"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.... For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, 'The just shall live by faith'" (Romans 1:16, 17).
The first chapter of Romans can be summarized as the condition of man without God, and how he gets into that condition. The cause of this condition can be stated in one word--unbelief.
Coupled with unbelief is self-exaltation. They lost God "because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened" (vs. 21). They attributed everything to themselves, and as self was advanced, faith in God decreased, till they were in the darkness of idolatry.
Plato, Seneca, and Marcus Aureleus, taught what they called moral science; Confucius taught moral precepts. But what they all lacked was to tell men how to do what they taught to be right. Even these men who taught moral science and virtue were themselves practicing the things they condemned, and coming far short of doing what they set forth as moral duty.
While those teachers tell us what to do but fail to give us power to do it, the religion of Jesus Christ not only makes known what is right but gives us the ability to perform that which is good. Thus when Christ is not woven into the teaching, the very effort to teach morals is simply the old pagan science of morals, which is immorality. Moral science aside from Jesus Christ is immorality; it is sin. [1]
"Jesus Christ ... is the 'stone which you builders rejected, which has now become the head of the corner.' In no one else can salvation be found. For in all the world no other name has been given to men but this, and it is by this name that we must be saved!" (Acts 4:11,12, Phillips).
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