---

Narrow views of the gospel are very common. Amongst the very wealthy, what an erroneous idea often exists about the gospel and its claims! They think that religion may do very well for the poor, but they have no need of it. Amongst the very poor, on the other hand, you will often find the idea that religion may do very well for respectable people, but that it has nothing to do with them. Then, again, you will meet with a certain class of intellectual men - not always the most cultured or most thoughtful - who imagine that the gospel may do very well for commonplace, ordinary people, but that they have got far beyond such a childish belief. Even among Christian people what narrow views of the gospel and its scope! How slow the Christian Church has been in realizing its mission to the heathen world! There are many who still think that the heathen are well enough off; that there is no need to send the gospel to them. There are many who will tell us that there is "no use" in sending the gospel to the Mohammedan or the Jew. But the Apostle Paul took a very different view. In his view the gospel is a message for every one; and it is the work and duty of the Christian Church to bring it within the reach of every one.

I. A FACT STATED. "The gospel of Christ," says St. Paul, "is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek" (ver. 16). This was the cause of his readiness to go and preach the gospel at Rome also (ver. 15), just as he had already preached it to bigoted and fanatical Jews, and to the cultured and sceptical Greeks. He knew no difference of nation or of language, of creed or class, so far as the need of the gospel and the power of it were concerned. His message was that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and he knew that he would find sinners everywhere.

1. The gospel is a message for the rich. It tells them of a treasure that is incorruptible, that fadeth not away. It shows them how to become rich toward God - first, by having Christ, and having him, we have all things; and then, by making a good use of the earthly possessions which God has given them.

2. The gospel is a message for the poor. It teaches them to be industrious and contented. It shows them in the earthly life of Jesus Christ himself, and in the lives of hundreds of his followers, how a peaceful and happy mind may exist, and how a useful life may be spent, even amid circumstances of outward poverty.

3. The gospel is a message for the men of intellect and learning. What sublime ideas it puts before us! with what pure and lofty motives it inspires us! and with what a glorious hope it cheers us on! Contrast the future to which the atheist or the agnostic looks forward, with the future which is the Christian's hope, an eternity of conscious enjoyment of what is noblest and best. The gospel has a claim upon the ignorant and poor because of its simplicity and its comforts. But it has just as strong a claim upon men of giant intellect and vigorous understanding. And observe how some of the foremost men in science, in literature, and in statesmanship have recognized that claim, and responded to it. What names in literature and science stand higher than those of Newton and Faraday, Thomas Chalmers and Hugh Miller, Sir John Herschel and Sir David Brewster, all humble believers in the Lord Jesus Christ? Or to take one case only from our British statesmen, that of the late Lord Cairns, Lord Chancellor of England. During the term of office of the last Conservative administration a Russian war was felt to be imminent, and much excitement prevailed both within and without the cabinet. One day the wife of a junior member of the cabinet inquired of Lady Cairns, "What is the secret of the lord chancellor's constant and unruffled calmness, which my husband tells me pervades the whole place so soon as Lord Cairns appears? "It is this," was the reply; "he never attends a cabinet meeting without spending half an hour immediately beforehand alone with his God." Upon young men of education and learning, upon young men of thoughtful minds, we would press home the claims of the gospel; yes, the personal claims of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. The gospel is a message for every one. It is a message for the sorrowing. It is a message to the sinner. It has melted the hardest heart; it has made the impure man pure, the intemperate man temperate, the dishonest man honest; and changed the proud and haughty man into a man of humble and gentle spirit. Over and over again it has proved itself to be "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth."

II. A REASON GIVEN AND AN OBLIGATION FELT,

1. St. Paul gives a reason why the gospel is a message for every one. "For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith" (ver. 17). A gospel that tees of a perfect righteousness is the universal need of the human heart. In the opening chapters of this Epistle the apostle enlarges on that idea more fully. He shows how the heathen needed a righteousness. Then he shows how the Jews needed a righteousness, condemned as they were by that holy Law whose requirements they failed to fulfil. And then, having shown the universal need - "for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23) - he speaks of the universal righteousness which is unto and upon all them that believe. There is no difference in the need. There is no difference in the gospel message.

2. We have here also an obligation felt. "I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise" (ver. 14). There are few statements so sublime as that from any human pen. The old Latin poet represents one of his characters as saying, "Homo sum, nihil humanum a me alienum puto" ("I am a man, and everything human has an interest for me"). This is a fine sentiment; but here, in the case of St. Paul, we have a man expressing his personal obligation to seek the spiritual good of every man whom he could reach. He, a Jew, counted himself under obligation to do something for the barbarians; he, a learned and intellectual man, counted himself under obligation to do something for the unwise and ignorant as well as for the wise and the cultured. We, too, need to think more of our own personal indebtedness to Christ. Then we too, like St. Paul, shall he anxious to carry the gospel to rich and poor, learned and unlearned, Jew and Gentile. - C.H.I.

---

---

KJV: I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise.

WEB: I am debtor both to Greeks and to foreigners, both to the wise and to the foolish.