Is there any good news? Good news about sin?
That it can be dealt with? Is there any good news about the meaning of life? Is there any good news about the future life after death? Is there any good news?
There's good news. And that's the gospel. The good news of God. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. You may have wondered for a long time what Christians mean when they talk about the good news of the gospel. Or maybe you've walked with Christ for a long time, but it's been a while since you examined the gospel in greater depth. Whatever the case, I think you'll benefit from today's broadcast as John MacArthur kicks off his study called, And Now for the Good News. And John, it's interesting, the term good news is one we get so comfortable using that we forget the strong implication it carries. If the gospel is good news, there must have first been some bad news. Yeah, and you know, in the culture we're living in today, the common modifier for news is fake news.
Right, right. But when it comes to the gospel, the gospel is good news, and it becomes good news because of the reality of the bad news. And the bad news, of course, is the dire spiritual condition of every human being. Sinful from conception at birth, that sin becomes manifest in behavior.
Alienated from God, as the Bible says, without God in the world, broken, corrupt, hopeless, helpless, unwilling, and unable to come to God. That is the plight of the sinner. And there's no worse news because the end of that is eternal punishment in hell, and that's the bad news. It is that bad news that gets overlooked today, even among evangelicals.
There's an effort not to talk about that because it's too offensive. But against that reality, the good news is really good news. We're going to be looking at the good news, and we're going to see it against the backdrop of the bad news. And the best place in the Bible to go for that is the book of Romans, and we're going to go right to the very beginning of it.
We're going to do a series, and now for the good news. We're titling it, and it's going to be Romans 1, 1 to 7. We're going to explore the nature of man, his fatal and eternal spiritual condition, and God's intervention through the gospel.
So we'll look at the bad news, and then we'll hear the good news. The study amounts really to a documentary on the gospel. Why Jesus came, why this human race needs him, and why he is the only hope of rescue and salvation. And we all understand there is a lot of confusion about the gospel that doesn't need to be.
The Bible is clear, so we're going to let the Bible shed its light on the subject. Thanks, John. And friend, as John said, this study will take you deep into the gospel, showing you how it transforms lives and how you can communicate it to others effectively and boldly. To clear up any confusion you may have about the gospel and to see just how good the good news really is, follow along now as John launches his study, and now for the good news. The thrust of Paul's introduction to the epistle to the Romans is in a phrase at the end of verse 1. The phrase is, the gospel of God. That is really the theme of the entire epistle, the good news from God. A quick look at any newspaper, a passing glance at any weekly magazine, reminds us that in our world the news is bad and getting worse. And what is happening on a large scale is only the multiplication of what is happening on an individual level. Bad news.
In fact, that has become a colloquialism in our time. Bad news. You see, men and women are in the grip of a terrifying power, and that power grips them deep inside their own being, and it pushes them to self-destruction. That power is sin, and sin makes for bad news. Just by way of capsulizing our thoughts about this, I see four major areas where sin produces bad news for the human race, and they're somewhat sequential, and I don't offer these as exhaustive or comprehensive, but just to provoke your thinking. The first bad news that sin brings upon an individual is selfishness. It's bad news in human existence that every one of us is bent on fulfilling our own particular desires at any price. The basic element of sinfulness is the dominance of the I, the ego, the self. Man will consume everything in sight on his own lust.
He will consume things, and he will consume people, and he will consume himself. And the ultimate goal of life is to achieve self-satisfaction. Self-satisfaction.
Whether you're in business, or marriage, or whether you're in love, man winds up perverting everything because of his selfish lust for gain, for fame, for dominance, for popularity, for money, for physical fulfillment. And so sin pushes humanity into a selfish self-consumption. Somebody said we ought to use things and love people, but instead we love things and use people. The end of it is that man is unable to sustain a meaningful relationship.
He's unable to really love. He's unwilling to give, and thus he forfeits that which is the most obvious source of true joy, selflessness. Man becomes dominated by a selfish greed that alienates him from everyone and everything. Now the bad news that sin produces selfishness leads to a second thing that's also bad news. Man is not only selfish, he is guilty. Self-consumption, using people, abusing people, doing whatever is necessary to gain your own ends, brings about guilt because God has designed man to feel something when he sins.
It's like pain. God has given you pain so you'll know when your body is injured and you'll get help for your body. God has given guilt as a way to tell us that we are on the wrong road and something has to change. And so man is oppressed with guilt. And the bad news is that man lives in anxiety, he lives in fear, he lives in sleeplessness, he lives with psychological problems, ulcers, myriad illnesses caused by his guilt, which he may try to alleviate with drunkenness or suicide or something else. Selfishness leads to a consumptive sin and it inevitably brings with it guilt. And when you try to blame someone for it, that only compounds the guilt because now you know you're guilty not only of the sin but of trying to push it off on somebody who doesn't deserve it. And that gives us some more bad news, for selfishness leads to guilt and guilt leads to meaninglessness. Man is caught in a trap of his own selfishness. It takes him nowhere but to an overburdening guilt. And sooner or later he says to himself, Is this what life is all about?
Better that I should not have been born. Life becomes an endless cycle of trying to be fulfilled when it is impossible and bearing only guilt. And in that kind of life there's no fulfillment. And where there's no fulfillment, all the basic questions are asked.
Is this all there is? Where are the real answers? What are the real questions? Why am I alive? What is the meaning of my life? What is truth?
How do I find out what is truth? And man is fed a steady diet of lies by the consummate liar Satan who runs the world system. And the lies never really answer the question of meaning.
So he never gets an answer. The news is always bad. Now we find a fourth element in this chain of bad news that is brought about by sin. And that I'd like to call hopelessness. You start out with a consumptive selfishness and finally you wake up to the fact that it has the law of diminishing returns and when it's all over and done all you have left is guilt for all that you've done to get where you are. And born out of this trauma and anxiety from guilt is the meaninglessness of life. And born out of the meaninglessness of it all is the bad news that you've got nothing now and nothing later either. And so there is an utter hopelessness.
There is no possible fulfillment in a selfish, self-centered, guilt-ridden, meaningless life. Only the starkness of death and then what? No hope.
And so people mask death, which I believe is the ultimate obscenity to most people, but they mask it by laughing at it or mocking it or covering it somehow to alleviate the fear that it brings. But it is ultimately the worst news of all. There's nothing here and there's nothing there either. Bad news. Bad news. Is there any good news? Really good news? Good news about sin that it can be dealt with? Good news about selfishness that you don't have to live that way? Good news about guilt and anxiety that it can be alleviated? Is there any good news about the meaning of life? Is there any good news about the future life after death?
Is there any good news? I submit to you that Paul says in verse 1, there's good news. And that's the gospel, the good news of God.
And that is what Romans is about. Paul begins in verse 1 with the good news of God. And in chapter 15 as he draws to an end, in verse 16 he says, I, the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the good news of God. So bracketing this epistle is the great reality that Paul is bringing good news.
Good news. Paul also called it the blessed good news. He called it the good news of salvation. He called it the good news of Jesus Christ. He called it the good news of His Son. He called it the good news of the grace of God. Whatever he called it, it was good news. Good news that sin could be forgiven. Good news that guilt could be removed. Good news that life could have meaning. Good news that the future had a reality that was eternally glorious. Good news.
You'd think that we were preaching the bad news the way the world reacts, but that's how twisted they are because they are under the influence of the liar. We have the good news. Now look at verse 1 for a moment at the phrase the gospel of God, the good news of God. Euangelion, euangelion, that term is used by Paul 60 times in his epistles, 60 times. He talks about good news. It's a very favorite term.
No wonder. That man lived all his life hearing bad news. And once he heard the good news, he couldn't help but tell everybody in sight about it. Tyndale wrote, The word euangelion signifieth good, merry, glad, and joyful tidings that makes a man's heart rejoice and makes him sing and dance and leap for joy.
And I think in that he really captured the meaning. It's good news, a good, merry, glad, joyful news, good news that God will deliver us from our selfish sin, good news that God will forgive and free us from guilt, good news that God will give meaning to life and make it abundant, and good news that there's hope for life to come. And would you notice also in verse 1 that it is good news from God, and that's the thrust of the Greek.
It is from God. And it's important that Paul say that because the word euangelion was a common Greek word. And you know how it was used? It was used in the cult of worshiping the emperor. It was connected to the emperor cult.
Now you remember in the Roman Empire, the people were required to worship the emperor as if he were a god. And whenever someone from the emperor's official party was to make a monumental announcement about some great event relative to the emperor, it was called euangelion. Good news, for example, good news, the emperor has given birth to an heir.
That would be one way it was used. Or good news, the heir has come to age. Or good news, we have a new emperor as he accedes to the throne. This was the euangelion. But Paul says this. Listen. I'm writing to you at Rome who are used to hearing the euangelion of the Roman Empire, and I'm telling you, I've got good news, but it's not from Caesar, it's from whom?
God. That's really good news because, frankly, most of the Caesars were bad news to begin with. It's good news from God. Now you can't help but stop and think, why should God give me good news? I don't deserve it, you're right.
But that's the way He is. He brings good news to those who are undeserving. Beloved, this is good news.
Aren't you glad for the good news? Now, we're going to see these seven verses and we're going to watch the unfolding of the good news. And there are basically seven aspects to it.
Let's begin with the first one. The preacher of the good news. The preacher of the good news.
Maybe it's because I'm a preacher and a minister that I find myself drawn to spend some time on this because it speaks to me so much and if you'll indulge me, for a moment I'll preach to myself. Now, God called a unique man to be the major spokesman for the good news. Verse 1, Paul. You remember him?
Paul. He was that man, the preacher of the good news. Uniquely was committed to him the mysteries, that which was hidden from the past generations and peoples and now revealed, as he says in Ephesians 3 and Colossians chapter 1. He was God's keynote speaker for the heralding of the good news. That remarkable Jew with Greek education and Roman citizenship.
That man with incredible abilities as a leader, a fighter, highly motivated, determined, articulate, brilliant, specially called and converted by God Himself. That man who completed three missionary journeys proclaiming the good news from Jerusalem to Macedonia and criss-crossing that territory. Paul, that very unique servant who could do miracles and yet could not rid himself of his own thorn in the flesh. Paul, who could break prisons to bits as he did in Philippi and yet himself was a prisoner. Paul is the preacher and may I remind you that every preacher who's ever preached since has depended on Paul's sermons for his material. Thirteen books of the New Testament, the legacy of this man through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Now, he tells us three things about himself in verse 1. First, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ.
The word is slave, really. Look with me for a minute at Exodus 21. Let me see if I can give you a Jewish context for Paul's thinking. In Exodus chapter 21, we find out about the servant-master relationship among God's people because God gives some laws to them.
And in verses 5 and 6, we read this. If the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife and my children, I will not go out free. In other words, if the servant says, I don't serve because I have to, I don't serve because I'm forced to, I don't serve because I'm paid to, I don't serve because I'm afraid not to, I serve because I love my master, therefore I'll never go free. He became known as a bond-slave. That is really the essence of the word doulos used in Romans 1, bond-slave. And look what happened in verse 6. His master would bring him to the judges and they would affirm this.
He would also bring him to the door or to the doorpost where there would be wood. And his master would bore his ear through with an awl and he shall serve him forever. If you said, I want to serve out of love and I'll never leave because I love you, then you were taken to the door and right here where ladies get their ear pierced, which is insignificant, a very significant thing happened.
That earlobe was pressed against the wood and it was drilled and permanently the mark was there. I am a slave of love. Now that is the essence of what is behind Romans 1, 1. Go back now to that portion. And Paul is saying that I am a bond-slave.
This is something that I have chosen out of love, not fear. There were millions of slaves in the Roman Empire. Perhaps they didn't all understand this Jewish concept. Perhaps some of them did.
I'm sure some of them served out of love. But most of the slaves in the Roman world and the Greek culture were looked down on. They were treated not as persons but as objects, tools. If you wanted to, you could kill your slaves.
It was inconsequential. Therefore, some Bible commentators are saying in this passage that Paul is using doulos only in its Jewish sense, that he is speaking only about the affirmation of his love, and he is speaking about the dignity of such service. And by the way, in the Hebrew use of the concept of servant, someone in the highest ranks could be called a servant. Kings had servants, ministers, who ministered to their royal needs. And so in a Hebrew sense, a servant could be a lofty term of great honor and great dignity. For example, in Genesis 26, 24, it says Abraham was a servant. In Numbers 12, 7, it says Moses was a servant. In Joshua 24, it says Joshua was a servant. In 2 Samuel 7, 5, it says David was a servant. In Isaiah 20, verse 3, it says Isaiah was a servant. And in Isaiah 53, it says when the Messiah comes, He will be a servant. And so many commentators feel that what Paul is saying is, I am a servant of Jesus Christ as an emphasis of the dignity of His office in a Hebrew sense rather than the demeaning Greek sense.
But I really think that misses the point. Yes, there is a certain exaltation. There is a certain honor. There is a certain marvelous and comprehensible dignity at being called a servant of Jesus Christ. There is a sense in which you wait on the majesty and the royalty of the King of kings and Lord of lords.
And so that is true. But it's not true to separate that from what the Gentiles would have understood about that same term. And for the Greek word itself, doulos, it meant abject slavery. As a bond slave, no dignity but humility. And I believe Paul wants us to see it in that sense as well. He chooses two other words to speak of his servitude. 1 Corinthians 3 gives us one of them, verse 5.
And here, obviously, his emphasis is on humility. Who then is Paul? And who is Apollos? But Diakonos, we get the word deacon from it, it means table waiter.
If you looked in that culture, it really meant busboy. But who are we but table waiters? By whom you believed, even as the Lord gave to every man. I planted, Apollos watered, God gave the increase. So then neither is he that plants anything, neither he that waters.
But God that gives the increase. We're nothing, he says, but table waiters. And later in 1 Corinthians 4, 1, he says this.
We are servants of Christ. And he uses a different word. He uses the word huper etes. It's the word translated in the authorized ministers. It's huper etes. Huper means under, etes comes from a word that means to row. It's an under rower.
They had a trireme ship with three decks and on those lower three decks were three levels of galley slaves who rowed those hulking ships. And Paul says, will you remember me as a third level galley slave? That's humility.
You can't get any lower than that. So yes, I believe there is a Hebrew thought here of dignity, of honor, of respect, but it is marvelously mingled with the humility of the meaning of the Greek term so that Paul paradoxically finds himself both exalted as the servant of Christ and debased as well, an expression of humility and dignity. And this is an ambivalence that every representative of Jesus Christ carries. Sometimes when I think of the dignity of what I do, it overwhelms me. Sometimes when I realize that I stand up and proclaim the gospel of God, when I stand up and proclaim what I have gleaned out of the Word of God and the ministry of Paul and the teaching of the Scripture, under the power of the Spirit of God, I realize that there's no higher calling in the world than that. And there is a marvelous dignity. And the Bible says, never speak a word against one who represents Christ.
Don't accuse an elder unless you have good grounds and do it before two or three witnesses. And the Bible says, give honor to whom honor is due. And the Bible says, pay them double what you should pay them if they work hard in the word and doctrine. And the Bible says, respect them. And the Bible says, obey them and submit to them and set your life to follow their example. It is a lofty thing. And yet there is that marvelous spiritual ambivalence that says it is the humblest kind of service. Because you know that whatever it is that you do, you have absolutely no right to do it because of who you are. And who you are is what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3, you're nobody.
You're nothing. And so Paul was a servant. With all that that encompassed, he was a servant of Christ.
That meant he had to absolutely obey Jesus Christ. And yet there was a dignity there that was marvelous. That's John MacArthur, chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. Today began a series on what the gospel is and what it is not, and the power it has to transform your life.
And now for the good news. That's the title of our study here on Grace to You. Keep in mind, you can download all three lessons from this series for free at our website, so get in touch with us today. Our web address is gty.org, and the title to look for again, and now for the good news. For anyone that you've been evangelizing, this would be a great study to point them to.
Again, it's free to download in MP3 and transcript format at gty.org. In fact, all of John's messages, that's more than 3,600 sermons, free to download at our website, gty.org. And let me highlight another tool that can help you understand the gospel. It's our Study Bible app. It's a free app that gives you the text of Scripture in the New American Standard, King James, and English Standard versions, along with instant access to thousands of free study helps, including blog articles and devotionals and John's 3,600 sermons, and more. And for a nominal price, you can add the notes from our flagship resource, the MacArthur Study Bible.
To learn more about the Study Bible app, visit gty.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for joining us today. Be back tomorrow when John looks at the greatest news you'll hear all year, guaranteed. He's continuing his study titled, And Now for the Good News, with another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.
