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)
And now we come to the main point of Paul’s gospel to the Romans, which is “the just shall live by faith.” The word translated “just” here is the Greek word dikaios and means “equitable, innocent, holy.” Sometimes this word is translated as “righteous.” In fact dikaios is the root of the word diakaiosune which is translated “righteousness” earlier here in verse 17. When Paul used this phrase here he was quoting an obscure verse from Habakkuk 2:4 which reads, “Behold, his soul which is proud is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.” (Habakkuk 2:4 KJ2000) It is also interesting to realize that this verse is quoted two more times in the New Testament, in Galatians 3:11 and Hebrews 10:38. It obviously states an important tenet of the gospel.
It is clear from Paul’s introduction to the Romans in verses one through eight and his comment in verse 16 that he does not teach that Christians, the “just” here in verse 17, live by or become righteous by one act of faith of “believing in Jesus.” In other words, just because you have made a confession of belief in Christ at some point in your life you should not assume that you, at this instant, are just or righteous. Paul teaches that the just live from faith to faith, from hearing one word of God to hearing the next word of God and on and on. This is what Jesus meant when he said, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Jesus was teaching that men live from faith to faith as they hear one word after another which proceeds from the Spirit of God.
Paul’s point, then, is that if you desire to be righteous, if you desire to be just and holy as your God is, then that is a matter of living by faith, not just reliance upon one magical moment in which you uttered the words, “Jesus save me from my sins,” but a lifetime of divine appointments, of times when you heard God, knew you heard God, and then proceeded down that narrow path that he, and he alone, has set you upon. “The just shall live by faith!” says Paul and then proceeds here and in his other letters to convince us that we will never make it to eternal life if we depend upon our strict obedience to laws of God’s or anyone else’s making.
Yet, in the very next verse Paul declares that in his gospel “the wrath of God is revealed” against “those who hold the truth in unrighteousness!” Do you not know that when God speaks a word of truth to you and you hear it that you could then ultimately “hold that truth in unrighteousness?” Beware, then, Paul warns as he begins to further unveil his gospel…
