We have already seen, in the first paragraph of Romans, that Paul is concerned that his readers fully understand the Gospel of God. There are three important facts about that Gospel that especially concern Paul.
Fact #1: the contents of this gospel message was concerning God’s Son, Jesus, who though born of human decent through the genealogy of David, was indeed declared the Son of God as a result of the Holy Spirit’s powerful work of raising him from the dead.
Fact #2: the above details about Jesus were promised long ago (by God) beforehand through the prophets who wrote them down in the holy Scriptures.
Fact #3: in remembrance of his Damascus road experience, Paul has been given divine authority by the resurrected Jesus himself as his servant and apostle and the one He sent among the nations/Gentiles to preach this gospel to them in order to bring them to faith and obedience causing God’s name to become famous throughout the world.
Those three facts are what Paul wanted his readers to know about him in order to validate the details of his gospel that he wants to preach to them. He wanted to shore up his battered reputation and reestablish the truth of the gospel. What we have already seen is that Paul has already set out in the first two paragraphs of his letter (1:1-7 & 1:8-15), to clarify those three facts and to explain how eager he is to visit them in person and to preach the gospel to them.
Then abruptly, in the third paragraph (1:16-17), Paul talks about being unashamed of the gospel. If one did not make a concerted effort to connect these two verses with the previous content, then one would be hard pressed to make sense as to why Paul so abruptly talks about shame.
Does Paul and his primary readers have some specific background history between them that allows them to make sense of Romans 1:16, but we, current readers today, are not aware of, and causes us to be confused with 1:16? Maybe so, but before we look elsewhere, the grammar provides one answer to the question.
The key, in my opinion, comes in understanding the connecting-word at the beginning of verse 16, “for.” The word “for”, occurring at the beginning of a sentence is a grammatical connector-word indicating a result-reason relationship between two connecting sentences. So, in this case, verses 15 and 16 should be read together. The “for” in verse 16 is the reason for what Paul says in verse 15. And vice-versa, verse 15 is the result of what Paul said in verse 16.
“For…I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
Paul, IN NO WAY, (very emphatic in the original language) is ashamed of the gospel, and the result of him being unashamed is his eagerness to go to Rome and preach the gospel to the Gentiles. Conversely, the reason Paul was eager to preach the gospel was because he was unashamed of the gospel.
Paul’s emphatic negation here begs the question, “Why is he so emphatic?” Especially about something which, up to this point, we’ve heard nothing about? What’s going on that drives Paul to contrast his eagerness to preach the gospel with him not being ashamed of the gospel? We know Paul is not ashamed of the gospel and as a result he is eager to preach. But why is he unashamed of the gospel? We can answer that with another "for."
Notice the second "for" in the middle of this sentence (verse 16)?
“For…I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
The first "for," at the beginning of the sentence in verse 16, is a connector-word indicating a result-reason relationship between two connecting sentences (15-16.) This second "for," in the middle of the sentence, is a connector-word indicating a result-reason relationship between two connecting clauses. The reason Paul is unashamed of the gospel is because he knows that "it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek." Paul is confident in the scope of the gospel's power, powerful enough to save both Jews and Gentiles, the Jews first and then the Gentiles through their faith, the scope which becomes Paul’s topic throughout his entire letter to the Romans.
Even more specific to Paul's point throughout Romans is the third "for" used in these two verses.
“For…I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
At the beginning of verse 17, we see yet another "for." This "for" is another sentence connector-word indicating a result-reason relationship between the two connecting sentences (16-17.) The reason the gospel is powerful is because within the gospel message "the righteousness of God is revealed from the time before the faith of Abraham to the time of faith in Jesus." The power element of the gospel is “the righteousness of God,” the mystery which existed before time began, kept hidden for generations, but made known through the prophets and now preached by Paul to all nations (1:1, 16:25-26).
So, to reconstruct the idea of verses 16-17... Paul is unashamed of the gospel because the gospel possesses great power. That great power resides in the fact that God, from the beginning of time, intended to save people through righteousness by faith. Beginning with the Jews and then to the Gentiles, it has always been God's plan to provide salvific righteousness by faith.
That is the gospel, salvific righteousness by faith, the message that so motivates Paul to be so eager to go to Rome and the reason for which he, IN NO WAY, was ashamed to preach.
Paul was unashamed to preach the gospel because he knew it has always been God's plan to provide "Salvific Righteousness" to everyone who believes.
In my next blog we will continue in Romans 1:16-17 to look at another possible reason why Paul may be “In No Way Ashamed.”
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