Remorseless truth-speaking

The gospel … is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes (Romans 1:16b).

Read Romans 1:16–27

Listen with me to the beginning of Paul’s teaching in Romans. Ask yourself: Is Paul writing 2,000 years ago or today?

Paul writes: God reveals something of God’s self in creation. All humans instinctively know it – we can see it all around us! The wonder of the cosmos, the intricacies of an insect, the astonishing variety of plants … all this shouts of God’s effusive creativity, his delight in beauty, diversity and order, and his awesome power.

However, we humans no longer praise God or thank him for his power and presence in creation. In fact, we have even refused to acknowledge God – we have become godless. Instead, we idolise things, worshipping creatures rather than the Creator. Paul was thinking of his world: Rome’s pagan temples filled with idols, a culture that normalised debauched sexuality.

He could also be writing about our time. As we humans fell in love with ourselves and our own bodies, our sexual practices followed. We become what we worship. When we ceased to worship Creator God, we were left only with ourselves and the created world. And both are corrupted and dying. So God allows humanity to spiral down into deepening degradation.

These opening chapters of Romans are some of the most challenging in the entire New Testament. Paul unapologetically holds up a mirror to the people of his time – Gentile and Jew – and shows them their lost degradation. He tears away the fig leaves of self-righteousness to show that humanity has nothing to solve its sinfulness.

Paul is speaking to our time, too. He uncompromisingly applies the law – and it beats down upon us and makes every reader of these chapters squirm. People today find Paul’s remorseless truth-speaking profoundly challenging, confronting and even offensive! We do not like being presented with our own ugliness.

But to truly understand the profound love and goodness of God and what Jesus did for us all, we must look honestly at our own godlessness. Otherwise, God’s grace becomes meaningless. These verses would be terrible, but for the golden hope that Paul holds out at the start of this letter, the good news of Jesus Christ that is the power of God for salvation to all who believe – Jew and Gentile, 1st- and 21st-century people. God gives us his righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ. He solves our hopeless state!

Paul’s gospel – God’s gospel – changes everything!

Gracious God, thank you for your mercy on all of us humans. Thank you for Jesus, our Saviour. Without him, we are lost in our own spiral of sin. Give us eyes to see clearly and hearts open to your transforming work. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Pauline lives in sight of the ranges in the beautiful Manawatu region of New Zealand with her husband, Roger, and two cats. She leads a small Bible College there and offers spiritual direction and supervision to people from a wide range of backgrounds and denominations.