Romans 1:16-17 is a passage that has brought people to their knees throughout the whole history of the Church, and it is also the very heartbeat of Pastor David Jang's ministry (founder of Olivet University). "For I am not ashamed of the gospel... the righteous shall live by faith." Within this brief declaration are compressed Paul's life, the spark that ignited the Reformation, and the inner conflicts of believers living in today's Korean society. Clinging to these words, Pastor David Jang draws the figure of the apostle Paul-standing with the gospel in the middle of a vast empire-into the realities of our own day and interprets him for us. Amid the marble palaces of the Roman Empire and the roar of the Colosseum, he overlays with striking precision the sense of intimidation and shame the early Christians must have felt-those regarded as "the scum of the world"-onto the psychology of modern Christians who, in the center of the city and under the mockery of the world, shrink back while trying to hold on to faith.
What Pastor David Jang repeatedly reminds us is that being ashamed of the gospel is never merely a theoretical problem. As with the Corinthian church, the Roman church was largely made up of people from the lower social strata, many without recognized education. Paul calls himself and his coworkers "the scum of the world." In the eyes of the Roman Empire, they were nothing more than a shabby group believing in a "defeated god." The confession that one worships a god who died nailed to a cross was, to Roman soldiers, philosophers, and politicians, an object of ridicule. It is precisely here that Pastor David Jang brings Paul's declaration before our eyes with force. The single sentence, "I am not ashamed of the gospel," rings out like a trumpet of spiritual awakening to the small churches crouching beneath the shadow of empire-and to us today, buried under the flood of secular culture and information, living with a faith that often feels pressed into the margins.
When we picture this scene, Caravaggio's masterpieces naturally come to mind. In The Calling of Saint Matthew, where Jesus' light penetrates a tax collector's dark room, Caravaggio portrays the initiative of grace through a dramatic contrast of light and shadow. Matthew sits at a table tangled up with drink and money, comfortably settled into the world's order; yet the light arrives first, regardless of his will, and falls on his face. The power of the gospel that Pastor David Jang emphasizes in his preaching is exactly like this. It vaults over boundaries of status and culture, knowledge and power, and comes searching for those at the very bottom-lifting their eyes, making them rise, and driving them to leave their old seat behind. Paul's message, "the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes," is quiet like the light settling into that cramped room, yet decisively powerful-strong enough to change reality.
In interpreting the phrase, "to the Jew first and also to the Greek," Pastor David Jang does not confuse election with discrimination. That the Jew is "first" speaks to the order of salvation-history, not to any difference in the size or depth of salvation. God's plan of redemption overflows the fence of the chosen people and streams outward to the Greeks-that is, to all Gentiles. Pastor David Jang reads this rhythm of "first... and also..." as a missionary mandate. The gospel is not locked inside one nation, one class, or one language; it carries a movement, flowing toward the weakest and the despised. God's way-choosing "the foolish things of the world, the weak things, the low and despised things" (1 Corinthians 1)-did not change in the Roman Empire, and it does not change in a society that worships capital and success today.
At this point, it is deeply meaningful to recall the crucifixion scene in Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece. In that painting, Jesus' body is twisted beyond imagining, covered with wounds, looking almost like the flesh of someone ravaged by plague. The altarpiece stood in a monastic hospital where the most agonized patients of the Middle Ages lay suffering, and they were comforted by seeing in Christ's diseased-looking body a reflection of their own. The power of the gospel Pastor David Jang speaks of-"the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes"-is precisely the power that embraces those in the lowest place, carrying the most desperate pain. The Christ of the cross reveals the righteousness of God from the place that stands in direct contrast to Rome's glory: the place thrown away like society's refuse, the place the system discards.
In Romans 1:17, Paul defines the gospel in a single sentence: "For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith..." Pastor David Jang sharply distinguishes this "righteousness of God" from the righteousness of the law. Under the law, righteousness is defined in the language of conditions and judgment. An equation rules: keep it and you are blessed; break it and you are cursed. The law exposes sin, but it does not have the power to cut sin's cords. Thus, when grace is absent, the law can become a "shadow of curse" settling over the soul. This is why Paul says in Galatians that "all who rely on works of the law are under a curse."
But the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel is righteousness of an entirely different order. It is not a moral achievement humans pile up by keeping the law; it is God's unilateral act of salvation completed at the cross of Jesus Christ. Pastor David Jang often explains this truth by referring to the Chinese character for "righteousness," 義. It is formed from "lamb" (羊) over "I/me" (我)-a picture of a lamb covering the self. Structurally, it is as though the sacrificial lamb is placed over the "I," which is composed of the hand and the spear-an image that evokes the Lamb of God who was pierced in my place. When the blood of Jesus Christ covers me, God no longer looks upon my sin; He looks upon the Lamb's righteousness. At that moment, "righteousness" is no longer an abstract moral concept; it becomes an ontological declaration that God and I have been reconnected in a right relationship again.
Many painters of the Renaissance and Baroque eras captured precisely this mystery on canvas. Rembrandt's Return of the Prodigal Son, in particular, visually displays with piercing clarity the essence of the righteousness and grace Pastor David Jang proclaims. Over the back of the son-kneeling in rags-rest the father's two hands. Beside the son's feet lies a discarded shoe; his head is half-shaven. It is the image of a life utterly collapsed, a being standing at the edge of shame and sin. Yet inside the painting, there is no coldness of a courtroom, no sound of a calculator clicking. There is only the son's breathless sob as he folds into the father's embrace, and the trembling of the hands that stroke his back. This is what Pastor David Jang unfolds through his exposition of Romans: "the righteousness of God apart from the law." Not the scales of law, but the father's arms-this is what overturns the sinner's fate.
In the phrase "from faith to faith," Pastor David Jang describes faith not as a static condition but as an ongoing journey. The beginning of salvation is faith, and the road that leads to its completion is also faith. What initiates faith is God's faithfulness-God's trustworthiness. If that faithfulness had not first come toward us, we could never manufacture faith by ourselves. The love of Christ, who gave His own life as a ransom on the cross, extended its hand first; our faith is only the response that grasps that hand. Pastor David Jang often cites Ephesians 2:8: "For by grace you have been saved through faith." Grace is the objective fact of salvation accomplished on God's side, and faith is like the hand by which that fact is received into my life.
If we translate this point into the language of art, Fra Angelico's Annunciation comes to mind. In the scene where Mary, a poor young woman from Galilee, hears the angel's message, faith is depicted not as grand heroic resolve but as a quiet, profound receptivity-emptying oneself before God's word and answering, "Let it be to me according to your word." The faith Pastor David Jang emphasizes is of the same kind. It is not a faith that boasts in one's own merit, but an inward posture that entrusts itself wholly to the righteousness of God already accomplished. And the faith that begins this way is passed on to another person; through that person's lips and life it gives rise to yet another faith. This is the succession of the gospel-"from faith to faith."
Pastor David Jang also frequently reminds us that the declaration "the righteous shall live by faith" was first given through the prophet Habakkuk. In that era, with Babylon's invasion looming, the righteous possessed neither political solutions nor military superiority nor economic safety nets. Yet God promised, "the righteous shall live by his faith." Even in the center of the whirlwind of destruction, the one who trusts God-the one who holds to the covenant even amid judgment-will live. Pastor David Jang replants Habakkuk's message into the context of Romans and declares that regardless of the rise and fall of empires, those who are in the gospel have already been set on the orbit of eternal life.
If we recall Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling, The Creation of Adam, we feel the dynamism of this faith even more vividly. God's arm is extended with power; Adam's finger trembles, barely reaching toward that hand. The decisive movement that opens salvation begins first from God's side. Yet if Adam's finger were completely limp, the touch would not happen. Faith is a frail response-stretching out a trembling finger toward the hand of the Almighty-yet precisely there a boundary is formed: from death to life, from despair to hope, from the curse of the law to the freedom of grace. The faith Pastor David Jang speaks of is never a heroic achievement; it is the inward resolve not to give up, but to keep reaching out-even if only with one finger-to take hold of God's hand.
Seen this way, the confession "I am not ashamed of the gospel" is not simply about emotional bravery. It is an existential stance flowing from the conviction that the gospel truly is "the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." If the gospel is the righteousness of God, then the righteous person who receives that righteousness by faith is already one who lives. Even if the Roman Empire collapses, even if modern civilization trembles, even if the empires of markets and ideologies disintegrate, the promise "the righteous shall live by faith" does not change. Pastor David Jang builds his preaching and ministry upon this promise. To those who appear insignificant in the world's eyes, to those always pushed aside within social structures, to those who live regarding themselves as life's leftovers, he proclaims boldly-as Paul did: the gospel is God's power for you. The moment you receive this gospel by faith, the righteousness of God covers you, and your destiny begins to be rewritten anew.
Even today, many live inside and outside the church trapped in the bondage of legalistic thinking. Distorted self-understandings-"If I do at least this much, God will love me," or "I have failed this badly, so God must have abandoned me"-quietly produce shame about the gospel in the deepest parts of the heart. Without certainty that the power of the cross truly covers my sin and my disgrace, the gospel turns into theory and faith becomes habit. Pastor David Jang's exposition of Romans repeatedly confronts us here: the righteousness of God is not proportional to the size of your merit. It is righteousness already completed at the cross of Jesus Christ, and you need only receive it by faith. When this simple yet radical truth-"the righteous shall live by faith"-is inscribed again on the heart, we finally become people who are not ashamed of the gospel, but who rather make the gospel our boast.
Just as Rembrandt captured, in one frame, human misery and divine mercy through contrasts of light and darkness, Pastor David Jang reveals within the short text of Romans 1:16-17 both the reality of sin and the glory of grace. When we do not forget how deeply we once stood beneath the shadow of death, we become more grateful for what an astonishing gift "the righteousness of God" is. That gratitude becomes faith, that faith gives birth to another faith, and the gospel continues to expand beyond generations and borders. In every age, under every empire, God chooses "the foolish things, the weak things, the low and despised things" to shame the strong. Even today, through preachers like Pastor David Jang, and through the small obedience of ordinary believers whose names are unknown, God raises up "the righteous who are not ashamed of the gospel," and through them speaks to the Rome of our time in a quiet but unyielding voice: "Only the righteous shall live by faith." When this word moves beyond doctrine or slogan and becomes a living reality within each of our daily lives and within history itself, the gospel is no longer a cause for shame-it becomes the most radiant glory.
