To God Be the Glory!

Romans 16:25–27 is a doxology. God’s benediction to his people, in the indescribable gift of his Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, leads his saved people to doxology. In other words, God’s blessing of our salvation through the gospel revealed in this epistle leads us to praise our triune God. To God be the glory!

In Romans 16:17–20, Paul warned the Roman Christians about the infiltration of those who would “cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the gospel” (v. 17). Paul cautioned the believers to keep away from such people because they are deceivers and agents of Satan, not servants of Jesus Christ. But he also encouraged them by saying that God would enable them to resist and defeat these wicked people.

Now in these concluding verses, Paul encourages these Romans by speaking of the ability of God to establish them and make them strong. Satan and his agents will always oppose Christ’s church. But the gates of hell shall not prevail in destroying the church Jesus Christ builds. So we want to examine seven points from this passage.

1. Our God Is Able to Make Us Strong

Paul begins, “Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel” (v. 25). Our God is able to save sinners and strengthen them. Without God, we can do nothing. But with our Lord Jesus Christ, we can do the whole will of God. He is the vine, and we are the branches, inseparably united to the vine. From him we receive abounding grace to abound in every good work. Paul said, “I can do all things through him who gives me strength” (Phil. 4:13).

God makes us strong, especially by his powerful word. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the tomb, he called out, “Lazarus, come forth!” and Lazarus came out. God saves us and sustains us daily by his gospel. The gospel which Paul received directly from the risen Christ, the gospel he calls “my gospel,” the gospel which he preached and explained in this letter—this gospel is mighty to make the dead alive, and those who are alive to grow in strength.

Paul’s gospel is the same gospel that all the apostles preached (1 Cor. 15:11). This gospel is about Jesus Christ. This gospel makes the weak strong. So Paul wrote at the beginning of this epistle, “I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong” (Rom. 1:11). Then he said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile” (Rom. 1:16). Later he explained, “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rom. 15:4). To the Ephesian elders he said, “Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified” (Acts 20:32). Paul was familiar with the words of the psalmist David, “With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall” (Ps. 18:29).

Cancer is weak, the sword is weak, and death is weak before the word of God. So Paul declares, “As it is written: ‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:36–39).

Most churches are weak and worldly because the gospel is not preached there. Yes, we are weak, and we cannot make ourselves strong. Our mighty God makes us strong by the gospel. Faith comes by hearing the gospel preached by the minister commissioned by Christ. So Paul proclaims, “Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved” (Rom. 10:13).

Friends, our God is mighty. The idols of the world are nothing. Those who trust in them are like their idols—worthless. But our God is able. So we read about the ability of God:

1. Our God is able to make us strong: “Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel” (Rom. 16:25).

2. Our God is able to save us completely: “Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them” (Heb. 7:25).

3. Our God is able to keep us: “That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day” (2 Tim. 1:12).

4. Our God is able to make grace abound to us: “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work” (2 Cor. 9:8).

5. Our God is able to help us in temptation: “Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Heb. 2:18).

6. Our God is able to answer our prayers: “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (Eph. 3:20).

7. Our God is able to keep us from falling away: “To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy” (Jude 24).

8. Our God is able to raise us up from the grave: “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body” (Phil. 3:20-21).

2. This Gospel Must Be Preached

Paul says God is able to establish the Roman Christians by his gospel “and the proclamation of Jesus Christ” (v. 25). The gospel saves and strengthens God’s people when it is faithfully preached, heralded, and declared with absolute power and authority. The gospel is about Jesus Christ, that is, about his unique person and his saving work.

Jesus Christ is very God and very man. This sinless One lived and died to accomplish our redemption. And the Holy Spirit applies this redemption to all the elect sinners when the gospel is preached by God’s commissioned pastors. Elsewhere Paul writes, “It was [Christ] who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:11–13).

Preachers who do not preach the person and saving work Jesus Christ are agents of Satan himself. True gospel preaching is always effectual. God’s word is a double-edged sword. It cuts to heal, but it also cuts to kill. Paul writes, “But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task?” (2 Cor. 2:14–16). The Lord himself says, “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it” (Isa. 55:10–11). God’s purpose includes salvation and damnation.

3. This Gospel Was Hidden

This gospel, Paul says, is “according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past” (v. 25). The gospel was hidden in past ages, in eternity past, in the heart of God. In the eternal covenant of redemption, as we read in the Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 8, article 1, God’s Son agreed with the Father’s plan of saving elect sinners by accomplishing their redemption by his incarnational life, death, and resurrection.¹ The Holy Spirit agreed to apply this redemption to all elect sinners the Father has donated to the Son. From all eternity, we were chosen in God’s Son to be saved. Jesus prayed, “For you granted [the Son] authority over all people, that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. . . . I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word” (John 17:2, 6).

What a joy it is to know that from all eternity we were chosen individually in God’s Son to be saved and to have eternal life! God has loved us from all eternity. The Father loves us even as he loves his Son. Jesus prayed, “I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:23). As Paul explains, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified” (Romans 8:29-30). We have no cause for worry.

4. This Hidden Gospel Is Now Revealed and Proclaimed

This previously hidden gospel, Paul says, is “now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings” (v. 26). This mystery of the gospel was revealed in the Old Testament. Yet the prophets themselves did not clearly understand until Jesus Christ was revealed (1 Pet. 1:10–12). The Old Testament spoke of a sinless Messiah who would die in behalf of sinners and be buried with the rich (Isa. 53:4–6, 9). The prophets spoke of his resurrection and of him justifying many (Isa. 53:11). But it took the key of the person of our Lord Jesus Christ to unlock the meaning of the Old Testament promises.

After the death and resurrection of Jesus, the apostles understood that the Messiah promised in the Old Testament is Jesus, who was crucified, dead and buried, and on the third day raised from the dead according to the Scriptures. Paul says, “For what I received I passed on to you [i.e., the gospel] as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3–4). So the apostles boldly preached Jesus was the Christ: “Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ” (Acts 5:42). Elsewhere we read, “Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ” (Acts 9:22). So the gospel was rooted in eternity in the mind of God, but it was also rooted in history in the life of Jesus Christ.

Thank God, the gospel is no longer hidden! The gospel is no longer a mystery. Paul declares, “No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. . . . God has revealed it to us by his Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:7–8, 9). God commissioned Paul to declare “the word of God in its fullness—the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:25b–27). He says, “My purpose is that [these saints] may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ” (Col. 2:2).

Christ is no longer a mystery to us. Peter writes, “He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake” (1 Pet. 1:20). So if someone does not understand the gospel, it is because God has not revealed it to him. Paul writes, “As it is written: ‘No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him’—but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:9–10). He also explains, “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:14). Such a person is simply hearing the general call of the gospel, not the effectual call of the Spirit which goes into our inner being, unveiling the mystery that is Christ .

Thank God, the gospel is no longer hidden for us! Christ Jesus, the mystery, has come. He himself is the key to the Old Testament, for he said that the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms, and all speak of him, that Christ must die and be raised from the dead, that repentance and forgiveness of sins may be preached to all the nations (Luke 24:27, 44–47). The mystery is now revealed. (PGM) So Paul says, “But now [i.e., since Christ has come] a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify” (Rom. 3:21).

We cannot say that the gospel is a mystery or that we do not know the gospel. Faith comes by hearing the gospel, and we are hearing it right now. Therefore, I urge you to believe in this Jesus Christ and you will be saved. God promises that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. The gospel is now revealed and made known to all nations—to the Jews and to the Gentiles. It was God’s plan that in the seed of Abraham, that is, in Jesus Christ, all the nations of the world be blessed. Jesus himself was the first preacher of the gospel, as the Hebrews writer tells us: “How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him” (Heb. 2:3). So Paul says, “Now is the accepted time; now is the day of your salvation.” Believe and be saved!

5. The Proximate Purpose of the Gospel

What is the proximate purpose of this revelation of the mystery hidden in eternity past in the heart of God? What is the purpose of this gospel now made known to all the world? Paul writes, “so that all nations might believe and obey him” (v. 26).

Unlike all other religions, Christianity is not a man-made religion. It alone is a religion revealed to us from the eternal mind of God. The incarnational life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ brought us understanding of the prophetic writings that Christ died for our sins and was raised for our justification. The preaching of Jesus Christ is therefore the preaching of the whole Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, the promise and the fulfillment.

6. The Gospel Is Preached by Divine Command

This preaching of the gospel throughout the world is by the eternal decree of the Father, by God’s order: “by the command of the eternal God” (v. 26). Behind the great commission of Christ is the command of our heavenly Father, who made his salvation plan in the eternal covenant of redemption. Therefore, all true ministers preach the gospel by the Father’s order and the Son’s commission in the power of the Holy Spirit. I must preach! Woe unto me, if I preach not the gospel, because God the Father has ordained that the gospel be preached to all nations from all eternity.

The purpose of this preaching is that all the families of the earth be blessed, that their sins be forgiven, and that they be clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Paul says, “For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith’” (Rom. 1:17). As John writes, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

The purpose of God in preaching the gospel is that all elect sinners from all nations, all who are foreloved and predestinated to be conformed to the likeness of Christ, might believe and obey God and his Son.

What must we do to be saved? The Bible says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved”—saved from our sins, saved from God’s just wrath, saved from death and hell, and saved to serve Jesus Christ as his obedient subjects. Those who believe in Jesus are vitally united with him. Their life is Christ. Saving faith always obeys Christ. A faith that does not obey Jesus Christ is the devil’s dead faith. The devil only trembles; he never obeys. The preaching of the gospel is to result in the obedience of faith (Acts 6:7). If a person claims to be a Christian but does not obey Jesus Christ, he is a child of the devil. He is an unregenerate, masquerading as a Christian.

The gospel opposes autonomy and antinomianism. The aim of the gospel is glad obedience of God’s people. Every elect shall believe the gospel and obey Jesus Christ. Evidence of justification is obedience.

Faith in Christ must result in a life of obedience that produces fruit, more fruit, and much fruit, for the glory of God. We cannot be vitally united with Christ and be fruitless. Paul writes, “But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted” (Rom. 6:17). Jesus himself said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matt. 28:18–20). The apostles declared, “We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him” (Acts 5:32). And Paul testified, “So, then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven. First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and to the Gentiles also, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds” (Acts 26:19–20). The Hebrews author said about Jesus, “Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him” (Heb. 5:8–9).

7. The Ultimate Purpose of the Gospel

Paul concludes, “to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen” (v. 27). The salvation of the elect sinners is not God’s ultimate purpose. The ultimate purpose is the glory of God. We are to glorify God in all things we do. Christianity is a God-centered religion.

Who is this God we must glorify, and how do we glorify him?

1. He is the only God. All other gods except the triune God of the holy Bible are false. They are worthless works of men’s minds and hands. Behind all idolatry are demons. The one God who revealed himself in Jesus Christ is the only God, the living God.

2. He is the wise God. Our God alone is wise, infinitely wise. He knows the highest goal in any situation and the best way to achieve it for his greatest glory. This wisdom is especially revealed in his salvation plan by the incarnation, death, and resurrection of his eternal Son. So Paul exclaims, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!” (Rom. 11:33). Elsewhere he writes, “It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30).

Man’s utter foolishness is shown when he evaluates God’s plan of salvation as foolishness. But Paul writes, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.’ Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe” (1 Cor. 1:18–22).

3. He is true God. Jesus said, “This is eternal life: that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent” (John 17:3, KJV).

4. To him be glory forever. The glory of God is the manifestation of his attributes, especially of his holiness. God is glorious; the idea is that he is weighty with glory. The psalmist says that the wicked are like chaff which the wind blows away (Ps. 1). They are lightweight; they are mist; they are wind; they are grass; they are clay; they are nothing. Since man sinned, he has lacked the glory God gave to his creatures. But God sent his glorious Son into this world to bring many sons to glory. God is even now changing us from glory to glory. So Paul says, “And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified” (Rom. 8:30). Paul also states, “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body” (Phil. 3:20–21).

God’s children glorify God by their work and worship. And we shall spend eternity worshiping God in the beauty of his holiness. This is the ultimate purpose of redemption. So John writes, “After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb. . . . Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!’” (Rev. 7:9–10, 12). The moment we are saved by the gospel, we begin to worship God with a worship that shall never end, a worship that is forever and ever.

5. True worship of God is only through Jesus Christ, whom the gospel reveals. Only the worship rendered to God in and through Jesus Christ is accepted by the Father, who planned our redemption in Christ from all eternity. Jesus Christ alone is our mediator, our redeemer, our justification, our atonement, our everything. Jesus Christ is our life. All other worship God condemns.

Thank God for Jesus Christ, who unveiled the mystery of the gospel by rending the veil of mystery by his atoning death. He opened up for us a new and living way so that we can now draw near in Christ to God’s throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace to help us in our time of need.

To God be the glory, who, by his eternal gospel, now revealed and made known to the whole world in the Scriptures through Jesus Christ and his servants, a gospel that is preached to us also and by which we are saved to glorify God and to enjoy him forever—to him be glory forever! Amen.

¹ “It pleased God, in his eternal purpose, to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus, his only begotten Son, to be the Mediator between God and man, the Prophet, Priest, and King, the Head and Savior of his church, the Heir of all things, and Judge of the world: unto whom he did from all eternity give a people, to be his seed, and to be by him in time redeemed, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified.”