“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16 ESV).
The city of Rome was the center of political and military power at the time of the Epistle to the Romans. At its peak, the authority of the Roman Empire spread across portions of three continents and controlled large territorial areas throughout Europe, Asia, and North Africa. Paul the Apostle was thus writing to a congregational audience who understood the concepts of strength, authority, and force projection.
However, Rome’s power could only compel external compliance to the edicts of the Empire. Yet unlike the political and military dominance that characterized the Roman Empire, the power that Paul the Apostle speaks of here in Romans 1:16 was “…the power of God unto salvation” (KJV). In a spiritual context, this reference to “salvation” is associated with the concept of “deliverance.” It encompasses God’s liberation of human beings from their state of separation from Him.
That state of separation arises from the fact that “…all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard” (NLT) as we’ll read later in Romans 3:23. Unfortunately, everyone has failed to live up to the standard of perfection that God established with the creation of the very first human couple. The New Testament epistle of James adds to that sobering reality when it tells us, “If someone obeys all of God’s laws except one, that person is guilty of breaking all of them.” (James 2:10 GW).
Nevertheless, Jesus (who was sinless) accepted that death penalty on our behalf through His atoning, sacrificial death on the cross. Those who accept His substitutionary death by faith receive salvation (or deliverance) from an eternity of retributive justice for their offenses. The following translation of John 3:17-18 conveys this idea in the following manner…
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (ESV).
Jesus’ sacrificial death thus delivers us from the eternal death sentence that accompanies sin. Therefore, as the Biblical book of Galatians reminds us, “…when the right time finally came, God sent his own Son. He came as the son of a human mother and lived under the Jewish Law, to redeem those who were under the Law, so that we might become God’s children” (Galatians 4:4-5 GNT).