This book began with an analysis of Romans 1:21, 22, verses which tell us why man is in the dilemma he is in. Man knew the truth and yet deliberately turned away. I spoke especially of how our generation has turned away in the last decades, and then I compared our age with Jeremiah’s in order to show what sort of message we as Christians must speak into our modern post-Christian world.
In this chapter and in the two to follow I wish to return to the analysis of Romans. I will begin by looking again at the verses, Romans 1:21, 22, to see how the Bible considers man himself—his nature and his significance.
Increasingly, modern men tend to emphasize some sort of determinism. Usually it is one of three kinds: chemical determinism (such as the Marquis de Sade put forward and as Francis Crick maintains today), psychological determinism (as emphasized by Freud and those who follow him), or environmental determinism (as taught by B. F. Skinner and his fol-lowers). In the former, man is a pawn of chemical forces. In the second, every decision that a man makes is already determined on the basis of what has occurred to him psychologically in the past (especially when he was very young). In the third, we are only a product of our environment. In all three, man is no longer responsible for what he is or does. Man is no more than a part of a cosmic machine.
The Bible’s view of man could not be more different. Romans 1:21, 22 says, “When they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their reasoning, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” The whole emphasis of these verses is that man has known the truth and deliberately turned away from it. But if that is so, then man is wonderful: he can really influence significant history. Since God has made man in His own image, man is not caught in the wheels of determinism. Rather, man is so great that he can influence history for himself and for others, for this life and the life to come.
I am convinced that one of the great weaknesses in evangelical preaching in the last years is that we have lost sight of the biblical fact that man is wonderful. We have seen the unbiblical humanism which surrounds us, and to resist this in our emphasis on man’s lostness we have tended to reduce man to a zero. Man is indeed lost, but that does not mean he is nothing. We must resist humanism, but to make man a zero is not the right way to resist it. You can emphasize that man is totally lost and still have the biblical answer that man is really great. In fact, only the biblical position produces a real and proper “humanism.” Naturalistic humanism leads to a diminishing of man and eventually to a zeroing of man. But the Christian position is that man is made in the image of God, and even though he is now a sinner, he can do those things that are tremendous—he can influence history for this life and the life to come, for himself and for others.
Consequently, man’s actions are not a piece of theater, not just a play. If you see a play one night and then you see it the next night, you know the ending is going to be the same because it is the same play. You see it the third night, and it is the same again. The actions of the characters are a piece of theater; they are not open to change. But the Bible’s emphasis is that man is responsible; his choices influence history. Even sin is not nothingness. Romans 1:21, 22 implies the greatness of man.
Perhaps a figure of speech will help. Imagine history, space-time history, as feminine, and us (all men and women) as masculine. As masculine figures, we can impregnate history. We can plant into it seeds that come to fruition in the external world. Just as a man can so impregnate that what is brought forth are legitimate children or illegitimate children, so the Bible stresses that all people are able to impregnate history with what is either good or bad.
In short, therefore, man is not a cog in a machine; he is not a piece of theater; he really can influence history. From the biblical viewpoint, man is lost, but great.
We could spend a long time on this point because, I’m convinced, it is crucial to our discussion with modern people to make plain that Christianity does not destroy the meaningfulness of a man. In fact, it is the only system which gives a final and sufficient meaning to man. Man can influence history even if often, unhappily, that influence in history is not good.
Let us notice that Romans 1:21 says something else. It tells us how men begin to slide when they know the true God. Those of us who are Christians, true Bible-believing Christians, may take it as a warning to ourselves: “When they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful.” And I am convinced that the first step in God’s people turning away from Him—even while they tenaciously and aggressively defend the orthodox position—is ceasing to be in relationship with Him with a thankful heart. Therefore, as we read this as Christians, though the central thrust is why lost man is in the position he is, it must also speak to us. Let us be careful—we who stand for the orthodox, historic Christian faith in this century—that we have a thankful heart. Otherwise it will not be many years until the orthodoxy is gone and we are faced with heterodoxy.
God through Paul puts Romans 1:21 into a very carefully reasoned setting. As a matter of fact, the first eight chapters of the book of Romans are the most systematic presentation of the Christian position in the New Testament. It is my theory that the reason the first eight chapters of Romans make a unity within the unity of the whole book of Romans is that they present Paul’s basic message into the Greek and Roman world. Romans is the only book written by Paul to a church he had not visited. When he wrote to Ephesus or Corinth, Paul could assume they already had the basic message because he had preached it to them. But when he wrote to Rome, where he had not preached, he first carefully presented the total structure of the Christian position. Then, of course, he added to it the later chapters. The Greek and Roman world is not very distant from our own world in its intellectual setting. It was a world of thinkers, a highly developed world, such as our own. And we can see here both what Paul preached and what he thought men must know if they were to understand true Christianity.
The first eight chapters are divided into a very orderly sequence. Romans 1:1-15 is the introduction, and 1:16, 17 is the theme of all the rest: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God [the dunamis of God, the root of our word dynamite] unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For in it is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, The just shall live by faith.” Here Paul sets forth the theme of the Christian message. And Romans 1:18 through 8:39 is a running, full exegesis of these two verses.
This exegesis is divided into several sections. First is the need of salvation (1:18—3:20). And, as we have seen in the chapter prior to this, there is a necessary negative before men are ready to listen to a positive. Second is justification (3:21—4:25). So far Paul is talking about how to become a Christian. In the third section he assumes his readers are believers and talks about sanctification in the Christian life, and this is, of course, related to our theme of reformation and specifically to revival (5:1—8:17). Fourth is glorification, touching on the things in the future (8:18-25). Lastly, 8:26-39 tells us that eternal life is forever. Here, then, is a very closely argued structure.
Very often those who must travel and speak a great deal have a basic message which they adapt as they move. I think this was true of Jesus. I believe Jesus gave His teaching many times over. That is one possible explanation for the slight differences in the various gospel accounts. He simply gave the same message in a slightly different way for each slightly different situation. If you had followed Paul, I think you would have heard him giving the same basic message over and over again in order that the gospel would have sufficient content. In fact, wherever there has been great preaching and great evangelizing, it has always stressed a sufficient content. People cannot be saved without it. Christianity must be communicated with sufficient content. Consequently, we find that Paul was careful to give sufficient information to those to whom he was preaching.
Now let us notice further the phrase from 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel.” In Romans 1:16 and 5:5, I think Paul is playing upon the word ashamed. In chapter 5, Paul, talking to Christians, writes, “And hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us.” Paul says that in experience after you are a Christian, you will not be ashamed. But in 1:16 he is addressing those who are not yet Christians and is saying that he—Paul the preacher, Paul the educated man— was not ashamed of the system of the gospel, the system of Truth, the content of the gospel, as he presented it to the minds of men in the educated Greek and Roman world. He was not ashamed, because it gives the answers, the answers that nothing else gives.
I’m convinced that we today will not be able to speak out with confidence unless we understand that we need not be ashamed of the gospel and the answers it gives to men. If we do not have this confidence, men will feel our defensiveness, and it will not commend the gospel to them. It is just such intellectual defensiveness in preaching the gospel in the educated world that diminishes its effect. But Paul says, “I’m not ashamed when I stand on Mars Hill, because I have answers that the Greek philosopher does not have. I am not ashamed in the rough and tumble of the marketplace, because I know that the Bible is going to give me the true answers that men need and that nothing else gives.”
Sadly enough, there is a kind of an anti-intellectualism among many Christians; spirituality is falsely pitted against intellectual comprehension as though they stood in a dichotomy. Such anti-intellectualism cuts away at the very heart of the Christian message. Of course, there is a false intellectualism which does destroy the work of the Holy Spirit. But it does not arise when men wrestle honestly with honest questions and then see that the Bible has the answers. This does not oppose true spirituality. So Paul writes, “I’m not ashamed. I’m not ashamed of the gospel because it will answer the questions of men; it is the dunamis of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”
When Paul speaks here of salvation, he is not limiting the term to becoming a Christian. The concept of salvation in Scripture is much broader than the concept of justification. Salvation is the whole process that results from the finished work of Jesus Christ as He died in space and time upon the cross. In justification, our guilt is removed by God’s forensic declaration that since a man has cast himself upon Jesus Christ and is relying on His finished work, his guilt is gone. But salvation is also sanctification (the Christian life) and glorification (that great day when the Lord Jesus Christ returns and the Christian’s body is raised). And so what Paul is saying is, “I am not ashamed of the gospel which is the power of God for the salvation of the whole man, the whole of what was affected by the Fall, and the whole of our future into eternity.”
Let us understand that true Christianity is not Platonic. Much, however, of what passes for Christianity does have the ring of Platonic thinking in it. Platonism says that the body is bad or is to be despised. The only thing that matters is the soul. But the Bible says God made the whole man, the whole man is to know salvation, and the whole man is to know the Lordship of Jesus Christ in the whole of life. The great teaching of the resurrection of the body is not just abstract doctrine; it stands as a pledge and reminder of a very important and a very hopeful fact. It says God made the whole man. God made man spirit and body, and He is interested in both. He made man with an intellect, and He is interested in the intellect. He made man with an artistic and creative sense of beauty, and He is interested in that. Body, mind, artistic sense: these things are not low; they are high. Of course, they can become wrong if they are put in the wrong perspective, but they are not wrong, nor unimportant, in themselves. Therefore, since God made the whole man and is interested in the whole man, the salvation which Paul preaches is a salvation which touches the whole man.
Salvation has something to say not only to the individual man, but also to the culture. Christianity is individual in the sense that each man must be converted, born again, one at a time. But it is not individualistic. The distinction is important. As God made man, He also made an Eve so that there could be finite, horizontal relationships between two people. And these human relationships are important to God, for “the power of God unto salvation” is also meant to give an answer to the sociological needs of man, the interplay between two people and all people. God is interested in the whole man and also in the culture which flows from people’s relationship with each other.
So when Paul is saying here that he is not ashamed of the gospel which is the power of God unto salvation, do not think it covers just a small area. It has something to say about every division that has come because of the Fall. From the Christian viewpoint, all the alienations that we find in man have come because of man’s historic, space-time fall. First of all, man is separated from God; second, he is separated from himself (thus the psychological problems of life); third, he is separated from other men (thus the sociological problems of life);fourth, he is separated from nature (thus the problems of living in the world—for example, the ecological problems). All these need healing.
No wonder Paul says, “I’m not ashamed of the gospel intellectually because it is going to have the answers that men need. I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God unto salvation in every single area; it has answers and meaning for both eternity and now.” The gospel is great. If you are an evangelical Christian, you should be convinced that biblical Christianity is not tawdry; it is not a small thing dealing with a small area of life. If you are unsaved, you should realize that Christianity is titanic. It speaks to every need of man, not by a leap in the dark, but by good and sufficient reasons. In presenting the content of Christianity Paul says there is salvation—justification, sanctification, and glorification—for the whole man.
Notice too that Paul says, “to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” One of the marks of the theology from Karl Barth onward is universalism, the notion that eventually all men are saved. In Barth this universalism was implicit; in those who follow him it was explicit. In Scripture there is no universalism of this type, but there is a universalism of another kind—the teaching that one message fulfills the need of all men. This is true biblical universalism: whether a man is a Jew or a Gentile, whether he lives in the West or the East, whether he lived in ages gone by or lives in the present, there is one message that will fulfill, or would have fulfilled, his needs: the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul speaks to both kinds of men—the Jew (the man with the Bible) and the Greek (the man without the Bible). That is, there is a universal message that is fitting for all men and for their total need.
In 1:17 we read, “For in it is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, The just shall live by faith.” He is quoting from Habakkuk 2:4. Paul is saying something more than that one becomes a Christian by faith. As a matter of fact, one must be careful to understand that phrase, for often it is presented so that it is no longer biblical. The basis of our salvation is not our faith. Faith is rather the instrument, the empty hands with which we accept the gift. We are not saved by faith in faith. The basis of our salvation is the finished work of Jesus Christ in space and time. Paul emphasizes this in the third chapter where he says we are saved upon the basis of the work of Jesus Christ. Faith is raising empty hands in accepting the gift.
But if this is true for justification, it is also true for sanctification. And so we not only become Christians by faith, but we live existentially by faith. The word existential may be confusing, but the concept is important enough to warrant some explanation. There are two basic ways to use the term existential. It may refer to existentialism, a philosophy that says there is no real, or reasonable, meaning to man. This definition is perhaps too simple, but it will do. On the other hand existential refers to moment-by-moment reality. A Christian must reject the philosophy of existentialism, but he must emphasize what is truly existential, for the Bible does not teach a static situation in which one becomes a Christian and that’s it. Rather, it teaches that time is moving, and a relationship to God is important at every given existential moment. Consequently, you do not begin the Christian life by faith and then remain static. You continue to live it by faith. Much of Paul’s teaching from Romans 5 on deals with this. The Christian, then, should be the true existentialist, moving upon the knife-edge of time, in every given moment being in relationship with God. Moment-by-moment living by faith is what is taught here.
I have tried to set the stage for the carefully reasoned presentation which Paul makes in Romans 1:18 through 2:16 as he talks to the man without the Bible. All men—lost or saved—are great in their significance. Having been made in the image of God, man is magnificent even in ruin. God made man to be responsible for his thoughts and his actions, and man fashions a significant history. This is true of both Christians and non Christians, both men with the Bible and men without the Bible.