I want to start with a question that has haunted me since childhood.
I remember riding a bus to school during the collapse of the Soviet Union. Outside the window — poverty everywhere. Elderly people collecting empty bottles just to buy bread. I was a kid, but even then I found myself wondering: What is happiness? Does it even exist?
My name, Said, means "blessed" or "happy" in Arabic. So you could say the question was built into my identity from the start. And after years of searching, I've come to believe that the apostle Paul answered it — compressed it, really — into two of the most loaded sentences in all of Scripture.
"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. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, 'The righteous shall live by faith.'" (Romans 1:16-17 NIV)
Two verses. And yet Paul somehow packed everything he understood about life, God, and the meaning of history into them.
Let me unpack what I see here.
1. Not Ashamed — A Radical Declaration
Think about what it meant for Paul to say this. In the first century, every Roman coin bore Caesar's image with the inscription "son of God." Caesar was the savior, the lord, the bringer of peace. To stand up in that world and declare that a crucified Jewish carpenter was the true Son of God — that was not a polite theological opinion. That was treason.
The psalmist wrote: "I will speak of Your testimonies before kings and shall not be ashamed" (Psalm 119:46 NIV). Paul lived that. And Jesus Himself warned: "For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels" (Mark 8:38 NIV).
Being "not ashamed" is not just about courage. It's about conviction — knowing that what you carry is true, and that it matters more than the opinions of the powerful.
2. The Good News Is Bigger Than You Think
We often shrink the word "gospel" down to a personal formula: believe, get saved, go to heaven. But the Greek word euangelion — good news — was a political term. It was the announcement that a new king had taken the throne. When Paul says "gospel," he means the radical proclamation that God has become King through Jesus Christ.
Isaiah saw it centuries before: "How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news… who says to Zion, 'Your God reigns!'" (Isaiah 52:7 NIV).
That's the heart of the Good News. Not just that your sins are forgiven — though they are. Not just that you're going to heaven — though you will. The heart of it is this: God reigns. Despite everything happening in your life, in the world, in the chaos around you — God reigns.
3. Power That Transforms
Paul doesn't call the gospel a nice idea or a helpful philosophy. He calls it power — dynamis in Greek, the word we get "dynamite" from.
I've seen this power. I knew a man in Kazakhstan — a former drug addict, someone the world had written off completely. He encountered the risen Jesus, and his life was turned inside out. Today, he runs a Christian children's home, caring for orphans. From destruction to restoration. From death to life. That's not self-improvement. That's the power of God.
Paul saw this everywhere he went. Entire cities transformed. Not because he was a brilliant speaker, but because the message itself carried power — the power of a King who had conquered death.
4. Salvation as a New Life
Here's something we often miss: salvation in the Bible isn't just a moment. It's past, present, and future.
You were saved (justified). You are being saved (sanctified). You will be saved (glorified). Salvation is not a ticket — it's a new life. It's entering into a relationship where you know God's will and pursue it, where you live as a citizen of His Kingdom right now.
And this salvation is for everyone who believes — Jew and Greek alike. Paul says "to the Jew first and also to the Greek," pointing to God's plan to create "one new man" from all peoples, as he later writes in Ephesians: "So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God's household" (Ephesians 2:19 NIV).
One new humanity. That's the scope of what God is doing.
5. God's Covenant Faithfulness — The Story Behind the Story
Now we get to the phrase most people misunderstand: "the righteousness of God."
N.T. Wright translates Romans 1:17 NIV this way: "God's covenant justice is unveiled in it, from faithfulness to faithfulness."
This isn't about God being morally perfect (though He is). This is about God being faithful to His covenant promises. And to understand that, you need to know the story.
The Covenant with Adam and Eve
It begins in Genesis. God creates humanity in His image — to reflect His character, to rule, to be fruitful (Genesis 1:26-28 NIV). But Adam and Eve made the oldest human choice: "I want to be god of my own life." And everything broke.
The Covenant with Abraham and Sarah
Then God does something breathtaking. He takes an elderly, barren couple — a new Adam and Eve, humanly speaking dead — and says: "In you all the families of the earth will be blessed" (Genesis 12:3 NIV).
What's dead, God makes alive. What's hopeless, God makes fruitful.
Then comes one of the most stunning scenes in all of Scripture. In Genesis 15 NIV, God makes a covenant with Abraham. In ancient Near Eastern culture, both parties of a covenant would walk between the halves of cut animals, essentially saying: "May this happen to me if I break my word." But God puts Abraham to sleep. God alone passes between the pieces. He takes all the responsibility upon Himself.
Do you see what that means? God is saying: "If this covenant fails, it's on Me. I will pay the price."
And then Genesis 22 NIV — God tests Abraham's faith. Isaac, the miracle son, is on the altar. Isaac asks, "Where is the lamb?" Abraham answers: "God will provide for Himself the lamb" (Genesis 22:8 NIV). God provides a ram. Abraham's son is spared.
But here's the shadow behind the story: God did not spare His own Son. What Abraham was not asked to do, God did Himself. The covenant ceremony in Genesis 15 NIV pointed straight to the cross.
"Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness" (Genesis 15:6 NIV). Paul will build his entire argument in Romans on this verse.The Covenant with David
God promised David: "Your throne shall be established forever" (2 Samuel 7:16 NIV). An eternal King from David's line. That King is Jesus — the Messiah, the one who sits on the throne that will never end.
Jesus Arrives
When Jesus begins His ministry, His first words are: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel" (Mark 1:15 NIV).
Notice: repentance is necessary, but repentance is not the gospel. The gospel is the announcement — the Kingdom has come! God reigns! He taught this through parables — the mustard seed, the treasure hidden in a field. He taught us to pray: "Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10 NIV).
And after His resurrection, He declared: "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth" (Matthew 28:18 NIV). The Kingdom is here. Now go — make disciples of all nations.
The book of Acts begins with the disciples asking about the Kingdom (Acts 1:6 NIV) and ends with Paul "preaching the kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness, unhindered" (Acts 28:31). The whole story is about the Kingdom.
6. The Climax — From Faithfulness to Faithfulness
This brings us to the phrase: "from faith to faith" — or as Wright renders it, "from faithfulness to faithfulness."
From God's faithfulness to our faith response.
God was faithful when He passed between those animals alone. He was faithful when He provided the ram for Abraham. He was faithful when He sent His Son — and did not spare Him. As Paul later writes: "But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested… through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction… being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus" (Romans 3:21-24 NIV).
The entire biblical story — from Adam to Abraham to David to Isaiah to Jesus — is the story of God remaining faithful to His covenant. Every promise kept. Every word fulfilled.
7. The Righteous Shall Live by Faith
Paul quotes the prophet Habakkuk: "The righteous will live by his faith" (Habakkuk 2:4 NIV).
This is not bare survival. This is full life — life in covenant relationship with the living God. It's the life Jesus spoke of when He said He came that we might have life abundantly.
When Martin Luther read these words — "the righteous shall live by faith" — something cracked open inside him. It sparked the Reformation, which transformed all of European civilization. One phrase. One truth. An entire world changed.
C.S. Lewis put it this way: "God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from Himself, because there is no such thing apart from Him."
And Pascal, who understood the restless human heart, wrote: "Inside every person there is a vacuum, an emptiness, that only God can fill through the love revealed in Jesus Christ. This emptiness is bottomless because it was created for a bottomless being — God."
Solzhenitsyn, who found God in a Soviet prison, said: "Bless you, prison! There I realized that the line between good and evil runs through the heart of every person — not between parties or classes, but directly through the human heart."
These are people who discovered that the righteous don't merely survive by faith — they live.
So Here's the Question
God passed between the cut animals. He took full responsibility. He kept every promise. He sent His Son. He did not hold back.
God has been faithful.
Will you be faithful in your response?
This is what "from faithfulness to faithfulness" means. It starts with God — it always starts with God — but it awaits your answer. Not perfection. Not having it all figured out. Just faith. The same kind Abraham had when he trusted God in the dark, when he said, "God will provide."
God's faithfulness is not in question. The only question is yours.
The righteous shall live by faith.
Will you?
see related video sermon in Russian here: