We should never grow tired of hearing the gospel, no matter how many times in our lives we’ve already heard it. It’s a great story that should knock us off our feet every time, and better yet, it’s true! Through Christ, our sin-stricken, death-dominated world is given life and redemption. We should be reminding ourselves of this beautiful gospel all the time.
The book of Romans essentially walks through the entire theology of salvation for a young church in Rome, moving from condemnation, to justification, to sanctification, to the nature of the church and how they are to live. This passage is where he begins talking about justification. Paul clearly gets overwhelmingly excited here; it’s a single run-on sentence in Greek that’s really hard to translate. But when he thinks about so wonderful a love and salvation in light of so evil a world—or when we do, for that matter—how can we help but rejoice with all our might?
God is love, and God is perfect justice and righteousness; this Paul wants us to understand first. Who God is explains what God has done for us. God has forgiven and justified sinners by sacrificing his son, so that we may be righteous like him. What he has done then explains who we are. We are broken sinners that have been redeemed to righteousness, and so we bring God the utmost glory. This is a beautiful story indeed!
Has our appreciation of the gospel grown dull? The story’s full beauty should hit us so hard that it utterly changes us. Paul will get to what that change looks like later in the letter. But first, it’s enough to rest in a full appreciation for the story of God’s salvation for us. God is good. We are sinners, but by his grace he has saved us. Praise God for the gospel!
