Preaching Like an Apostle (Romans 1:5–6)
Why preach? Romans 1:5–6 shows preaching is Christ's gift to the world — calling all nations to the obedience of faith, for the glory of his name.
Introduction
It’s hard for me to pinpoint when I first “preached.” After I was converted, I was asked to teach my large youth group. I preached in Mexico while on a Spring Break missions trip in college. I taught youth group weekly. I gave my testimony and invited people to follow Jesus while playing hoops in Europe. I exhorted as a seminary student. We started OURC before I was ordained. But then I officially was called, ordained with the laying on of hands, and sent. I don’t even remember the first sermon after ordination as it was just the next passage in the Gospel of John we were going through as we began OURC.
Through the years, I’ve listened to sermons in-person, on old school tapes, and now online because I want to learn how to do this thing. While some of us wish we could “walk like an Egyptian” on the dance floor, I want to preach like an apostle!
Theme
We turn again to Paul’s letter to the ancient Christians in Rome. In verses 5–6 Paul proclaims something of what it meant to preach God’s gospel message of his Son as an apostle.
I need to take this to heart; you need to take this to heart.
The Gift of Preaching
First and foremost, Paul recognizes that preaching is a gift of the resurrected Jesus: through whom we have received grace and apostleship or “gracious apostleship.” (See Calvin, 17; Schreiner, 33)
Children: what’s a gift? Something you give someone. Why do you give a gift? Out of grace or generosity. How many gifts has God in Christ given you, beloved? “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?” Why? Our iniquities are innumerable! “But with you there is forgiveness” (Ps. 130:3–4a). Praise God! “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing…according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us” (Eph. 1:3, 7, 8).
One of those gifts is preaching: “he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers” (Eph. 4:11).
Where does this gift come from? Through whom is “Jesus Christ our Lord” (v. 4). He “descended from David according to the flesh” (v. 3), meaning, his state of humiliation from conception to crucifixion. He’s also the one “declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness [Holy Spirit] by his resurrection from the dead” (v. 4). This is his state of exaltation from resurrection onward. As Son, he’s eternally in relation to the Father. But as the incarnate Son, the God-man, he was declared or appointed to a status he didn’t have before. Jesus prayed in John 17, “glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed” (John 17:5). He had eternal glory as the eternal Son, yet, as the incarnate Son, he humbled himself first and then re-entered that glory at the resurrection as the God-man and mediator for your soul!
Paul expresses the double grace he’s received: through Christ we, meaning “I,” have received grace and apostleship. He marvels that the Messiah he persecuted in Jerusalem and planned to in Damascus, bestowed on him saving grace! You’ve received the same grace! For Paul, there’s more: and apostleship. Hebrews tells us that Jesus is the “apostle…of our confession” (Heb. 3:1). God sent him as an ambassador of God’s good news. Paul says he of all people shares in that! As Charles Spurgeon said, “Jesus Christ does not save the worthy, but the unworthy.” (The Complete Works of C. H. Spurgeon: Volume 82, 385)
Paul attributes God’s grace to his appointment as an apostle. God “set me apart before I was born, and…called me by his grace” (Gal. 1:15); “Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power” (Eph. 3:7).
The first thing Paul proclaims…of what it meant to preach God’s gospel message of his Son as an apostle was that preaching is a gift.
The Audience of Preaching
Paul also expresses that the audience of preaching is the world. Through Christ we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith…among all the nations (v. 5). That’s a big audience! Maybe it’s just me, but whenever I fly and look down just on Southern California, and see how vast it is and how many people there are, I get overwhelmed: “Lord, how are we going to reach all these people?” Then again, if I can look down and see how small everything seems to be, think of God’s power!
The nations (τοῖς ἔθνεσιν) are the Gentiles, non-Jews. Jesus commanded his apostles “make disciples of all nations (ἔθνη).” How? “Go[ing]…baptizing… teaching” (Matt. 28:19, 20).
What’s the big deal? Genesis describes post-Fall humanity like this: “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). In response, he sent a Flood. Generations later, humanity did it all over again: “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth” (Gen. 11:4). In response, he confused their languages. Paul told the Lystrans, “In past generations he allowed all the nations (ἔθνη) to walk in their own ways” (Acts 14:16). Therefore, the Lord chose a man, Abram, and from one man said, “I will make of you a great nation” (Gen. 12:2). In and from Abram, the Lord said, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3).
From that point on, God was slowly building something in a little corner of the world. Every once in a while, we read of a Gentile who follows the God of Israel; but they’re the exception, not the rule. As the Psalmist says, “He declares his word to Jacob, his statutes and rules to Israel. He has not dealt thus with any other nation; they do not know his rules” (147:19–20). Thus the nations are “dead in…trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1) and ironically living in what he calls “the course of this world” (Eph. 2:2). Therefore, they were “separated from Messiah, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12).
What does this mean? God fulfills the Abrahamic promise to bless the nations by calling the nations into fellowship with Christ through preaching! Preaching addresses all the nations (v. 5), and, as verse 6 says, called the believers in Rome to belong to Jesus Christ (v. 6).
The gospel Paul offered to the Romans is the gospel I offer you today in Jesus’ name. It does not matter where you are from. It does not matter the color of your skin. It does not matter how rich or poor you are. It does not matter what you have done or have not done. God speaks to you today and says, “Trust in Jesus and when you do, I will regard you as obedient to me.” Our faith is our obedience to the gospel. (Calvin, Commentary, 18; Hodge, Romans, 21–22)
The second thing Paul proclaims…of what it meant to preach God’s gospel message of his Son as an apostle was that the audience of preaching was the world. As George Whitefield said, “The world is my parish.”
The Immediate Goal of Preaching
Then come twin goals of preaching. There’s an immediate goal and an ultimate goal. The immediate goal is to bring about the obedience of faith. There are like seven ways this can be taken. (Cranfield, 1:67) I’m taking it as obedience which consists of faith. (Haldane, 1:65–67; Kruse, 50–51; Murray, 1:14)
Why is this important? Note that Paul says his immediate goal was the obedience of faith and not the obedience of law. Some people want to insist that faith equals obedience and therefore that sinners like you and me have a right standing before God at least partially via our obedience. As we’re going to see, Paul belabors in this letter “we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law” (Rom. 3:28). Amen? Why? The Gentile believers were being told by Jews or Judaizing Christians that they had to become Jews in order to be acceptable to God: get circumcised, eat kosher, follow the Levitical calendar, etc. So, Paul says there is one kind of obedience the Gentile needs to enter into the kingdom of God: the obedience of faith that receives Christ. As I preach, let’s all pray for this! Amen?
Paul proclaims…what it meant to preach God’s gospel message of his Son as an apostle with his immediate goal being his audience believing the gospel.
The Ultimate Goal of Preaching
Finally, the second and ultimate goal of preaching was that it’s for the sake of his name. Preaching is ultimately to bring glory to Jesus! Do I preach for his glory and not my own? Do you leave praising his message and not mine?
“The highest of all missionary motives is neither obedience to the Great Commission…nor love for sinners who are alienated and perishing…but rather zeal—burning and passionate zeal—for the glory of Jesus Christ.” (Stott, 53)
Conclusion
Paul proclaims something of what it meant to preach God’s gospel message of his Son as an apostle. Paul recognized that preaching was the gift of the resurrected Jesus, to announce to all nations the good news, so that they would come to faith, and all for the glory of Jesus Christ!
I want to preach like that!
What do you want to hear?