So, as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For in it is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. (Romans 1:15-17 KJ2000)

Paul begins his letter to the Roman Christians by telling them that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation and that in this gospel the righteousness of God is revealed. Next he says that this gospel of righteousness is revealed “from faith to faith.” What does that mean?

Paul means the same thing that John means in the second part of his sentence when he says, “But these are written, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you might have life through his name.” (John 20:31 KJ2000) As we saw in Romans 1:1-8 Paul speaks to Christians, to those who already believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. This is their “first” faith in terms of their Christian life and experience, their Christian walk. Paul now says that the gospel itself, wherein the righteousness of God is revealed, must be revealed “from faith to faith.”

Consider your own experience of faith. If yourr has been anything like mine it began with actually feeling the presence of God. First, I remember feeling deep remorse for the way I was living my life. I began to know that I actually lived a sinful life. I remember on one occasion a young woman drove me to work. On the way there I just began to silently weep. She looked over at me and said, “What’s wrong with you?” I just looked over at her and said, “I’m sinning!” She looked me as if to say, “Are you crazy?” I never saw her again, but this was one of my earliest experiences of faith. I had been reading the Bible regularly for a few weeks and those words (and, I’m sure, the presence of the Holy Spirit) were beginning to convict me of sin.

A month or two after this I was still reading my new Bible daily. I had not yet “accepted” or “received” Jesus as my savior. But, I was certainly being convicted of sin! Well, one night I was reading the Old Testament and was suddenly struck with the thought that the author of the Old Testament was the same as the author of the New Testament. I knew the two testaments were written hundreds of years apart and I knew that different men supposedly wrote the various books of each testatment. Yet, I knew that the same person had written both what I had read in the New Testament earlier in the day and what I was reading in the Old Testament this night. It was like reading different books by your favorite author, for example, Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis.  By the time you have read of few of those you would recognize the author of the rest without being told.

So, I said to myself, “This is impossible…unless God wrote the Bible.” Then the voice of God spoke to me and said, “That’s right Glenn, and I want you to teach my word.” Boom! My life was changed. Immediately I said to myself, “Then I better do what it says.” Of course I immediately believed that Jesus was who he said he was. And I began to make changes in my life. This was  the beginning of my faith. This is a literal example of what Paul means when he says, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God,” which we find later in this book to the Romans.

During the first year or two after this profound experience I actually felt the presence of God at various church and small group meetings I attended, or even sometimes when I was just by myself. I knew that I knew that I had heard God speak to me, I knew that he wrote the Bible, and I knew he was real! These were exciting times! Of course, such a revelation from GOD also led to vanity. I was called to be a preacher by God himself! I must be somebody! Well, God then had to cool my heals so he withdrew his presence and took me into many wilderness places and experiences. But he always gave me a word, a fresh revelation from his Spirit, when I needed it. Remember, “faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.” Thus he led me in his way from word to word, that is, “from faith to faith.” This way is the way of the revelation of his righteousness. It is by hearing God, and then believing and putting on God’s own righteousness  that, ultimately John says, we “have life through his name.” Life, eternal life, only comes to us when we have been clothed in God’s righteousness

Part 5: The Just Shall Live By Faith