The Unchanging Truth

Dr. Jerod Gilcher: But apostles aren't a thing anymore. They no longer exist. They have died, they no longer exist, they are not a thing. And yet, you have to understand is that we too, like them, represent the Lord Jesus Christ, don't we? We have what I call a derived apostolicity. I think I made that word up. I made up one word in my life and there it is: apostolicity. We are apostle-like in the sense that we also are ambassadors. You understand, we like them are saved and sent into the darkness, going behind enemy lines, calling ruined sinners to be saved.

Church, you have to understand that to be saved is to be sent. To be redeemed by Christ is to be recruited by Christ. When you were called and awakened by sovereign grace, you were in that moment summoned and then called to proclaim that grace. Not that you've got to be a missionary, but you do have to think like one. Missionaries leave and go because they feel the implications of the gospel they possess.

If this is really true, if this has the power to save sinners from destruction—and it is and does—then how could we not look on poor sinners with pity? Even if with trembling hands and quivering lips, our hearts pounding in our chest, how could we not proclaim to sinners the summons of the King?

Speaking of that summons, credential number three at the end of verse one: Paul's a slave of Christ, he's an apostle by the will of God. Number three: he is set apart for the gospel of God. There it is again, the passive voice. He was set apart for the gospel of God by the will of another. Even the tense of the verb implies that the choice to make him set apart for the gospel happened at some time in the past and maybe even before he was born, which is exactly what happened.

It's like when God told Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb, I appointed you to be a prophet to the nations." It's exactly the same for Paul. The mission of his life had been decreed before his life began and it was the publication and the propagation and the proclamation of the gospel.

You understand, he didn't have a choice in this. Don't get me wrong, this is what he wanted to do. There was nothing else in life that he would rather do than this, but you have to understand what this was—a calling, a divine and sovereign call decreed by God. And yet, meaning what? What is the gospel of God for which he was set apart? What is that?

What you have to understand about the gospel is that it is three things. The gospel is a message, it is a plan, and it is a person. The gospel is a life-giving, soul-saving message about the God who became man for us and for our salvation. Is that not true?

The gospel is the news. It is the good news that although God does not need us and is in fact estranged from us because of our God-belittling sins, He has made a way through His Son for us to drink at the river of His delights. That is the message. And yet, the gospel's also a plan, isn't it? It's a plan, a sovereign plan of redemption unfolding in history. Put it like this: the gospel is the story of God's pursuit of our highest joy in Him at the cost of His Son's life. That is the plan.

Number three, the gospel is a person. You see, God Himself is the gospel. In other words, getting to God as our highest treasure forever is the good news of the gospel that makes the gospel good news. You understand, the gospel isn't a way merely to get people to heaven. The gospel is a way to get people to God, that He would be the treasure and the prize, that He would be the fountain of life to the soul.

I think this raises the question: is this your understanding of the gospel? Is this what you believe? Christ didn't die just to get your sins forgiven. He didn't die just to keep you out of hell. He didn't die even to get you to heaven. No, Christ died—the goal of the cross was to get you to God, that He would be the treasure and the prize. 1 Peter 3:18: "For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous." Why? "That He might bring you to God."

So, loaded question of the day: if you could get to heaven and you could get to the kingdom and you could have all eternal pleasures and delights forever, but God were not there, could you still be happy? Could you still be happy in the kingdom if God were not there? There are millions of people who sit in church today who would say yes, I could still be happy in the kingdom if God were not there, which says something absolutely tragic about their souls.

John Piper gives this sober warning: listen carefully. He says Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing and savoring God. People who would be happy in heaven if God were not there will not be there. The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God. If we don't want God above all things, then very simply, we have not been converted by the gospel. Stunning.

For this gospel, Paul was set apart. I think, beloved, and I think you think this too, that at some level our lives should be exactly the same. Which brings us to part two, which I call evangelistic essentials. We saw apostolic credentials; now evangelistic essentials. Paul just flashed his credentials, showed them who he was as an apostle, and here's what he's got to do now: now he needs to show that the gospel he proclaims is the ancient gospel they believe.

In other words, Paul doesn't have his own version of the message. There isn't a Paul-flavored, Paul-slanted version of the gospel different from the one they heard, but rather, the gospel that drives him and defines him and gets him into trouble and imprisons him is the very gospel revealed in the prophets. Look at verses two through four.

Paul's a slave of Christ, set apart for the gospel of God. Here it is: this gospel Paul proclaims is that which He—that is, God—promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures concerning His Son, who was born of the offspring of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.

So you see what he's doing, right? To establish credibility with the church that he has never met and, by the way, from whom he is seeking missionary support to Spain, Paul reveals the gospel that he proclaims. He gives a couple reasons why the gospel he proclaims is true. Two reasons why his gospel is true. Number one, the gospel he proclaims is confirmed by the prophets.

It's confirmed by the prophets. Look at verse two. "I'm set apart for the gospel," he says, the gospel of God. Notice: "This gospel is that which He, that is God, promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures." Do you see that? That is massive. It is just massive. Why? Because the message Paul proclaims is as ancient as the prophets.

In fact, it's in the prophets. Nothing he says is original. Everything Paul preaches merely echoes and repeats and expands upon what the prophets proclaimed, which is why in the book of Acts, we see Paul using the Old Testament to preach the gospel of Christ. Did you know that?

Acts 17, to a room full of Jews, it says this: "He, Paul, reasoned with them from the Scriptures. He opened the Scriptures and he gave evidence that Jesus is the Christ and had to suffer and to be raised and that this Jesus is the Christ I am proclaiming to you." Do you hear that? He's preaching Christ from the Old Testament. We know it's from the Old Testament because there were no New Testament Scriptures even in existence yet.

Paul said this in 1 Corinthians 15, listen carefully: "I make known to you, brothers, the gospel which I proclaimed, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures and that He was buried and that He was raised by the third day according to the Scriptures." What Scriptures? What Scriptures are in his mind that talk about the death and burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ? He means the Old Testament.

Although brief and condensed and embryonic in form, the entire life of Jesus Christ is there in the Old Testament: virgin birth, sinless life, sacrificial death, glorious resurrection, majestic return, invincible kingdom, terrifying judgment for those who resist His grace, eternal life for those who embrace His grace. It is all there.

So you see it: the gospel Paul preached was credible and true, not because some people believed it and not even because it came with signs and wonders, but it was true precisely because that is what the text says. Oh, may the Scriptures have this kind of weight and authority with us.

But the second reason why Paul's gospel is true—number two—is that his gospel was centered on the Son. It was confirmed by the prophets, it was centered on the Son, meaning Christ Himself. Look at verse three. "The message I preach, which is promised in the prophets, notice, is about His Son." Stop there. The gospel of God is about the Son of God, isn't it? End of verse four: Jesus Christ our Lord. It's all about Him.

And yet, let's get theological here, shall we? Anytime is a good time to get theological. "Son" meaning what? What does Paul mean by "Son"? Do you see his theology here? Because although subtle, it is profound. Paul literally says—listen carefully—that the Son became or was born from the offspring of David according to the flesh. Do you see that?

So what? What does that mean? It means that the Son was already in existence before He became the offspring of David. Do you see that? Which means: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh." That's what he means here.

Beloved, this is shocking. Without ever ceasing to be fully God, God became a Jew. And not even just a Jew, but offspring and descendant of David according to the flesh. And you know why that matters, don't you? You know why it does, because about a thousand years before Christ, God made a promise to David that from his line, a King would arise.

2 Samuel 7, listen very carefully: "When your days are complete, David, and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant, your offspring after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. He will build a house for My name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever."

That is exactly what Paul's referring to, that: the covenant with David. The long-awaited serpent-crushing King from David's line, not only slain like a lamb for the sins of men but coming again to rule the nations, and in Him, we have placed our hope, have we not? We've placed our hope in this man.

You ever hear of the Chalcedonian Creed? You like reading ancient creeds? The Chalcedonian Creed, you ever heard of that? It was written in 451 AD. This creed is a short but profound theological statement about the nature of Christ. They wrote it as a response to some heresies about the incarnation. It's very important; I want you to listen and look very carefully.

This group of pastors and theologians, this is what they teach about the nature of Christ. They say, "We, then, with one accord, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ." Okay, what about Him? Listen: "He is perfect in His deity and also perfect in His humanity; truly God and truly man, who exists in two distinct natures, the divine and the human, which are joined together in one person, without confusion, without change, without division, and without separation. He is therefore very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between God and man." And that is incredible.

I hope you believe that. And yet the question is: where did they get that? Where did they get their theology that Christ is truly God and truly man, existing in two natures, joined together in one person? From where in the Bible did they get their theology and did they form their creed? Among the thousand different places where they got their theology, one of the places where they got it was none other than Romans 1, verses 3 and 4.

Look at verse three. The gospel is about His Son, who became or was born from the offspring of David according to the flesh. There it is; there's His humanity. And here it is: He was declared the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord. Do you see it?

The offspring of David wasn't only a man, but God undercover as a man. And one of the events that blew His cover, displayed His deity, was none other than the resurrection itself. Paul said, notice, that He was declared the Son of God by the resurrection. "Declared"—that word declared in Greek is *horizō*, where we get our word "horizon" from. What it means is a vivid display of an object's quality through its juxtaposition with another object, like diamonds on a black velvet, like a candle in the dark. So was Jesus as God vividly displayed.

And yet, Paul's careful here. Notice that he calls Christ the Son of God. Calls Him the Son of God, and we kind of trip over the shoelaces of that Son language. We think, "Okay, well, does that mean He's less than God? Does that mean that He came after God? Does that mean that He will grow to become like the Father in some way?" What does "Son language" mean?

What you have to understand is that that title is profoundly Trinitarian. He is God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, equal to the Father and the Spirit in terms of His dignity, in terms of His glory, in terms of His deity, but He is different and unique in His function and His role. And yet the question is: what event proved His deity? What did it?

I mean, something so incredible, so supernatural, so scientifically impossible that it proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that this hick from a dumpy village on the other side of the tracks is none other than God Himself in human flesh. And what does Paul say? It is none other than His triumph over the grave. That did it. That was the proof.

That and like 10,000 other things that also proved He is God. But at the top of the heap of all of that other verification of His deity, it was none other than His resurrection from the dead. Calvin put it like this. He says Christ is declared the Son of God with power—this is important—because there was seen in Him the power which belongs properly to God and which proved beyond doubt that He is God. This was in fact evident in the resurrection. He's right.

And you notice that small prepositional phrase? Paul says that this was done with power, with power, meaning clearly, unmistakably divine and supernatural. And yet that raises a question, right? Well, okay, other people were raised from the dead throughout history, right? Christ was not the first. Other people were raised from the dead and they're not God. How does this prove that?

You can clearly see that this is different. This is unique and set apart in the history of resurrections. You see, what all those other resurrections had in common is that there was always a human agent in the process, right? Here, notice who the unseen agent was. Paul says that Christ was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. Here it is: according to the Spirit of holiness. Do you see it? Even the resurrection was profoundly Trinitarian. The Son, sent from the Father, raised by the Spirit.

And yet the question is—the question I have is—well, why mention the Spirit here? There's lots of places in the New Testament that talk about the resurrection and the Spirit is not mentioned. Why mention the Spirit here in the act of resurrection of Christ? The reason I think is because Paul read the prophets. He read the prophets.

The prophets are really clear about this: that when the Messiah would come, all He would do would be done by the power of the Spirit. When we get to the gospels, that's exactly what we see, is it not? Conceived in the womb by the power of the Spirit. He resisted sin by the power of the Spirit. He preached His sermons by the power of the Spirit. He did miracles by the power of the Spirit. And according to Romans 1, verse 4, He was raised from the dead by the power of the Spirit, confirming that He was the Messiah and God.

It's incredible. Don't you see, we don't merely worship a crucified Jew on a hunk of lumber. We don't worship some social activist rabbi who did nice things for people. We worship the eternal Son of the Father, fully God, fully man, joined together in one person, the great Davidic King who proved Himself as God when He triumphed over the grave.

This is the heart of the gospel, beloved. And even the end of verse four, even that is full of theological power. Paul says the gospel's about the Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus His name, Christ His title, right? The name Jesus means Yahweh saves. Christ is the Messiah. Add them together, what do you get? You get Jesus Christ is Lord. And that word "Lord," by the way, is the Greek word of choice for the name Yahweh. Jesus Christ is Yahweh and that is the gravitational center of the gospel.