The gospel is about relationships. Primarily, it's about our relationship to the living God through Jesus Christ. It's the story, on one hand, of how God pursued sinful enemies to show them His love, mercy, and grace through Christ. It tells how God satisfied His own eternal justice through the death of His Son so that His enemies might become His beloved children. The gospel is about experiencing reconciliation with God. This relationship remains primary.
On the other hand, the gospel is about every relationship the Christian has, whether with fellow believers or those who remain unbelieving. The gospel affects the way that we see these relationships and the way that we engage them. Because of the gospel, we desire to maintain peace with one another, serve one another, encourage one another, admonish one another, and be devoted to one another in the body of Christ. Beyond that, the gospel leaves a longing in our hearts for those that do not know Christ to meet Him. Compassion follows in the train of the gospel so that we desire to see those separated from Christ hear the good news and believe.
It's the way we relate to others through the gospel that concerns our attention in this text. Paul remains quite personal in his introduction before moving to the foundational doctrines of our justification in Christ. He expressed his thanks to God for the Roman believers for how their faith had become widely known. He acknowledged his regular prayers for the Romans and his plea with the Lord to open the way for him to visit with them so that he might impart some spiritual gift to them. He wanted to encourage them but he also explained that he wanted their encouragement as well. There was no lack of desire on his part to come to Rome. Each time he tried, something in God's providence hindered him. So, the Apostle continued praying and seeking for an opportunity to bear fruit among them.
That brings us to our text. Paul's life was about the gospel. Now, we realize that from reading his epistles and the story of his missionary journeys recorded in Acts. Yet sometime we face a-disconnect at just this point. We see Paul involved in the gospel with his whole being. But we see ourselves differently. We have jobs and school and child-rearing to attend to. Ample responsibilities cram each day so that we may think of the gospel as something that we struggle to give even a little attention to in our daily lives. But this is where we must learn from the Apostle and others. The gospel is not just for Sundays and a few scattered moments throughout the week. The gospel is for the whole of life! It's especially vital in our relationships. We must see that the weightiness of the gospel affects our disposition toward others. It changes the way we view and relate to one another. How does the gospel affect our disposition toward others? Consider how Paul expressed this in two categories—categories that belong to us as well.
I don't know anyone that likes debt except those profiting from it. It's one of those words that we would gladly erase from our vocabulary if we could. While we may recoil from the term financially, we must see it as a vital term in relationship to the gospel. That's why Paul chose such a word to grip us with regard to the gospel.
While our translation uses the word "obligation," and that is certainly appropriate for the Greek term (opheiletes), the word most often conveys "a debtor." The text literally states, "Both Greeks and barbarians, both wise and foolish, I am a debtor" or we could put it, "I am obligated." It expresses a weighty responsibility, an obligation that must be fulfilled. "I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish."
I find that "obligation" or "debtor" strikes appropriately; not because we are in debt to God for a loan on temporary grace, so that we must try to repay it in this life. Some live with that mind. They think that God has helped them out a bit so they must try to repay Him and essentially earn forgiveness by acts and deeds deemed righteous. But the Scripture makes clear that we are not saved because of deeds that we've done but according to God's mercy alone (Eph. 2:8-9; Titus 3:5-7). He's not squeezing us to get back some kind of payment for what Christ alone can do for sinners. Instead, we're obligated to grace—not for repayment or else it would not be grace. We're obligated as recipients of grace to honor God's grace by pointing others to its source. The nature of grace forbids repayment; yet those experiencing grace feel the desire to glory in it. And what better way can we do that than by recommending God's grace to others?
We are debtors also because we once were God's enemies but now, through Christ, He has adopted us as His children. Paul later expressed it, "For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!" And consequently, "The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God" (Rom. 8:15-16). In this sense, we have a debt of love for One that looked past our rebellion and consumed us with His redemptive love. We find a wonderful example of this in 2 Samuel 9. There, seated on his throne, David asked, "Is there yet anyone left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake?" You remember the unconditional love that Jonathan showed to David. They covenanted together so that Jonathan risked life and position for the friendship of love he had with David. After Jonathan's death, David sensed a debt to Jonathan. He did not seek to repay Jonathan but rather to show the same kind of covenant love to others that David had experienced from Jonathan. From that point, David took Mephibosheth into his own family so that he ate regularly at the king's table. David showed that love to Mephibosheth, Jonathan's son even as debtors to the gospel must do the same.
We also sense the weightiness of the debt of our sin paid by Christ at the cross. God did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, so that through Him, He might give us all things (Rom. 8:32). How do you respond to such price of the blood of God's Son? It creates an obligation of gratitude so that we pursue His glory in all things. Where God's glory is not esteemed we have obligation to spread the news of His glorious grace. That's what motivates us to missions and to local evangelism and to teaching the gospel to our families. We see those fellow beings made in God's image needing the release from their debt of sin. They cannot worship and honor the Creator until they know Him as Redeemer. We pity them because we stood in the same position until redemptive love delivered us. Through the gospel God gave us forgiveness, life, and eternity. That gospel constrains our hearts to likewise give the gospel to others. Freely we received, freely we give! We are debtors to this glorious gospel!
It's quite easy for us to feel a gospel debt toward our families and close friends. We want them to know Christ and forgiveness. We want them to join us in heaven for eternity. But Paul broadens this picture of indebtedness to the gospel. "I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish." The Apostle lived in a world of prejudice and class distinction. He faced it himself as a Jew living in a Gentile world learning how to use his Roman citizenship to fend off some of the discrimination that many of his fellow Jews experienced (Acts 16:35-40; 22:22-29; 25:6-12). The prejudice worked both ways. Jews looked down upon Gentiles—hence, any non-Jews—as dogs. And they weren't nice little pet dogs! In Jewish thought, they had the Torah and the Gentiles did not; therefore, the Gentiles were inferior and undisciplined as wild dogs [TDNT, III, 1101-1102]. The Romans viewed citizenship as the highest prize. Non-citizens often paid great sums to purchase citizenship with all of its rights (Acts 22:28). The whole Empire lived with the tension between citizens and non-citizens; the latter divided between freemen and slaves. Slaves made up as much as 60-percent of the Roman Empire's population. "Slaves had no rights, and the lowliest free person was infinitely more important than any slave, however gifted" [Leon Morris, Galatians: Paul's Charter of Christian Freedom, 122]. Women, for the most part, were not educated nor allowed to be involved in society. That's why the Christian message of equality in Christ shattered the stereotypes of Paul's day and continues doing the same in our own day (Gal. 3:28-29).
The Apostle identified two particular pairs where prejudice existed in his day: "both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and the foolish." The first referred to cultural distinctions since Greek culture pervaded the Roman Empire. Romans spoke Greek throughout the Empire until around the 3rd century when Latin became the lingua franca. "Barbarians" identified people as non-Greek culturally and, to a lesser degree, in language. The word arose from the way Greek-speaking people heard the way others' spoke with it sounding like bar, bar, bar; hence, barbarian. Greek culture was superior to everything else with its art, theatre, philosophy, and architecture; so those not embracing it were considered barbaric. "The wise and the foolish" point to educational prejudice. The wise could boast of their intellectual attainments while the foolish had no grasp of philosophy. "Foolish" actually means ignorant or without understanding, so in this case, the term has no moral bearing but rather intellectual attainment.
Cultural and intellectual prejudice dominated the ancient world. But we have our own share of prejudices in today's world. Our own country has struggled over the racial divide that unfortunately judges a person by their skin color. I'm thankful that we no longer have separate water fountains, restrooms, and entrances as was true when I was a young boy. But prejudice still exists, and not just among blacks and whites, but among all races. Ethnic divisions have left hundreds of thousands dead in Burundi, the Balkans, Sudan, and Asia. One people think their language superior to another, thus prejudicing themselves against someone that doesn't speak their tongue fluently. Americans tend to expect everyone to speak English; French tend to look down upon those that have not mastered their language. Economic issues divide people into the 'have's' and 'the have not's'. We see this to a degree in the United States but it is magnified in many places around the world. Class warfare is stirred by politicians and media. Others hold such pride in their education or even the source of their education that they disdain others, treating them as inferior if they do not hold the same degrees. Social prejudice shows up in school kids and on college campuses; then it's carried over into the workplace and neighborhoods.
In all of these areas—whether racially, ethnically, nationally, linguistically, economically, educationally, or socially, pride lurks at the roots. It's a sin problem for those created in the image of God. It started with the subtle gender distortions in the Garden and then exploded in Cain's struggle with Abel. Not a day goes by that we don't see evidence of prejudice and discrimination in some area. But the gospel changes the way we see others!
As Christians, we have no reason to participate in the endless discrimination toward others. We're not part of the great divides that put a wedge between races, classes, and cultures. The gospel of grace gives us wings to rise above prejudice of every kind to see others in the fallen race in need of the gospel, and to see ourselves as bearers of good news to them. That's why the Apostle could write, "I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish." I cannot and will not be part of the world's prejudice toward others. I will not disdain those who do not look like me or live where I live or have my level of education or my job status or my cultural practices or speak my language. I'm under obligation to them. I'm a debtor to the gospel of grace on behalf of the world.
Does that express your own heart-beat? It is very easy for us, even without realizing it, to participate in the manifold prejudices about us. It's not just racial—that's only one of many ways that we can look down on others or ignore others or treat them with contempt. The gospel calls us to rise above that—it gives us power to do so due to the love of Christ constraining us.
Paul says two things about himself that expresses well the Christian's disposition toward others because of the power of the gospel at work in our lives. "I am under obligation" and "I am eager to preach the gospel." The first constrains our hearts toward others; it lays on us the weight of people from every tongue, tribe, people and nation in need of the gospel. The second, characterized by an eagerness to preach the gospel, delivers the goods. It's the part that each of us plays in pointing others to the life that is found in Jesus Christ through His death and resurrection.
Paul was not the only one called to preach the gospel. He typifies the position of every believer in light of experiencing the grace of God through Christ. "So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome." How did he develop such an eagerness to proclaim the good news? That's what we have to concern ourselves with as we consider this text and how it applies to our own lives. The joy of indebtedness to the gospel welled up with urgency and desire in Paul's life to spread the good word. His joy in Christ became a fountain that flowed forth in gospel talk. We must not see the Apostle's readiness as a grim resignation of an ominous assignment that he volunteered to undertake. The gospel brought him great joy so that even when imprisoned and wronged, he still overflowed in joy. One finds it easy to talk about what brings him joy. Parents don't keep the birth of a newborn secret; they talk about the little one that has brought them such great joy. If the joy is not stirring within our hearts then it is no surprise that Christ and the gospel is not on our lips.
Paul's eagerness to preach the gospel at Rome and beyond was undergirded by the power of the gospel to transform lives. In the next breath, the Apostle confesses, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel; for it is the power of God unto salvation for all that believe." Those gospel words that speak of the great story of redemption come with power even when spoken through the weakest believer. On Wednesday nights we've been considering John Bunyan, the 17th century pastor and author of Pilgrim's Progress. Though many things contributed to his conversion, one of the most significant was that time when Bunyan was going about his work as a "tinker" mending pots and pans, when he happened upon three or four poor women talking about their relationship to Christ. They talked about their separation from Christ and how He met them in the gospel. They discussed the joy that filled them. Bunyan was stunned! The casual words of gospel discussion powerfully crushed the hardness and stubbornness of his heart so that shortly, John Bunyan trusted Jesus Christ.
Our eagerness to be part of spreading the gospel is also spurred by the conviction that Jesus died to save people "from every tongue, tribe, people, and nation" (Rev. 5:9). The universality of the gospel shouts at us from Genesis to Revelation. This gospel is the power of God unto salvation for all that believe, "to the Jew first, and also to the Greek" (Rom. 1:16). That covers the human race in first century language. Do you think about how the gospel is for Tajiks and Turks and Amazonians and Sudanese and New Englanders and Midwesterners? It's for your classmates, neighbors, employees, employers, fellow-workers, and the strangers you encounter. Think of it…the gospel can transform people from every culture, race, language, tribe, and strata of every society. It has no limitations geographically or linguistically or culturally. That's why Paul was eager to talk up the gospel among those in Rome. He knew that the gospel would do the work. It did not depend upon Paul's eloquence or wisdom or cleverness (cf. 1 Cor. 1 & 2 Cor. 4). He just needed to tell the story of redemption through Christ and the gospel would go to work. Paul had no market on this gospel effectiveness. That belongs to each of us as well.
Paul's eagerness or willingness to proclaim the gospel arose from the effects of the gospel in his own life as well as from the sense of God's calling. Immediately after his conversion, Paul began to engage in gospel discussions in Damascus. So convincing were his arguments, even though a young believer, the Jewish leaders sought to put him to death. The eagerness never abated. He spent a number of years in Arabia returning to Tarsus where Barnabas sought him after seeing the work of God in Antioch (Acts 11:25-26). Paul joined Barnabas where they taught the gospel both to the church and in the community. God raised up a strong gospel church that became the launching point for the missionary movement (Acts 13:1-3). The Holy Spirit called Paul and Barnabas out from Antioch to take the gospel into the Galatian region (modern Turkey) and eventually into Europe (Acts 13-20). They encountered people from a wide range of languages, religions, and cultures. But in each case, whether with the more primitive Lyconians in Asia Minor or the sophisticated Stoics and Epicureans in Athens, they preached the same gospel. They saw the gospel as their work.
That's where we must aim: to see the gospel as our work. But, you say, I'm busy with school work…I have my job…I have my family. Yes, of course you do, but the gospel can be your focus even in the midst of doing your normal responsibilities. Consider that the way you do your school work, your job, and your family life gives credibility to the effective power of the gospel. Does your life point to Christ? Does His life show up in your attitudes, work ethic, and demeanor? Look for opportunities to "give a reason for the hope that is within you" (1 Pet. 3:15). Be sensitive to those about you and how you might be used of the Lord to point them to Christ.
But, some object, offering excuse that they just don't have enough training to qualify for being a gospel witness. However, the great qualification is new life in Christ! If you've come to faith in Christ then you surely understand something of the gospel. Unless your mind grasped something of the problem of sin and the effective work of Christ on the cross, then you didn't have enough truth to believe. So, as a Christian, you know who Christ is and you understand what He did through His atoning death and life-giving resurrection. So talk about it; spread it around. Be a student of the gospel because your new occupation as a Christian is the gospel.
Paul considered himself a debtor to Greeks and barbarians, wise and foolish so that with readiness he desired to "preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome." Consider the two key words in that phrase, "preach" and "gospel." "Preach the gospel" is actually one word in the Greek that means to spread good news or proclaim good news. It calls to mind accuracy and clarity in passing along good news. "Preach" is appropriate as it implies proclamation of a particular body of truth with the aim of applying it to particular hearers. Yet we might also be side-tracked by that word "preach." Now, admittedly, it appeals greatly to me! But in this case I don't think it must be limited to what we think of more formally done by one called by God to preach. It includes that but it's broader. It involves gospel spreading—gospel broadcasting. It's what Peter referred to as "proclaiming the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light" (1 Pet. 2:9).
One thing we must see is that Paul wanted to preach the gospel "in Rome." He wanted to preach the gospel to the unbelieving in Rome—most fell into that category. But he also wanted to preach the gospel to the believers. That's what he does through this epistle—he proclaims the gospel to the church—to those already saved. And why is that needed? Because we are to live in the gospel each day; applying it to every area of life. So, as gospel proclaimers, you have something for everyone—whether believing or unbelieving.
The second word is "gospel." We're very precise in what we mean by that word. It centers on Jesus Christ—the Son of God who became Son of Man. It points to His obedience to the Law, fulfilling all righteousness on our behalf. It refers to the act of substitution that took place at the cross when Jesus took on our sin and bore God's wrath for us, satisfying eternal justice. It points to the grave where Jesus lay dead for three days and then to the resurrection where His powerful death was divinely ratified as He rose from the dead. It calls for sinners to turn from sin and trust in this Christ. In the gospel there is life for those dead in trespasses and sins.
We're back to relationships through the gospel. We're debtors to the gospel. Think of the grace we've been shown; think of those, once like us, separated from God. Only the gospel will profit them and lift them from the despair of sin and lostness into relationship with the living God.
Do you sense something of your own debt to the gospel? Let us think long and regularly upon the gospel and its power to transform lives. Then let us go forth with the good news wherever God may put us as bearers of the gospel.
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