A New Life From the Power of the Gospel

Romans 1:6b, 7, 16—17

What changes a life? What power can transform a sinner into a saint? Is it the power of prayer? Is it the influence of Christian friends? Is it the fellowship of the saints? All of these things are important factors in the live of every believer. But the to change a life comes from the inherent power of the Gospel. No other book of the Bible puts forth idea in a more forceful way than Paul’s letter to the Romans. The 16 chapters that make up this letter have a unique place in the history of the Church. Godet, the Swiss Bible scholar, has observed that the teaching contained in Romans are at the root of every single revival in Church history. He wrote—

The Reformation was certainly the work of the epistle to the Romans and that to the Galatians, and it is probable that every great spiritual renovation in the Church will always be linked, both in cause and in effect, to a deeper knowledge of this book.

Martin Luther’s life was radically transformed by Romans, especially the verse: The just shall live by faith. Luther the Reformer would eventually pen these words—

Romans is the truth mouthpiece of the New Testament and the very purest gospel, which is well worth and deserving that a Christian man should not only learn it by heart, word for word, but also that he should daily deal with it as the daily bread of men’s souls. It can never be too much or too well read or studied, and the more it is handled the more precious it becomes and the better it tastes.

It was in prison that a Bedford tinker laid hold of the great truths set forth in Romans and John Bunyan’s life would be forever changed.

It is the power of the Word of God that changes lives; it is the power of the Gospel.

1. God does the calling, verse 6b

How do we come to belong to Christ? Many of us are prone to refer to our choice in becoming a Christian; we refer to our “decision.” But the New Testament does not refer to people making a decision for Christ. No, the New Testament, rather, refers to God’s decision to call people. That’s why Paul addresses the Romans as “those who are called.” The Greek word is kletoi, meaning “the called.” That is how believers are referred to: the called ones. This is an all-important word for it indicates that it is God who has taken the initiative in man’s salvation; His was the first movement, meaning salvation is a work of grace, Ephesians 2:8—9.

It should be noted that the “call” of God goes out to all men, but the kletoi are the ones who actually responded to the call, Matthew 22:14.

The believers living in Rome in Paul’s day, and believers today, have been the objects of God’s call. They have heard and have believed the message of the Gospel. They have passed from the threat of death into the promise of eternal life. They have been removed from the fear of the curse and placed in the sphere of God’s blessings. They are now children of God, and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. The kletoi have become this and received all this immediately and simultaneously the moment the life of God is given them. At the exact moment, we are made complete in Christ.

2. God does the loving, verse 7a

The kletoi are not only the objects of God’s call, but also the objects of His great love. The Greek phrase, agapetois theou, refers to God’s own love, His agape love, which was revealed in the Cross where Christ died for us “while we were yet sinners” (5:8), while we were His enemies (5:10). This agape love has been poured into the hearts of believers by the Holy Spirit, 5:5. Because we are the objects of His love and filled with His love, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ, 8:35—39.

3. God gives a new position, verse 7b

Most English translations insert the phrase “to be” to make the sentence read: “called to be saints.” But that’s not what Paul wrote. We are not called “to be” saints, we are “called saints.” The “to be” is added by translators to fill out the sense, but serve to obscure the real meaning of what Paul wrote. Just as we are called of Jesus Christ, and beloved of God, so we are called saints. The Greek is very graphic: kletois hagiois, or “the called saints.” As Godet noted, there is a vast difference between “called to be a saint” and “called a saint.” Believers are called saints, indicating that God has made us to be saints; it represents a change in our positions wrought by God Himself on our behalf.

A “saint” is not somebody who acts saintly. A saint is simply another name for the redeemed. The old name was sinners, the new name is saints, and as Barnhouse astutely wrote:

The difference between the sinner and the saint is the Savior.

It is God who took an unregenerate sinner and made him a saint at the moment of his conversion. We cannot make ourselves saints, nor can we make a person into a saint. The Word of God teaches that it is God who stoops to us, and reckons our sins born by Jesus Christ, the sacrificial Lamb of God, away from us. It is God who puts His righteousness in us and reckons us holy because of what He did. Therefore, we are called saints.

4. God’s work accomplished by His Gospel, verse 16

Paul tells his Roman friends that he is eager to visit them and preach the Gospel to them (verse 15). And why wouldn’t he be? He recognized that his words were of limited influence, but that it was the Gospel—the message of salvation and the grace of God—that had the ability to transform a life.

Barth points out that Paul is not saying the Gospel has such power, but that it is the power of God. When the Gospel is preached in the Holy Spirit, God’s unique, incomparable, omnipotent power is at work. The Greek Paul used for “power” is dynamis, which indicates an explosive kind of power, like that of dynamite. He could have used the more common word energeia, but his choice of dynamis puts the stress on the source not the process. In other words, God is the source of salvation, but He saves through the message of the Gospel.

The Gospel is “the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.” The word for “salvation” is soterian, which properly means deliverance in both a negative and a positive direction. Negatively, we are delivered, or rescued, from the Wrath of God poured out upon a sinful, rebellious world and delivered, in a positive sense, to eternal life in Christ. When man possess these two things: having been rescued and delivered, he is considered by God to be healthy, because soteria, “salvation” and “delivered” comes from the root sos, meaning “safe and sound.”