God Is Central
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam
Paul’s Epistle to
the Romans is the foundation book of Christian theology. It brings us face to
face with facts we ought to know and must know to be saved.
In the 16th and
17th verses of the first chapter, the apostle declares that he is proud of the
gospel because therein the “righteousness”, or rightness of God is revealed.
God had to deal
righteously with sin before He could offer salvation to sinners. Sin is not
merely an affliction; it is moral wrong and kindles the wrath of a just and
holy God.
The wrath of God
is too little discussed by modern evangelists and preachers. They like to talk
about the love and mercy of God, as though He were a Grand Old Man with a
tolerant attitude toward sin. But they never fully appreciate His love and
mercy because they do not understand His infinite wrath against sin.
Much evangelism
today has become sort of a “try God” gimmick. The pleasures of the world don’t
satisfy? Try God. You can’t shake off some terrible bondage? Try God.
When all else fails, Try God!
But this
humanistic approach is foreign to Scripture. God, His holiness, His wrath
against sin and His love in providing salvation — these are central in
Scripture, not man and his condition and his needs.
We are not to look
upon God as our servant, who will help us in time of need, but as the Holy One
whose justice we have offended but who, in infinite grace, paid for our sins
Himself so that we might be redeemed. This is why the Epistle to the Romans
begins its mighty argument with almost three chapters on the subject of sin. Then
follows the Good News of God’s grace in settling the sin question so that we
might be “justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in
Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24).
And thus the same
inspired writer declares in Ephesians 2:2-4 that we were “the children of
disobedience” and therefore “the children of wrath”, but then goes on to show
“God, who is rich in mercy” and “great” in “love”, saves believers by
grace, giving them eternal life in Christ, who died for our sins.
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