For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believers, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. —Romans 1:16, emphasis added.
Often times we overlook the fact that 99% of Jesus’ recorded words in the New Testament are addressed to Jews. When we read his words in scripture, we’re simply overhearing a conversation that he was having with someone else.
So what difference does it make that he’s speaking to Jews first? The difference is tied up in what Paul says in Romans 1:16 when he says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believers, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” This statement of Paul’s has confused many interpreters. It does, in fact, seem a bit unusual because there are more non-Jewish believers than there are Jewish believers.
So what does Paul mean with this statement? Paul is pointing out that salvation comes to the world because of his covenant faithfulness to Israel. God made Israel all sorts of promises for redemption and restoration. Even more than this, he promised Israel that it would be a Jew who would be the ruler of the entire world (specifically from David’s family). With the death and resurrection of Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, this is precisely what happened. It is Jesus, Jewish man (and God, of course), that sits at the right hand of the Father in Heaven today. It is this very many who will judge the living and the dead and to him all power and authority has been given over the earth and under the earth. This means that God was faithful to this particular promise to Israel.
The second promise that God was faithful to fulfill in the work of Jesus was the promise for a new covenant in which Israel would be liberated from their sin nature (symbolized in the heart of stone mentioned in Jeremiah 31:31–34). Through the death and resurrection of the Messiah all believers have access to baptism in the Holy Spirit which means having a new nature, a new heart, a heart of flesh.
This is what Paul means when he says that salvation is for the Jew first. Once again, the Cross is first and foremost the manifestation of God’s faithfulness to Israel. This is what Paul means when he talks about the “faithfulness of God” in Romans 3.
But what about the Greek that Paul mentions in Romans 1:16? You see, the resurrection of Jesus not only fulfilled God’s promises to Israel, but also confirmed his faithfulness to redeem all of the creation. Through Jesus’ resurrection we have the launching of the New Creation that will take place of the old that is subject to disease, corruption, decay and death. God has a responsibility as the sovereign Creator to put right what went wrong in the Garden of Eden (not only in Israel).
It is this thinking that is behind the famous words we read in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation”. Paul is talking about God’s faithfulness to fixed the old creation in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
This means that the Cross and Resurrection together demonstrates God’s faithfulness on two levels: (1) to Israel as his covenant people, (2) to the creation as the Creator of the cosmos.
