trespasses and sin, and we were children of wrath like the rest. But God has good news for man in his sin, in his shame, under the judgment and wrath of God.

So how is He going to get the good news to the people who need it? He’s not going to send an angel. He sends you. He sends me.

“But, Mr. Mitchell,” you say, “I can’t talk.”

My friend, your very life will be a revelation of what God has done for you and through you.

You say, “Well, I’m one of the most retiring peo­ple in the world.”

But even you, my friend, if you love the Saviour, can’t live unto yourself and you can’t die unto yourself. Oh, listen. Just you fall in love with the Saviour and in some way, as we study this book of Romans, let it get hold of your heart.

Oh, the marvel of it! The wonder of it—that you and I can stand in the presence of God because of the provision He has made for us through Jesus Christ.

But may I add this further word?

You do not know a truth until you are able to give it to somebody else. You may experience it; you may rejoice in it. But you do not fully know it unless you can give it to somebody else.

I am very well aware of the fact that many of you can say, “Why, Mr. Mitchell, I have known these truths all my life.”

Yes, but in many cases, you are dried up to the truth because of lack of usage. When you don’t dwell in it, it dries up in your soul. That’s a principle all through the Bible. If we do not use the truth God gives us, we lose it.

I pray that these chapters in this book will be for you times of reveling in the message—the good news from God.

Now, the second verse says this Gospel of God is in accord with Old Testament scripture. In fact, the Old Testament is the documentary defense of the Gospel. Take, for example, this book of Ro­mans in which we have the Gospel of God system­atically set forth.

There are approximately 60 references in this epistle to the Old Testament. The prophets were authoritative and authentic. They wrote as they were moved upon by the Holy Spirit because, if God is going to give us a revelation of Himself you can trust, He will make that revelation clear and real and worth our accepting it. And He will pro­tect His revelation down through the centuries so that today you and I may have the revelation of God, His purpose, His counsel, His Person and His Gospel.

John 1:14 says, “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us . . . full of grace and truth.” He­brews 2:16 says that the Lord did not give help to angels; but He gives help to the seed of Abraham, the children of faith. So, I say, in the second verse, this Gospel is not contrary to Old Testament scrip­ture but is in full accord with it.

And then, will you mark verses 3 and 4? The Gospel is not concerning some religious organiza­tion. It concerns a person who is both Man and God. It centers around Jesus Christ.

Let us read these two verses.

The Gospel of God is:

Romans 1:3. Concerning His Son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh,

Romans 1:4. Who was declared with power to be the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of ho­liness, Jesus Christ our Lord.b

Mankind was so thrilled, so full of awe when we put men on the moon, a dead planet. We brought them back to earth so they could tell us what was on the moon. They brought back rock because they found nothing alive there.

In contrast, nearly 2000 years ago, heaven sent a Man to the earth, a heavenly Man. He was made of the seed of David according to the flesh. He was a real man in the midst of men. Rather strange, is it not, that the first passage in the New Testament has the genealogy of one who is the son of David; and again in the last chapter (Revelation 22:16) He is mentioned again as the Son of David and the bright and morning star. He is a real Man who came among men.

What did that heavenly Man find here? He found the human race dead in trespasses and sin, a race under the bondage of sin, death and hell. He took His place in the human family. And that human family took Him and killed Him. And heaven took Him back. But when He went back to heaven, He went back as our Prince and our Saviour. A real Man is there in heaven, a Man who is touched with the feelings of our infirmities, a Man who was declared to be the Son of God with power, accord­ing to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.

Can I change the wording of that verse? “He was marked out from everyone else as God’s Son by the resurrection from the dead.” The resurrection is the proof of the fact that this Jesus is God’s Son. You see, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is taught from the resurrection side.

How do we know that Jesus Christ is real? How do we know that He put away our sins? How do we know He is the Saviour? How do we know He was the Son of God? We know because God raised Him from the dead. That’s a personal proof to you that this Jesus, born in David’s line, is God’s Son.

I am very, very anxious to get this one amaz­ing fact across because it is the key to the whole book. The Gospel of God concerns His Son Jesus Christ who belonged to man and who be­longed to God. He was in two realms. He was made of the seed of David according to the flesh. He is a real man who came among men, and He is a real man now in heaven at the right hand of God.

The second thing about Him is that He is from Heaven; He is the Son of God. He always was the Son of God, and He became a man. His resurrec­tion is contrary to human experience. That’s true.

That’s true. I have had the privilege of conduct­ing funeral services for hundreds and hundreds of people, but not one has been raised from the dead.

When the Lord healed the man by the pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath day, the Jews were very angry; and they accused Him of breaking the Sab­bath.

Our Lord’s answer in John 5:17-21 was, “My Fa­ther is working until now, and I Myself am work­ing.” Then “for this cause therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was call­ing God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.”

But instead of telling them, “You have made a mistake, jumping to that conclusion,” He said, “Yes, you are perfectly right. I am making Myself equal with God. For as the Father hath power to raise the dead and make them alive, that’s just what I do.” What was He claiming? To be God.

God the Son came into the world for a pur­pose—to make it clear to you that He is the Saviour of men. Your sins, my sins put Him on the cross and in the tomb. But God raised Him

from the dead and gave Him glory so that your faith and your hope might be in God.

Do you see, my friend?

This Gospel of God is not only authenticated by the Old Testament, but it declares that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God with power. He is really God manifested in the flesh, manifested fur­ther by resurrection.

The next verses say:

Verses 4-17

Verses 5-6

Romans 1:5. Through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles, for His name’s sake,

Romans 1:6. Among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ.

Paul is saying, “I received my apostleship from a risen Christ.” You remember, Peter and James and John and the other disciples walked with Him for three-and-a-half years. He called them, and they followed Him. They saw His mira­cles; they heard His words. But Paul couldn’t say that. So he said, “I received my commission from a risen Christ.” He met the Lord Jesus after the res­urrection on the road to Damascus.

“Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” He said, “Who art Thou, Lord?”

“I am Jesus whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:4-5).

Notice the words: “I am Jesus” —Jesus of Naz­areth, the Man who was crucified, the Man raised from the dead.

My friend, this is the most fundamental thing about our Christian faith. “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless” says 1 Corinthians 15:17; “you are still in your sins.” In fact, I would say boldly, justification and sanctification are guaranteed by the resurrection.

This Gospel of God, this good news of how to re­ceive eternal life, is from a risen Christ.

And it is for everybody (v. 5). It is for obedience to the faith among all nations. It is universal in its appeal. It doesn’t matter what color you are, what language you speak, what your background is, where you were born or anything about you. This Gospel of God is good news received on only one ground—the ground of faith.

Man has no part in it. All the religions of the world want you to do something to merit faith. But God did the whole business and offers us a salva­tion free without works on that one ground—it is received for the obedience of faith. When we put our trust in the One whom the Gospel declares, my friend, we pass from death to life. The salvation He purchased is ours the moment we put our trust in Him.

You know, I am just thrilled with this—that you and I can be just as separated unto the Gospel of God, the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ as the Apostle Paul or anyone else down through the cen­turies. Oh, to just so fall in love with Him that we have our minds simply saturated with the truth of it.

You and I not only have our sins forgiven, but we have been joined to a risen, glorified Saviour. This is the guarantee of life, the guarantee of re­demption. This is the guarantee of our hope, the guarantee of eternity. Our very position, our standing before God, is guaranteed by the resur­rection of Jesus Christ.

You know, just the other day I laid to rest a dear lady 88 years of age. She had left behind some lit­tle things that were written in her Bible. And it just thrilled my heart. She had a little poem that spoke of being carried to the other side and finding it “home.” You know, that’s wonderful, isn’t it?

Didn’t the Lord Jesus say in John, “I’m going home.” And when Peter said (John 13:36), “Lord, where are you going?” He said, “Where I go, you cannot follow Me now.” In other words, “I’m going home. I’m going to My Father’s house,” home— where we are loved for ourselves and not for what we do. When we get on the other side, we are going to find it Home. Instead of breathing this air today, we are going to breathe celestial air. Oh, it’s just a step across the border and the first hand we touch will be our Lord’s hand. The first one we see will be our Lord Jesus, the Son of God, who redeemed us.

Friend, do you have a Home to which to go? This is why the Gospel was given. It is for the obe­dience of faith. It is for you.

And then in verse 6, Paul says that they (the Roman believers) were called of God even as he was called. He belonged to Christ, and so did they. He had been called by a risen Lord, and so had they. And so have you.

The very fact that we have received Jesus Christ as our Saviour makes it our job to communicate to the world the work He has accomplished for us.

Paul wrote to the Corinthian church (1 Corin­thians 2:1-2), “When I came to you . . . I deter­mined to know nothing among you, except Jesus Christ (that’s His Person), and Him crucified.”

And he goes on to say that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. You see, the Gospel is a different message from any other message in the world. It brings life, satisfaction, peace, forgiveness, and hope. Think about that. It brings a person into real relationship with the eternal God. Paul’s heart pants that eve­ryone in the whole world will have the privilege of hearing this good news from God, that anybody in any nation—under any circumstance, whatever it may be—will have the right to hear and to receive this message and become a member of the family of God.

I believe the church of Christ has failed in this matter down through the centuries. We have never received this passion, this great yearn­ing of the Apostle’s heart, that our message be truly universal. We send a few out here and a few out there.

We pay a few dimes and a few dollars to send messengers out to the different parts of the world. But, oh, how miserably the church has failed in reaching the world with the Word of God. Do you realize, my friends, that paganism in the earth is increasing at a far greater rate than the Gospel of Christ?

We have been authorized by the Living God to bring the message of His Son as the only Saviour to every man and woman, boy and girl under the shining sun.

More than 2 billion people in the world today, for the most part, have never heard God’s message. My, how this ought to come with conviction to your heart and to my heart.

How we need, if we believe the coming of the Lord is near, if we believe this is the Word of God, how we need to rise up with the dignity and the character and the honor that God has bestowed upon us and give His message concerning His Son to the nations.

Then the Apostle goes on to speak of his great desire, found in verses 7 to 17.

First of all, let me take up his prayer of thanks­giving, beginning with verse 7.

Verse 7

Romans 1:7. To all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

We do not know who took the Gospel to Rome. Perhaps saints, scattered abroad after the stoning of Stephen, went to Rome. And the mo­ment they came, they began to witness. Paul had heard of a number of believers there who loved the Saviour, and he really wanted to see them. So he writes “to all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called saints.”

You know, I just kind of love this little state­ment. God loves to call His people His “beloved.” “You mean, even the weak Christians?”

Yes, even the weak Christians.

“The babes in Christ?”

Yes.

“Old-time Christians?”

Yes. It’s not limited.

Everyone who professes the name of the Lord Jesus Christ becomes the beloved of God. You be­come the definite object of the love and devotion of the living God Himself.

My friend, isn’t this wonderful that God can pick up the children of wrath, men and women who have been rebels against His law and order, people who have sinned against Him, and can redeem them and put His arms around them and call them His beloved?

This is grace, absolute grace.

Christian friend, why don’t you revel in that to­day? As you go to work, as you work around the house, take care of the children, drive the car, whatever you do, remember that you are the be­loved of God.

My, it’s marvelous that God loves to call us His beloved ones. Do you men look upon your wives as your beloved ones? Isn’t there something different there? You don’t call me your beloved. You ladies wouldn’t call me your beloved. And don’t you try it either. You would embarrass me to death. You wouldn’t think of doing that. There is no bond there. The special one in our lives is marked out as our beloved, and we manifest that love by living for them.

God says, “You are My beloved ones. You are the object, the special ones in my heart.”

And He not only calls you His beloved, but we are saints. Having been redeemed from sin, pro­nounced righteous by God and set apart for His fellowship, we are called saints, holy ones.

Now, some churches make people saints after they are dead; but the Bible doesn’t do that. Paul is writing to living people in Rome and calling them saints. He has never seen them. He doesn’t know much about them, but he knows they love the Saviour. So he writes this book to establish them in the Gospel, to let them know what God has done for them; and, in so doing, of course, he lets us know, too. He spends more time on this theme in chapters 12 through 16 where we are to walk like saints.

There is a difference between being a saint and being saintly. We are saints by calling.

For example, my name is Mitchell. I was raised in an Irish settlement where there was a lot of fighting going on, and I was one with the rest of the kids. We fought quite a bit. We kind of liked to fight. But my mother would send us out some­times and say, “Now, remember what you are. I expect you to live and to walk and act like a Mitchell.”

Every member of the family of God is a saint. But He wants us to walk saintly.

As a young believer working in the machine shops, I was talking to one of the die makers in our little shop about the testimony I had in Christ. I tried to speak to him the best I knew how, how God can come into our lives and transform us.

And when I got through, he said to me, “Now, listen to me, Jack Mitchell. No use giving that to me. I couldn’t do that in this shop. Why, a saint couldn’t work in this shop.”

“Oh?” I said. “There are some saints in this shop.”

“I’d like to see just one.”

“Well, there’s one talking to you now.”

You ought to have seen his face and heard the explosion that followed.

“You, a saint?”

Now, it’s true that just a few weeks before that, just a few weeks, at the outside just two or three months, I had been swearing and cussing along with the rest of them in the shop.

A saint in the shop? Yes.

And then he added this, “And are you going to be like that fellow outside, that Barney? Are you going to be like him?”

Barney was a toolsman who tempered the dies. He went to church in the morning with a Bible under his arm, but he had one of the filthiest tongues I have ever heard in my life. He had abso­lutely no testimony among the men.

“Are you going to be like him?”

And I said, “I trust not. I know one thing—that I have received some good news from God and I know that Jesus Christ is my Saviour and I know He calls me a saint.”

We are not saints by what we do. We are saints because He has called us into the rela­tionship. We are the beloved of God; we are His holy ones. Now, He says, “Walk like saints.” Every believer is called a saint, let me repeat; but not all believers are saintly. One is a position before God; the other is a walk before men.

No wonder 1 Peter 1:16 says, “YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.” You have the same thing in Galatians 5:16—that we should “walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.” Now all believers, from one viewpoint, are in the Spirit; but all do not walk by means of the Spirit. That’s why Paul says, “If by the Spirit you live, then by the Spirit walk.” The same principal is here in Romans 1:7.

Then Paul uses a common salutation, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” This is a precious message Paul in­cludes in all his epistles. Peace is the result of grace. Because God has made the provision, we can enjoy peace.

Now, let’s look at the next two or three verses.

Verses 8-10

Romans 1:8. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.

Is your faith known in your neighborhood? in your suburb? throughout your city? Is it known throughout the world? Is your church known for its faith toward God? for its love for the Lord Jesus and for the saints? Paul thanks God through Je­sus Christ because their faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. This was also true in the Thessalonian church.

Paul said, “I don’t need to speak for you. Every­body knows how you walk before God.” My, what a wonderful thing—to have your faith known far and wide.

Romans 1:9. For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of His Son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you.

Paul not only talks about his thanksgiving for them, but he speaks of his unceasing prayer for them. My, how diligent this man was in his prayer life. And he calls God to be his witness that what he is saying is the truth. In fact, he does this quite often. In Galatians 1:20, he writes: “Now in what I am writing to you, I assure you before God that I am not lying.” In 1 Thessalonians 2:5, he says, “For we never came with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is wit­ness.” In 2 Corinthians 1:23, he puts it: “But I call God as witness to my soul, that to spare you I came no more to Corinth.” In Philippians 1:8, he writes, “For God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ.”

Then in Romans 9:1-2, he writes, “I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart.” He is calling God to be his witness that what he is saying is the truth, his point here being to impress them that he really is praying for them.

“I have unceasing prayer, unceasing pain for you folk,” he says.

I wonder, my Christian friend, could you call God to be a witness that without ceasing you make mention of others always in your prayer? My, what a heart for God’s people this man had! He speaks in Ephesians 6:18 of praying “at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.” He was praying continually. He had upon his heart every Christian he knew and even Chris­tians he had never seen. He had just heard of them.

Sometimes in your church you might hear someone mentioned as in need of prayer— someone in Africa, China, South America, some Indian village—and you pray, maybe once or twice. But this man prayed constantly for God’s people, especially when he saw they were not walking or­derly. Now, he didn’t run to the telephone (of course, they had no telephones in that day) to tell people about the failures of others. God keep us from doing that. May we rather get down and pray for them, really pray, as Paul did. Oh, this man! How he loved the people of God!

Do you know why? Because they were the be­loved of God. We, too, are the beloved of God. And if God loves us in spite of our failures, then cer­tainly we Christians ought to love each other in spite of our failures. Instead of being hypercritical, may we love. Even though we may disagree on doctrine, we ought to love each other. And if you are going to stand for the faith, brother, do it in love. Do it in love. And God grant that you and I might be much in prayer for other believers.

Romans 1:10. Always in my prayers making request, if perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to you.

May I just say here that Romans 1:10-13 follow the Book of Acts, chapters 19 and 20, and take us right on through to Romans 15:24-29, showing how this man yearned that God’s people might be built up in the faith. His great desire was to go to Rome.

But, notice, he first of all prays for a prosper­ous journey by the will of God to come unto them. He did not act until he knew God’s will, which at this point he did not know. We may yearn for something, and God may put it upon our hearts; but circumstances hold us back from the fulfillment of that desire.

But if you wait before God and go on day by day, He will open the door in His own time as He did with Paul.

The Apostle waited, praying for God’s will; and, when God did finally allow him to go, it was a prosperous journey.

God used him even through the peril (Acts 27:1-44). He was shipwrecked en route; and that gave him the opportunity to reveal the wonderful grace of God, not only to the sailors and the soldiers but also to the islanders where he was wrecked.

Verses 11-12

Romans 1:11. For I long to see you in order that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, that you may be established;

Romans 1:12. That is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other’s faith, both yours and mine.

Here, again, he is yearning to establish them in the Gospel.

He wants them to know all about the good news from God. But one is only established through the Word of God, not experiences. Paul says it again in chapter 16:25, “Now to Him who is able to estab­lish you, according to my gospel.”

Here in chapter 1 he is saying, “When I come to you, I want to impart to you some spiritual gift. I want you to be established, and I want to be com­forted by our mutual faith.”

It is the revelation of God given to us in His Word that causes us to be established in the faith. But, as we share together what we do know about Christ, what we do know about the Word of God, as we impart to one another what Paul calls “some spiritual gift,” we not only edify one another, but we comfort each other.

You know, this is so true today. As we share to­gether the things of Christ, we are comforted with each other’s testimony and are edified as we add to each other’s knowledge of Him.

This is one of the greatest needs today among God’s people—to share with each other the blessed Saviour whom we love, irrespective of organization and irrespective of what tag we may have.

If you love the Saviour, you share together the things of Christ for fellowship, for comfort and for edification. We comfort one another through our mutual faith—in the home, around the dinner ta­ble, in the car, on the street.

Verses 13-14

Not only did he want to comfort the believers and edify them, but he wanted to reach some of the unsaved in Rome. How this man’s heart yearned to make Christ known to believers and unbelievers, to comfort and edify the one and to bring the other to the knowledge of Christ.

Now we come to Paul’s responsibility, to Paul’s obligation.

Romans 1:1-32:l4. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.

He is saying, “I owe the Gospel to everyone, everywhere.”

Sadly, the church of Jesus Christ has failed to reach each generation with the Word of God. We can’t reach the past generation. We can’t reach the future generation; but we are responsible to reach our generation—everyone we can find—with God’s message. We owe the Gospel to the campuses of our universities. We owe the Gospel to the men on the streets. We owe the Gospel to our neighborhood. God has put us where we live to reach peo­ple with the Word of God by our life as well as by our testimony.

It’s a wonderful thing to sit down beside some­body and tell him the Word of God the first time he’s ever heard. And it’s more wonderful if he re­ceives the Saviour. I love that.

But when you meet people who oppose you over and over and over and over again, the danger is that you want to go after somebody else. No, you live before them.

Remember, Christ died for them, too.

Remember, everyone to whom you witness is a prospective child of God, a prospective saint. God still yearns that men and women receive His Son.

Paul says, “I am obligated. I’m a debtor.”

He says in 1 Corinthians 9:16, “Woe is me, if I do not preach the gospel!” Preach to whom? Any­body and everybody where they are. I say again, sadly, how we have failed in this matter.

You know, if we did what we expect our mis­sionaries to do on the mission field, we would evangelize our country in a brief period of time. We expect missionaries to go out represent­ing the Saviour, winning people to Christ, building up the saints of God, keeping everlastingly at it.

How much do you do at home, in your neighborhood, in your family?

Oh, how we have failed!

How the church has failed!

Instead of our country’s being drawn closer and closer to God, it has gone in the opposite direction. Instead of our lives being spiritual, they have be­come secular. Instead of having a passion for God and for men, we have a passion for material things. God has committed to us—to you and to me—a responsibility. Verse 14 says we have an ob­ligation.

You say, “Well, Mr. Mitchell, I don’t have time for other people. I’m a busy man. I’m a busy woman.”

I’m not asking you to preach to everybody. I’m asking you to live Christ, to live like one who be­longs to the Saviour, to act and speak with your neighbors as with people you love.

God can put in your heart and in my heart His divine love. You have it in Romans 5:5, “The love of God has been poured out within our hearts.”

Try to love them. The first thing you know, you will be loving them and barriers will be broken down.

Believe me, I’m preaching to myself. I’m not talk­ing only to you.

Verse 15

Romans 1:15. Thus, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

There is an inference here that Paul is an­swering his critics who don’t think he is quali­fied to go to Rome. It’s all right for him to go to out-of-the-way places to preach the Gospel or to colonies like Philippi or Ephesus or Corinth; but to come to the great metropolis of Rome where the sinners are, where Caesar is—and the heart and pulse of the empire—why . . . .

Paul says, “That’s where I want to be, right in the very center of the empire. I’m not ashamed of the Gospel. I want to bring it to you. I want fruit among you even as among other Gentiles.” You can just see the passion of this man’s heart.

May God give you and me some of that same passion, that yearning to come to God’s people, to love them and then to pray for them, to build them up in the faith and comfort them, to encourage them and edify them so they can go out to teach and witness to others.

Notice the three “I am’s” in these verses. In Romans 1:14, he says, “I am under obligation;” and that is my stewardship—I am responsible. In Romans 1:15, he says, “I am eager” to discharge my obliga­tion. And then in Romans 1:16, he says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel;” that’s my message.

God doesn’t ask you to do what you can’t do. He doesn’t ask you to give what you don’t have. He just asks you to do your part. Paul is the master of God’s purpose, but he’s not the master of his own circumstances.

He says, “I can’t control my circumstances. I want to come to Rome. The Lord willing, I want a prosperous journey to come to you. I want to come to the great metropolis. I want some fruitage there. Everything that is in me is ready.”

Are you and I ready?

You know, when I think of this, I think of that little story in John chapter 6 where it says 5,000 people were hungry in the wilderness. A lad was there with five loaves and two fishes. That was all the Lord needed. And the startling thing to me was that the boy gave up his lunch. Believe me, that’s a miracle—for a boy to give up his lunch when he is hungry!

The Lord took that lad’s lunchjust what the boy gave Him—and He fed the whole 5,000.

God said to Moses in Exodus 4:2, “What is that in your hand?” He had a dried up old stick, a rod. That was enough for God.

What do you have in your hand? What is your part?

You know, too many of us rationalize our unbe­lief and our disobedience. We alibi that we’re too busy.

“Oh, Lord, I’ve got so much to do. I have so little time. I’m frantic. I have no time for myself.”

Yes?

“The only time I can go out is on Sunday.” Yes?

“I have no time for reading. I haven’t even time to read the Bible.”

Oh?

But you can read the newspapers and your magazines. You can do just what you want to do. Are you going to be able to say with Paul, “Thus, for my part, I am eager?”

His obligation is, “I’m a debtor.” His yielded­ness is, “I’m ready to do all I can do to discharge my debt.” God doesn’t ask you to do anything that can’t be done by you.

“Well, if I only had so-and-so’s gift—what I wouldn’t do for God.”

Oh?

“Well, if so-and-so was only saved. What a power for God he would be. But I could never reach him!” Oh?

All God asks of you is that you do your part.

Are you ready to meet your obligation of giving the good news from God to somebody else, some­one you know, someone you love, someone with whom you—especially you—are in contact?

Are you and I yielded to God enough so that He can find us usable to reach men everywhere and to be able to say, “For my part, I am ready”?

Remember that God doesn’t look for the great ones to do His work. He’s looking for bondslaves.

He could say to Moses, “What have you got in your hand?” He could say to the disciples, “What have you got to feed these people?”

Someone has well said, “God can take a worm and thresh a mountain”; and He can take us as we are. You know, I’m full of amazement at the kind of people God picks up and uses.

I know many hundreds who are ministering the Word of God in every part of the world. He takes the most unlikely ones and uses them. His ser­vants don’t have to be brilliant orators.

God’s good news is received by faith, not illumined to minds through brilliance.

The Spirit of God indwells you. You have the Son of God in whom the Father has hidden all His treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

All He wants is you. He’ll do the rest. He can take a Gideon and thrash Midian. He can take a boy with five loaves and feed a crowd. He can take the rod of Moses and bring water from a rock and split the Red Sea.

What have you got in your hand? Are you going to say with Paul, “Thus, for my part, I am eager to preach the Gospel to you that are at Rome also”?

Verse 16

Romans 1:16. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to every one who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

He says he is not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. Why? Because it is the power of God unto deliverance. Someone has called it the “dynamite of God” unto deliverance for everyone who be­lieves, whether Jew or Gentile, because it reveals the righteousness of God.

I want to say, my friends, there is more power manifested by God in the Gospel, the good news concerning His Son, than there was in the creation of the universe. In Hebrews 11:1-40, we read that “the worlds were prepared by the Word of God (the Word of His power).”

In Genesis 1:1-31, over and over it reads, “God said. . . . God said. . . . God said.” God speaks from the heavens. Now where is God displaying His power today? In creation? No, though we do see His pow­ers there. The greatest place where God today re­veals His power, the great power dynamite of God, is in the simple presentation of the Gospel of Je­sus Christ. It is the only message that meets the need of the human heart. Christ died, He was bur­ied, He was raised again.

I cannot for the life of me understand how church leaders can bring to unsaved people anything but the message of the Gospel of Christ. Let me say very bluntly and very frankly, I am opposed to any insidious ways of trying to reach hearts through psychology, through sad sto­ries, through eloquent language that leaves out the message of the Gospel of Christ. There is only one message that is the power of God to deliverance!

Paul said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel.” Let me change the wording. “I am proud of the gospel.” I am proud of it because it does its job. It takes sinners and rebels and transforms them into saints. It can take the vilest of the vile and cleanse them from sin, forgive every trespass and trans­form them into the children of God.

That’s why Paul wrote in his first epistle to the Corinthians, “And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wis­dom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trem­bling. And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstra­tion of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God” (2:1-5).

This message that reveals the grace of God will also manifest the guilt of man. “I am not ashamed,” says Paul of a message that’s full of di­vine power, that can deliver and transform if men will but put their trust in Him.

Notice what he says. This good news from God “is the power of God for salvation.” We have it again in 1 Corinthians 1:22 where Paul says, “The Jews ask for signs, and the Greeks search for wis­dom: but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to the Gentiles foolishness; but to those who are the called . . . Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.”

How can a man stand before God? He can’t stand by being a moralist. He can’t stand by being a religionist. There is only one way, and the Gospel is the answer. The Man of Sorrows of the New Tes­tament has answered the question of the man of sorrows of the Old Testament: “How can a man be just with God?” We come to the answer in Romans 3:1-31 where we find that God is just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? There is no place for it. We conclude that a man is justified by faith without works.

And Job, the Old Testament man of sorrows, had a second question, “If a man die, shall he live again?”

During my many years as a pastor, I have had the privilege and the honor of laying to rest hundreds of God’s people; and I have taken hun­dreds of children in my arms and dedicated them to God. I have married them and buried them. And the cycle goes on. Am I performing just a social service? Never. Man shall live again. The Gospel of God is the only message that guarantees deliver­ance, that rescues (and that’s what the word “sal­vation” means) us from sin, that rescues us from death and its authority and power and causes us to live forever.

There isn’t any such message except the Gospel of God.

Paul was not ashamed of it. Do you know why? He had experienced its saving power and its trans­forming power. He was so in love with the Saviour that he was ready to go even to Rome with this wonderful message of the Lord Jesus, the message that reveals God’s grace and man’s guilt.

“I am not ashamed of divine power which can deliver and transform men and women who are children of wrath into the children of God.” This is the message.

And let me give you some reasons why Paul was not ashamed.

1. The Gospel is the power of God unto deliver­ance, unto salvation, to everyone that believes.

2. It is a positive message, not one written for philosophers or the high and mighty.

3. It was written for sinnersjust for sinners. It is in the Gospel that God portrays His power. What for? It was to rescue you and me—anyone— from the bondage and penalty and guilt of sin, from the fear of death, from the powers of hell and to fit us for His presence.

Paul was not ashamed of this message, but I find some Christians who are. They are afraid of letting people know they are Christians. Maybe, sometimes, it’s a good thing they don’t speak up. Maybe their lives don’t measure up to what they claim.

Christ came to put away your sin and my sin. He died your death and my death. Why? That He might set us free. He who knew no sin became the Sin-bearer that you and I might stand before God without sin.

4. It is the only message on earth that guaran­tees eternal forgiveness.

5. It is the only message on earth that guaran­tees eternal life.

6. It is the only eternal gift with no strings at­tached.

7. It is received on only one ground—the ground of faith.

8. It has only one requirement—our trust. We are saved by faith alone.

This is what the early reformers died for. Many people were martyred for just this one thing. Ecclesiastical leaders said, “You’ve got to do more than just believe on Jesus Christ and be saved, more than just have the blood of Christ cleanse you from all sin.” But this is what Martin Luther stood for. This is what Zwingli stood for. It is sal­vation by faith alone.

This is not assenting to the facts with your mind and leaving out your will. That’s not real New Tes­tament believing.

I’ve met many people who tell me when I present the Gospel, “Why, Mr. Mitchell, I’ve believed that all my life.”

Well, you may have; that is, you believed the his­torical facts. But accepting historical facts does not make you a Christian. To believe in the Sav­iour involves your will.

Could I say something I’ve said before?

Three things are involved with believing in the Lord Jesus Christ—your mind, your will and your emotions. It takes all three. Some peo­ple have what we call “a soulish experience.” At some point, somebody preached, maybe told some stories and worked on their emotions. That doesn’t make a person a Christian. Salvation involves your mind and will, not just your emotions. Some peo­ple have their minds open and may say, “Why, I believe that.” With their mind they see the truth, but that doesn’t make them a Christian.

With my mind I see the fact that Christ died for me. The Gospel is given to us in words. God speaks to us in words. So He tells us that Jesus Christ died for sinners, died for me. Then He asks me what I will do with the One of whom the facts speak.

I say, “Lord Jesus, of my own volition I accept You as my own personal Saviour. I am putting my trust in You.” Now my will is involved; and, when my will is involved, then I accept the definite proposition. With my mind I see the truth; but with my will I accept the truth, and I am brought into a relationship.

Then, often, one’s emotions become in­volved. Some people cry. Some are very happy. No two of us have the same experience. We don’t have the same personalities. Some people cry very eas­ily. Some hardly ever cry. Some people keep their emotions under control. Others don’t.

So, if you are saved and you have had a certain experience, don’t demand that the other person have the same experience.

What I want to know about people who say they have received the Lord is, have they taken the Lord Jesus Christ as a definite proposition in their lives? Have they repented of their sins and come into a right relationship with the Saviour? Every­one who believes on the Lord Jesus experiences the power that saves. A rest and peace come to his heart.

Now, it is an amazing thing to me how many people spurn the good news. They don’t want it. So then there is nothing left except judgment and death. If I spurn the divine provision for my eter­nal welfare, what is there left but judgment?

And notice that this Gospel is for everybody. It is “to the Jew” in the first 12 chapters of the Book of Acts “and also to the Gentile.” And then, starting in chapter 13, the Christians go out to the Gentiles. I believe at the present time that God is pleading with everyone, Jew and Gentile. There is no difference. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Now, this leads me to the 17th verse, the theme and the key verse of the epistle.

Verse 17

Romans 1:17. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.”

Here the Gospel is not just a revelation of the power of God to salvation, nor is it a revelation primarily of the love of God. It is also a revelation of the righteousness of God. Now, I’m not denying the fact that the love of God is involved.

You take the first Epistle of John, for example, where you have the revelation of God to us, His children. In the first chapter, 1 John 1:5, you have the revelation that God is light. God is holy. In 1 John 2:29, and also in 1 John 3:7, God is righteous. Everything He does is absolutely right­eous. And then in 1 John 4:8; 1 John 4:16, you have the revelation that God is love. He demon­strates that love in sacrifice.

But, you see, the Gospel really is a revelation of the righteousness of God. This is the great theme of Romans; and seven times in this epistle he talks about the righteousness of God—a right­eousness that is bestowed on sinners who believe, giving them a righteousness that avails with God.

Now, remember, there is just one righteousness in God’s universe and that’s His own. Man doesn’t have any. Isaiah 64:6 informs us that our right­eousnesses are in God’s sight like a filthy garment.

You see, friend, for you and me to stand ac­cepted in the presence of God, we must not only have our sin question settled and have eternal life, but we must have His righteousness—a righteous­ness that equals the righteousness of God.

John Bunyan said, “Our righteousness is at the right hand of God where our good works can’t help and our failures can’t hurt.”

That righteousness is put to the account of every believer. Christ is our righteousness, and the Gos­pel reveals the righteousness of God.

You see, today, men have so minimized the character of God that sin is no more sin. I’m living in a permissive society. So are you. Things we would have frowned on 25 years ago are just taken for granted today.

You say, well, 25 years ago the same sins were in society, but we kind of kept them under cover. Now, that may be true; but why would we keep them under cover? Because we had some estimate of the righteousness of God.

But, today, we have lost that concept. The very essence of God’s character is His holiness, His ab­solute righteousness. But having turned our backs on that, having ignored the character of God, we have become permissive and sin is no longer sin. The more we see the character of God, the more we see how awful sin is and, by the way, the more we appreciate His grace.

I am continually amazed at the boldness and the arrogance of even so-called religious lead­ers who want our government to legalize the filthy sins, the very sins that brought the flood upon the world in Genesis, chapters 7 and 8, and the fire of God upon Sodom and Gomorrah in chapter 19. These are the very sins that caused Is­rael to go into the Babylonian captivity and that caused God to judge Israel in 70 A.D.

I am going to say very bluntly, the less you and I see the righteousness of God, the more we will look upon sin as being nothing.

I tell you, anybody who preaches permissiveness in the case of morals today doesn’t know much about the Saviour or anything at all about the very righteousness of God.

I’ve had men say to me, when I’ve presented the good news concerning Jesus Christ to them, “Well, Mitchell, I’ll take my chance with God.”

Will you? I’ll tell you frankly, if that is the case, you are going to end in eternal night, eternal death, absolute separation from God and, as Judges 1:13 says, “the black darkness” that “has been re­served forever.”

Listen, in Isaiah 6:5, Isaiah saw the Lord and he cried out, “Woe is me! . . . I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips: for my eyes have seen the King.”

Take this dear man Job. He cried out (Job 42:5-6), “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear: but now my eye sees Thee. Therefore I retract. I repent in dust and ashes.” The King James Ver­sion says, “Therefore I abhor myself.” He didn’t say, “I abhor some of the things I am doing.” He said, “I abhor myself.” How did he get that way? He saw the Lord. God is righteous.

You take dear old Peter in Luke 5:1-39. When the Lord said to him, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch,” Peter said, “We fished all night and we caught nothing. And the nets are still dirty. It’s the wrong time to fish. But, nevertheless, at your word I will let down the nets.”

And, you know, they had a tremendous catch of fish.

I would like to have been there. When I go fish­ing, which is once in a long, long time, I generally catch what Peter caught that night—nothing. I just have a good time getting out in the fresh air.

But when he saw the miraculous catch of fishes, you know what Peter did? He fell down at the feet of Jesus and said, “Depart from me; for I am a sin­ful man, O Lord.”

Was he wicked because he got a catch of fish? Of course not. He saw the Lord in His maj­esty, in His power. He saw that the One he was fol­lowing controlled nature, and he worshiped Him.

If you want to get a real picture of yourself, just look at the Lord Jesus. Do you want to know the kind of man God will accept? Just look at Him. He always did the things that pleased the Father.

He was the only one of whom God could say, “This is my Beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17).

Do you think He is pleased with you? With me?

Brother, let’s face up to it. We are sinners. And, one day, you and I will have to stand in the pres­ence of a righteous God. The Gospel of God’s good news reveals that. But if God is righteous, where is the good news? The good news is that when you and I receive the Saviour, God not only forgives us of our sins, but He pronounces us righteous. As Paul could say to the Corinthian church, “But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us . . . righteousness” (1 Corinthians 1:30).

There is only one righteousness—divine righteousness. And that same righteousness is put to our account. That’s why a Christian can come at any time into the presence of God and be acceptable. He stands in all the righteousness of Jesus Christ. It is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”

Notice, it is not from faith to works but from faith to faith. Let me get this into your heart. In John 1:17, we’re told, “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.” And it’s grace upon grace, faith to faith. The path is the path of faith. Faith is the starting point, and faith is the course we fol­low. Faith is confidence in Another as opposed to confidence in ourselves.

“The righteous will live by his faith.” What do I mean? It’s a life of continual trust. If you want a picture of that, look at Hebrews 11:1-40 where the be­liever is justified by faith and maintained by faith. Or if I were to put it this way: The righteous by faith shall live, and only those who are righteous shall live.

You know, it is an amazing thing that this statement is used only four times in the Bible. It is first of all used in the little book by the prophet Habakkuk 2:4. Then it is used here in Romans 1:17 and the emphasis in Romans is upon the righteousness of God. When you come to the book of Galatians 3:11, the emphasis is on “the righteous man shall live BY FAITH,” the righteous by faith shall live. When you come to Hebrews 10:38, “the righteous one shall LIVE by faith” or those who are righteous by faith shall—live.

Romans emphasizes the righteousness of God. Galatians emphasizes faith. And Hebrews emphasizes the question of life.

I’m saved by faith; I continue in faith. I don’t put my trust in the Saviour to be saved from sin and from death and from hell so that I can add my own works to that. Oh, no. No. No. There’s no place for man’s works in salvation. But as a Christian, my life ought to be changed; and I ought to do good works—as Ephesians 2:10 says, He has appointed us “for good works.” That’s for His people.

But those who have never received the Saviour need salvation. They need peace of heart and mind. They need eternal life. They need to be able to stand in the presence of a righteous, holy God. It is in Christ that God has vindicated His righteousness (as we shall see in chapter 3).

Now Romans 1:1-17 is the introduction to the epistle. And it would be very, very good for you to read and reread this matter of the Gospel’s being a revelation of the righteousness of God—the righteousness which has been bestowed upon sin­ners who believe. The only ones who believe are sinners. Christ didn’t die for good people. He died for the unrighteous. He died for sinners; and sin­ners, made righteous, shall live by faith. We start with faith and we continue with faith.

Paul now begins to give us the absolute un­righteousness of men—of all men, whether Jew, Gentile, moralist, religionist, you name it. He’s go­ing to reveal in chapters 1, 2 and part of 3 that there isn’t a man on the face of the earth who has righteousness and is able to stand on his own two feet before God and say, “This is what I am.”

It would be folly for Paul to speak of the right­eousness of God when men are occupied with their own righteousness; so he begins by revealing the absolute unrighteousness of man. He proves that all men, Jew and Gentile, are under sin, having no righteousness.

In other words, he asks, “Is the Gospel neces­sary? Can man do anything to please God?” And then he goes on to prove that he cannot (Romans 8:7-8; Proverbs 14:12).

Verse 18

Romans 1:18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

Gentile man is without excuse. And, if you ask the question about the heathen, well, that’s what Paul is talking about.

You notice in Romans 1:18 verse that the Gospel is not only a revelation of the righteousness of God as seen in Romans 1:17, but it is also a revelation of the wrath of God; and His wrath is just as real as His love. If a generation rejects His love, His grace, His mercy, then there is nothing else for a right­eous God to do but to judge and manifest His wrath.

Here you have the divine repulsion against sin, and God is bound to judge in righteousness. How else could He judge? That’s why in Acts 17:31 He has set apart a day “in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.” He is going to judge the world in righteousness.

He is saving sinners today on the ground of His love and on the ground of His grace which is pro­vided in righteousness.

But I read here, first, that the wrath of God is revealed against man’s ungodliness.

Now an ungodly man is one who leaves God out. He has no regard at all for God.

“Well, Mr. Mitchell, there are none like that to­day.”

My friend, you would be surprised that in your own city there are men and women who have ab­solutely no regard for God. They are ungodly. They might be moral. They might be wonderful people, but they leave God out of their lives. They go to bed at night, get up in the morning, go to work, come back from work, do a few things they want to do, and go back to bed with no thought, no room, no time for God. They live in a little world all their own, and God is outside of it. That’s the ungodly.

“Then they are atheists,” you say.

No, I’m not saying they are atheists. They just have no regard for God. They go their own way. They live their own lives. The great majority of people live just that way. Sadly, some Christians do, too.

Second, the wrath of God is revealed against the unrighteousness of men. Now this deals with their acts one to another, their actions against somebody else, or even their actions against you. It deals with wickedness of conduct. Ungodliness means God is out of their lives. Unrighteousness is their conduct.

And then the third thing about them is they hold down the truth in unrighteousness.

What do I mean? They suppress the truth. They stifle the truth. Why? Because they want to sin. It is willful opposition to revealed truth. In his wick­edness man would suppress the truth.

You know, I talk to people today; and I have been told to shut up. They are a little more blunt than that, too, by the way, with a few strong words thrown in. They would rather not hear the truth.

There are men, intellectual men in the teaching profession, who try to keep from our young people the revelation of God in His Word, the revelation of the Son of God as the Saviour. They ridicule it.

I remember hearing of a professor who said in a freshman class, “If I find those who believe, who are so-called fundamentalists, who believe in God and Jesus Christ, I try to destroy their faith in Christ. If I can’t get them the first year, then the second year I make them a butt of ridicule that anybody today with any brains would believe in Jesus Christ or the Word of God.”

I’m quoting him.

He said, “When they get to be seniors, I get a big bang out of it because some of these have become infidels.”

I don’t know how much he was exaggerating, but he was holding down the truth in unrighteousness. And do you think for one moment he is going to escape the wrath of God or the judgment of God?

My friend, God is going to judge men in right­eousness. And He has revealed Himself to man. For the 19th verse says, “Because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.”

Man doesn’t have a particle of excuse. What man out of Christ can stand before a holy, right­eous God and have any excuse?

Now, God has revealed Himself to man and in man. Heathen man, civilized man has in himself the capacity to worship and trust the Living God; and, when he does, God gives him more truth. But man has refused it and cast it out. Every man, everywhere, knows what he “ought” to do. God has given him a conscience. Man wants to live in his own little world, his own little circle; and he is the center of that circle. He wants to do what he wants to do.

May I tell you, my friend, there is only one salva­tion, one way of deliverance, and that is God’s way. God’s way is through Jesus Christ, His be­loved Son.

All men need righteousness because they have all gone out of the way. They are unprofit­able, they are unrighteous, and none do any good. And I read here in these verses that man has no excuse.

You see, there is only one righteousness in the universe; and that is God’s. And not until we see that we have no righteousness of our own, not un­til then will we accept the divine provision—the good news from God that He has put away sin and provided righteousness for everyone who will re­ceive Jesus Christ as personal Saviour.

I don’t care what part of the world you go to. Men know this. God revealed Himself to them even before Christ came.

Verses 18-32

Romans 2:1-29; Romans 3:1-20

So, in the rest of chapter 1, from Romans 1:18-32, we have the Gentile world guilty before God. And when Paul gets through with the first chapter, all the Jews will say, “Amen! That’s a real picture of the Gentile world.” It is. It still is.

I’ve had people say to me, “Why, Mr. Mitchell, don’t you think that the world has improved since the Apostle Paul’s day?”

Well, I would say we have more education. We have more knowledge. We have more gadgets. Paul never had them. But the human heart of man and his conduct haven’t changed one bit.

So the first thing in Romans 1:18-32 is the Gentile world is guilty. Allow me to break that chapter down. First of all, man is without excuse (Romans 1:18-20).

“Well, Mr. Mitchell,” you ask, “what about the heathen who have never heard?”

Well, here are some of your answers:

Verses 19-20

Romans 1:19. Because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.

Romans 1:20. For since the creation of the world His invisible attrib­utes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

Creation was man’s first Bible. Even if he knew nothing of the writing of books, he could find God through creation. Take the 19th Psalm with its first three verses, for example: “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is de­claring the work of his hands. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard.”

That is, men—heathen men, all men—down through the centuries, whether they had a Bible or not, whether they ever heard of Christ or not, are responsible to worship their Creator, the One who made them and the universe.

You take Acts chapter 14. You remember the Apostle Paul and Barnabas went down to a place called Lystra and healed a man. People thought they were Jupiter and Mercury. The priests of the town were going to offer sacrifices to them and worship them.

They said, “The gods have come down to us in the form of men.”

And you remember Paul and Barnabas tore their clothes and ran around, saying, “We are also men of the same nature as you, and . . . (God) did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:15-17). They were telling the Lystrans, “You should worship (Creator) God who sends us seedtime and harvest and crops in crea­tion.”

What did Paul talk about in Athens? Creation.

“The God who made the world and all things in it” has given to all men “life and breath and all things.” What for? That they “should seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist; as even some of your own poets have said, For we also are His off­spring” (Acts 17:24-28).

Paul said to them, “Don’t you for one moment think that the Godhead is like unto stone or wood carved by man’s device. God does not like the im­ages you make. You should worship the God who made you. See, there is no excuse.” And there is no excuse for man’s ungodliness down through the centuries.

And there is no excuse for yours. You have to deal with the Living God—the One who framed the ages and made the world and holds all things by the Word of His power.

But man is without excuse. God is going to come in flaming fire, dealing retribution to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus (2 Thessalo­nians 1:8). Why, even in the early centuries before Christ and after Christ, men like Plato and Aris­totle and Cicero all wrote about a supreme Crea­tor. They read this in creation. They saw His power and His Godhead, but what did they themselves do? They worshiped the gods; they ignored the One who made them. He was made known through creation.

Man did not sin through lack of knowledge, but in spite of that knowledge. Man had the light, but he rejected it; and, by spurning Him, man lost sin-consciousness. That means sin was not sin to him any more.

That’s the history of man, by the way, not only in the first century but also in the twenty-first.

Verses 21-23

How do you account for what goes on today in the world? Take the last two world wars we’ve had. You talk about cruelty, sadism, especially in nations that were supposedly the elite, scholastic nations of the world. They were just as cruel, just as sadistic as the wild tribes of South America or Africa. No, the more we see ourselves as sinners the more we will want Christ to be our Lord.

I sat down with some tribal people in northern Thailand after they heard the story of Jesus, and I said, “Have you ever heard that before?”

They said, “No.”

“What do you think of it?”

“Oh, it is wonderful if it is true.”

Now these women worshiped evil spirits. Why didn’t they worship the God who created them?

Paul here is talking to the pagan world when he writes Romans 1:20. And then he turns in Romans 1:21-32 and takes up the terrible sinfulness of the Gen­tiles. And, listen, we do not see here the teaching of evolution but rather of degeneration. He does not show us the progress of the knowledge of God but the progress of evil.

Romans 1:21. For even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God. . . .

They first of all knew God. Man is not evolving to the place where he is going to know God. No. Man first of all knew God. Then he didn’t glorify Him as God. In fact, afterwards, we had men who were polytheistic, who worshiped all the gods that men have created. Man first of all knew God. He knew he was responsible to God. But in the fourth chapter of Genesis, when Cain went out from the presence of God, he tried to make this world a fit place to live without God; and that has been going on ever since.

In the place where I live and the place where you live, there are thousands of people without God in their lives. They don’t want Him. It’s not that they are ignorant. It is because they know they must stand in the presence of a righteous God. And be­cause of that, they would rather not hear. They would rather not be stirred up. They would rather not be convicted of their sins. So they have no time for the Lord Jesus. They will not accept the good news concerning God’s Son.

You remember the Lord said in Mark 7:21, “Out of the heart of men proceed the evil thoughts and fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries.”

He gives you 13 of the ugly brood that come out of the heart of man. When you come to the book of Galatians 5:19-21, what do we read? “The deeds of the flesh are evident which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality. . . .” And he gives you 17 of the ugly brood, l7 of the sins that come out of the human heart —your heart, my heart and the heart of everyone born into the world.

My friend, whether you like it or not, we were born in sin. We were children of wrath like the rest, unrighteous and unholy. And either we were filled with our own self-righteousness or filled with outbroken sin. Now let’s look at the degeneration. It’s a sad picture.

Romans 1:21. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

Romans 1:22.Professing to be wise, they became fools,

Romans 1:23.And exchanged the glory of the uncorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and fourfooted beasts and crawling creatures.

Romans 1:24.Therefore God gave them over . . .

You will notice even in their sinfulness they go down instead of up. There is a negative side. They did not glorify Him as God. They became un­thankful. They became puffed up. They were god­less and thankless. Having stopped the worship of God, they lost the knowledge of God. We have these all around us today. Men still misuse the knowledge they have and become puffed up. Man becomes independent of God and, as a result, be­comes vain in his reasoningsb.

And then you have the positive side. In verses 22 and 23, professing himself to be wise, man became a fool.

The proof? He changed the glory of the incor­ruptible God into an image; and, even in his wor­ship, you have degeneration.

First of all, he worshiped God as a man, then as a bird, and as a quadruped, then as a creeping thing; and God gave him up.

What is God like? An animal?

No.

A bird?

No.

Creeping things?

No.

He is the Lord Jesus, the sinless One, the right­eous One. You see, man became a fool, turned his back on the revelation of God, refused to have God in his knowledge and entered declension and de­generation, not only in his thinking, but in his ac­tions. You take some of the gods of the Orient, In­dia, South America, Africa. They are hideous and sensual. They reveal the heart of man. They are the product of hearts that are sinful.

You see, the only true image of the invisible God is Jesus Christ. You have it in Colossians 1:15. He is “the image of the invisible God.”

If you want to know God, you must find Him in Jesus Christ.

Do you want to know God? Do you really, really want to know Him? Do you mean busi­ness?

God has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ, His Son. Rule out that revelation, my friend, and you have no revelation of the Person of God. I am say­ing that very frankly. Rule out your Bible, rule out Jesus Christ and you have absolutely no revela­tion of God.

Thank God, there is a revelation and this revela­tion is in His Son Jesus Christ.

But knowing God, they became fools in prefer­ring themselves and the work of their hands to a God who loved them and wants to manifest His mercy to them. They made gods who can neither hear nor see nor act nor do anything—chunks of stone and wood.

And, my friend, when men make idols, they con­demn themselves when they worship them. For, when I take a piece of wood and make it into something, I am greater than the thing I made. The creator is greater than the thing made. The very fact that someone made us, the human race, makes us responsible to worship Him. And if I worship anything else, I condemn myself. I have made what I worship greater than I.

But then, a sad thing took place.

Verses 21-32

Verses 24-32

Romans 1:24. Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored among them.

I’m not going to go into all the ramifications of this portion of the chapter from verses 24 to 32 except to point out that, when God gave them up,He deliberately turned them over to be dominated, to be controlled by their own lusts.

Here we have a positive act of God. He gave them over as slaves to the very thing they wanted. Sad, isn’t it? Having refused the person of God, having spurned His righteousness, His love and His grace and His mercy, they became slaves to that which they craved. They made what they served greater than they.i

God gave them over to uncleanness. Why? Be­cause they changed the glory of God into an im­age. The fruitage of their idolatry was immorality. Their bodies were defiled, and their minds were diseased. They were given up to it.

Verses 25-27

Romans 1:25. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie; and wor­shiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

Romans 1:26. For this reason God gave them over to vile degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural,

Romans 1:27. And in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire to­wards one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.parThey changed the truth of God into a lie. They refused His revelation. They persisted in their sin. The fruitage of their unbelief in the Word of God was vile passions, passions of disgrace. And in Romans 1:26-27, you have moral perversion.

Why are men morally perverse? Because they changed the truth of God into a lie. They wor­shiped and served themselves, the creature, more than the Creator. God gave them up to vile pas­sions. You just can’t play fast and loose with God.

In fact, I have been amazed of late at the arro­gance of men in writing and on radio and televi­sion and even in churches who take the Word of God and change it to suit their own philosophies. They make it mean something else.

How bad is the human heart? When you and I think of sin, we think of the outbroken sins of so­ciety—drunkenness, revelry, sexual perversion, immorality, moral corruption. Name it; you have it. But some things are even more vile than that in the presence of God.

When men take the Word of God and pull it to pieces and change it, they traffic in souls. They delight to take people who love the Saviour and try to destroy their faith. In God’s sight, that is far worse. They break down the simplicity of faith in the Saviour; they dethrone the Saviour. They throw the Word of God out as being unten­able and the fruitage is right here.

Having “exchanged the truth of God for a lie,” having “worshiped and served the creature—or man—rather than the Creator,” they were given up by God “to degrading passions.” Men are given up to the very things they want to do because of their refusal to have God in their lives.

Now go down to Romans 1:28 for the third thing to which God gave them over.

Verses 28-32

God gave them up to a reprobate mind

Romans 1:28. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper.

He mentions 23 things. And they are all around us today.

Romans 1:29. Being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, malice; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips,

Romans 1:30. slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boasters, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,

Romans 1:31. Without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful;

Romans 1:32. And, although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.

Now, here is an amazing thing. It says, “They did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer.” They preferred to be ignorant of God and the things of God and the Son of God and the salva­tion in Christ. As a result, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do despicable things.

And do you know, we have come to a place in our history as so-called civilized nations when men no longer call these “sins.” They tell us we ought to have pity on these people because they are dis­eased. They go out and do all kinds of immoral acts, perversions and murders. What are we to say? We’re supposed to excuse them because “they are sick in their mind. They have had a temporary case of insanity.”

My friends, all sin is insanity because God has made Himself known to man. In this first chapter of Romans, we have the history of man right down to this century. And don’t you tell me that man to­day lives any better sort of a life than he did three, four, five thousand years ago. The human heart hasn’t changed. Once a man rules God out of his life, there is nothing left but lawlessness.

Now, I am well aware of the fact that my genera­tion reaped the fruitage of the character of our forefathers who loved God. Our life was changed through the Gospel of Christ. Our characters were changed. We had the Word of God. We loved the Saviour. Even though a great many of our people did not accept the Gospel, their lives were affected by the character and testimony of Christians.

The reason the wrath of God is not revealed today on many countries in the world is be­cause God’s people are still there. The blessing of God keeps these nations, these continents from some of the vileness we see in other lands.

Take this picture in Romans 1:18 to the end of the chapter. God took His restraints off men and let them have their uncleanness, their vile affec­tion, their reprobate mind. Why? Because they changed the glory of God into an image, because they changed the truth of God into a lie, because they refused to have God in their knowledge.

Yet in spite of it, God is still loving people. He still loves men and women. Why do you think He is holding back the forces of wrath and of judg­ment from the world?

God doesn’t love men’s sin. He doesn’t love their corruption. He doesn’t love their self­righteous-ness. He doesn’t love their folly. He loves them! And He “is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness; but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

But the day is coming when the wrath of God is going to be revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of man.