Rambling through Romans (6): 1:16-18
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, “The one who is righteous will live by faith.” “Righteousness” is one of those big religious words we hear in church a lot. And usually wrongly used! We been taught to associate the words “righteous” and “righteousness” with morality or moral character, or “uprightness,” to use an older English word. So, by this understanding, the gospel shows God’s moral uprightness, of which we fall far short and, thus, stand in need of his mercy and forgiveness. However, “the righteousness of God” in the Old Testament, where Paul gets it from, means “God’s passion to set all things right.” It’s what drives God to deliver, redeem, restore, forgive, discipline, heal, and make everything just the way he intends it to be....