"The
Clearest Gospel of All"
Paul’s book of
Romans, for many years of my life, was as intelligible as Albert
Einstein’s nuclear mathematics. I respected it highly; Romans
was simply way over my head. I knew it was part of the Bible and
therefore it must be part of the word of God, inspired by the
Holy Spirit. But Romans was for scholars, and I belonged in the
kindergarten. Couldn’t I get to heaven by staying in the gospel
of Mark? For example, my pastor had clearly told me not to try
to read the book of Revelation—“It’s sealed,” he said, “read
Mark!” For me, Revelation and Romans shared a common
unintelligible status.
Then I learned
that Martin Luther had declared Romans “the clearest gospel of
all.” I respected him, too; think again.
Then Romans 5
began to take a little shape for me in the mist, as a bit of
sunlight pierces a foggy morning. Paul was getting one of his
points across to me at last, at least beginning to:
all the evil that Adam, our first father, had
brought upon the human race was undone, reversed, corrected, by
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Man the Bible says is the
“last” or second Adam. All that the human race had lost in Adam
was now restored “in Christ.”
Could that
soul-shaking idea really be true? Or was I being naďve in my
reading Romans?
What Paul said
is clear: “The gift of God is not to be compared with that one
man’s sin [Adam’s], for the judicial action, following on the
one offence [of Adam] resulted in a verdict of condemnation [on
all men], but the act of grace following on so many misdeeds,
resulted in a verdict of acquittal. ... As the result of one
misdeed was condemnation for all people, so the result of one
righteous act is acquittal and life for all” (16, 18, REB).
I read it and
re-read it; the “all” meant “all people,” not just the ones that
Calvin said God had predestined to be saved (and others
lost)—no, as surely as “all people” had sinned so surely had
Christ the second Adam given to the same “all people” a verdict
of acquittal by virtue of His death for the world. He had died
the death of the world!
Now therefore
the life the world enjoys is the gift of His sacrifice.
If that’s true, then it’s time we start saying “Thank You” and
that implies a lot. Fear is gone; now we have a wholly new
motivation.
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