Have you ever wondered where from the Bible we get the little God-Man-Christ-Response summary of the Gospel? Sometimes that summary gets poo-pooed a bit as a simplistic, manufactured reduction of the Gospel that really doesn't do justice to what the Bible actually says. (Yes, I said "poo-pooed.")
But have you ever noticed that Paul, when he wants to give a simple, straightforward, step-by-step presentation of his Gospel, goes exactly through those four points, one after the other? He does it in the first four chapters of Romans. That's where we get it.
GOD
First, Paul tells his readers that it is God to whom they are accountable. He begins his presentation of the gospel by declaring that “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven” (Rom. 1:18). So with his very first words, Paul insists that humanity is not autonomous. We did not create ourselves, and we are neither self-reliant nor self-accountable. No, it is God who created the world and everything in it, including us. Because he created us, God has the right to demand that we worship him. Look what Paul says in verses 20-21:
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Humanity's sin was failing to honor and thank God. It is our obligation, as people created and owned by God, to give him the honor and glory that is due to him, to live and speak and act and think in a way that recognizes and acknowledges his authority over us. We are made by him, owned by him, dependent on him, and therefore accountable to him. That’s the first point Paul labors to make as he explains the gospel.
MAN
Second, Paul tells his readers that their problem is that they rebelled against God. They—along with everyone else—did not honor God and give thanks to him as they should have. Their foolish hearts were darkened and they “exchanged God’s glory for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.”
For most of the next three chapters Paul presses this point, indicting all humanity as sinners against God. First he focuses on the Gentiles in chapter 1, and then he turns just as strongly toward the Jews in chapter 2. It’s as if Paul knows that the most self-righteous of the Jews would have been applauding his lashing of the Gentiles, so he pivots on a dime in 2:1 and points his accusing finger at them: “You, therefore, have no excuse!” Just like Gentiles, he says, Jews have broken God’s law and are under his judgment.
By the middle of chapter three, Paul has indicted every single person in the world with rebellion against God. “We have made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin” (3:9). And his conclusion is that when we stand before God the Judge, every mouth will be silenced. No one will mount a defense. Not one excuse will be offered. The whole world—Jew, Gentile, every last one of us—will be held fully accountable to God (3:19).
CHRIST
Third, Paul says that God’s solution to humanity’s sin is the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. “But now,” he writes, in spite of our sin, “now a righteousness from God, apart from Law, has been made known” (3:21). In other words, there is a way for human beings to be counted righteous before God instead of unrighteous, to be declared innocent instead of guilty, to be justified instead of condemned. And it has nothing do with acting better, or living a more righteous life. It comes “apart from the law.”
And how does it happen? Paul puts it plainly in Romans 3:24. Despite our rebellion against God, we can be “justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Through Christ’s sacrificial death (“propitiation,” Paul says) and resurrection, sinners may be saved from the condemnation our sins deserve.
RESPONSE
Finally, Paul tells his readers how they themselves can be included in this salvation. That’s what he writes about through the end of chapter three and on through chapter four. The salvation God has provided “comes through faith in Jesus Christ.” It comes “to all who believe” (3:22). So how does this salvation become good news for me and not just for someone else? How do I come to be included in it? By believing in Jesus Christ. By trusting him and no other to save me. “To the man who does not work but trusts God to save the wicked,” Paul explains, “his faith is credited as righteousness,” (4:5).
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So there you go. God-Man-Christ-Response, as plain as day, right there in the first four chapters of Romans. Of course Paul goes on to talk about other things: the Christ-Adam parallel in 5, the grace-leads-to-sin/no-it-doesn’t-it-leads-to-freedom-and-holiness exchange in 6, the reason salvation cannot be by law in 7, the great explosion of gospel promise in 8, the excruciating question of Israel’s non-belief in 9-11, and the application of all this in 12-16. But it all starts with the Gospel in 1-4 -- God-Man-Christ-Response.
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