21.02 | The Gospel is the Power

Romans 1:1-17

‘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.’

Romans 1:16

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In 1916, a thirty year old Swiss pastor began writing a book that was to reshape Christian spirituality for the next century. He had been educated in Germany, under some of the most eminent theologians in the world, and thus was well set for a blossoming pastoral career. The lead academic theological model of the time was known as Liberal Theology,¹ which looked to realign the New Testament under secular ideas of history and culture. But as this young pastor continued through his studies, he grew increasingly uncomfortable with what felt to be a departure from the radicality of the words of the New Testament. The Christianity he was being taught felt compromised and anaemic compared to the fiery vision of the New Testament authors. 

The breaking point came in 1914, when 93 theologians, including many of his own teachers, signed a document in support of Germany in World War I.² In it, he saw that theology had become deeply corrupted. It now looked to conform God to the ideas of the age, rather than allowing the age to be shaped by His reality.

And so, in 1916, he sat down to write a book.

It was a straightforward, verse-by-verse commentary on Paul’s letter to the Romans. But the revolutionary impact of the book was that Barth reorganised Christianity: not with the ideas of the world at the centre, but with God at the centre—in the person and message of Jesus of Nazareth. The Gospel message was not a nice story to be subsumed into the stories of the world, but the organising Story, within which all other stories find their meaning.

The pastor’s name was Karl Barth. And in the coming days we’re going to see that Barth’s reorientation to the Great Story of Jesus is the precise reorientation that we are invited into.

Today we begin Romans. Paul is writing to the young church in Rome, the epicentre of political and cultural power in the day. These early followers of Jesus were the ones who saw Rome’s power and glory, the colonnades and temples, the palaces and statues and wealth and beauty. They were the ones who had lived more deeply in the ideologies of Roman culture than any other church in the First Century.

And it is to these that Paul writes. And He writes to tell them about the single message, the single Story, that will become the organising narrative for every other thing that they ever think and do.

The Story’s name is the Gospel.

And he tells us this:

‘The gospel … is the power of God.’

Not theory. Not metaphor. Not a nice bit of private spirituality onto our existing ideologies and ways. 

But power. Impact. Transformation. The invading reality that changes and reforms and reshapes everything else around itself, because it itself is the organising reality at the centre of everything.

His Story is the Story. It is the Story within which all of our lives find meaning and direction. It is the Story that has God, not us, at the centre. And it is the only Story that can reorient us back into the ways of life.

Paul is writing to renew our minds. To reorder our lives. And to bring us back to the essential narrative that is and will powerfully transform all things to align with itself.

The Gospel.

Buckle up, my friends. 

Because this Story changes everything.

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Reflect:

We begin today with simple openness and surrender. Before guessing where He may take us, we begin by allowing all of our existing worldviews and values to come to our minds, and hold them before Him. And in the bringing them to Him, we surrender them to His reformation. 

You may find this easier to do with conviction on your knees.

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Pray:

Father in Heaven

I have lived thinking that my views

And my ways 

Are quite something.

Today, I simply offer you this:

I surrender.

I lay down my patterns of thought and I lay down my ways of living,

I lay down every narrative that I have lived in,

That I may be able to receive your Story,

Your reality,

Your Gospel.

Spirit of God, 

Lead me into this reality

That my story, my views and beliefs and expectations and longings,

May become oriented around

The Story;

Your Story;

The Story of Jesus.

In His Name, 

I surrender, wait, and pray,

As my life becomes transformed around Him,

Amen

Old Testament: 

For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:

Leviticus 16-17 | Psalm 25:16-22

1. In German, moderne Theologie

2. Known as The Manifesto of the Ninety-Three (October 1914)