THE GOSPEL OF GOD
Meditations in St. Paul’s letter to the Romans
GUARANTEED TO ALL

THE great and wonderful thing about the Gospel of God in Jesus Christ is that it is open to all and guaranteed to all who believe. God takes no pleasure in the death of anyone, and he desires all to be saved from death and hell. Jesus wept over the unbelief of Jerusalem. Because of this desire of love in God the Gospel is as it is and so making it open to all and guaranteed to all who believe. It is this openness to all and guarantee to all who believe which is the subject of this meditation and the subject of the two verses before us in the fourth chapter of Romans.

Faith is in the reach and ability of all. Because the promise of free salvation is by faith it is open to all. It is open to all because there is no condition added which hinders the promise being received. A promise may come with some condition, but if it comes with some condition, then it is bound to exclude some people who are not able to fulfil the condition. If the promise of complete forgiveness came with the condition that we must do better in the future, then it would be out of the reach of many if not of us all. However much we may want to be better, of ourselves we are unable to be better. This is the wonder of the Gospel that the promise of forgiveness and eternal life is a free gift which only requires that we believe that it is offered freely and we reach out by faith and take the gift. This is within the reach of us all, as everyone is able to receive a gift if they will.

Further the promise is guaranteed to all who believe. When we believe the promise of salvation in Christ we receive a perfect and full and complete salvation. There is nothing partial about what Christ has merited and worked for us. The promise of salvation is not simply the promise of a new start, so that our past sins are forgiven and new strength is given for us to do better in the future, but still leaving us to earn and merit our salvation in the future. If this was all that faith was about, then there would be no guarantee in it what so ever. This is the wretchedness of the catholic position. Catholic theology believes in salvation by faith, but it is the sort of faith described above. It is simply a new start. Faith continues to believe in strength and help given to make a go of a righteous life, but it is still down to us whether we can earn our salvation after the new start and with the strength given. This is why catholic theology is so uncertain about the state of the faithful dead, and pray for them, and postulate a place of further trial and purging to make the faithful worthy of heaven.

There is no guarantee in this, but there is in the faith of the Gospel of Jesus. The promise of the Gospel is a complete salvation - that is that all our sins are forgiven through Christ - sins of the future as well as sins of the past, for the Gospel speaks of Christ dying for all our sins and making a full, complete and sufficient atonement for the sins of the whole world. Because of this, the promise of the Gospel includes being reconciled with God forever, and being raised to eternal life and fellowship with God for heaven. There is nothing uncertain here for those who receive the promise of salvation through believing and receiving it by faith.

The apostle says that the promise is by faith so that it may be by grace. The only way that we fallen human beings can or could be restored to fellowship with God is by unmerited favour. The reason is that only grace removes all condition and works necessary on the part of the sinner. Grace is God’s favour to us which is totally unmerited. Unmerited favour can give, to the one receiving this grace, every blessing even to total forgiveness and eternal life in heaven. Nothing but grace is able to do this, for everything other than grace must require some condition which then would limit salvation to those who were unable to fulfil that condition.

Grace opens heaven to everyone who will believe. It does not limit salvation to one nation like the Jews. It does not limit salvation to the clever or rich or one nationality. Because the promise of God to love and forgive is by grace, it is free, and it does not matter where we live or who we are, we can receive God’s grace offered in the promise of salvation.

Because the promise is by grace we are able to fully rely on it. Grace has provided a complete a full salvation from sin, Satan, death and hell, and so grace guarantees salvation to all who believe. By faith we are receiving a complete package where nothing needed for our salvation is left out.

We now come to the heart of this guarantee which is in faith and grace. Abraham was the archetypal believer. Paul tells us in these verses that all who believe are children of Abraham. Abraham was accounted righteous before God because he believed the promise of God, and so all who believe follow in the footsteps of faithful Abraham. All believers in the promise of God of salvation are thus children of Abraham. Believers are the true Israelites. The Israel of God are not the Jewish nation, but all who have the same faith as Abraham.

In this sense Paul writes that God made Abraham the father of many nations. Note this fact. Abraham was made the father of many nations, not just one. Thus the Israel of God are all the faithful as Abraham was full of faith.

Abraham’s faith was directed towards the promise of God that he would have an heir, a son, to carry on his family line from which family line the Messiah and Saviour of the world would be born. So Abraham believed in God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.

This is a direct reference to the fact that Abraham had to wait for the fulfilment of the promise of a son until well after it was humanly possible for him and Sarah, his wife, to have children. God kept them waiting for the fulfilment of the promise to well after it was possible to believe, humanly speaking, that the promise could be fulfilled. So Abraham had to believe in a God who could give life to the dead. Abraham believed that God could give them a son although as far as having children were concerned, he was old, and his wife beyond the age by a long way when pregnancy was possible. As far as child bearing was concerned Abraham and Sarah were dead. Abraham believed and God brought life to the dead.

Also in the case of Abraham God called things that were not as though they were. God said to Abraham, after the time he could bear children, that he would have a son. It was impossible for Abraham to have a son, but God said he could and would. God called possible something that was impossible. God called things that are not as though they were.

Abraham believed in this promise. In a word Abraham placed his trust in the omnipotence of God. He placed his trust in a God who never lies. Abraham placed his trust in God to do what he promised even though humanly speaking it was an impossible thing. This is the guarantee of faith and grace. Abraham was totally unworthy of this blessing. The history of Abraham, though showing much righteousness, also showed much sin, failure and weakness. Yet because Abraham trusted in the grace of God revealed in the promise of a son, he received the promise and the eternal salvation which was at the heart of the promise.

We also believe in a God who does the impossible and gives life to the dead, and calls things that are not as though they are.

We are dead spiritually. We are born into this world dead in this way, because we inherit the sin and corruption of Adam, which is seen in the fact that we sin naturally and sin every day in some way, as far as God is concerned. We are under condemnation, but we believe in the God who raises the dead, and calls righteous that which is not righteous.

This is the wonder of the wisdom of God that he could promise this impossible thing and promise is surely and in justice. When God made his promise of salvation by grace through faith, he did not shirk the cost. Only the wisdom of God could think of a way to justly save sinners who had no way of atoning for their sin themselves. Only the infinite love of God would have carried out such a costly and painful salvation.

How did God give life to us who are dead, and calls us righteous who are hell bound sinners. God gave us life by accepting our death himself in the person of his Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. God could not promise us free forgiveness unless our sins had been dealt with, our condemnation suffered, and our death carried out. So in infinite love he made his Son, who knew no sin, to be sin for us. God laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all. Jesus was willingly obedient to the Father, and bore our sins in his body on the cross. He received the wounding our transgressions deserved and the punishment we deserved so that we could receive forgiveness and peace with God. Because Jesus satisfied the just demands of God’s law on account of our sins in our place, we receive the promise of the gift of righteousness that meets all the demands of God’s holiness, and we are raised to life.

In this way God gives us, who are dead, life, and justly calls us righteous when in reality we are sinners. As Abraham found that his faith in the promise of God was accounted to him for righteousness, so we also, as we believe in Jesus, find our faith credited to us for righteousness. The reason is that the perfect righteousness of Jesus is put to our account and we are declared by God as being without sin for Christ’s sake.

In this way we are children of Abraham because like him we are accounted righteous in God’s sight through believing the promise of God that unto us a son is given, even Jesus Christ, who gave his life that we might live.

Here is the guarantee which is for all who believe. God guarantees to all who believe in his promise in Christ, that he counts them eternally righteous in his sight for the sake of the merits of his Son which he won in his life and death. This is a sure guarantee because is offered in grace, and his based on the perfect work of Jesus for us.

Let us rest our souls in this grace, and never let Satan cause our faith to falter.