In Romans 1:16,17 Paul sets the stage for the rest of the next chapter and essentially the rest of his letter to the Romans. He does this by talking about "the gospel" or good news of Jesus Christ. Paul here defines the gospel as the salvation of everyone who believes (16) and a righteousness that is by faith (17). As you can see from these passages, the good news of Christ is received by believing in it, not any actions, you can't earn salvation. No, Paul says you simply must believe in Jesus' death for the sins of mankind. Paul then continues to explain exactly why salvation can't be earned, and why we need saving and what we need saving from.
Romans 1:18 says The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness. Very simply, mankind needs saving from sin and from the just punishment that mankind deserves for its sin. You see, mankind is sinful, it has rebelled against God. If you read on the rest of chapter 1, Paul lists off a number of different sins, as simply actions, but also talks about how man rejected God and chose to worship other things, rather than the creator of the universe who rightfully deserves praise. This is the bad news of the gospel. You have sinned against God. I have sinned against God. Everyone who has ever lived has sinned against God, and because of that, we deserve to be punished for our sin.
A lot of people think that if they are good enough, or do enough good deeds, or only sin a little bit, they will earn God's favor and salvation. Let me tell you why that is wrong, or better yet, lets look at what Paul says in chapter 2 of Romans. Paul in this chapter talks about "the law" that was given to the Jews. If you have ever read Leviticus, you will realize there are a lot of rules which the people of Israel had to follow. The thing is, because the people had all of these rules to follow, it further showed how bad they were. Even if they did their best to follow every rule, at some point they would slip up, and at some point they would be sinful and under God's just punishment. People that try to be "good" to earn God's favor do the same thing. God is perfect and eternal; can 100 years of doing the right thing most of the time earn any favor or reward from an eternal and perfect God? That would be like if I went up to Bill Gates and showed him my bank statement or spun a basketball on my finger for like 2 seconds to try to impress a Harlem Globetrotter. They wouldn't be impressed at all! Neither is God when we try to be "good" enough to gain eternal life.
You see, we are all under God's wrath and judgement as sinners, and that is bad news. But the good news of Jesus is that Jesus died on the cross in our place. He took the punishment for us! We don't need to be "good", we don't need to never sin, we just need to believe that Jesus did this and give our lives to him in faith! That is all. Just repent of your sins and believe in Jesus! That is why it is good news, you once were dead in your transgressions, but now you are free in Christ.
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