The Refugees Unleashed

by **Need2Know** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 8:05 am

This Is A Multi-Part Study, Chapter By Chapter:

From Guilt to Glory
Author: Ray C. Stedman

Romans 1:1-17

I don't know any letter that is more fundamental and foundational than Paul's letter to the Romans. It is unquestionably the greatest of all of Paul's letters and the widest in its scope. It is most intent and penetrating in its insight into the understanding of truth; therefore, it is one of the books of the New Testament that every Christian ought to be thoroughly familiar with. If you haven't mastered the book of Romans and aren't able to think through this book without a Bible before you, then I urge you to set that as your goal.

Master the book of Romans -- be so acquainted with it that you can outline it and think of its great themes without a Bible open before you. That requires reading it and studying it and thinking it through in careful detail. I think it is safe to say that Romans probably is the most powerful human document that has ever been penned.

This week, the Freedom Train is in this area, bringing to us some of the great documents of our American history, such as one of the original copies of the Constitution and Thomas Jefferson's copy of the Declaration of Independence. I hope all of you will see this exhibit. We value these great documents. In many ways, our freedom rests upon them, and we Americans rightly honor and respect them. But even these great documents of human liberties could not hold a candle to the effect and impact the epistle to the Romans has had upon human history. To this letter we owe some of the greatest leaders of the church of all time:

•St. Augustine, whose shadow has loomed large over the church since the fourth century, was converted by reading just a few verses of the 13th chapter of the book of Romans.

•Martin Luther, studying the writings of Augustine, came to an understanding of faith. The 16th verse of the very first chapter of the letter spoke volumes to Luther's heart as he thought and meditated on the great phrase, "The righteous shall live by faith." This book's effect on Luther ushered in the great Protestant Reformation, the greatest awakening that our world has seen since the days of the apostles.

•John Bunyan, studying Romans in the Bedford jail, was so caught up by the themes of this great letter that out of it he penned Pilgrim's Progress, which has taught many people how a Christian relates to the world in which he lives.

•As you know, John Wesley, listening one day to Luther's preface to the commentary on Romans, found his own heart strangely warmed and out of that came the great evangelical awakening of the eighteenth century.

•In our own day, Karl Barth has been associated with studies in Romans that have shaken the theological world. We may not always agree with everything Barth writes, but one thing is clear -- his arguments on the book of Romans absolutely demolished liberal Christianity about two or three decades ago.

Paul's letter to the Romans was written about 56-58 A.D., somewhere around the middle of the 1st century, when the apostle was in Corinth on his third missionary journey.

As you read this letter, you can catch glimpses of the conditions in the Greek city of Corinth. Those of you who have visited the site of Corinth know this city was located at the crossroads of trade in the empire. It was one of the notoriously wicked cities in the Roman world and much of that atmosphere is characterized here in the letter to the Romans.

This letter was written only about 30 years after the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Today is December 7, Pearl Harbor Day, and many of us realize that it was 34 years ago today that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The events of that day are etched unforgettably in the memory of many of us who lived through that time. Anyone of us who was over 10 years old then knows what he was doing when the news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor came. Such was the impact of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. The memory of it still was sharply etched in the minds of Christians all over the Roman Empire.

This letter was sent to them to teach them and instruct them and bring to their remembrance the meaning of these fantastic events that had so startled and amazed men in that 1st century.

The first seventeen verses of this letter constitute an introduction. In this introduction are the great themes of this epistle, the things that Paul is going to return to again and again as he boldly puts forth these tremendous concepts that have so fantastically altered and changed the lives of men. There is both a literary and a logical order to these themes. The literary order, of course, follows the pattern in which they appear here in the epistle to the Romans. The logical order is not quite the same, but I am going to combine the two orders. The progression forms a kind of target. The bull's-eye, the heart of the target, is the theme: Jesus is Lord. We can see this theme in the first seven verses of the introduction.

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God -- the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. Through him and for his name's sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith. And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 1:1-7 NIV)

At the heart of Paul's argument is this central personage: Jesus Christ, our Lord. That, certainly, is the theme of the epistle to the Romans, as it is the theme of all Paul's writings and all of the New Testament. Union in Christ is the central truth that God wants us to see. As Paul himself wrote in the letter to the Colossians, "Christ in you, the hope of glory," (Colossians 1:27b NIV). That is the great truth from which all others flow.

Now, sometimes commentators and Bible teachers identify certain of the great emphases that come from that truth as being the central truth. For instance, they emphasize justification by faith, or sanctification, that is, solving the problems of sin. But these themes all stem from the great central theme -- union with Christ. That is why the person of the Lord Jesus is central in all of the apostle's thinking, just as it is central in God's program for mankind everywhere.

We are not simply followers of a philosophy, or even of a philosopher, but of a savior, a redeemer, a person -- and he must be central in all things. From this central point, Paul builds a logical progression of concentric circles, like a target. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is the next theme flowing out from the central personage of Jesus. Next, the gospel is brought to us through the apostle, so Paul will speak of himself as the great apostle to the Gentiles, through whom the gospel is spread. Then, the recipients of that gospel are the Christians, the Roman Christians to whom this letter was written, and to ourselves as well, the 20th century recipients of the letter to the Romans. Then, as the final out thrust of this tremendous involvement which begins with the Lord himself and flows through the apostle and the Christians, the gospel reaches out to the nations of the world -- Jew and Gentile alike.

We'll see this logical order as we go through the introductory paragraph of this letter. In his introduction, Paul points out that the Lord was promised to us; he came as predicted in the Old Testament. The gospel was promised beforehand through the "prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son." One of the most important things that we can learn about our faith is that it comes to us through the anticipation and prediction of centuries of teaching and preaching. We are familiar with the predictive passages in the Old Testament. We remember that when Jesus walked with the two men on the road to Emmaus, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he taught them "the things concerning himself," (Luke 24:27 RSV). Jesus saw himself predicted in the Old Testament. We can see clearly the great messianic passages in the Old Testament that point unerringly to Jesus. When you read the Old Testament, you are gripped by the feeling that someone is coming! All the prophets speak of him, all the sacrifices point toward him, all the longings and dreams and yearnings of men are hoping for someone to come who will solve the problems of man. When you close the Old Testament, he has not arrived yet. But the first thing the New Testament tells us is that the angels appeared to the shepherds abiding in the fields at Bethlehem and sang a great song of hope to them: "Unto you are great tidings of joy, for unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord," (Luke 2:10-11). The promised one appears on the scene. Paul reminds us, in his introduction, that Jesus is the one who was promised beforehand.

When he comes, he is presented to us in two unique ways: First, concerning his human nature, the apostle says he was a descendant of David. Now the actual Greek here is much more blunt and earthy than that. It says he comes of the very sperm of David, emphasizing his intense humanity. We all came that way. We came by the union of sperm and ovum in the miracle of conception, and Jesus came in the same way, through the sperm of David. Thus, his humanity is emphasized and underscored.

But secondly, linked with that, is the deity of him who "through the spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God." And there Paul begins with that phrase, "the Son of God," that unmistakably declares the deity of our Lord. He was God. Paul will emphasize this many times throughout his letter. But he also stresses the fact that in the uniqueness of his personality he combined together all that was human and all that was divine. And yet, as we will learn in this letter and in other passages of Scripture, he laid aside the exercise of his deity. He didn't come to act as God; he came to act as a man filled with God.

This is what is hopeful and helpful to us. If we are called on to act like God, we might as well give up right now. We can't make it. But if we are called on to be men possessed by God, then that is the level on which Christ lived and the level on which we too can live.

That is the heart of the gospel. This is what God has made it possible for us to do. We can live as he lived and follow his example in that way. Paul will develop these thoughts much more thoroughly in this epistle. There were three things, Paul says, that marked the deity of Jesus: First, there was power; he came by power. This is a reference to the miracles that he did, the displays of remarkable power that he manifested among men. These miracles were a sign that he was the man of God, the man fully indwelt and possessed by God.

Second, he came by the spirit of holiness. I've always been concerned about this word holiness because I find people misunderstand it so. We don't like the word holy. We think of it as something that is bad -- good, but bad. We don't like to be called holy ourselves. When we say somebody is a "holy Joe" we are using a term of disparagement. And yet it is a great word. I think its meaning can be recaptured for us if we will use a similar term that comes from the same root, the word wholeness. Paul is saying that when Jesus came, he was a whole person. He demonstrated whole humanity -- humanity as it was intended to be, exactly. And that is how we are called to live. We are called to be whole persons. The glory of the good news is that God's goal for us is to make us whole, so that we are capable, able to cope, able to handle life, to walk through the midst of the pressures and the turmoils and the tragedies of this world and be able to handle them -- whole persons -- holy persons. That wholeness is what Jesus demonstrated.

The third great mark of Jesus' deity was the resurrection; his deity was authenticated "by his resurrection from the dead." That is where our faith ultimately rests. We can have confidence that God has told us the truth by the unshakable fact that he raised Jesus from the dead. No one can remove that fact from the annals of history. It happened, our faith rests on it, and whenever anybody pursues you and tries to shake your faith, ask them to explain the resurrection. Ask them what they do with it -- because it cannot be explained away. It is the unshakable fact through which God has broken into our time, and he rests the whole story upon that great fact. This, too, will be explored further in this letter.

Now, in the literal order of this letter, the apostle says much about the Roman Christians. And what he says about them also applies to us. In Verses 6-7, he says,

And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ. To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 1:6-7 NIV)

First, Paul says the Roman Christians, the saints, are called. This word called is an adjective, not a verb. We are not self-made saints, we are not man-made saints; we are called saints. God called us.

Now, every one of us can tell a different story of how it happened -- how God's voice was heard, how you felt the drawing, the pulling of God's spirit in your life. You were called that way. This is true of every Christian. It reveals a remarkable thing: God sought us! We really didn't seek him -- we thought we did, but he sought us. That is why Jesus said to his disciples, "All that the Father has given me will come unto me, and him who comes unto me I will never cast out," (John 6:37). And thus we came, called of God, sought of God.

The remarkable thing about that calling is underscored here by these words of Paul's: We "are loved by God." Paul always starts out on the basis of God's love for us. He may have to scold these saints he is writing to, he may have to correct them, he may have to speak very sharply to some of them; but he always starts out by reminding them they are loved by God.

Paul understands that this is the fundamental relationship we have with God: He loves us. That is a fact we ought to remind ourselves of every day, as I am sure these Roman Christians did. The grace and peace God gives to his saints is proof of his love for them. The word grace stands for all the empowerment and enrichment that God can give; all that he is able to pour into human life, We don't earn grace, but it is given to us in terms of our daily needs. All those moments when strength and courage are infused into our lives, when we are discouraged and God's word comforts and heals us -- that is God's grace. And the result is peace, rest! Grace and peace are our inheritance as Christians. These two things ought to characterize Christians everywhere, all the time, so that we live differently before the world. That is the inheritance we can draw upon and reckon on.

Paul points out a second characteristic about the Roman Christians in Verse 8:

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world. (Romans 1:8 NIV)

Notice that it was the faith of the Roman Christians that was being talked about -- not the number of buses that they operated or the size or cost of the organ, or the size or cost of the building in which they met. It was the faith of these Christians that startled the Roman world. These were vital Christians. Now a clue as to why that was true is given in the next thing Paul says.

God, whom I serve with my whole heart in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God's will the way may be opened for me to come to you. (Romans 1:9-10 NIV)

Their faith was reported all over the world because the apostle and other Christians were praying for them.

Now Paul had never been to Rome, had never met these people. He had met some of them elsewhere, but he had never known many of them. He prayed for them, he prayed for them constantly! "How constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times." That is why this church flourished. If there is one thing that I would say we need more than anything else today, it is to recover again this sense of concern and prayer for one another. I am as guilty as the rest of you in not doing this. But I think it would make all the difference in the world if we began to uphold each other in prayer regularly. The third characteristic about the Roman saints that Paul points out is that they were strengthened by gifts (Verses 11-12):

I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong -- that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith. (Romans 1:11-12 NIV)

That is what makes a congregation strong, the exercise of spiritual gifts in its midst. When Paul says, "I want to impart to you some spiritual gift," he doesn't mean that he has all the gifts in a bag and he goes around like an ecclesiastical Santa Claus doling them out to people wherever he goes. He doesn't mean that. Impart really means "share with you." It isn't something Paul gives to them; only the Holy Spirit can give spiritual gifts. Paul wants to share with them the gifts God has given. He wants to minister to them, as they are expected to minister to him with the spiritual gifts that they have; thus they will be mutually strengthened by one another's faith. That is how God wants a church to function -- the saints ministering to each other, building up one another by their faith and sharing and exercising the gifts God has given them.

Next in this logical outline is Paul himself as the great apostle to the Gentiles. God is building a structure with Jesus at the center, then the gospel, then the apostle. It is through the apostle that the Christians are being reached. What does Paul say about himself as an apostle?

In Verse 1, he says he is called and set apart as an apostle. Called is used as an adjective again here. Paul is not "called to be an apostle" -- he is a called apostle. God did the calling. This happened, Paul tells us in Galatians, before he was born. That is when God calls us -- before we are born.

This is the wonder of the God we serve. He doesn't have to wait until we appear in human history. He calls us long before we are even conceived, long before our family tree ever began to take shape; then he sets us apart. Now that is the process of history, and that is what happened to Paul.

All the events of Paul's young life, including his training under Gamaliel and his rising up in the group of the Pharisees and his antipathy against the gospel, all this was part of God's process of setting him apart to be an apostle. And when the time came, God pulled the trap door and Paul fell through. He was caught. That is what happens to us all; that is the way God works in our lives.

What is an apostle? Paul tells us in Verse 5: "Through him and for his name's sake we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith," or, more literally, "the obedience of faith." An apostle is to call people out. As Paul himself tells us in Verse 14,

I am obligated both to the Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and foolish. (Romans 1:14 NIV)

Paul had a deep sense of an imperative to tell people the gospel because he knew they desperately needed it.

If you were the sole possessor of a remedy for cancer, would you be quiet about it or would you feel an imperative to share with others the secret? That's what Paul says urged him on -- this constant consciousness that he had the secret of release that people desperately needed. As an apostle, he journeyed out to carry that secret to them. He tells us how he does this in Verse 9,

God, whom I serve with my whole heart in preaching the gospel of his Son, (Romans 1:9a NIV)

Here is a whole-hearted man, single-minded, with his spirit fully engaged in this work. Then he tells us the final step in the process in Verse 15:

That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome. (Romans 1:15 NIV)

If Paul is going to reach the nations, why does he preach the gospel to the Christians at Rome? It is by means of the Christians that the nations are to hear. It is the changes God works in the lives of his people that cause others to begin to take note. That is how evangelism occurs. Paul says, "that is why I want to preach the gospel to you at Rome." Now, by the gospel, Paul does not mean simply explaining how to become a Christian. That is what we often think it means, but that isn't what Paul means here, because these Romans were already Christians. The gospel is all the great facts about humanity and about God that God wants to impart to us and that will enable us to be whole persons.

That, therefore, brings us to the message itself -- the gospel which the apostle will preach to the Christians, and thus reach all the nations. This is what Paul says of the gospel in Verses 16 and 17:

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes; first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith." (Romans 1:16-17 NIV)

This quotation from Habakkuk that Paul uses is the Scripture that gripped Martin Luther's heart. Paul says that this is the great fact that he is expounding in the gospel. He is not ashamed of it, he says, and that is a way of saying that he is proud of it. He can't wait to get to Rome.

Paul especially is not ashamed of the gospel in Rome because the Romans appreciated power, just as Americans do. The Romans prided themselves on their power. They had military power that could conquer all the nations that stood in their path; they had a tremendous program of road-building; they had some of the greatest law-makers of history; they had the power to write literature and create art. But Paul knew that the Romans also were powerless when it came to changing hearts. They were powerless to eliminate slavery; half of the population of the Roman Empire were slaves. They were powerless to change the stubborn, hostile, hateful hearts of men and eliminate violence; the Roman Empire was full of violence and corruption and the suicide rate was extremely high. The Romans could do nothing about these things. And Paul says that is why he is so proud of the gospel -- because it is the power of God to do those very things that men cannot do. We never need to apologize for the gospel. It is absolutely without rival.

This week I received a letter from Dr. Richard Halverson, pastor of the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. He wrote about a book by Charles Colson, one of the men who went to prison in the Watergate scandal. Dr. Halverson said this book is the story of the conversion of Charles Colson -- how he became a Christian. Halverson said the story is so remarkable it can only be compared with the conversion of the Apostle Paul. It is so drastic and so different that even today people struggle with accepting and believing it. But he said there is no question -- this man is a changed man. Now what got hold of his heart and changed him like that? The gospel of the blessed God -- the good news about Jesus Christ. It is the power of God to salvation.

Second, Paul is not ashamed of the gospel because it reveals a righteousness from God. Righteousness is an old word that we don't understand very much. I would like to substitute for it the word worth, a worth before God. A sense of acceptance before God is given to you. You can't earn it, you certainly don't deserve it, but it is given. God really accepts you because of the gospel, because of the good news of the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf. Therefore, it is something that you, or I, or anybody else can have, and it is complete, perfect. That is what Paul is going to be talking about throughout the book of Romans -- the gospel of God.

The last thing Paul says is that this righteousness is received by faith. It is not something we can ever earn; it is something we can take anytime we need it, and that is good news. Our worth before God is not something we receive once, by faith, at the beginning of our Christian lives. It is something we remind ourselves of every time we feel depressed, despairing, discouraged, defeated, etc. God has loved us, restored us, and we have perfect standing in his sight. He already accepts us and loves us as much as he possibly can; nothing more can be added to it. That is the righteousness that is revealed in the gospel, by faith, to all who believe, no matter what their background or training may be.

These are the great themes of Romans. As we go through this book together, I hope these themes will have their effect upon our hearts as they had an effect upon the hearts of many in the 1st century church.

Prayer:
Our Heavenly Father, as we come now to celebrate the Lord's supper, we pray that we may understand again what this means to us -- how hopeless, how dark and bitter our condition would be were it not for the gospel of the grace of God. How thoroughly we would be enmeshed in evil and how deeply we would be involved in horrendous and hurtful things were it not for the intervention of the gospel of the grace of God. Keep us, Father, from vainly imagining that we have arrived at this stage of deliverance, even the deliverance we now experience by ourselves. Help us to know that nothing could have saved us from the wicked machinations of the evil one had it not been for the intervention of the gospel of grace. We ask in Jesus' name, Amen.

by **Need2Know** » Tue Dec 20, 2011 9:29 am

The Tragic Sense of Life

The first sixteen verses of Paul's letter to the Romans are an introduction that concludes with a great statement by the apostle: "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ for it is the power of God for salvation unto 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," (Romans 1:16-17). By that tremendous declaration, Paul sets in focus for us the great theme of this letter: The power of God to heal the hurts of men and to give us liberty and freedom from the bondage of evil in our lives. With the power of the gospel comes the righteousness of God, the sense of worth to give significance and meaning to our lives. The power of God frees us from the control of sin; God frees us from the meaninglessness of despair and guilt. This power and righteousness is available to us, the apostle says, "by faith." That means the gospel can reach anyone, anywhere, at any time. Now that is the good news, that is the startling message that the church of Jesus Christ has for the world. There is nothing like it anywhere in the world, there is no rival to it. There is nothing that remotely approaches it in its possibilities in human affairs; therefore, we can say with Paul, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ."

Beginning with Verse 18 of Chapter 1, a more somber note is sounded. This section introduces the most extensive, careful, and logical analysis of the human dilemma that has ever been found. It extends from Chapter 1, Verse 18, through Chapter 3, Verse 20. We will begin with Verses 18-20:

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities -- his eternal power and divine nature -- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (Romans 1:18-20 NIV)

In the preceding verses, Paul has already spoken of the Son of God -- the key and the heart of the gospel. He declared the power of God that is released among men by believing the gospel; he declared the righteousness of God which is granted to us as a gift which we cannot earn or ever deserve, but which is ours, nevertheless, by faith. But now Paul speaks of the wrath of God. This is the first negative note that has been sounded in this letter, yet it is a very necessary note because it introduces this passage that tells us why we need the gospel of God. We need it because men everywhere are suffering from the wrath of God.

What do you think of when you hear that phrase, "the wrath of God"? Most people think of the wrath of God as something that is yet to come, something that follows death -- the judgment of God. It is true that hell and all that may follow are an expression of the wrath of God. But that is not what it means at this point. Most people think of the wrath of God as thunder and lightning and judgment, fire and brimstone and the sudden destruction and catastrophes that come upon obviously guilty sinners. And these are all manifestations of the wrath of God. But actually, the wrath of God is not something to come, it is present now. As the text says, it is "being revealed from heaven" -- that is, it is going on right now.

When something is revealed from heaven, it doesn't pour down from the skies upon us. No, it is everywhere present because it is coming from invisible forces at work in our lives. Therefore, it is absolutely inescapable; everyone is confronted with, and suffers from, the wrath of God -- without exception. His wrath is everywhere present, it is being manifested by the invisible resistance of God to the evil of men. And that is what is meant here by "the wrath of God."

In 1962, I visited Mexico City with a group of businessmen from this area and we were invited to hold witnessing sessions in homes with some of the businessmen and wealthy leaders of Mexico. In order to properly orient us to the culture of Mexico, we had a session in a downtown hotel in Mexico City. Dr. Baenz-Camargo, a local Christian and a very wise university professor, instructed us in the uniqueness of Mexican culture. In a most beautiful and elegant way, he captured the heart of Mexican life and set it before us. He said there were five traits of Mexican society that he wanted us to understand. I won't dwell on these at any length, but for your interest, here they are:

He said that the first thing about Mexican people is that they have a sense of the dramatic, they love eloquence and oratory.With that comes a love of beauty and pageantry. Thirdly, and stemming from these first two characteristics, is a deeply embedded sense of inferiority -- the Mexicans feel they are a small nation and an inferior people, desperately trying to catch up with the rest of the world. That sense of inferiority, of course, produces the fourth mark of Mexican society, a resistance to authority. Rebelliousness and revolution are close to the surface in Mexico.

All of these traits find their ultimate expression in a kind of fatalism. As Dr. Baenz-Camargo developed the first characteristic for us, this awareness of the dramatic in life, he used the phrase "the tragic sense of life." Mexicans are aware of the tragic aspects of life. I have not forgotten that because I find that it applies not only to Mexican people, but to people everywhere. We are continually confronted with this tragic sense of life. It is the wrath of God Paul is talking about.

Why is it that tragedy is so close to the surface? Even in the moments of joy and gladness, we experience it. We've all felt this bitter-sweet character of life, when, in the midst of all the warmth and joy of the home circle, there is an underlying sense of fear, of the probability of the whole thing suddenly being turned into tragedy and sorrow. Why is that? This is Christmas time, the season of the year when men are traditionally more glad and joyful, more mellow, perhaps, than at any other time of the year, and yet statisticians tell us that the suicide rate mounts alarmingly at Christmas time. Anyone who has experienced it knows that the loneliness which can be borne throughout the year can be deeply etched in bitter symbols upon our hearts during Christmas. That sorrow and grief seem to be more dark and gloomy and foreboding than at any other time. Now why is that? It is because of the wrath of God. God's resistance against human evil is creating this sense of tragedy and darkness that we live with. I think Moses, in the 90th Psalm, expresses this perfectly. He says:

For all our days pass away under thy wrath,
our years come to an end like a sigh.
The years of our life are threescore and ten,
or even by reason of strength four-score;
yet their span is but toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away. (Psalms 90:9-11 RSV)

The shortness of life, the brevity of it, the sorrow of it, the tragedy of it -- this is all part of what Paul captures here under this phrase "the wrath of God ... being revealed from heaven." No one escapes God's wrath; it is revealed, and we have to face it.

The rest of Verse 18 reveals the cause of this wrath. The apostle explains that it is "the godlessness and the wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness" that cause God's wrath. The tragic aspect of life is caused by the attitudes men have and the subsequent actions that follow. Notice the order of this -- godlessness and then wickedness. The order is never reversed. It is the godless attitude that produces the wicked actions, and that is why the wrath of God is being revealed constantly from heaven against man. What is godlessness? Godlessness isn't necessarily atheism, the belief that God doesn't exist. Godlessness is acting as though he doesn't exist, disregarding God. That attitude is widespread in our society today; it is what we call the "secular" attitude. It doesn't necessarily deny that there is a God, but it never takes any account of him; it doesn't expect him to be active. That is the attitude of godlessness which the apostle speaks of here.

As a result of godlessness, there is unrighteousness or wickedness, selfish and hurtful acts of men toward one another. Why do we act selfishly? Why do we hurt each other? Because we disregard God. That is Paul's analysis. By means of these hurtful and selfish acts, the truth is suppressed. Now that is the problem!

Here we are in a world in which truth from God is breaking out all around us, but we are busy covering it up, hiding it, suppressing it, keeping it from being prominent and dominant in our thinking. That's the picture. Against that attitude of hiding truth, suppressing the truth, the wrath of God burns among the human family. The reason why life has turned tragic in so many cases is because the world is deprived of the truth that is necessary for life and liberty and freedom and godliness, and it is hidden by men and suppressed by them. Verses 19-20 set before us the nature of the truth that is suppressed:

...since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities -- his eternal power and divine nature -- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (Romans 1:19-20 RSV)

The truth that men labor to suppress is the existence of a God of eternal power and majesty; they suppress the greatness of God. This is the very truth Job 9 so eloquently expounds, the truth the world hides. There is, as you know, an evident conspiracy not to mention God. Don't talk about him; don't act as though God has anything to do with our common affairs in life; admit that there is a God if you want to, but don't expect him to interfere or to do anything with us. Don't, above all else, mention his name. Isn't that strange? Somebody has put it this way in a little poem entitled, The Humanist:

He exists because he was created.
He's here because he was placed here.
He's well and comfortable because divine power keeps him so.
He dines at God's table.
He's sheltered by the roof that God gave him.
He's clothed by God's bounty.
He lives by breathing God's air which keeps him strong and vocal to go about persuading people that whether God is or not, only man matters.

Man, in his puniness and weakness, struts about acting as though there were no God. That is the truth that men suppress. But there are times when men cannot evade the fact of God; and when those times come, when they just have to speak of God, people resort to euphemism. They don't use the name of God, they call him something else. They may call him "nature." "Nature" is responsible for the way we are. Well this, of course, is because nature is what we are; nature is the sum total of all the phenomena of the natural world. To say that the sum total of the phenomena of the natural world accomplishes what is the phenomena of the natural world is nonsense. Yet everywhere this is the way men talk. That is simply a way to avoid mentioning that God is at work in human affairs.

Sometimes men call it fate, or karma, or destiny. And yet, I think it is one of the ironies of life that God, who sits above the heavens, often laughs at the foolishness of men. He has arranged it so that they can't even rip off a round oath without mentioning the name of God. You never hear people go about saying, "By nature I'm going to do this." You never hear them say, "Fate damn you!" But, in order to be emphatic, men must use the name of God. Though they will not use him in other ways, God sees to it that they recognize his presence when they swear. Isn't that strange? But that's what happens. The great God who made all things is ignored and treated with this conspiracy of silence, and yet we can't even swear without him.

How has God made truth plain? The Scripture says that God has revealed himself to man. Truth is not a vague, invisible, difficult thing to comprehend; it is clearly seen. God himself has insured that. How? The Scriptures say, "It is seen in that which is made," i.e., creation. From the creation of the world it is visible; i.e., it has been always and everywhere present. There is no one who is left out -- all can read this revelation of God if they want to do so.

One night my daughter, Laurie, and I were walking at Forest Home in the mountains of Southern California. It was one of those beautiful nights when the stars were out in all their glory -- we were above the smog -- and we walked through the darkness and looked up into the skies and saw the stars and felt the sense of awe that comes upon the human spirit on occasions like that. I began to point out the Milky Way and explain to her that it was part of the galaxy that we belong to. I told her there were millions of galaxies like that whirling on in their determined courses in their appointed ways, never late, always on time, strange and almost unexplorable by man. I pointed out the Big Dipper, the North Star, Pleiades -- and we talked about the universe. And then, in a joking way, I said to her, "But remember, dear, all this happened just by chance; all these things came together by chance." And she began to laugh! How ridiculous that in all this vast, impressive, imposing display of beauty and light and order anybody should ever say it all happened by chance! She sensed the nonsense of that claim. How can we say that only by intelligence and wisdom and skill can a watch be built, but hearts beat and babies grow and roses smell simply by chance. Isn't that ridiculous? You only have to put it that way to see how foolish, how absurd, a statement like that can be.

This argument from design and order has never been answered. Those who disregard God cannot explain it because truth about God is breaking out everywhere around us. Elizabeth Barret Browning wrote,

Earth's crammed with heaven,
and every common bush aflame with God.
But only those who see take off their shoes;
the rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

Thus, says the Scripture, men are without excuse. No one who really wants to find God need miss him. One of the great verses that confronts the problem of what happens to those who never hear the gospel is Hebrews 11:6. It says: "He that comes to God must believe that he is and that he is the rewarder of those who diligently seek him." Just two things are necessary:

First, he must believe that God is there. Everything in his life is telling him that. Everything about himself is yelling at him, shrieking at him, that God has planned all these things. The easiest thing in the universe to believe is that God is there. You must work hard at convincing yourself that he is not there, and only the very intelligent are able to do it. The rest of us, who simply see facts and believe them, will accept the fact that God is there. Those who never hear the gospel first must believe God is.

Then, they must diligently seek him. If men don't find God, it is because they don't seek him. The Scriptures promise us that if we seek after him, he will give further light on himself, and that light will eventually lead, as other Scriptures tell us, to the knowledge of Jesus Christ; for without the Son, no man can come to the Father. There is no other "name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:12b KJV), but the name of Jesus. It starts with where you are and the revelation that is in nature and in yourself about the majesty and the power and the greatness of God. In Verses 21-23, the apostle tells us in detail how men suppress the truth about God:

For although they knew God they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they clamed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. (Romans 1:21-23 NIV)

Paul tells us in detail how men suppress the truth about God. There are three steps traced for us here and the effects they have upon the race:

First, they neither glorify God nor give thanks to him. In other words, they ignore him. There is this obvious conspiracy of silence. That is why we are not allowed to sing carols in our public schools at Christmas time; that is why there is great resistance against having the Bible read on almost any public occasion today. No one wants to admit that there is a God They do not glorify him as God, neither do they give him thanks.

Last year Senator Mark Hatfield led the Senate in passing a resolution calling this nation to a day of prayer and repentance, and many of us sought to fulfill this by having public meetings on that day. At Foothill College, a number of our young people tried to hold a public meeting for this purpose. Two of our young men went there dressed like the prophets of Israel in burlap sack cloth and with ashes on their foreheads. They held up a sign that said. "Repent and give thanks." They told me that people would pass by and glower at them, and two people came over and spit at them. One man even left his appointed path and came over and kicked them. That is testimony to this statement in Romans. Men resist acknowledging the presence of God.

The effects of this are immediate. Paul says two things are immediately created in society when this attitude prevails: First, the peoples' thinking becomes futile; Second, their hearts become darkened. Futile thinking means that clever ideas and procedures and programs will fall apart and come to nothing. In my own lifetime I have lived through the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Society, Peace with Honor, and the Great Recovery. All of them have failed dismally! They all started with brilliant promises, glowing words of hope and expectation; and every one of them came to the same dismal end.

When hearts are darkened, human needs which ought to evoke emotions of pity and response are passed by. People lose compassion and awareness of the struggles and needs of others. Some of us have been horrified at the accounts in the paper of people in desperate need, calling out for help, while people wait right by and ignore them because they don't want to get involved. That is the sign of a darkened heart, and it is the result of ignoring God. The first device men employ to suppress the truth is to ignore God.

The second device they use is to claim to be wise. In other words, they imitate God. They claim to know and be able to know everything and to run anything. The result of that is put in one brief, blunt, pungent word: They become fools!

Remember the old story of the sorcerer's apprentice who, picking up the magician's wand, loosens powers that he doesn't know how to handle? Finally he cowers in terror at the tremendous forces that he has unleashed. Just read the intellectual magazines of our day and see how clever the secular writers are. They are masters at taking some simple discovery and making it sound impressive and profound, as though it were on a parallel with the creation of the universe as recorded by Moses. They claim to be wise, but they become fools. The third device men employ to suppress the truth is that they exchange the glory of the immortal God for images made like mortal man. They exchange the glory of the undying God for images made like dying men, and birds, and animals, and reptiles. Notice the descending order. When idolatry begins, it begins first with men making images of men. The world is filled with statues, most of them reflecting the images of the ancient Greek and Roman world. These, of course, are merely symbols of ideas that men worship, and we still have such images today. But these images invalidate God; they debase him by substituting something for God and making God seem to be less than what he is. That is what idolatry always does. It is a very destructive force in human affairs. Idolatry begins first with men, then birds (which are at least heavenly), then animals, and finally it ends up with reptiles. Man is at one end and a snake at the other.

Do you think people don't worship images and bow down before idols now? What are movie stars and football heroes? They are dying men and women who are idolized and worshipped in our day. And I, personally, don't believe that it is any accident that we tend to name our cars after animals. We once named them after men: Lincoln, Ford, Chrysler and Dodge. But now we are naming them after animals: Impala, Cougar, Mustang, Pinto, Jaguar, Rabbit, Panther, and there's even a Greyhound bus! It is God's ironic way of forcing men to name what is going on inside. We already have a car called the Cobra. And perhaps we will soon be naming our cars for the python, vipers, and maybe, for the slower models, the crocodile.

These are our gods, aren't they? We worship rockets, planes, guns, bombs, tanks. We worship power, military power, or forces like sex, and money, ambition, and greed; or concepts like comfort, beauty, youth, adventure, life. We've exchanged the glory of the undying God in all his majesty and greatness for images. What are movies but images? What is television -- images of mortal men, birds, animals, and reptiles.

The effect of idolatry upon a society is profound and terrible to contemplate, and that is what we are going to see next week. Paul is going to analyze our society for us as he analyzed the society of the 1st century, and we will find it is exactly the same. We are right where they were. We will see what happens in a society when men everywhere begin to worship men and women, birds and animals, reptiles, and the ideas that these represent.

The amazing thing to me is that this description of the wrath of God is wholly and fully met by the righteousness of God. God's righteousness wipes out his wrath. Wouldn't you think, therefore, that men everywhere would be eager to discover this marvelous gift of the righteousness of God? That is what heals our hurts and corrects our errors and gives a sense of peace and joy and forgiveness to the heart. The wrath of God creates the hurts of life; all the pain and heartache and darkness, the death, the depression, the despair all come from the wrath of God. They are the products of ignoring God, trying to imitate God, and invalidating God in our lives.

Wouldn't you think that men everywhere would long to hear this good news? Yet the wonder of our times and the revelation of the twisted, demoralized, distorted world in which we live is that we cling to our hurts and refuse the healing of God.

Prayer:
Oh Mighty God, our Father, we are amazed as we think about what is happening in this world. In our own hearts we see it through these apostolic eyes and we know indeed that this is the truth. It is confirmed and supported by every fact we can observe in life around us and in our own affairs. Help us, therefore, Lord, to heed to the righteousness of God, the gift of God which is Jesus Christ, our Lord. May there not be one among us that does not open his or her heart to the healing thrust of the Son of righteousness who rises with healing in his wings that he might forgive and heal the hurts of humanity. We pray in his name, Amen.

by **Need2Know** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 8:27 am

The Deepening Darkness

It may seem strange to preach a Christmas message from the latter part of the first chapter of Romans, but I think this section is exceedingly appropriate. Romans is probably the most contemporary, the most continuously up-to-date human document that ever has been written. In this chapter, Paul has been analyzing the civilization of the 1st century Roman Empire. He describes the moral life of great cities like Ephesus and Corinth and Rome. But the letter describes exactly what happened last night in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Palo Alto, and New York. The moral climate of today is the same as the moral climate of the 1st century Paul wrote about. That gives rise to the question, "Just how much progress have we made in twenty centuries of human existence?"

The apostle says there were two characteristics of the civilization he lived in, and those characteristics describe our society today too. The first characteristic is godlessness; the second is wickedness. Godlessness is a disrespect of God, and this results in wickedness -- injury and hurt done to other human beings. The fundamental thesis upon which this epistle to the Romans is built is that in every generation there is godlessness, which results in wickedness.

The apostle has traced for us how this godlessness came about. He begins with the self-disclosure of God in nature; God has spoken to this world and has shown himself in the natural scene. Nature includes mankind itself, for we are part of nature too. God has made himself visible in every age and place. The truth about God pours out toward us from every direction, if only we have eyes to see. This truth, the apostle says, has been met with an unspoken agreement among men to suppress it. There is a conspiracy of silence everywhere to ignore the truth that is everywhere present.

In the first part of this chapter, Paul explains that mankind follows a three-fold process in suppressing the truth: First, he ignores God. He does not glorify him or give thanks to him. This is characteristic of our day in the way the media ignores God. We act as though he does not exist and has nothing to do with our world.

The second step in the process of suppressing truth is that men imitate God. They claim to be wise; they claim that they are able to handle all the problems of life and that they understand all that has happened in human affairs.

Some of you have followed the rather remarkable presentation by Jacob Bronowski and the Public Broadcasting System, called The Ascent of Man. Here is a very clear example of man's attempt to trace all that has happened to mankind without a single reference to God.

The third process by which man suppresses truth is to choose substitute gods and to make God appear to be much less than he really is. By these means, men suppress the truth of God and have become godless.

In Verses 24-32 of Chapter 1, the apostle traces the effects of this godlessness in human society -- the wickedness which inevitably follows. When men lose God, they always lose themselves. They do not understand what is happening in human affairs and are not able to diagnose the sicknesses and problems that break out in society because we have lost God.

In his book, The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis says hell is made up of people who live at an infinite distance from each other. That is the result of the loss of God in our life. This wickedness at work among human beings also follows a three-step process which is identified for us in this passage by the thrice-repeated phrase, "God gave them over." Paul repeats this phrase in Verses 24, 26, and 28, and this phrase identifies what is going on in our culture. Let's look at the first reference to this phrase in Verse 24:

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. (Romans 1:24 NIV)

The first mark of wickedness in a godless society is widespread sexual immorality -- the degrading, or the dishonoring, of the body. Note that the sentence begins with the word therefore. This immorality is a result of the idolatry into which men fall. Idolatry is common in our day. We do not worship idols and images so much anymore, but concepts and ideas are idolized and deified as much as any of the idols of the ancient world. The result of idolatry is widespread sexual immorality. Many people think this account describes all the evil things men do and then says that God, in effect, gives up on the people who do them. They think God washes his hands of them because they are so filthy and dirty. That certainly is not what this account says. But because men run after other gods and refuse the testimony of their own hearts and the world of nature around them, because they run after other gods and do not glorify or thank the true God, God removes his restraints from society so that what is done in secret is allowed to break out into openness and acceptability. That is the mark of the wrath of God at work. The first sign of wickedness in a civilization is that sexual immorality, which is always present in human life, becomes widely accepted.

God allows us to experience the full effects of our attempts to satisfy our hungers and our cravings and our desires without him. He allows us to discover that we don't have the answer. God removes the societal restraints to let these things come to the surface. By that means, he forces us to experience the full effect of what we do. God forces us to harvest the crop we insist on sowing. We like to sow our wild oats, but, when they begin to sprout and the results begin to appear, we want to abandon the field and run to another one, and just keep sowing our wild oats. But God says you cannot do that. You are going to have to live with the results. This is what Paul, earlier in the passage, calls "the wrath of God" at work among us.

You may ask, "Why is it that sex always seems to be singled out as the sign of God's judgment? Why is sexual immorality the first sign of a disintegrating civilization?" There is a good reason. Many Christians have wrongly concluded that sexual sins are the worst kinds of sin. But that is not true. Sexual sins are not the worst kind of sins. C. S. Lewis has caught this fact very accurately. In a paragraph from his book, Mere Christianity, he says,

If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual. The pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and backbiting; the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me competing with the human self which I must try to become: they are the animal self, and the diabolical self; and the diabolical self is the worst of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig, who goes regularly to church, may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But of course, it's better to be neither.

Those words are true, and this passage in Romans bears it out. It begins with sexual impurity and proceeds to sexual perversity. But the final result, the ultimate climax of the chapter, is not sexual sins, it is the sins of the spirit. Widespread animosity, hatred of the heart -- these are the worst sins.

There is good reason, however, why God allows heterosexual practices to become publicly detectable. He allows it to show us what is going on in our spiritual lives. It highlights the fact that sex is linked with worship. Any serious reading of the Scriptures will make this crystal clear. Sex is man's longing after worship. Sex, you see, is a desire to possess another body and to be possessed by another. It is a deep-seated craving inherent in every human being.

We have all heard the statement, "Girls give sex in order to get love; boys give love in order to get sex." This is true, superficially. But what both are really after is not sex at all; they are after worship. They really want to worship and to be worshipped. They really want a sense of total fulfillment, a oneness, an identity. That is what they think they are getting when they indulge in illicit sex.

The Scriptures tell us that only God can give that fulfillment. Only God can satisfy that deep sense of longing for complete identity and unity with another person. That is what we call worship. When we worship, we are longing to be possessed of God, and to possess him fully. That is why the highest description of the relationship possible to a believer is found in the words of Jesus in John 15, "You in me, and I in you," (John 14:20). When men think that they are going to find that fulfillment in sex, God, in effect, says to them, "Look, it won't work. But you won't believe that until you try it out." So he removes the restraints and allows immoral sexual practices to become widely accepted, understanding that men indulging in these things will finally find themselves just as dissatisfied, empty and hopeless as they were when they started. Thus they will learn that God is trying to teach them that sex is not the way by which men find fulfillment. This is true even in marriage. Men only find their fulfillment in a relationship to God. This brings us to the second mark of a godless and wicked society, found in Verses 25-27:

They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator, who is forever praised, Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. (Romans 1:25-27 NIV)

Homosexuality is the second mark of a godless and wicked society. In the first step of this process, bodies were dishonored. In this second step, Paul speaks of shameful lusts arising from inside, desires that are part of the soul of man. The apostle describes the growth of widespread psychological confusion. Notice the irony of this. This is God's silent way of forcing men to demonstrate their sin so they can see what is going on in their lives. Paul says because they have exchanged truth for a lie and exchanged the Creator for created things, God allows them to exchange natural functions for unnatural functions -- to use a man for a woman, and a woman as a man. The restraints are removed, so homosexuality becomes widely accepted in society. In this 1st century world in which Paul lived and wrote, homosexuality was a commonplace thing. All the great philosophers extolled it and practiced it, for the most part. Men like Socrates, and other great names of Greece, were homosexuals. Out of the first fifteen Roman emperors, fourteen of them were homosexuals, and some gave themselves blatantly and openly to this vice. This was common in the Roman world, as it is becoming common in our own day. Once again, the restraints are being removed, and these things are thrusting themselves into public view.

The truly awful thing about the rise of homosexuality today is that homosexuals are allowed to believe the lie that this is a biological condition which they cannot help, but to which they should adjust. Even churches are falling into this trap and consenting to this deceit. The papers carried a report this week that the Santa Clara County Council of Churches accepted into membership the Homosexual Church of San Jose. The arguments reported in the local papers were unbelievable. Pastors stood up and said they could not make a judgment as to whether homosexuality was good or evil. Yet I was encouraged this week by a paper which was sent to me by a Christian who is an ex-homosexual. The paper was written by a group of Christians who were homosexuals, but who have been delivered by the grace and the gospel of the Lord Jesus, by the power of Christ in their lives. In order to help those still enmeshed in this vice, they are publishing a paper that makes a forthright plea to those trapped in homosexuality not to believe the lie so widely circulated today, that this is a biological condition and they cannot help themselves. This lie is what holds them in a fatal grip. As long as homosexuals believe that, there is no help for them. But if they understand that homosexuality is a sin, like other sins, that it can be forgiven and they can be delivered and freed from this sin by the power and grace of Jesus Christ, then there is tremendous hope in the midst of their darkness.

Paul speaks of a "due penalty" for this perversion. Anyone who has spent any time with those involved in this unfortunate condition know what this penalty is. It is a loss of their sense of identity, an uncertainty as to their role and place in life. It creates an almost unbearable tension as to who he is, and what he is, and what he or she is here for. We see this manifested in considerable degree in the Women's Liberation Movement, as well as in dress styles and the emphasis on unisex in education. This sexual confusion that abounds on every side is an attempt to mar and to defeat God's precise delineation when he made them male and female.

The third and final mark of a godless and wicked culture is given in Verses 28-32.

Furthermore, since they did not think It worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. (Romans 1:28-31 NIV)

This is a terrible list of sins, but it is the mark of a civilization that is nearing collapse -- this growing spirit of contemptuous and arrogant disregard for other human beings. In one word, this describes a desire to exploit other people. Godlessness eventually brings us to the place where we will see these things in society.

"Depraved mind," used here, literally means "an unacceptable mind," a mind that cannot be lived with, that simply will not fit into any kind of civilization or culture or society. A depraved mind destroys, rends, and fragments everything it touches. It is an unacceptable mind, and its public hostility is marked by increasing cruelty and violence. I think the most vivid demonstration and documentation of this in our day is probably given in Alexander Solzhenitsyn's book, The Gulag Archipelago, where you find an entire culture characterized by this terrible, senseless cruelty. But we in the Western world are not escaping either. Every day our newspapers report the skyrocketing rise in senseless vandalism and vicious and unprovoked attack upon innocent and often helpless people. The rise in child abuse is a symptom of this in our society.

It culminates, as Paul makes very clear in Verse 32, in an attitude of callous disregard:

Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things, but also approve those who practice them. (Romans 1:32 NIV)

Knowing that harm is coming from their wickedness, nevertheless they attempt to spread it more fully. They invade the field of education; they dominate the media; they seek legal status for their wickedness and defy all attempts at control. As you can well recognize, this is what is going on today.

Thus the Apostle Paul traces the deepening darkness of his own day. And yet it is ours as well. Though this is an honest record, it is also clear that God does not turn his back on man. This account is not a record of what God despises, and thus turns aside with contempt. Man is never treated here as an object of contempt, or as a worm. Rather, God's concern underscores this whole passage. He is at work to try to bring men to their senses, to wake up a civilization as to what is going on in its midst, and to show it how desperately it is in need of deliverance -- which can only come as a gift of righteousness from God's hands.

You may ask, "Why does God give a civilization over to this kind of thing?" He does it because it is only when darkness prevails, and despair and violence are widespread, that men are ready to welcome the light. Remember Isaiah's prediction? "They that dwell in darkness, upon them has the light shined. They that live in the land of deep darkness, unto them a great light has shined," Isaiah 9:2). In the 1st century, the world was sunk in the darkness of despair. Idolatry had penetrated the whole world; men had turned from the true God, whom they could have known. Hopelessness and rank despair lay like a heavy blanket upon the earth.

In that hour, in the darkness of the night, over the skies of Bethlehem, the angels broke through and a great light shone about. A multitude of heavenly hosts were heard praising God and saying to a group of lonely shepherds, "Fear not; for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord," (Luke 2:10-11 KJV). The hope of the world has always been that the Savior would be born again in a human heart, as he once was born in a stable in Bethlehem. From that hope all light streams. The angels' message is the coming of the Lord Jesus, the availability of the gift of righteousness from God. It is against the growing darkness of our own time that the light of this Christmas story goes out again this year.

Everywhere we need to make this message as clear as we possibly can -- by our testimony, by the way we live, by the joy and peace of our heart. God has found a way to break through human weakness, arrogance, despair, and sinfulness to give us peace, joy, and gladness once again. Just as Jesus was born in Bethlehem so long ago, so he can be born in your heart now. This is the good news of the gospel. In this decaying world in which we live we can see again the glory of this truth as it delivers people from their sins. "Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins," (Matthew 1:21 KJV).

Prayer:
Our heavenly Father, we see how accurately these words have described our own times, our own civilization, our own country. As we see the marks of godlessness on every side, in agreement with the description in Romans, we know three things. First, we know you have not forsaken this world. Second, we know that the message of truth and light is still as available as ever. And third, we know that love is behind it all. Your love reaches out to broken, fragmented, hurting man, and longs to set us free from the results of our own sin. Father, we thank you for this. We pray that many today may find this new life in Jesus Christ our Lord. In his name we ask it, Amen.

by **Need2Know** » Thu Dec 22, 2011 8:11 am

Sinful Morality

Chapter 2 of Romans is part of Paul's penetrating analysis of the 1st century civilization, beginning with its rejection of the God who had revealed himself in nature and in man's conscience. Rejecting the true God, men turned to false gods and widespread destruction of the home occurred because of sexual immorality and perversion. A spirit of violence and cruelty was rising and a total disregard of human rights was spreading throughout the 1st century world. And yet, to our astonishment, we see how accurately the apostle has analyzed the civilization of twentieth century civilization as well. All that is recorded in the first chapter of Romans took place last night in San Francisco and Los Angeles, up and down the West coast, and throughout this nation, and the world in which we live.

Yet there are many people who would say they do not belong in this picture. I am sure there were thousands in Paul's day, and I know there are millions today who feel they are not described in Romans 1. "That isn't talking about us. We're not like that. It may describe them, but it does not describe us."

Whenever you read this first chapter of Romans you find that division immediately evident -- them and us. They are the wicked, the obviously gross, wicked people; we are not. Many people would say, "We're law-abiding, home-loving, clean-living, decent people." Many of these people have been church members most of their lives. Others perhaps do not go to church at all, but nevertheless pride themselves on their moral standards, their ethical values, and their clean, law-abiding lives. They say the world may be in its present condition because of the wickedness of gangsters, radicals, revolutionaries, prostitutes, pimps, and perverts of our day; but they themselves are the salt of the earth.

It is on these people that the apostle turns his spotlight in Chapter 2. We will see his argument developed in three separate steps. The first is given in Verse 1:

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. (Romans 2:1 NIV)

Here Paul talks about those who pass judgment on others. If there are any here this morning who do not belong in that category, we will excuse you. You are free to go, because I want to talk to those who have, at one time or another, passed judgment on someone else. The apostle makes two points about these people in Verse 1:

First, he says that these people know the difference between right and wrong; otherwise they would not presume to be judging. They have a clear understanding of a standard. They know that one thing is wrong and another thing is right. They are clearly aware, therefore, that there are things that are wrong, and which merit the judgment and wrath of God released in society. This wrath, explained in Chapter 1, is primarily God's removal of the restraints upon human wickedness, allowing evil to become widespread and publicly evident. That is the wrath of God at work. The people Paul speaks of in Chapter 2 are aware that there are things that bring forth the wrath of God, things that cause society to degenerate.

Paul's second point about these people who have a clear view of what is wrong in society is devastating. He says they are guilty because they are doing the same things themselves. The judges are as guilty as the ones they have in the dock.

As a practiced, self-righteous hypocrite, I always have a feeling of surprise at that statement. I feel that whenever moral people, those who pride themselves on a degree of righteousness and a standard of ethics, read a statement like this, they are taken by surprise. "What do you mean? How could this be?"

This reminds me of our Lord's account of his return, when all the nations are to be judged before him (Matthew 25:31-46). He will separate them into two bands, the sheep and the goats. The test of judgment is made on the basis of how people treat others. He will say to the sheep, "When I was thirsty, you gave me to drink, when I was hungry you fed me, when I was naked you clothed me, when I was in prison you visited me." To the goats he will say, "When I was thirsty you did not give me to drink, when I was hungry you did not feed me, when I was naked you did not clothe me, and when I was sick or in prison you did not visit me." Both groups are taken by surprise and say, "When did this happen? When did we see you thirsty or hungry or naked? We don't remember that!" This feeling of surprise is highly indicative of how little we understand ourselves and why we need a passage such as this. We are all guilty.

I am going to use myself as an example, simply because I feel I am such an excellent example of what the rest of you are like. As I have been thinking this through, I see three ways by which I try to elude the fact that I am guilty of the things that I accuse others of doing:

First, I am congenitally blind toward many of my own faults. I just am not aware of them. I do not see that I am doing the same things that others are doing, and yet other people can see that I am. I don't see it, and neither do you see it in yourself. We all have these blind spots. One of the greatest lies of our age is the idea that we can know ourselves. We often argue, "Don't you think I know myself?" The answer is, "No, you do not know yourself. You are blind to much of your life." There can be areas that are very hurtful and sinful that you are not aware of.

I stayed with a pastor and his delightful family not long ago. They had three children, two boys and a girl. The oldest boy was about sixteen, and, like all sixteen-year-olds, he was very concerned about the undisciplined life of his twelve-year-old brother. One day, his mother said, he came in all upset at something his brother had done. He said, "Who does he think he is? Why, he acts as though he's as good as the rest of us!" What a typical example of the attitude we all have, only he was honest enough to say it.

I caught myself the other day saying to someone, "Relax! Take it easy!" It was only afterward that I heard my own voice and realized that I was not relaxed, and I was not taking it easy myself. Have you ever lectured your children on the sin of procrastination? Then did you barely get your income tax report in on time, or not get it in at all? How blind we are! We are congenitally blind toward many of our own faults. We just do not see them. In that way we can indeed be guilty, as the verse says, of doing the very things we accuse others of doing.

A second way we try to elude the fact that we are guilty of the very things we accuse others of doing is by conveniently forgetting what we have done that is wrong. We may have been aware of our sin at the time, but somehow we just assume that God is going to forget it. We do not have to acknowledge it in any way -- he will just forget it. As the sin fades from our memory, we think it fades from his, as well.

For example, let's consider our thought life. Much of this passage must be understood in the light of our Lord's revelation in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus says that God, who looks at the heart, sees what is going on in the inner attitude and judges on that basis; he doesn't judge as men judge, according to what is observable from the outward life. In the Sermon on the Mount we learn that if we hold a feeling of animosity and hatred against someone, if we are bitter and resentful and filled with malice toward an individual, then we are guilty of murder, just as though we had taken a knife and plunged it into that person's breast, or shot them with a gun. If we find ourselves lustfully longing to possess the body of another, if we play with this idea over and over in our mind, and treat ourselves to a fantasy of sex, we have committed fornication or adultery. If we find ourselves filled with pride, yet we put on the appearance of being humble and considerate of others, we are guilty of the worst of sins. Pride of heart destroys humanity.

We think these things will go unnoticed, but God sees them in our heart. He sees all the actions that we conveniently have forgotten. He sees it when we cut people down, or speak with spite and sharpness, and deliberately try to hurt them. He sees it when we are unfair in our business tactics, when we are arrogant toward someone we think is on a lower social level than ourselves. He sees it when we are stubborn and uncooperative in trying to work out a tense situation. All these things God takes note of. We, who condemn these things in others, find ourselves guilty of the same things. Isn't it remarkable that when others mistreat us we always think it is most serious and requires immediate correction. But when we mistreat others, we say to them. "You're making so much out of a little thing! Why it's so trivial and insignificant."

The third way we try to elude the fact that we are guilty of the very things we accuse others of doing is by cleverly renaming things. Other people lie and cheat; we simply stretch the truth a little. Others betray; we simply are protecting our rights. Others steal; we borrow. Others have prejudices; we have convictions. Others murder and kill; we exploit and ruin. Others rape; we pollute. We cry, "Those people ought to be stoned!" Jesus says, "He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone," (John 8:7). Yes, we are all guilty of the same things we accuse others of doing.

Paul develops the second step of his argument in Verses 2-4. He asks two questions; here is the first:

Now we know that God's judgment against those that do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? (Romans 2:2-3 NIV)

What a ridiculous ground of hope! How tenuous to hope that God, who sees all men openly and intimately, who sees not only what is on the outside but also what is on the inside, will pronounce judgment on these other people, but not on you. People will say, "How can a just and loving God permit the injustice and vileness that takes place in this world? How can he allow a tyrant like Hitler or Stalin to arise and murder millions of innocent people? How can he allow these godless regimes to come into power and crush people, usurp their rights, put thousands in prison, and spread destruction and sorrow across the land? Why does he allow these things to go on year after year? Why doesn't God judge these men?"

The question we ought to ask is, "Why didn't he judge me yesterday, when I said that sharp, caustic word that plunged like an arrow into a loved one's heart and hurt him badly? Why didn't he judge me? Why didn't he shrivel my hand when I took a pencil and cheated on my income tax? Why didn't he strike me dumb when I was gossiping on the phone this morning, sharing a tidbit that made someone look bad in someone else's eyes? Why didn't God judge that?" The God of truth and justice sees the one as well as the other. Paul asks, "Do you think that you will escape the judgment of God?" Then Paul asked the second question, the other horn of the dilemma:

Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, even realizing that God's kindness should lead you to repentance? (Romans 2:4 NIV)

Paul's question is, "Why are you acting the way you are?" Why do you judge others so critically and so constantly, yet never seem to judge yourself? Surely it can't be that you think you are going to escape! If you know that God judges according to truth, you must be included in that judgment as well. If it is not that you think you'll escape his judgment, then it must be that you are treating with disdain the opportunities God gives you to repent. Why are you allowed to live? Why are you permitted to experience life, to find a new year lying ahead of you, with all its chances to correct these wrong attitudes and conditions? God's goodness, tolerance, and patience are exhibited in his giving you a chance to change, a chance to acknowledge your sins and to be forgiven.

We have to see all our life in this respect. A faithful God, judging the inner part of life, does give us these opportunities. He knows we are blind. He knows that we often struggle at recognizing what is wrong in our life, and so he gives us these opportunities to repent and change. These moments of truth are very important.

In Verses 5-11, the apostle presents the last step of his argument, and describes what lies ahead for those who refuse to face the actual condition of their lives:

But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God "will give to each person according to what he has done." To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, and then the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism. (Romans 2:5-11 NIV)

I am amazed to see in my own heart how many times I expect God to show favoritism. Even as a Christian, I expect him to overlook areas of my life without any acknowledgment on my part that they are there. I expect him to forget them without revealing to me what their true nature is. Yet the Scriptures tell us that God is constantly bringing to our attention times when we see ourselves clearly. What valuable times they are!

Paul says that when we refuse to judge these areas we are storing up wrath for ourselves. The word is "treasures." We are laying up treasures, but the treasure is wrath. This is the same word that Jesus employed when he said, "Lay up treasures for yourselves in heaven," (Matthew 6:20 KJV). We are constantly making deposits in a bank account which we must collect one of these days. In his wrath, God allows us to deteriorate as human beings. We become less than what we want to be. I think C. S. Lewis has described this very accurately. In his book, Mere Christianity, he says,

People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, "If you keep a lot of rules, I'll reward you; and if you don't, I'll do the other thing." I do not think that's the best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice, you are turning the central part of you, the part that chooses, into something a little different than what it was before. And, taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature; either into a creature that is in harmony with God and with other creatures and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God and with its fellow creatures and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heavenly, i.e., it is joy and peace and knowledge and power; to be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us, at each moment, is progressing to the one state or the other.

In very eloquent terms, that is saying the same thing Paul brings out here. God is a righteous God. He judges men and he assesses wrath against those who do wrong. No matter what the outward life may be like, he sees the inward heart and judges on that basis. There is a righteous judgment awaiting. It comes, in part, all through life, because we experience the wrath of God even now. But a day is coming when it all will be manifested, one way or the other.

The question Paul brings out here is this: What do you really want out of life? What are you seeking?

If you are "by persistence in doing good seeking glory and honor and immortality," i.e., if you want God's life, you want to be his kind of a person, you want to honor him and be of value to him -- if that is what you really want above everything else, then you will find it. God will give you eternal life. In the context of the whole Scripture, this means you will find your way to Jesus Christ, for he is life eternal. You will find him as your Redeemer and Lord and Savior. You will grow increasingly like him, as you judge these evil areas of life, and honestly confess them, not assuming that God will pass over them. But what do you really want?

If what you really want is not God, truth, life, glory, and immortality -- if you really want pleasure and fame and wealth and power and prominence, if you want to be the center of things and have everybody thinking of you and looking at you and serving you -- then, according to this passage, "there will be trouble and stress for every human being who does evil, first for the Jew, and then for the Gentile." God plays no favorites. Church member or pagan, civilized or savage, white, brown, red, black or yellow, it makes no difference before God.

Now if all this sounds very harsh, if it sounds unloving, it is because you have not read the passage in its context. For this is not inconsistent with the picture of a loving God, who loves humanity and wants to restore it. It is a picture of a loving God who loves us so much that he tells us the truth, and that is true love. He will not allow us to deceive ourselves, to be tricked and trapped by falling into self-deceit. He tells us the truth. There is no way out, except one, and that is what he wants us to see. God's love is helping us to see that there is only one way to deal with sin -- admit it is there, and recognize that God has already dealt with it in Christ. On that basis, God offers us full and free forgiveness. There is no other way.

Any person who thinks he will escape by taking another route, or listening to some of the other voices that try to trap us into ways of rationalizing these feelings, and accepting them on other terms rather than dealing with them as ugly sins before God, will discover ultimately that he has stored up a treasure house of wrath. That is why God tells us the truth now. God, in great love and at tremendous cost, has provided a way out. It is that we surrender self. We give up self-seeking and living for ourselves, and begin to live for the God who made us. By the power of the Lord who forgives us and restores us and makes us his own, we have heaven instead of hell. C. S. Lewis says the principle of giving up self runs all through life, from top to bottom:

Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life, and you will save it. Submit to the death of your ambitions and your favorite wishes every day, and the death of your whole body in the end, submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look out for yourself and you will find, in the long run, only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him, everything else thrown in.

This is the gospel. This is what this tremendous passage is aiming at, that we might realize there is no hope, none whatsoever, except in a day-by-day yielding to the plan and the program of God, as we find it in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Perhaps there are some here this morning who have seen themselves in a new light. Perhaps you have seen that you need to stop justifying and excusing yourself, and are in need of forgiveness from God just as much as though you had been a red-handed murderer. We all are.

Perhaps there are many Christians here who have realized that when we protect and allow areas of our life to be given over to this kind of judgmental condemning and criticizing of other people, we are blocking the flow of the life of God to our lives, keeping back the joy and peace that he would have us enjoy. These areas need to be judged in the Christian life as well as in the unredeemed life.

Above all else, this process is designed to make us take seriously God's way of escape. There is a way of escape: Admit your sins freely, and receive the forgiveness of God -- on the basis of the work of Jesus Christ in his death on the cross and his resurrection life available to us.

Prayer:
Our heavenly Father, we thank you that you do tell us the truth. You are the God of truth. You do not deceive us, you do not delude us; you tell us the blunt, stark, naked truth, that we might know exactly what we are, and what we can do about it. Save us, Lord, from the folly of trying any other method. Save us from the folly of trying to protect and rationalize and justify these areas of evil in our lives. Grant to us, Lord, the grace to confess and be forgiven. In Jesus' name, Amen.

by **Need2Know** » Thu Dec 22, 2011 8:14 am

Sinful Morality

Chapter 2 of Romans is part of Paul's penetrating analysis of the 1st century civilization, beginning with its rejection of the God who had revealed himself in nature and in man's conscience. Rejecting the true God, men turned to false gods and widespread destruction of the home occurred because of sexual immorality and perversion. A spirit of violence and cruelty was rising and a total disregard of human rights was spreading throughout the 1st century world. And yet, to our astonishment, we see how accurately the apostle has analyzed the civilization of twentieth century civilization as well. All that is recorded in the first chapter of Romans took place last night in San Francisco and Los Angeles, up and down the West coast, and throughout this nation, and the world in which we live.

Yet there are many people who would say they do not belong in this picture. I am sure there were thousands in Paul's day, and I know there are millions today who feel they are not described in Romans 1. "That isn't talking about us. We're not like that. It may describe them, but it does not describe us."

Whenever you read this first chapter of Romans you find that division immediately evident -- them and us. They are the wicked, the obviously gross, wicked people; we are not. Many people would say, "We're law-abiding, home-loving, clean-living, decent people." Many of these people have been church members most of their lives. Others perhaps do not go to church at all, but nevertheless pride themselves on their moral standards, their ethical values, and their clean, law-abiding lives. They say the world may be in its present condition because of the wickedness of gangsters, radicals, revolutionaries, prostitutes, pimps, and perverts of our day; but they themselves are the salt of the earth.

It is on these people that the apostle turns his spotlight in Chapter 2. We will see his argument developed in three separate steps. The first is given in Verse 1:

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. (Romans 2:1 NIV)

Here Paul talks about those who pass judgment on others. If there are any here this morning who do not belong in that category, we will excuse you. You are free to go, because I want to talk to those who have, at one time or another, passed judgment on someone else. The apostle makes two points about these people in Verse 1:

First, he says that these people know the difference between right and wrong; otherwise they would not presume to be judging. They have a clear understanding of a standard. They know that one thing is wrong and another thing is right. They are clearly aware, therefore, that there are things that are wrong, and which merit the judgment and wrath of God released in society. This wrath, explained in Chapter 1, is primarily God's removal of the restraints upon human wickedness, allowing evil to become widespread and publicly evident. That is the wrath of God at work. The people Paul speaks of in Chapter 2 are aware that there are things that bring forth the wrath of God, things that cause society to degenerate.

Paul's second point about these people who have a clear view of what is wrong in society is devastating. He says they are guilty because they are doing the same things themselves. The judges are as guilty as the ones they have in the dock.

As a practiced, self-righteous hypocrite, I always have a feeling of surprise at that statement. I feel that whenever moral people, those who pride themselves on a degree of righteousness and a standard of ethics, read a statement like this, they are taken by surprise. "What do you mean? How could this be?"

This reminds me of our Lord's account of his return, when all the nations are to be judged before him (Matthew 25:31-46). He will separate them into two bands, the sheep and the goats. The test of judgment is made on the basis of how people treat others. He will say to the sheep, "When I was thirsty, you gave me to drink, when I was hungry you fed me, when I was naked you clothed me, when I was in prison you visited me." To the goats he will say, "When I was thirsty you did not give me to drink, when I was hungry you did not feed me, when I was naked you did not clothe me, and when I was sick or in prison you did not visit me." Both groups are taken by surprise and say, "When did this happen? When did we see you thirsty or hungry or naked? We don't remember that!" This feeling of surprise is highly indicative of how little we understand ourselves and why we need a passage such as this. We are all guilty.

I am going to use myself as an example, simply because I feel I am such an excellent example of what the rest of you are like. As I have been thinking this through, I see three ways by which I try to elude the fact that I am guilty of the things that I accuse others of doing:

First, I am congenitally blind toward many of my own faults. I just am not aware of them. I do not see that I am doing the same things that others are doing, and yet other people can see that I am. I don't see it, and neither do you see it in yourself. We all have these blind spots. One of the greatest lies of our age is the idea that we can know ourselves. We often argue, "Don't you think I know myself?" The answer is, "No, you do not know yourself. You are blind to much of your life." There can be areas that are very hurtful and sinful that you are not aware of.

I stayed with a pastor and his delightful family not long ago. They had three children, two boys and a girl. The oldest boy was about sixteen, and, like all sixteen-year-olds, he was very concerned about the undisciplined life of his twelve-year-old brother. One day, his mother said, he came in all upset at something his brother had done. He said, "Who does he think he is? Why, he acts as though he's as good as the rest of us!" What a typical example of the attitude we all have, only he was honest enough to say it.

I caught myself the other day saying to someone, "Relax! Take it easy!" It was only afterward that I heard my own voice and realized that I was not relaxed, and I was not taking it easy myself. Have you ever lectured your children on the sin of procrastination? Then did you barely get your income tax report in on time, or not get it in at all? How blind we are! We are congenitally blind toward many of our own faults. We just do not see them. In that way we can indeed be guilty, as the verse says, of doing the very things we accuse others of doing.

A second way we try to elude the fact that we are guilty of the very things we accuse others of doing is by conveniently forgetting what we have done that is wrong. We may have been aware of our sin at the time, but somehow we just assume that God is going to forget it. We do not have to acknowledge it in any way -- he will just forget it. As the sin fades from our memory, we think it fades from his, as well.

For example, let's consider our thought life. Much of this passage must be understood in the light of our Lord's revelation in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus says that God, who looks at the heart, sees what is going on in the inner attitude and judges on that basis; he doesn't judge as men judge, according to what is observable from the outward life. In the Sermon on the Mount we learn that if we hold a feeling of animosity and hatred against someone, if we are bitter and resentful and filled with malice toward an individual, then we are guilty of murder, just as though we had taken a knife and plunged it into that person's breast, or shot them with a gun. If we find ourselves lustfully longing to possess the body of another, if we play with this idea over and over in our mind, and treat ourselves to a fantasy of sex, we have committed fornication or adultery. If we find ourselves filled with pride, yet we put on the appearance of being humble and considerate of others, we are guilty of the worst of sins. Pride of heart destroys humanity.

We think these things will go unnoticed, but God sees them in our heart. He sees all the actions that we conveniently have forgotten. He sees it when we cut people down, or speak with spite and sharpness, and deliberately try to hurt them. He sees it when we are unfair in our business tactics, when we are arrogant toward someone we think is on a lower social level than ourselves. He sees it when we are stubborn and uncooperative in trying to work out a tense situation. All these things God takes note of. We, who condemn these things in others, find ourselves guilty of the same things. Isn't it remarkable that when others mistreat us we always think it is most serious and requires immediate correction. But when we mistreat others, we say to them. "You're making so much out of a little thing! Why it's so trivial and insignificant."

The third way we try to elude the fact that we are guilty of the very things we accuse others of doing is by cleverly renaming things. Other people lie and cheat; we simply stretch the truth a little. Others betray; we simply are protecting our rights. Others steal; we borrow. Others have prejudices; we have convictions. Others murder and kill; we exploit and ruin. Others rape; we pollute. We cry, "Those people ought to be stoned!" Jesus says, "He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone," (John 8:7). Yes, we are all guilty of the same things we accuse others of doing.

Paul develops the second step of his argument in Verses 2-4. He asks two questions; here is the first:

Now we know that God's judgment against those that do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? (Romans 2:2-3 NIV)

What a ridiculous ground of hope! How tenuous to hope that God, who sees all men openly and intimately, who sees not only what is on the outside but also what is on the inside, will pronounce judgment on these other people, but not on you. People will say, "How can a just and loving God permit the injustice and vileness that takes place in this world? How can he allow a tyrant like Hitler or Stalin to arise and murder millions of innocent people? How can he allow these godless regimes to come into power and crush people, usurp their rights, put thousands in prison, and spread destruction and sorrow across the land? Why does he allow these things to go on year after year? Why doesn't God judge these men?"

The question we ought to ask is, "Why didn't he judge me yesterday, when I said that sharp, caustic word that plunged like an arrow into a loved one's heart and hurt him badly? Why didn't he judge me? Why didn't he shrivel my hand when I took a pencil and cheated on my income tax? Why didn't he strike me dumb when I was gossiping on the phone this morning, sharing a tidbit that made someone look bad in someone else's eyes? Why didn't God judge that?" The God of truth and justice sees the one as well as the other. Paul asks, "Do you think that you will escape the judgment of God?" Then Paul asked the second question, the other horn of the dilemma:

Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, even realizing that God's kindness should lead you to repentance? (Romans 2:4 NIV)

Paul's question is, "Why are you acting the way you are?" Why do you judge others so critically and so constantly, yet never seem to judge yourself? Surely it can't be that you think you are going to escape! If you know that God judges according to truth, you must be included in that judgment as well. If it is not that you think you'll escape his judgment, then it must be that you are treating with disdain the opportunities God gives you to repent. Why are you allowed to live? Why are you permitted to experience life, to find a new year lying ahead of you, with all its chances to correct these wrong attitudes and conditions? God's goodness, tolerance, and patience are exhibited in his giving you a chance to change, a chance to acknowledge your sins and to be forgiven.

We have to see all our life in this respect. A faithful God, judging the inner part of life, does give us these opportunities. He knows we are blind. He knows that we often struggle at recognizing what is wrong in our life, and so he gives us these opportunities to repent and change. These moments of truth are very important.

In Verses 5-11, the apostle presents the last step of his argument, and describes what lies ahead for those who refuse to face the actual condition of their lives:

But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God "will give to each person according to what he has done." To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, and then the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism. (Romans 2:5-11 NIV)

I am amazed to see in my own heart how many times I expect God to show favoritism. Even as a Christian, I expect him to overlook areas of my life without any acknowledgment on my part that they are there. I expect him to forget them without revealing to me what their true nature is. Yet the Scriptures tell us that God is constantly bringing to our attention times when we see ourselves clearly. What valuable times they are!

Paul says that when we refuse to judge these areas we are storing up wrath for ourselves. The word is "treasures." We are laying up treasures, but the treasure is wrath. This is the same word that Jesus employed when he said, "Lay up treasures for yourselves in heaven," (Matthew 6:20 KJV). We are constantly making deposits in a bank account which we must collect one of these days. In his wrath, God allows us to deteriorate as human beings. We become less than what we want to be. I think C. S. Lewis has described this very accurately. In his book, Mere Christianity, he says,

People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, "If you keep a lot of rules, I'll reward you; and if you don't, I'll do the other thing." I do not think that's the best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice, you are turning the central part of you, the part that chooses, into something a little different than what it was before. And, taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature; either into a creature that is in harmony with God and with other creatures and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God and with its fellow creatures and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heavenly, i.e., it is joy and peace and knowledge and power; to be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us, at each moment, is progressing to the one state or the other.

In very eloquent terms, that is saying the same thing Paul brings out here. God is a righteous God. He judges men and he assesses wrath against those who do wrong. No matter what the outward life may be like, he sees the inward heart and judges on that basis. There is a righteous judgment awaiting. It comes, in part, all through life, because we experience the wrath of God even now. But a day is coming when it all will be manifested, one way or the other.

The question Paul brings out here is this: What do you really want out of life? What are you seeking?

If you are "by persistence in doing good seeking glory and honor and immortality," i.e., if you want God's life, you want to be his kind of a person, you want to honor him and be of value to him -- if that is what you really want above everything else, then you will find it. God will give you eternal life. In the context of the whole Scripture, this means you will find your way to Jesus Christ, for he is life eternal. You will find him as your Redeemer and Lord and Savior. You will grow increasingly like him, as you judge these evil areas of life, and honestly confess them, not assuming that God will pass over them. But what do you really want?

If what you really want is not God, truth, life, glory, and immortality -- if you really want pleasure and fame and wealth and power and prominence, if you want to be the center of things and have everybody thinking of you and looking at you and serving you -- then, according to this passage, "there will be trouble and stress for every human being who does evil, first for the Jew, and then for the Gentile." God plays no favorites. Church member or pagan, civilized or savage, white, brown, red, black or yellow, it makes no difference before God.

Now if all this sounds very harsh, if it sounds unloving, it is because you have not read the passage in its context. For this is not inconsistent with the picture of a loving God, who loves humanity and wants to restore it. It is a picture of a loving God who loves us so much that he tells us the truth, and that is true love. He will not allow us to deceive ourselves, to be tricked and trapped by falling into self-deceit. He tells us the truth. There is no way out, except one, and that is what he wants us to see. God's love is helping us to see that there is only one way to deal with sin -- admit it is there, and recognize that God has already dealt with it in Christ. On that basis, God offers us full and free forgiveness. There is no other way.

Any person who thinks he will escape by taking another route, or listening to some of the other voices that try to trap us into ways of rationalizing these feelings, and accepting them on other terms rather than dealing with them as ugly sins before God, will discover ultimately that he has stored up a treasure house of wrath. That is why God tells us the truth now. God, in great love and at tremendous cost, has provided a way out. It is that we surrender self. We give up self-seeking and living for ourselves, and begin to live for the God who made us. By the power of the Lord who forgives us and restores us and makes us his own, we have heaven instead of hell. C. S. Lewis says the principle of giving up self runs all through life, from top to bottom:

Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life, and you will save it. Submit to the death of your ambitions and your favorite wishes every day, and the death of your whole body in the end, submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look out for yourself and you will find, in the long run, only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him, everything else thrown in.

This is the gospel. This is what this tremendous passage is aiming at, that we might realize there is no hope, none whatsoever, except in a day-by-day yielding to the plan and the program of God, as we find it in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Perhaps there are some here this morning who have seen themselves in a new light. Perhaps you have seen that you need to stop justifying and excusing yourself, and are in need of forgiveness from God just as much as though you had been a red-handed murderer. We all are.

Perhaps there are many Christians here who have realized that when we protect and allow areas of our life to be given over to this kind of judgmental condemning and criticizing of other people, we are blocking the flow of the life of God to our lives, keeping back the joy and peace that he would have us enjoy. These areas need to be judged in the Christian life as well as in the unredeemed life.

Above all else, this process is designed to make us take seriously God's way of escape. There is a way of escape: Admit your sins freely, and receive the forgiveness of God -- on the basis of the work of Jesus Christ in his death on the cross and his resurrection life available to us.

Prayer:
Our heavenly Father, we thank you that you do tell us the truth. You are the God of truth. You do not deceive us, you do not delude us; you tell us the blunt, stark, naked truth, that we might know exactly what we are, and what we can do about it. Save us, Lord, from the folly of trying any other method. Save us from the folly of trying to protect and rationalize and justify these areas of evil in our lives. Grant to us, Lord, the grace to confess and be forgiven. In Jesus' name, Amen.

by **Need2Know** » Fri Dec 23, 2011 7:58 am

According to Light

In Chapter 1 of Romans we saw the eagerness of Paul to go to Rome and preach the gospel, for, above all else, it is exactly what Rome needs to hear. "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile," (Romans 1:16 NIV). Paul took pride in the gospel, and rightfully so. The gospel is what men and women everywhere desperately need. In the gospel, God has found a way to condemn our sin and to destroy it without destroying us. No man can do that.

When we want to correct evildoers, we have to punish them by imprisoning them. Sometimes, to protect society, we have to take their lives. But God does not do that. Jesus, the center and heart of the gospel, changes people. He has found a way to change our most fundamental urges from self-centeredness and selfishness, to loving concern for others, so that the very basis of our urges has been altered. In the gospel, God has made divine power available to us. God has promised to us and provided for us an ultimate destiny that is mind-blowing, beyond all our wildest dreams. And yet it is amazing that when people hear this good news, they often resist it and stubbornly hold out against accepting it.

Of course, the reason for this struggle is that the gospel can never be accepted until you admit your need. Men will never accept this message until they come to a place of hopelessness and helplessness. But that is the problem; we do not like to admit we need any help. We want everybody to think we are able to handle what is coming our way. We struggle against this humiliation (as we see it) of stooping to receive from God something that we cannot earn or gain for ourselves.

In Romans, Paul describes the four types of men who resist and refuse the gospel. Two of these types we have already looked at: There is the obviously wicked person who, in essence, simply defies God. He is described at the end of Chapter 1: "Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things, but also approve of those who practice them," (Romans 1:32 NIV). This type includes the whole world of people who flaunt morality, defy the words of God, and who encourage people to get involved more deeply in things that are hurtful and destructive.

In Chapter 2, Paul deals with the second type of man who rejects the gospel, the self-righteous moralist, who is outwardly decent, good-living, and clean-cut. Inwardly, however, he is filled with resentments, jealousies, murder, hatred, and envy; and his attitudes are as wrong as the actions of those who are outwardly evil. The problem is that such men delude themselves by thinking that everything is going to be all right with them. Because they have maintained a certain respectable facade, they think that God is going to overlook the inner sins of their life and that there is going to be no judgment for them because everything appears to be fine.

Now we come to the last two types of people who resist the truth: One of these is the unenlightened pagan. Here we are dealing with the question of what to do about the people who have not heard the gospel. What about those who live where the Bible is unknown, or those who are in a different religion where there is no reference to the facts of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ? In this passage Paul says that their problem is that they defile their consciences. The other and last type is that of the religious devotee who seeks deliverance from the judgment of God by religious practices, rituals, performances, and knowledge of the truth.

These two types of people are introduced by a statement of the universal lostness of mankind, found in Chapter 2, Verses 12 and 13:

All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Romans 2:12-13 NIV)

Now this is probably the strongest statement from the hand of Paul and it answers the question non-Christians ask Christians more often than any other, "What about the people who have never heard of Jesus Christ?" Usually they are thinking of savages in jungles. They seldom think of the savages in the concrete jungles of our cities, but both are in the same condition, as we will see. Paul's answer to this question is that they will be judged by their own standards. God judges men, not according to what they do not know, but according to what they do know. They will be judged by their own standards.

So far in Romans, Paul has made three great statements about the basis of the judgment: In Chapter 2, Verse 2, Paul says that God's judgment is according to truth, i.e., it is realistic. He only deals with that which is actually there. God does not falsely accuse anyone, but he judges according to truth. Then in Chapter 2, Verse 6, he says God judges according to works. Now that is interesting, because that shows God is patient. God, who does see what is going on in our inner lives and who judges wholly on that basis, nevertheless waits patiently until our inner attitude begins to work itself out in some deed, speech, or attitude that we manifest openly. Therefore, God allows men to be their own judge, to see for themselves that what is coming out is a revelation of what is inside.

In Chapter 2, Verses 9-10, Paul also says the judgment of God is according to light. That is, God is not going to summon all mankind and tell them they are going to be judged on the basis of the Ten Commandments.

(By the way, I was taken to task because I speak only about what God says to men. One woman got very disturbed because she wanted to be included in this; so I want to make it clear that when I say men I am using it in the long-standing generic sense in which men stands for mankind. That has always been a grammatical feature of the English language, and, before that, of the Greek and Hebrew languages. All languages have this grammatical device and it is simply ridiculous to say that this is a sexist term when used in that generic sense.)

But man, in this generic sense, is certainly going to be judged according to light. That means that God will say to that individual, "What did you think was right and wrong?" When the individual answers, God's question then is, "Did you do the right, and not the wrong?" By that standard, of course, everyone fails. Paul makes clear that this is true. He says, "All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law." The fact that such men never heard the Ten Commandments, or anything else that is in the Bible, does not mean that they are going to be acceptable in God's sight. They will perish, not because they did not hear, but because what they did know was right, they did not do. Now Paul goes on to take up the case of the unenlightened pagan in Verses 14-16.

(Indeed, when the Gentiles, who did not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares. (Romans 2:14-16 NIV)

Now I hope that your text of the Scriptures puts Verses 14 and 15 in parentheses because this all comes within the context of Paul's argument that there is a day coming when God is going to judge the secrets of men everywhere and all that is hidden will be revealed. In Luke 12:3 Jesus himself spoke of that: "What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear behind closed doors will be proclaimed from the housetops," (Luke 12:3 NIV). Now there were some in Paul's day who said that because the Jews possessed the Law and knew God's truth, they would not be condemned in that judgment. But Paul is saying, "Look, if your knowledge of truth is what saves you, then everybody will be saved, even the savages and the pagans, for they show that they have a law, too. They know a great deal about the Law; it is written on their hearts, and their consciences act as judges within them, just as they do within those of us in the more civilized world." On that basis, you see, everyone would be saved. But God does not judge that way.

Now here we have a revelation of what goes on in the primitive world. Men and women who have never heard anything about the Bible, Jesus Christ, Moses, the Ten Commandments, or any standard that we are familiar with, nevertheless are subject to judgment because they have truth written in their hearts. They do know what is right and wrong. They show it in their own lives.

I have just finished reading an amazing book called Peace Child, which has been made into a movie. It is a wonderful and remarkable story, taking place in the last couple of decades in the island of New Guinea. Some missionaries went there and found a tribe of people who were so degraded, so sunken in immorality, that they actually idolized treachery. They admired the man who could win someone's love, friendship, and trust, and then betray and murder him. Such a man was held up as an admirable person to follow. When the missionaries first came among these people, they despaired of ever reaching them, for there seemed to be no ground of appeal to a people that had so reversed the moral standards of life. However, as they lived among them and got better acquainted with their culture, they discovered that this moral reversal was universal, except at one point. There was one situation in which they recognized that men and women were bound to a moral standard, and that was in the case of an exchange of a peace child. If a tribe gave a baby or a child from their tribe to another, then that other tribe would be bound to keep its agreements and to honor its treaty with the first tribe. If they did not, they would lose face and be regarded as a despicable people. It was at this point the missionaries were able to introduce the gospel, for they pointed out that God had given up a peace child in Jesus Christ. Thus these people were bound to honor God. It is a remarkable story, but it shows clearly how God had prepared the way for the gospel by building into this culture a concept that would be ready and waiting when the gospel came. Now these people were living according to the rule of conscience; and the conscience, as Paul points out here, never brings a settled peace. These tribes are a continual testimony to that fact.

People say, "Let your conscience be your guide." That is a recipe for unhappiness. If that is all you have, it is a certain way of plunging into a life that alternates between fear and momentary peace.

In the latest issue of Christianity Today there is a very interesting article by Rachel Saint, widow of one of the five men who were cruelly murdered by the Auca Indians on the banks of a river in Ecuador twenty years ago. In this article she describes the way the Aucas lived before the gospel came and the tremendous work going on in that tribe since then. She writes,

The Aucas have been thoroughly acquainted with demons and devil worship for many generations. The result of this is a religion of terror. The witch doctor is the central authority, and he controls the tribe. Any death is supposed to be caused by the witch doctor. Then that death has to be avenged and the feuding starts. They are afraid that they might be speared at night in their own houses. Everyone is a potential enemy. If a father loses a son, he feels he must kill his daughter. If the group loses a marriageable girl, a grandmother is killed. Why should a worthless old woman live if a marriageable girl has died? This kind of thinking permeates their culture.

Now this sort of thinking goes on not only in the jungles of South America and other places, but also in the concrete jungles of San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and everywhere else. A reign of terror always ensues when people are governed only by the law of conscience. Yet, even under their own law, they perish, just as much as those who are judged by God's Law.

Now Paul goes on to take up the case of the religious devotee of his day, the Jew. Today we need only substitute the title "church member" to bring it up to date -- because we American church members are in the same condition as the Jew was in the culture of Paul's day. We have a great body of truth that we delight in, and we feel proud of our knowledge and our understanding of it. But unfortunately, we oftentimes hope and think that knowledge, in itself, is what is going to deliver us in the sight of God. In Verses 17-24 we will see how Paul handles such thinking.

Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God; if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth -- you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? As it is written: "God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." (Romans 2:17-24 NIV)

Paul lists here the five great advantages which the Jews of his day had and on which they relied for their position before God:

First, they relied on possessing the Law. There are many people in the churches of America today who rely upon the fact that the Bible is available to them. We have the Bible in twenty-five different versions and many take great pride in owning a specific version. "I am a King James Christian! If it was good enough for the Apostle Paul, it's good enough for me!" Or "We're liberated! We have the American Standard Version!" You hear people bragging about this! Well, that is exactly what the Jew was doing in Paul's day.

Second, they bragged about their relationship to God. The Jew made it clear that he had a special inside track with the Almighty. You hear people talking like that today. "God, Billy Graham, and I were just talking the other day..." We make it clear that we have a special standing with the "Good Lord," as he is usually called, and in some way we brag about our relationship to God.

Third, the Jews were people who knew the will of God. They had the Scriptures, they had the Ten Commandments, and the knowledge of what God wanted. There are many today who boast about their knowledge of the Word of God and who rest upon that fact.

Fourth, these Jews approved of what was superior, i.e., they rejected certain attitudes and actions in life and chose only that which was regarded as morally superior. Many, many church members do this. They take pride in the fact that they do not do certain things. I am amazed at how many people think that God is going to be impressed by the things they do not do. "We don't dance, we don't drink, we don't go to the movies, we don't go to theaters, we don't play cards, we don't drink coffee," and on and on.

Finally, the Jews were instructed in the Law. There were many who could quote great passages of Scripture and they took pride in that. Now, there is nothing wrong with any of these advantages except that the Jews and many of us today depend on them for righteousness. We feel we have a special standing with God because of them; and that is what is wrong.

Paul goes on to list four privileges which the Jews felt were theirs because they had these advantages: First, they felt they were a guide to the blind. Today we have those who are always ready to correct anybody around them, to impart truth to those unfortunate people who have not learned anything yet.

Second, the Jews felt they were a light to those in the dark. Every now and then we run into people who are quite ready to dazzle us with their knowledge of the Scriptures. They know all about the antichrist, they know when Christ is coming again, they know all the elective decrees of God, they are thoroughly acquainted with the superlapsarian position of the people before the Fall, etc., and they take great pride in this knowledge.

Third, the Jews felt they were instructors of the foolish. A lady came up to me after a service on Sunday and told me a long, painful story of how she had injured her wrist in an auto accident. The emergency doctor who took care of her happened to let slip a couple of curse words while working on her. She lectured him at great length about how she was a Christian, how she wouldn't listen to this kind of language, and how terrible it was that he took the name of God in vain. This attitude is typical of many who feel they are instructors of the foolish, because they have a knowledge of the Scriptures.

The fourth privilege which the Jews possessed was that they were teachers of children. I am amazed at how many want to teach Sunday school classes for the wrong reason. Now there is a right reason, but many want to teach because they feel they are imparting truth to people who need it, and they take great ego satisfaction in doing it.

Paul's judgment of such people is, "You are guilty yourself." This attitude of the Jew is the same one Paul condemned earlier in the moral Gentile. "You are outwardly righteous and correct, but inwardly you are doing the wrong thing." They were envious, proud, covetous, lustful, bitter, dangerous people. Religious zealots are dangerous people. The Jews were notorious in the Roman empire for being over-sharp in business deals. That is why Paul says, "You who preach against stealing, do you steal?" They were not above a little hanky-panky with slave girls they had to deal with. Paul says, "You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?" They were ready to profit from trade with pagan temples. He says, "You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?" They bragged about the Law, but Paul says, "God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." That was the ultimate judgment upon the Jews. To them, blasphemy was the worst of sins. Yet Paul says, "Though you claim to have so much, and to be so knowledgeable, yet what you have done is to blaspheme God. People have been turned away from God because of you."

I do not think I have to detail how true that is of American Christianity as a whole. And not only in this country, but around the world, Christians have caused people to turn from God because of our attitudes and the way we approach people. I have often thought it is amazing how the people who keep close records on how many they win to Christ never keep any records on how many they drive away. And the name of God is blasphemed because of that.

Now Paul seizes upon and singles out the supreme symbol of Jewish separatism, circumcision, in Verses 25-27.

Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. If those who are not circumcised keep the law's requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker. (Romans 2:25-27 NIV)

The Jews, of course, prided themselves (and still do today) on the rite of circumcision, the symbol that they were God's people. You only need to substitute baptism, confirmation, or church membership to apply that to the twentieth century, to Protestant or Catholic American. So many Americans rest upon the fact that they have been baptized, confirmed, or accepted as members of a church, as the sign that they belong to God. Paul says that is useless and worthless, if something has not happened in the heart. Paul's final conclusion about the religious man is in Verses 28-29.

A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God. (Romans 2:28-29 NIV)

That last phrase is a play on words. The word "praise" is taken from the word "Judah," from which we get the word "Jew." Paul says the Jew is not praised by men but by God; but he also makes clear what constitutes a true Jew in God's sight.

Now this is one of the most hotly debated questions in the state of Israel today. The Israelis are constantly trying to decide what is the basis of Jewry. What makes a Jew? Is it religion? Is it observing the Old Testament Law, keeping a kosher kitchen? Many Jews are atheists, having no use for the Old Testament, and yet they claim to be Jews because their ancestry is Jewish; their mothers and fathers, as far back as they know, were Jews. Is that the basis on which to claim Jewishness? There are black Jews who are petitioning to belong to Israel. But other Jews say you have to be white to be a Jew. What makes a Jew?

God says that nothing outward makes you a Jew. One becomes a Jew when his heart is changed. As with Abraham and Jacob, you become a Jew when you believe in Yeshua Hamashiach, Jesus the Messiah. The Jews for Jesus group is telling people this today. What makes you a Jew is not the culture from which you came, the ritual through which you have gone, the circumstances of your life, or your background, ancestry, or history, but the fact that you have come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. That is what makes you a Jew. Paul wrote in Galatians 3:29:

If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Galatians 3:29 NIV)

Paul's conclusion of this section of Chapter 2 of Romans is that man without Christ is hopelessly lost. Though he defies God, deludes himself, defiles his conscience, or denies what he himself teaches, he is absolutely, hopelessly lost until he comes to know the Lord Jesus and lives on the basis of that relationship. That is what makes a Christian.

It is not a question of whether you are baptized, galvanized, sanforized, or pasteurized. The question is: "Do you have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and have you received the gift of righteousness which God gives to those who do not deserve it, cannot earn it, but receive it by his love and grace?" We will see what additional problems this raises with the Jews in the next section of the book of Romans.

Prayer:
Our Father, we pray that if anyone here today is resting upon empty ceremonies, fancy moral standing, or decent or good living for their righteousness that they will see the hopelessness of such justification before you, the God of reality, the God of truth. We pray that they will receive the gift that you so freely offer in Jesus Christ our Lord. He alone can change us. He alone can set us free. He alone can instruct us, guide us, and make us into the men and women you want us to be. He accepts us on that basis, and for that we give grateful thanks. In his name, Amen.

by **Need2Know** » Fri Dec 23, 2011 8:01 am

According to Light

In Chapter 1 of Romans we saw the eagerness of Paul to go to Rome and preach the gospel, for, above all else, it is exactly what Rome needs to hear. "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile," (Romans 1:16 NIV). Paul took pride in the gospel, and rightfully so. The gospel is what men and women everywhere desperately need. In the gospel, God has found a way to condemn our sin and to destroy it without destroying us. No man can do that.

When we want to correct evildoers, we have to punish them by imprisoning them. Sometimes, to protect society, we have to take their lives. But God does not do that. Jesus, the center and heart of the gospel, changes people. He has found a way to change our most fundamental urges from self-centeredness and selfishness, to loving concern for others, so that the very basis of our urges has been altered. In the gospel, God has made divine power available to us. God has promised to us and provided for us an ultimate destiny that is mind-blowing, beyond all our wildest dreams. And yet it is amazing that when people hear this good news, they often resist it and stubbornly hold out against accepting it.

Of course, the reason for this struggle is that the gospel can never be accepted until you admit your need. Men will never accept this message until they come to a place of hopelessness and helplessness. But that is the problem; we do not like to admit we need any help. We want everybody to think we are able to handle what is coming our way. We struggle against this humiliation (as we see it) of stooping to receive from God something that we cannot earn or gain for ourselves.

In Romans, Paul describes the four types of men who resist and refuse the gospel. Two of these types we have already looked at: There is the obviously wicked person who, in essence, simply defies God. He is described at the end of Chapter 1: "Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things, but also approve of those who practice them," (Romans 1:32 NIV). This type includes the whole world of people who flaunt morality, defy the words of God, and who encourage people to get involved more deeply in things that are hurtful and destructive.

In Chapter 2, Paul deals with the second type of man who rejects the gospel, the self-righteous moralist, who is outwardly decent, good-living, and clean-cut. Inwardly, however, he is filled with resentments, jealousies, murder, hatred, and envy; and his attitudes are as wrong as the actions of those who are outwardly evil. The problem is that such men delude themselves by thinking that everything is going to be all right with them. Because they have maintained a certain respectable facade, they think that God is going to overlook the inner sins of their life and that there is going to be no judgment for them because everything appears to be fine.

Now we come to the last two types of people who resist the truth: One of these is the unenlightened pagan. Here we are dealing with the question of what to do about the people who have not heard the gospel. What about those who live where the Bible is unknown, or those who are in a different religion where there is no reference to the facts of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ? In this passage Paul says that their problem is that they defile their consciences. The other and last type is that of the religious devotee who seeks deliverance from the judgment of God by religious practices, rituals, performances, and knowledge of the truth.

These two types of people are introduced by a statement of the universal lostness of mankind, found in Chapter 2, Verses 12 and 13:

All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Romans 2:12-13 NIV)

Now this is probably the strongest statement from the hand of Paul and it answers the question non-Christians ask Christians more often than any other, "What about the people who have never heard of Jesus Christ?" Usually they are thinking of savages in jungles. They seldom think of the savages in the concrete jungles of our cities, but both are in the same condition, as we will see. Paul's answer to this question is that they will be judged by their own standards. God judges men, not according to what they do not know, but according to what they do know. They will be judged by their own standards.

So far in Romans, Paul has made three great statements about the basis of the judgment: In Chapter 2, Verse 2, Paul says that God's judgment is according to truth, i.e., it is realistic. He only deals with that which is actually there. God does not falsely accuse anyone, but he judges according to truth. Then in Chapter 2, Verse 6, he says God judges according to works. Now that is interesting, because that shows God is patient. God, who does see what is going on in our inner lives and who judges wholly on that basis, nevertheless waits patiently until our inner attitude begins to work itself out in some deed, speech, or attitude that we manifest openly. Therefore, God allows men to be their own judge, to see for themselves that what is coming out is a revelation of what is inside.

In Chapter 2, Verses 9-10, Paul also says the judgment of God is according to light. That is, God is not going to summon all mankind and tell them they are going to be judged on the basis of the Ten Commandments.

(By the way, I was taken to task because I speak only about what God says to men. One woman got very disturbed because she wanted to be included in this; so I want to make it clear that when I say men I am using it in the long-standing generic sense in which men stands for mankind. That has always been a grammatical feature of the English language, and, before that, of the Greek and Hebrew languages. All languages have this grammatical device and it is simply ridiculous to say that this is a sexist term when used in that generic sense.)

But man, in this generic sense, is certainly going to be judged according to light. That means that God will say to that individual, "What did you think was right and wrong?" When the individual answers, God's question then is, "Did you do the right, and not the wrong?" By that standard, of course, everyone fails. Paul makes clear that this is true. He says, "All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law." The fact that such men never heard the Ten Commandments, or anything else that is in the Bible, does not mean that they are going to be acceptable in God's sight. They will perish, not because they did not hear, but because what they did know was right, they did not do. Now Paul goes on to take up the case of the unenlightened pagan in Verses 14-16.

(Indeed, when the Gentiles, who did not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares. (Romans 2:14-16 NIV)

Now I hope that your text of the Scriptures puts Verses 14 and 15 in parentheses because this all comes within the context of Paul's argument that there is a day coming when God is going to judge the secrets of men everywhere and all that is hidden will be revealed. In Luke 12:3 Jesus himself spoke of that: "What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear behind closed doors will be proclaimed from the housetops," (Luke 12:3 NIV). Now there were some in Paul's day who said that because the Jews possessed the Law and knew God's truth, they would not be condemned in that judgment. But Paul is saying, "Look, if your knowledge of truth is what saves you, then everybody will be saved, even the savages and the pagans, for they show that they have a law, too. They know a great deal about the Law; it is written on their hearts, and their consciences act as judges within them, just as they do within those of us in the more civilized world." On that basis, you see, everyone would be saved. But God does not judge that way.

Now here we have a revelation of what goes on in the primitive world. Men and women who have never heard anything about the Bible, Jesus Christ, Moses, the Ten Commandments, or any standard that we are familiar with, nevertheless are subject to judgment because they have truth written in their hearts. They do know what is right and wrong. They show it in their own lives.

I have just finished reading an amazing book called Peace Child, which has been made into a movie. It is a wonderful and remarkable story, taking place in the last couple of decades in the island of New Guinea. Some missionaries went there and found a tribe of people who were so degraded, so sunken in immorality, that they actually idolized treachery. They admired the man who could win someone's love, friendship, and trust, and then betray and murder him. Such a man was held up as an admirable person to follow. When the missionaries first came among these people, they despaired of ever reaching them, for there seemed to be no ground of appeal to a people that had so reversed the moral standards of life. However, as they lived among them and got better acquainted with their culture, they discovered that this moral reversal was universal, except at one point. There was one situation in which they recognized that men and women were bound to a moral standard, and that was in the case of an exchange of a peace child. If a tribe gave a baby or a child from their tribe to another, then that other tribe would be bound to keep its agreements and to honor its treaty with the first tribe. If they did not, they would lose face and be regarded as a despicable people. It was at this point the missionaries were able to introduce the gospel, for they pointed out that God had given up a peace child in Jesus Christ. Thus these people were bound to honor God. It is a remarkable story, but it shows clearly how God had prepared the way for the gospel by building into this culture a concept that would be ready and waiting when the gospel came. Now these people were living according to the rule of conscience; and the conscience, as Paul points out here, never brings a settled peace. These tribes are a continual testimony to that fact.

People say, "Let your conscience be your guide." That is a recipe for unhappiness. If that is all you have, it is a certain way of plunging into a life that alternates between fear and momentary peace.

In the latest issue of Christianity Today there is a very interesting article by Rachel Saint, widow of one of the five men who were cruelly murdered by the Auca Indians on the banks of a river in Ecuador twenty years ago. In this article she describes the way the Aucas lived before the gospel came and the tremendous work going on in that tribe since then. She writes,

The Aucas have been thoroughly acquainted with demons and devil worship for many generations. The result of this is a religion of terror. The witch doctor is the central authority, and he controls the tribe. Any death is supposed to be caused by the witch doctor. Then that death has to be avenged and the feuding starts. They are afraid that they might be speared at night in their own houses. Everyone is a potential enemy. If a father loses a son, he feels he must kill his daughter. If the group loses a marriageable girl, a grandmother is killed. Why should a worthless old woman live if a marriageable girl has died? This kind of thinking permeates their culture.

Now this sort of thinking goes on not only in the jungles of South America and other places, but also in the concrete jungles of San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and everywhere else. A reign of terror always ensues when people are governed only by the law of conscience. Yet, even under their own law, they perish, just as much as those who are judged by God's Law.

Now Paul goes on to take up the case of the religious devotee of his day, the Jew. Today we need only substitute the title "church member" to bring it up to date -- because we American church members are in the same condition as the Jew was in the culture of Paul's day. We have a great body of truth that we delight in, and we feel proud of our knowledge and our understanding of it. But unfortunately, we oftentimes hope and think that knowledge, in itself, is what is going to deliver us in the sight of God. In Verses 17-24 we will see how Paul handles such thinking.

Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God; if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth -- you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? As it is written: "God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." (Romans 2:17-24 NIV)

Paul lists here the five great advantages which the Jews of his day had and on which they relied for their position before God:

First, they relied on possessing the Law. There are many people in the churches of America today who rely upon the fact that the Bible is available to them. We have the Bible in twenty-five different versions and many take great pride in owning a specific version. "I am a King James Christian! If it was good enough for the Apostle Paul, it's good enough for me!" Or "We're liberated! We have the American Standard Version!" You hear people bragging about this! Well, that is exactly what the Jew was doing in Paul's day.

Second, they bragged about their relationship to God. The Jew made it clear that he had a special inside track with the Almighty. You hear people talking like that today. "God, Billy Graham, and I were just talking the other day..." We make it clear that we have a special standing with the "Good Lord," as he is usually called, and in some way we brag about our relationship to God.

Third, the Jews were people who knew the will of God. They had the Scriptures, they had the Ten Commandments, and the knowledge of what God wanted. There are many today who boast about their knowledge of the Word of God and who rest upon that fact.

Fourth, these Jews approved of what was superior, i.e., they rejected certain attitudes and actions in life and chose only that which was regarded as morally superior. Many, many church members do this. They take pride in the fact that they do not do certain things. I am amazed at how many people think that God is going to be impressed by the things they do not do. "We don't dance, we don't drink, we don't go to the movies, we don't go to theaters, we don't play cards, we don't drink coffee," and on and on.

Finally, the Jews were instructed in the Law. There were many who could quote great passages of Scripture and they took pride in that. Now, there is nothing wrong with any of these advantages except that the Jews and many of us today depend on them for righteousness. We feel we have a special standing with God because of them; and that is what is wrong.

Paul goes on to list four privileges which the Jews felt were theirs because they had these advantages: First, they felt they were a guide to the blind. Today we have those who are always ready to correct anybody around them, to impart truth to those unfortunate people who have not learned anything yet.

Second, the Jews felt they were a light to those in the dark. Every now and then we run into people who are quite ready to dazzle us with their knowledge of the Scriptures. They know all about the antichrist, they know when Christ is coming again, they know all the elective decrees of God, they are thoroughly acquainted with the superlapsarian position of the people before the Fall, etc., and they take great pride in this knowledge.

Third, the Jews felt they were instructors of the foolish. A lady came up to me after a service on Sunday and told me a long, painful story of how she had injured her wrist in an auto accident. The emergency doctor who took care of her happened to let slip a couple of curse words while working on her. She lectured him at great length about how she was a Christian, how she wouldn't listen to this kind of language, and how terrible it was that he took the name of God in vain. This attitude is typical of many who feel they are instructors of the foolish, because they have a knowledge of the Scriptures.

The fourth privilege which the Jews possessed was that they were teachers of children. I am amazed at how many want to teach Sunday school classes for the wrong reason. Now there is a right reason, but many want to teach because they feel they are imparting truth to people who need it, and they take great ego satisfaction in doing it.

Paul's judgment of such people is, "You are guilty yourself." This attitude of the Jew is the same one Paul condemned earlier in the moral Gentile. "You are outwardly righteous and correct, but inwardly you are doing the wrong thing." They were envious, proud, covetous, lustful, bitter, dangerous people. Religious zealots are dangerous people. The Jews were notorious in the Roman empire for being over-sharp in business deals. That is why Paul says, "You who preach against stealing, do you steal?" They were not above a little hanky-panky with slave girls they had to deal with. Paul says, "You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?" They were ready to profit from trade with pagan temples. He says, "You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?" They bragged about the Law, but Paul says, "God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." That was the ultimate judgment upon the Jews. To them, blasphemy was the worst of sins. Yet Paul says, "Though you claim to have so much, and to be so knowledgeable, yet what you have done is to blaspheme God. People have been turned away from God because of you."

I do not think I have to detail how true that is of American Christianity as a whole. And not only in this country, but around the world, Christians have caused people to turn from God because of our attitudes and the way we approach people. I have often thought it is amazing how the people who keep close records on how many they win to Christ never keep any records on how many they drive away. And the name of God is blasphemed because of that.

Now Paul seizes upon and singles out the supreme symbol of Jewish separatism, circumcision, in Verses 25-27.

Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. If those who are not circumcised keep the law's requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker. (Romans 2:25-27 NIV)

The Jews, of course, prided themselves (and still do today) on the rite of circumcision, the symbol that they were God's people. You only need to substitute baptism, confirmation, or church membership to apply that to the twentieth century, to Protestant or Catholic American. So many Americans rest upon the fact that they have been baptized, confirmed, or accepted as members of a church, as the sign that they belong to God. Paul says that is useless and worthless, if something has not happened in the heart. Paul's final conclusion about the religious man is in Verses 28-29.

A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God. (Romans 2:28-29 NIV)

That last phrase is a play on words. The word "praise" is taken from the word "Judah," from which we get the word "Jew." Paul says the Jew is not praised by men but by God; but he also makes clear what constitutes a true Jew in God's sight.

Now this is one of the most hotly debated questions in the state of Israel today. The Israelis are constantly trying to decide what is the basis of Jewry. What makes a Jew? Is it religion? Is it observing the Old Testament Law, keeping a kosher kitchen? Many Jews are atheists, having no use for the Old Testament, and yet they claim to be Jews because their ancestry is Jewish; their mothers and fathers, as far back as they know, were Jews. Is that the basis on which to claim Jewishness? There are black Jews who are petitioning to belong to Israel. But other Jews say you have to be white to be a Jew. What makes a Jew?

God says that nothing outward makes you a Jew. One becomes a Jew when his heart is changed. As with Abraham and Jacob, you become a Jew when you believe in Yeshua Hamashiach, Jesus the Messiah. The Jews for Jesus group is telling people this today. What makes you a Jew is not the culture from which you came, the ritual through which you have gone, the circumstances of your life, or your background, ancestry, or history, but the fact that you have come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. That is what makes you a Jew. Paul wrote in Galatians 3:29:

If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Galatians 3:29 NIV)

Paul's conclusion of this section of Chapter 2 of Romans is that man without Christ is hopelessly lost. Though he defies God, deludes himself, defiles his conscience, or denies what he himself teaches, he is absolutely, hopelessly lost until he comes to know the Lord Jesus and lives on the basis of that relationship. That is what makes a Christian.

It is not a question of whether you are baptized, galvanized, sanforized, or pasteurized. The question is: "Do you have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and have you received the gift of righteousness which God gives to those who do not deserve it, cannot earn it, but receive it by his love and grace?" We will see what additional problems this raises with the Jews in the next section of the book of Romans.

Prayer:
Our Father, we pray that if anyone here today is resting upon empty ceremonies, fancy moral standing, or decent or good living for their righteousness that they will see the hopelessness of such justification before you, the God of reality, the God of truth. We pray that they will receive the gift that you so freely offer in Jesus Christ our Lord. He alone can change us. He alone can set us free. He alone can instruct us, guide us, and make us into the men and women you want us to be. He accepts us on that basis, and for that we give grateful thanks. In his name, Amen.

by **Need2Know** » Wed Dec 28, 2011 8:02 am

Total Wipeout

It has been interesting to note, as we have gone through this letter to the Romans, how logically and powerfully the Apostle Paul develops his subject. He evidently possessed a very vivid imagination and used it skillfully and with great power to illustrate and illuminate what he wanted to say. I never fail to be delighted at how the mind of the Apostle Paul works as he sets this truth out for us.

The first twenty verses of Chapter 3 divide into two rather simple parts: The first eight verses are an imaginary dialogue that the apostle holds with the Jews. The second part, Verses 9-20, are his powerful description of the condition of mankind before God. The first part, the dialogue with the Jews, grows out of the close of Romans 2, in which the apostle answers the question that is still being hotly debated in the State of Israel today: What constitutes a true Jew?

The State of Israel has never been able to settle that question. Is it religion? Is a Jew someone who believes the Torah, the Law, and the Prophets? Is it someone who is culturally a Jew, who keeps a kosher kitchen and observes all the dietary restrictions, who lives as a Jew and observes the traditions of Judaism? Many claim that this is the answer. Others say, "No, you can be an atheist and ignore all the ritual and ceremony of Judaism, but if you were born of Jewish ancestry you are a Jew." Still others think it is the facial features that make a Jew -- the hooked nose, brown eyes, olive skin. But there are millions of Jews without these physical characteristics. So the argument rages.

Paul answers that question in Chapter 2. He says a man is not a Jew who is one outwardly. In God's sight, a Jew is one who has faith, who has the presence of the Spirit of God in his heart, who inwardly has faith in Jesus the Messiah. That is what constitutes a Jew and nothing else; all these other distinctions are laid aside. It is not the knowledge or possession of the Law that makes a man a Jew; it is not the rite of circumcision; it is not the claim to a special relationship with God. The only thing that makes a man a Jew is faith in the Messiah.

At this point the vivid imagination of Paul comes into play. He imagines a Jewish objector standing up and arguing with him at this point. Perhaps this actually happened many times in the course of Paul's travels throughout the Roman Empire. He had stated these things in many synagogues and surely at one time or another some knowledgeable Jewish rabbi would stand up and argue with him. That is what he is sharing with us now. In some ways this is a rather difficult passage. I invite you to pay close attention to it as we look through and see what these arguments are. Paul imagines three arguments from this Jewish objector.

In our own culture, you can place any religionist in place of the Jewish objector -- a Mormon, a Christian Scientist, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Mohammedan, a Baptist, a Presbyterian, a Catholic. Anyone who counts on religion will offer the same kind of argument.

Paul imagines a Jew standing up at this point and saying, "Now, hold it! Wait a minute! These things you say don't count are the very things God himself has given to us." Circumcision came from God; God asked it of the Jews. And the Law was given by God to the Jews. It was God who called them his chosen people.

The argument is, "Paul, you're setting aside what God has established. If these things don't count, what advantage is there in being a Jew?" That question, and Paul's answer, are phrased in the first two verses of Chapter 3.

What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? Much in every way! First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God. (Romans 3:1-2 NIV)

When Paul says first, he does not mean first in a long list of advantages, though he did see many advantages in being a Jew. What Paul means by first is "supremely, chiefly." The great glory in being a Jew in Paul's day was that the Jews had the Law. They possessed the written Word of God. That advantage is claimed today by many non-Jews, Catholics and Protestants who are proud of their knowledge of the Bible. Paul says that is a tremendous advantage. Already he has shown that everyone is under law. Even the savages in the jungle, who have no knowledge of the Bible or the Ten Commandments, still have the Law written in their hearts. Nobody is without a moral standard. The conscience lays hold of that law written in the heart to tell people whether they are doing right or wrong. So light is given to everyone. As John puts it in his Gospel, "There is a light that lights everyone coming into the world," (John 1:9 NIV). Nobody lives in darkness.

But even though everyone has that light, the Jews had an additional degree of light. They were given the written Word on stone, so that it was permanently preserved. Thus they had a knowledge of the mind and will and character of God that other people did not possess. They had a greater opportunity to know and obey God than anyone else in that day. Therefore they had a tremendous advantage. Implied in this is the fact that, though the Jew had this tremendous advantage, he failed to make use of it, and therefore it did him no good at all. He was no better off than if he had never known the Law at all because he did not put it to its intended use.

This parallels the situation in our day. We have billions of people who have been raised in Sunday school and church, who know the Scripture, and have even read the Bible from cover to cover. We live in a land where Bibles are available by the dozens and we can take our choice of versions. The mind of God is available, and yet millions of people are no better off than if they had never heard of the Bible. They are as lost as if they were savages in the jungles of Africa because the light they have is not put to use.

Just imagine, for instance, an island in darkness, populated with people. There is only one way to escape the island, a narrow bridge over a deep chasm, but the darkness is so great that only a few find their way over that bridge. Everybody on that island has been provided with a little penlight that enables them to dimly illuminate a small space around them, barely enough to avoid the more obvious obstacles in their path. But a certain group of people is given a powerful searchlight that can shine thousands of yards into the darkness. It is given to them not only so that they can find the bridge, but also so they can show others the way out. Yet these people, who have so much more light than the others, spend their time utilizing this powerful searchlight to look for needles in a haystack. They turn that searchlight on a mound of hay and search for needles. That, in essence, was what the Jews were doing.

The rabbis were arguing constantly over infinitesimal theological differences. Jesus called this "straining at a gnat, but swallowing a camel," (Matthew 23:24). They argued over how many steps constituted a violation of the Sabbath and whether spitting on a rock is permissible on the Sabbath, or whether spitting on mud is a violation. One would be right, and the other wrong. This is what they used the Law for. Though the Jews had a tremendous advantage in having the Law, Paul says, they failed to use it properly. The imaginary rabbi comes back with a second objection and Paul responds in Verses 3-4:

What if some did not have faith? Would their lack of faith nullify God's faithfulness? Not at all! Let God be true, and every man a liar. As it is written:
"So that you may be proved right in your words
and prevail in your judging." (Romans 3:3-4 NIV)

The Jewish rabbi says, "Paul, are you suggesting that if some of the Jews did not believe (He is ready to admit that as a possibility.) that God could forget his promises to all the Jews? Are you saying that just because some of us didn't measure up to what God required in the Law, everyone in Israel has lost the promise that God gave them? You seem to suggest that God is not interested in the very rituals which he himself instituted. Are you saying that circumcision and all these things mean nothing to God? Are you saying that God is upset by the disbelief of just a few Jews and so he has canceled all Israel's prerogatives?"

Paul's answer uses the strongest words in the Greek language to say a thing is false. "By no means! Not at all!" (Literally, "May it never be!" Or, as it is translated in some versions, "God forbid!") That would suggest that God is the failure. It would suggest that God gave a promise and then did not keep his words, just because a few people failed to measure up. So God would be at fault. Our human hearts always tend to blame God for what goes wrong in our life, for our inability to fulfill what God demands. Paul says, "Never let that be! Let God be true, and every man a liar." God is going to keep his word no matter how many fail.

Paul then quotes David's fifty-first psalm, that wonderful psalm written after the twin sins of murder and adultery, in which he was caught red-handed. When David repented, he wrote this beautiful psalm, in which he confesses his sins to God,

So that Thou mayest be in the right in Thy words,
And blameless when Thou dost judge. Psalms 51:4b)

For a year and a half, David tried to hide his sins and refused to admit them to God or anyone else. He went on acting as though he were righteous and let people think that he was still the godly king of Israel. He let that hypocrisy go on for eighteen months; then God sent Nathan the prophet, who speared him with his long, bony finger, and said, "Thou art the man!" (2 Samuel 12:7 KJV). David's sins were exposed; he admitted them and confessed to God. He said, "It isn't you who are to blame, God; I did it." Paul says, "Let God be true and every man a liar."

Even if all the Jews fail in their belief, God will still fulfill his promise. How can God do this? God has said that some will believe. If everybody fails to believe, how can he keep his word? Paul says, "That's your problem; it's not God's problem." When certain of the Pharisees boasted to Jesus that they were "children of Abraham," Jesus said, "Don't you understand that God can raise up from these stones children unto Abraham?" (Matthew 3:9, Luke 3:8). If men fail, God has unlimited resources to fulfill his promise. So there is no objection at that point. God will still judge the Jews, and all religionists, despite the failure of some. A third objection is raised in Verse 5 and Paul responds in Verse 6. The Jew asks,

But if our unrighteousness brings out God's righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.) Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world? (Romans 3:5-6 NIV)

As Paul says, this is a common human argument. You still hear it today. People say, "If what we're doing makes God look good because it gives him a chance to show his love and forgiveness, how can he condemn us? We've made him look good. We've given him a chance to reveal himself, and that's what he wants. So he can't condemn us for our sins. In fact (as Paul will go on to show the logical conclusion), let's sin the more and make him look all the better!" People today say, "If God is glorified by human sin and failure, as the Scriptures say, then let's sin all the more."

Paul's answer is, "Let's carry that out to its logical conclusion. If everyone lived on that basis, then nobody could be judged and God would be removed as judge of all the world." It would demean God. God would be no better than the worst of men. God himself could not act as a judge if he actually arranged things so that sin would glorify God. If God cannot judge, he is demeaned; if he does not judge, the entire world is locked into perpetual evil. There would be no way of arresting the awful flow of human evil in this world. Therefore, this is a ridiculous argument.

The fact is, sin never glorifies God. Sin always has evil results; it does not produce good. As the Scriptures say, "He that sows to the flesh reaps corruption; he that sows to the Spirit reaps life everlasting," (Galatians 6:8). This is an ordained law of God which no one can break. Paul strengthens this argument with a personal illustration in Verses 7-8:

Someone might argue, "If my falsehood enhances God's truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?" Why not say -- as we are being slanderously reported and as some claim that we say -- "Let us do evil that good may result"? Their condemnation is deserved. (Romans 3:7-8 NIV)

The text adds the words, Someone might argue, and that does not belong here. If your text does not add this, it is more accurate. Paul is saying that he includes himself in the circle of condemnation. He says, "If my falsehood..." If you look back in Romans you can see how he has narrowed this circle:

In Chapter 1 he talks about what "they" do; "They are without excuse." Chapter 2 comes down to "You O man, who judges another, you are without excuse." Then in Chapter 3 it is "our unrighteousness," and finally, "my falsehood."

I love this because it means that Paul does not consider himself, even as a believer, beyond the judgment of God; he is just as capable of falsehood as anyone else. When that happens, that area of his life is subject to the condemnation of God, the same as anyone else. Paul does not hold himself up as better than anyone else.

Paul says, "Let's go on to say the logical thing: Let's do evil that good may come." What a ridiculous argument, he concludes. Why, that removes all differences between good and evil. This is what people are saying today. "There's no such thing as good or evil. Whatever you like is good; whatever you don't like, that's evil. It's only in your mind that there's any difference between good and evil." You see how up-to-date this argument is? Paul says it is ridiculous. The logical conclusion to that thinking is moral chaos and anarchy. Nobody could judge anything. We simply would plunge into a tremendous abyss of immorality in which anybody could do anything, and nobody would dare to raise a hand in opposition. This would produce moral anarchy. So, Paul says, the condemnation of this kind of reasoning is well-deserved. In Verses 9 through 20, Paul introduces another question and answers it.

What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. (Romans 3:9 NIV)

I think it would be a little better to change this phrase from, "Are we any better?" to "Do we have any standing at all?" For that is what Paul is really saying. He has looked over all of mankind, and says, "Is there any ground by which a man or woman can please God apart from faith in Christ? Is there any way you can try to be good an make it?" His answer: None at all. No one can make it on those terms.

He has already demonstrated the universal condition of both Jews and Gentiles. He showed that the blatantly wicked people end up defying God, therefore they cannot make it. The morally self-righteous people, who pride themselves on their good conduct and clean living, simply delude themselves, so they cannot make it. The unenlightened pagans in all the jungles of the world, the concrete jungles as well as the green tropical jungles, defile their own consciences; they do not make it because they do not live up to their own standards. The religious zealots deny in deeds what they teach in words, and so they cannot make it. They are all wiped out.

Now comes the final touch. Paul gathers up what the Scriptures say on this subject. I like that. We are living in a day when what men say is really considered the final word. The Scriptures are considered, but are not really taken as authoritative. But the apostles never treated Scripture that way. They listened to what men said, but when it came to the final authority, they said, "What Scripture says, that's it!"

We need to return to that in our preaching. Every preacher ought to close his message by saying, in effect, what Walter Cronkite says at the end of every broadcast: "That's the way it is, this Sunday, January 18, 1976."

Paul gathers up a compilation of Scriptures from the Psalms and Proverbs and Isaiah to show that what he has described, God has already said. The Scriptures he uses divide into three very clear groups. First, there is the character of man, as God sees it; the conduct of man, in both speech and action; and the cause of all this.

"There is no one righteous, not even one..." (Romans 3:10b NIV)

Isn't that an amazing statement? Just think of all the nice people that you know. They may not be Christians, but they are nice people -- good neighbors, kind and gracious people who speak lovingly. God, looking at them, says, "There's not one among them that is righteous, not even one." I think the total depravity of the human heart is revealed by the fact that when we read this kind of statement, "There is no one righteous, not even one," we mentally add, "except me." Right?

"...there is no one who understands..." (Romans 3:11a NIV)

Think of all the people today who are searching to understand the mystery of life. All over the world, in temples, schools, universities, in the jungles, before idols, people are searching to find the answer to the mystery of man: Why are we like we are? And in all that vast array of searchers, God says there is not one who understands, not one.

"...no one searches for God." (Romans 3:11b NIV)

What a claim this is! Here are all these religious people going to temples, going through various procedures, observing rituals, flocking to churches, filling up worship areas all over the world. What are they looking for? We would say they are looking for God, but God does not say so. He says there is no one searching for God. They are looking for a god, not the God. They are not looking for the God of truth and justice, who is behind all things.

"All have turned away,
and together become worthless.
there is no one who does good,
not even one." (Romans 3:12 NIV)

That could hardly be made any clearer. There is no one who does good, not even one. Do you struggle with this? Then imagine that someone has invented a camera that records thoughts. Imagine that at a Sunday morning service, where all you fine-looking, moral, clean-living, decent people come, we would let you pass through a security section like they do at the airport and all your thoughts would be recorded. During the service, the camera is scanning, picking up your thoughts --

What you thought when you sat down, What you thought when the person next to you sat down, What you were thinking when we sang the hymn, and What you were thinking when I led in prayer. Then we announce that the next Sunday, instead of the regular service, we would hold a screening of the film from that camera. I wonder how many would show up?

But this is the stark revelation from Scripture of what God sees when he looks at the human race. There is no one who does good, not even one. Then he details why. First, their speech:

"Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit.
The poison of vipers is on their lips.
Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." (Romans 3:13-14 NIV)

This covers the whole realm of the speech. It begins deep down in the throat, it comes then to the tongue, then the lips, and then the whole mouth. It moves from the inward to the outward. What do you find? Deep down, Paul says, God sees an open grave with a stinking, rotten corpse and a horrible stench coming up from it that reveals itself, ultimately, in vulgarity.

Do you ever wonder why children love toilet talk? Kids especially like to talk toilet talk. Why? Why do adults like words with double meanings? You hear them on television all the time. What is down in the heart comes out in the speech -- not only vulgarity, but hypocrisy.

"Their tongues practice deceit." Those little white lies, the way we erect facades, the way we claim to feel one way when we actually feel another; we think all this deceit is harmless and unnoticed. But God sees it.

"The poison of vipers is on their lips." This is a picture of the tongue used to slander, to plant poison in another person's heart -- the put-down, the sharp, caustic words, the sarcasm that cuts someone off and depersonalizes another being. We are all guilty. This is what is inside, and this is what God sees with the realism of his eye.

"Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." If you do not believe that, just step out on the street and hit the first fellow that comes by right on the mouth and see what comes out -- cursing and bitterness! Cursing is blaming God; that is profanity. Bitterness is reproaching God because of the way he has run your life. This is what we hear all the time, even from Christians. We hear complaints about your circumstances, where God has placed you, and what he is doing with your life -- cursing and bitterness. Look now at the deeds that follow.

"Their feet are swift to shed blood;
ruin and misery mark their paths..." (Romans 3:15-16 NIV)

Wherever man goes, ruin follows. Do we need any documentation of that today? Why do cities always develop ghettos and slums? Why do our beautiful mountains and streams become polluted? It is because of the heart of man.

"...ruin and misery mark their paths,
and the way of peace they do not know." (Romans 3:16b-17 NIV)

I have often thought this would be an appropriate slogan for the United Nations! "The way of peace they do not know." An intense and cruel war is being fought in Lebanon today and the United Nations is helpless to stop it because "the way of peace they do not know." The cause of this follows, in just one sentence:

"There is no fear of God before their eyes." (Romans 3:18 NIV)

That brings us right back to Chapter 1, Verse 18 of Romans. "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness ... of men..." When men reject God, they lose everything. All these things follow because "there is no fear of God before their eyes." In the last two verses we have a clear vision of why God gave the Law. Since the Jews were so convinced that their possession of the Law gave them special privileges in God's sight, Paul now turns to that subject.

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law[That was a fantastic statement to make]; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. (Romans 3:19-20 NIV)

When you read this terrible description of the human race as God sees it, it is almost impossible for us to believe that God is not going to say, "Enough! Wipe them out!" If all he sees is wretchedness, misery, evil, deceit, hypocrisy, vulgarity, profanity, slander, and all these evil things that are in every heart -- every one without exception -- our natural instinct is to say, "Then God doesn't want us." But the amazing thing is that across this kind of verse he writes, "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son," (John 3:16a KJV). God did not send the Law to destroy us (and this is very important); he sent the Law to keep us from false hope.

The worst thing that can happen is to be going down a road to an important destination and think you are on the right track and spend all the time necessary to get there only to discover that the road peters out into nothingness. You find you have been on the wrong track and it is too late to go back. That was what was happening. So God, in his loving kindness, has given us the Law to keep us from taking a false path. Though the Law condemns us, it is that very condemnation that makes us willing to listen, so that we find the right path.

Paul says the Law does three things to us: First, it stops our mouth: We have nothing to say. You can always tell someone is close to becoming a Christian when they shut up and stop arguing back. Self-righteous people are always saying, "But -- but this -- but I -- yes, but I do this -- and I do that." They are always arguing. But when they see the true meaning of the Law, their mouth is shut. When you read a statement like this, there is really nothing left to say, is there?

I had a friend who told me she was given a traffic ticket one day. She was guilty of doing what she was charged with, but she felt there was some justification for it, so she thought she would go to court and argue it before the judge. She imagined in her mind how she would come in and the judge would ask her if she was guilty. She would say, "Yes, but I want to explain why." She would proceed to convince the judge and all the court that what she did could hardly be avoided and that she was justified in doing it. Her argument was ready. "But," she said, "when I came into that court and stood up there all alone, and the judge was there on the bench, dressed in his robe, and he looked over his glasses at me and said, 'Guilty or not guilty?' all my arguments faded. I just said, 'Guilty.'" Her mouth was stopped.

That is the first thing the Law does: it shuts you up, and you do not argue Second, Paul says, "The whole world is held accountable to God." That makes us realize there is no easy way, no way by which death suddenly is going to dissolve all things into everlasting darkness, forever forgotten. The whole world has to stand before God. Hebrews puts it so starkly, "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment," (Hebrews 9:27 KJV).

Finally, the Law reveals very clearly what sin is. What does the Law want of us? Jesus said that all the Law is summed up in one word: Love. All the Law asks us to do is to act in love. All these things the Law states are simply loving ways of acting. When we face ourselves before the Law, we have to confess that many, many times we fail in love. We do not love. That is what the Law wants us to see, because, then, when all else fails, we are ready to listen to what follows.

Look at Verse 21 and the next two words: "But now" a righteousness from God has been provided. That is what Paul wants us to hear. When we take that one way, we find we have learned to love -- not by the Law, but by the provision of the Son of God.

Prayer:
Father, we thank you for loving us enough to tell us the truth. Thank you for loving us enough to shut up all other ways -- to block them out and tell us they are wrong and they do not lead anywhere -- so that we give up trying to make ourselves good enough to belong to you. Help us to take the only way that has ever been provided, a righteousness that is given to us, which we never earned, and cannot earn, but which is ours because we believe the Lord Jesus. We thank you for that. How rich we are because of it. May anyone here without this now turn and open his life to you, knowing that this is the only way out of the judgment of God. We thank you in Jesus' name, Amen.

by **Need2Know** » Wed Dec 28, 2011 8:05 am

Total Wipeout

It has been interesting to note, as we have gone through this letter to the Romans, how logically and powerfully the Apostle Paul develops his subject. He evidently possessed a very vivid imagination and used it skillfully and with great power to illustrate and illuminate what he wanted to say. I never fail to be delighted at how the mind of the Apostle Paul works as he sets this truth out for us.

The first twenty verses of Chapter 3 divide into two rather simple parts: The first eight verses are an imaginary dialogue that the apostle holds with the Jews. The second part, Verses 9-20, are his powerful description of the condition of mankind before God. The first part, the dialogue with the Jews, grows out of the close of Romans 2, in which the apostle answers the question that is still being hotly debated in the State of Israel today: What constitutes a true Jew?

The State of Israel has never been able to settle that question. Is it religion? Is a Jew someone who believes the Torah, the Law, and the Prophets? Is it someone who is culturally a Jew, who keeps a kosher kitchen and observes all the dietary restrictions, who lives as a Jew and observes the traditions of Judaism? Many claim that this is the answer. Others say, "No, you can be an atheist and ignore all the ritual and ceremony of Judaism, but if you were born of Jewish ancestry you are a Jew." Still others think it is the facial features that make a Jew -- the hooked nose, brown eyes, olive skin. But there are millions of Jews without these physical characteristics. So the argument rages.

Paul answers that question in Chapter 2. He says a man is not a Jew who is one outwardly. In God's sight, a Jew is one who has faith, who has the presence of the Spirit of God in his heart, who inwardly has faith in Jesus the Messiah. That is what constitutes a Jew and nothing else; all these other distinctions are laid aside. It is not the knowledge or possession of the Law that makes a man a Jew; it is not the rite of circumcision; it is not the claim to a special relationship with God. The only thing that makes a man a Jew is faith in the Messiah.

At this point the vivid imagination of Paul comes into play. He imagines a Jewish objector standing up and arguing with him at this point. Perhaps this actually happened many times in the course of Paul's travels throughout the Roman Empire. He had stated these things in many synagogues and surely at one time or another some knowledgeable Jewish rabbi would stand up and argue with him. That is what he is sharing with us now. In some ways this is a rather difficult passage. I invite you to pay close attention to it as we look through and see what these arguments are. Paul imagines three arguments from this Jewish objector.

In our own culture, you can place any religionist in place of the Jewish objector -- a Mormon, a Christian Scientist, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Mohammedan, a Baptist, a Presbyterian, a Catholic. Anyone who counts on religion will offer the same kind of argument.

Paul imagines a Jew standing up at this point and saying, "Now, hold it! Wait a minute! These things you say don't count are the very things God himself has given to us." Circumcision came from God; God asked it of the Jews. And the Law was given by God to the Jews. It was God who called them his chosen people.

The argument is, "Paul, you're setting aside what God has established. If these things don't count, what advantage is there in being a Jew?" That question, and Paul's answer, are phrased in the first two verses of Chapter 3.

What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? Much in every way! First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God. (Romans 3:1-2 NIV)

When Paul says first, he does not mean first in a long list of advantages, though he did see many advantages in being a Jew. What Paul means by first is "supremely, chiefly." The great glory in being a Jew in Paul's day was that the Jews had the Law. They possessed the written Word of God. That advantage is claimed today by many non-Jews, Catholics and Protestants who are proud of their knowledge of the Bible. Paul says that is a tremendous advantage. Already he has shown that everyone is under law. Even the savages in the jungle, who have no knowledge of the Bible or the Ten Commandments, still have the Law written in their hearts. Nobody is without a moral standard. The conscience lays hold of that law written in the heart to tell people whether they are doing right or wrong. So light is given to everyone. As John puts it in his Gospel, "There is a light that lights everyone coming into the world," (John 1:9 NIV). Nobody lives in darkness.

But even though everyone has that light, the Jews had an additional degree of light. They were given the written Word on stone, so that it was permanently preserved. Thus they had a knowledge of the mind and will and character of God that other people did not possess. They had a greater opportunity to know and obey God than anyone else in that day. Therefore they had a tremendous advantage. Implied in this is the fact that, though the Jew had this tremendous advantage, he failed to make use of it, and therefore it did him no good at all. He was no better off than if he had never known the Law at all because he did not put it to its intended use.

This parallels the situation in our day. We have billions of people who have been raised in Sunday school and church, who know the Scripture, and have even read the Bible from cover to cover. We live in a land where Bibles are available by the dozens and we can take our choice of versions. The mind of God is available, and yet millions of people are no better off than if they had never heard of the Bible. They are as lost as if they were savages in the jungles of Africa because the light they have is not put to use.

Just imagine, for instance, an island in darkness, populated with people. There is only one way to escape the island, a narrow bridge over a deep chasm, but the darkness is so great that only a few find their way over that bridge. Everybody on that island has been provided with a little penlight that enables them to dimly illuminate a small space around them, barely enough to avoid the more obvious obstacles in their path. But a certain group of people is given a powerful searchlight that can shine thousands of yards into the darkness. It is given to them not only so that they can find the bridge, but also so they can show others the way out. Yet these people, who have so much more light than the others, spend their time utilizing this powerful searchlight to look for needles in a haystack. They turn that searchlight on a mound of hay and search for needles. That, in essence, was what the Jews were doing.

The rabbis were arguing constantly over infinitesimal theological differences. Jesus called this "straining at a gnat, but swallowing a camel," (Matthew 23:24). They argued over how many steps constituted a violation of the Sabbath and whether spitting on a rock is permissible on the Sabbath, or whether spitting on mud is a violation. One would be right, and the other wrong. This is what they used the Law for. Though the Jews had a tremendous advantage in having the Law, Paul says, they failed to use it properly. The imaginary rabbi comes back with a second objection and Paul responds in Verses 3-4:

What if some did not have faith? Would their lack of faith nullify God's faithfulness? Not at all! Let God be true, and every man a liar. As it is written:
"So that you may be proved right in your words
and prevail in your judging." (Romans 3:3-4 NIV)

The Jewish rabbi says, "Paul, are you suggesting that if some of the Jews did not believe (He is ready to admit that as a possibility.) that God could forget his promises to all the Jews? Are you saying that just because some of us didn't measure up to what God required in the Law, everyone in Israel has lost the promise that God gave them? You seem to suggest that God is not interested in the very rituals which he himself instituted. Are you saying that circumcision and all these things mean nothing to God? Are you saying that God is upset by the disbelief of just a few Jews and so he has canceled all Israel's prerogatives?"

Paul's answer uses the strongest words in the Greek language to say a thing is false. "By no means! Not at all!" (Literally, "May it never be!" Or, as it is translated in some versions, "God forbid!") That would suggest that God is the failure. It would suggest that God gave a promise and then did not keep his words, just because a few people failed to measure up. So God would be at fault. Our human hearts always tend to blame God for what goes wrong in our life, for our inability to fulfill what God demands. Paul says, "Never let that be! Let God be true, and every man a liar." God is going to keep his word no matter how many fail.

Paul then quotes David's fifty-first psalm, that wonderful psalm written after the twin sins of murder and adultery, in which he was caught red-handed. When David repented, he wrote this beautiful psalm, in which he confesses his sins to God,

So that Thou mayest be in the right in Thy words,
And blameless when Thou dost judge. Psalms 51:4b)

For a year and a half, David tried to hide his sins and refused to admit them to God or anyone else. He went on acting as though he were righteous and let people think that he was still the godly king of Israel. He let that hypocrisy go on for eighteen months; then God sent Nathan the prophet, who speared him with his long, bony finger, and said, "Thou art the man!" (2 Samuel 12:7 KJV). David's sins were exposed; he admitted them and confessed to God. He said, "It isn't you who are to blame, God; I did it." Paul says, "Let God be true and every man a liar."

Even if all the Jews fail in their belief, God will still fulfill his promise. How can God do this? God has said that some will believe. If everybody fails to believe, how can he keep his word? Paul says, "That's your problem; it's not God's problem." When certain of the Pharisees boasted to Jesus that they were "children of Abraham," Jesus said, "Don't you understand that God can raise up from these stones children unto Abraham?" --Matthew 3:9, Luke 3:8--. If men fail, God has unlimited resources to fulfill his promise. So there is no objection at that point. God will still judge the Jews, and all religionists, despite the failure of some. A third objection is raised in Verse 5 and Paul responds in Verse 6. The Jew asks,

But if our unrighteousness brings out God's righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.) Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world? (Romans 3:5-6 NIV)

As Paul says, this is a common human argument. You still hear it today. People say, "If what we're doing makes God look good because it gives him a chance to show his love and forgiveness, how can he condemn us? We've made him look good. We've given him a chance to reveal himself, and that's what he wants. So he can't condemn us for our sins. In fact (as Paul will go on to show the logical conclusion), let's sin the more and make him look all the better!" People today say, "If God is glorified by human sin and failure, as the Scriptures say, then let's sin all the more."

Paul's answer is, "Let's carry that out to its logical conclusion. If everyone lived on that basis, then nobody could be judged and God would be removed as judge of all the world." It would demean God. God would be no better than the worst of men. God himself could not act as a judge if he actually arranged things so that sin would glorify God. If God cannot judge, he is demeaned; if he does not judge, the entire world is locked into perpetual evil. There would be no way of arresting the awful flow of human evil in this world. Therefore, this is a ridiculous argument.

The fact is, sin never glorifies God. Sin always has evil results; it does not produce good. As the Scriptures say, "He that sows to the flesh reaps corruption; he that sows to the Spirit reaps life everlasting," --Galatians 6:8--. This is an ordained law of God which no one can break. Paul strengthens this argument with a personal illustration in Verses 7-8:

Someone might argue, "If my falsehood enhances God's truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?" Why not say -- as we are being slanderously reported and as some claim that we say -- "Let us do evil that good may result"? Their condemnation is deserved. (Romans 3:7-8 NIV)

The text adds the words, Someone might argue, and that does not belong here. If your text does not add this, it is more accurate. Paul is saying that he includes himself in the circle of condemnation. He says, "If my falsehood..." If you look back in Romans you can see how he has narrowed this circle:

In Chapter 1 he talks about what "they" do; "They are without excuse." Chapter 2 comes down to "You O man, who judges another, you are without excuse." Then in Chapter 3 it is "our unrighteousness," and finally, "my falsehood."

I love this because it means that Paul does not consider himself, even as a believer, beyond the judgment of God; he is just as capable of falsehood as anyone else. When that happens, that area of his life is subject to the condemnation of God, the same as anyone else. Paul does not hold himself up as better than anyone else.

Paul says, "Let's go on to say the logical thing: Let's do evil that good may come." What a ridiculous argument, he concludes. Why, that removes all differences between good and evil. This is what people are saying today. "There's no such thing as good or evil. Whatever you like is good; whatever you don't like, that's evil. It's only in your mind that there's any difference between good and evil." You see how up-to-date this argument is? Paul says it is ridiculous. The logical conclusion to that thinking is moral chaos and anarchy. Nobody could judge anything. We simply would plunge into a tremendous abyss of immorality in which anybody could do anything, and nobody would dare to raise a hand in opposition. This would produce moral anarchy. So, Paul says, the condemnation of this kind of reasoning is well-deserved. In Verses 9 through 20, Paul introduces another question and answers it.

What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. (Romans 3:9 NIV)

I think it would be a little better to change this phrase from, "Are we any better?" to "Do we have any standing at all?" For that is what Paul is really saying. He has looked over all of mankind, and says, "Is there any ground by which a man or woman can please God apart from faith in Christ? Is there any way you can try to be good an make it?" His answer: None at all. No one can make it on those terms.

He has already demonstrated the universal condition of both Jews and Gentiles. He showed that the blatantly wicked people end up defying God, therefore they cannot make it. The morally self-righteous people, who pride themselves on their good conduct and clean living, simply delude themselves, so they cannot make it. The unenlightened pagans in all the jungles of the world, the concrete jungles as well as the green tropical jungles, defile their own consciences; they do not make it because they do not live up to their own standards. The religious zealots deny in deeds what they teach in words, and so they cannot make it. They are all wiped out.

Now comes the final touch. Paul gathers up what the Scriptures say on this subject. I like that. We are living in a day when what men say is really considered the final word. The Scriptures are considered, but are not really taken as authoritative. But the apostles never treated Scripture that way. They listened to what men said, but when it came to the final authority, they said, "What Scripture says, that's it!"

We need to return to that in our preaching. Every preacher ought to close his message by saying, in effect, what Walter Cronkite says at the end of every broadcast: "That's the way it is, this Sunday, January 18, 1976."

Paul gathers up a compilation of Scriptures from the Psalms and Proverbs and Isaiah to show that what he has described, God has already said. The Scriptures he uses divide into three very clear groups. First, there is the character of man, as God sees it; the conduct of man, in both speech and action; and the cause of all this.

"There is no one righteous, not even one..." (Romans 3:10b NIV)

Isn't that an amazing statement? Just think of all the nice people that you know. They may not be Christians, but they are nice people -- good neighbors, kind and gracious people who speak lovingly. God, looking at them, says, "There's not one among them that is righteous, not even one." I think the total depravity of the human heart is revealed by the fact that when we read this kind of statement, "There is no one righteous, not even one," we mentally add, "except me." Right?

"...there is no one who understands..." (Romans 3:11a NIV)

Think of all the people today who are searching to understand the mystery of life. All over the world, in temples, schools, universities, in the jungles, before idols, people are searching to find the answer to the mystery of man: Why are we like we are? And in all that vast array of searchers, God says there is not one who understands, not one.

"...no one searches for God." (Romans 3:11b NIV)

What a claim this is! Here are all these religious people going to temples, going through various procedures, observing rituals, flocking to churches, filling up worship areas all over the world. What are they looking for? We would say they are looking for God, but God does not say so. He says there is no one searching for God. They are looking for a god, not the God. They are not looking for the God of truth and justice, who is behind all things.

"All have turned away,
and together become worthless.
there is no one who does good,
not even one." (Romans 3:12 NIV)

That could hardly be made any clearer. There is no one who does good, not even one. Do you struggle with this? Then imagine that someone has invented a camera that records thoughts. Imagine that at a Sunday morning service, where all you fine-looking, moral, clean-living, decent people come, we would let you pass through a security section like they do at the airport and all your thoughts would be recorded. During the service, the camera is scanning, picking up your thoughts --

What you thought when you sat down, What you thought when the person next to you sat down, What you were thinking when we sang the hymn, and What you were thinking when I led in prayer. Then we announce that the next Sunday, instead of the regular service, we would hold a screening of the film from that camera. I wonder how many would show up?

But this is the stark revelation from Scripture of what God sees when he looks at the human race. There is no one who does good, not even one. Then he details why. First, their speech:

"Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit.
The poison of vipers is on their lips.
Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." (Romans 3:13-14 NIV)

This covers the whole realm of the speech. It begins deep down in the throat, it comes then to the tongue, then the lips, and then the whole mouth. It moves from the inward to the outward. What do you find? Deep down, Paul says, God sees an open grave with a stinking, rotten corpse and a horrible stench coming up from it that reveals itself, ultimately, in vulgarity.

Do you ever wonder why children love toilet talk? Kids especially like to talk toilet talk. Why? Why do adults like words with double meanings? You hear them on television all the time. What is down in the heart comes out in the speech -- not only vulgarity, but hypocrisy.

"Their tongues practice deceit." Those little white lies, the way we erect facades, the way we claim to feel one way when we actually feel another; we think all this deceit is harmless and unnoticed. But God sees it.

"The poison of vipers is on their lips." This is a picture of the tongue used to slander, to plant poison in another person's heart -- the put-down, the sharp, caustic words, the sarcasm that cuts someone off and depersonalizes another being. We are all guilty. This is what is inside, and this is what God sees with the realism of his eye.

"Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." If you do not believe that, just step out on the street and hit the first fellow that comes by right on the mouth and see what comes out -- cursing and bitterness! Cursing is blaming God; that is profanity. Bitterness is reproaching God because of the way he has run your life. This is what we hear all the time, even from Christians. We hear complaints about your circumstances, where God has placed you, and what he is doing with your life -- cursing and bitterness. Look now at the deeds that follow.

"Their feet are swift to shed blood;
ruin and misery mark their paths..." (Romans 3:15-16 NIV)

Wherever man goes, ruin follows. Do we need any documentation of that today? Why do cities always develop ghettos and slums? Why do our beautiful mountains and streams become polluted? It is because of the heart of man.

"...ruin and misery mark their paths,
and the way of peace they do not know." (Romans 3:16b-17 NIV)

I have often thought this would be an appropriate slogan for the United Nations! "The way of peace they do not know." An intense and cruel war is being fought in Lebanon today and the United Nations is helpless to stop it because "the way of peace they do not know." The cause of this follows, in just one sentence:

"There is no fear of God before their eyes." (Romans 3:18 NIV)

That brings us right back to Chapter 1, Verse 18 of Romans. "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness ... of men..." When men reject God, they lose everything. All these things follow because "there is no fear of God before their eyes." In the last two verses we have a clear vision of why God gave the Law. Since the Jews were so convinced that their possession of the Law gave them special privileges in God's sight, Paul now turns to that subject.

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law[That was a fantastic statement to make]; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. (Romans 3:19-20 NIV)

When you read this terrible description of the human race as God sees it, it is almost impossible for us to believe that God is not going to say, "Enough! Wipe them out!" If all he sees is wretchedness, misery, evil, deceit, hypocrisy, vulgarity, profanity, slander, and all these evil things that are in every heart -- every one without exception -- our natural instinct is to say, "Then God doesn't want us." But the amazing thing is that across this kind of verse he writes, "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son," (John 3:16a KJV). God did not send the Law to destroy us (and this is very important); he sent the Law to keep us from false hope.

The worst thing that can happen is to be going down a road to an important destination and think you are on the right track and spend all the time necessary to get there only to discover that the road peters out into nothingness. You find you have been on the wrong track and it is too late to go back. That was what was happening. So God, in his loving kindness, has given us the Law to keep us from taking a false path. Though the Law condemns us, it is that very condemnation that makes us willing to listen, so that we find the right path.

Paul says the Law does three things to us: First, it stops our mouth: We have nothing to say. You can always tell someone is close to becoming a Christian when they shut up and stop arguing back. Self-righteous people are always saying, "But -- but this -- but I -- yes, but I do this -- and I do that." They are always arguing. But when they see the true meaning of the Law, their mouth is shut. When you read a statement like this, there is really nothing left to say, is there?

I had a friend who told me she was given a traffic ticket one day. She was guilty of doing what she was charged with, but she felt there was some justification for it, so she thought she would go to court and argue it before the judge. She imagined in her mind how she would come in and the judge would ask her if she was guilty. She would say, "Yes, but I want to explain why." She would proceed to convince the judge and all the court that what she did could hardly be avoided and that she was justified in doing it. Her argument was ready. "But," she said, "when I came into that court and stood up there all alone, and the judge was there on the bench, dressed in his robe, and he looked over his glasses at me and said, 'Guilty or not guilty?' all my arguments faded. I just said, 'Guilty.'" Her mouth was stopped.

That is the first thing the Law does: it shuts you up, and you do not argue Second, Paul says, "The whole world is held accountable to God." That makes us realize there is no easy way, no way by which death suddenly is going to dissolve all things into everlasting darkness, forever forgotten. The whole world has to stand before God. Hebrews puts it so starkly, "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment," (Hebrews 9:27 KJV).

Finally, the Law reveals very clearly what sin is. What does the Law want of us? Jesus said that all the Law is summed up in one word: Love. All the Law asks us to do is to act in love. All these things the Law states are simply loving ways of acting. When we face ourselves before the Law, we have to confess that many, many times we fail in love. We do not love. That is what the Law wants us to see, because, then, when all else fails, we are ready to listen to what follows.

Look at Verse 21 and the next two words: "But now" a righteousness from God has been provided. That is what Paul wants us to hear. When we take that one way, we find we have learned to love -- not by the Law, but by the provision of the Son of God.

Prayer:
Father, we thank you for loving us enough to tell us the truth. Thank you for loving us enough to shut up all other ways -- to block them out and tell us they are wrong and they do not lead anywhere -- so that we give up trying to make ourselves good enough to belong to you. Help us to take the only way that has ever been provided, a righteousness that is given to us, which we never earned, and cannot earn, but which is ours because we believe the Lord Jesus. We thank you for that. How rich we are because of it. May anyone here without this now turn and open his life to you, knowing that this is the only way out of the judgment of God. We thank you in Jesus' name, Amen.

by **Need2Know** » Thu Dec 29, 2011 12:21 pm

But Now

The title of our study this morning is taken from the opening words of Verse 21 of Chapter 3: "But now..." You can almost hear the sigh of relief in those two words. After God's appraisal of man's efforts to achieve some standing before him, given to us in the verses previous to this, now come God's words of relief, God's total answer to man's total failure.

Paul has concluded his description of what humanity is like as God sees it, with his ability to see everything about us. Nothing is hidden from his eyes, not our thoughts, our hearts, our intents, or our motives. We saw last week that there is clearly no one who can make it in God's sight. These words from Verses 10-12 tell us that:

There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands,
no one who searches for God.
All have turned away
and together become worthless.
There is no one who does good,
not even one. (Romans 3:10-12 NIV)

That is God's appraisal. "But now," Paul says...

But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. (Romans 3:21 NIV)

This is God's great "nevertheless" in the face of man's failure. In the subsequent paragraphs, the Apostle Paul develops this in his usual reasoned and logical style. For a little guide to this section, here is the way it breaks down:

In Verse 21 you have God's answer to man's failure. In Verses 22-24 he tells us how that gift of righteousness is obtained. Verses 25-26 tell us how and why it works; and In Verses 27-31, the results that follow are given. Let us look together now at this great statement beginning with Verse 21, one of the great declarations of the gospel:

But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. (Romans 3:21 NIV)

This is what Paul elsewhere calls "the glorious gospel of the blessed God" (1 Timothy 1:11), the good news that God has to announce to us, which consists of a gift that God gives us -- the righteousness of God himself. We have already seen that this word righteousness is highly misunderstood in our day. Often it is associated with behavior. If people are behaving in a right way, we say that they are behaving righteously. But in the book of Romans righteousness does not directly touch on behavior. It is not what you do; it is what you are! That is even more important, because your behavior stems from what you are. The gift Paul is talking about, the gift from God, is that of a righteous standing.

But the real meaning underlying this word, as understood by us today, is found in the word worth. People everywhere are looking for a sense of worth. In fact, psychologists tell us that this sense of worth is the most essential element in human activity, and that without it you cannot function as a human being. Therefore, whether we know it or not, or describe it in these terms, we are all looking for a sense of worth. But the gospel announces that it is given to us. What other people work all their lives to achieve is handed to us right at the beginning, when we believe in Jesus Christ. According to the gospel, we cannot earn it, but it is given to us. Now that is the good news, and what a wonderful statement that is.

The other day, in reading an article on some of the movements of our day, I came across these words by Dr. Lewis Smede, a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary. This is what he said.

Anyone who can see the needs of people today must recognize that the malaise of our time is an epidemic of self-doubt and self-depreciation. Those whose job it is to heal people's spiritual problems know that the overwhelming majority of people who seek help, are people who are sick from abhorring themselves. A prevailing sense of being without worth is the pervasive sickness of our age.

That comes from a man who spends a great deal of time trying to help people with emotional problems and personality difficulties in their lives. He says the basic need is a sense of worth. There are millions of people today who are openly acknowledging that they need help, and who come looking for help. There are others who never ask, but behind their smiling facades and confident airs, there are insecure hearts and a consciousness of deep self-doubt. This is the basic problem of mankind.

This gospel, therefore, is dealing with something tremendously significant. It does not have to do only with what happens when you die. I think this is one of the reasons why hundreds of churches today are half-empty; so many people do not know that self-worth is what the gospel is all about. Young people today are looking for a ground of worth. They want to be loved.

We just read this prayer request of a boy who desperately needs to know that his dad loves him, and I sensed a murmur of concern throughout the congregation as we identified with that feeling of needing to be loved. Well, far, far deeper than the need to feel that some human being loves us is our need to know that God loves us, and that we are acceptable in his sight, that we have standing and value and worth to him. Something about us, that bit of eternity planted in our hearts by God himself, bears witness to us that this is the ultimate issue. Somehow life can never be satisfying if that question is not settled. Therefore this good news comes with tremendous relevance today.

What God is offering is a gift of righteousness -- his own perfect righteousness, that cannot be improved upon, a perfect value. By faith in Jesus Christ, he gives us a sense of worth and acceptance, and there could be no better news to mankind.

Paul adds two things to this, so as to make it clear to us: First, this righteousness is apart from the Law. That is to say, it is not something that you earn; it is a gift. You cannot earn it by doing your best to be pleasing to God, and anybody who approaches God on those terms has already failed. There is no way anyone can measure up to God's standards. The sweetest, dearest little old lady that you know of cannot make it, because God knows her heart. Nevertheless, God has found a way to give us that gift, and therefore it is apart from the Law; it is not something we can earn.

Second, Paul says, it is witnessed by the Law and the Prophets. This is not something entirely new in history, something that only Jesus Christ brought to light. He did make it known, so that we understand it far more clearly because of his coming, but it is found in the Old Testament as well as in the New. The saints who lived before the cross knew and experienced the wonder of this gift just as much as we do today, although they came to it by a different process.

The Law bore testimony to this righteous gift of God providing a series of sacrifices. The Jews knew, somehow, that they did not measure up to God's standards, so the Law itself provided a system of offerings and sacrifices that could be brought and offered on the altar. This system pictured the death of Jesus; the whole sacrificial system of the Old Testament is a witness to mankind that One is coming who will be "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world," (John 1:29b). They bear witness to this righteous gift.

The Prophets also -- these well-known names of the Old Testament: Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and others -- not only talked about this gift, but experienced it themselves. In one of the Psalms that we will read in the next chapter, David is quoted as saying, "Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven, to whom the Lord will not impute iniquity, whose sins are covered," (Psalms 32:1). David understood that God had found a way to give the gift of worth to a man, even before the cross occurred in history. This is not new, Paul says; nevertheless, it is clearly explained and made fully available to us in the cross of Jesus.

In the next division Paul tells us how to obtain this gift. Perhaps you are looking for this sense of worth, this sense of value, of being loved and wanted by God. How do you get it? Here is Paul's answer:

This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:22-24 NIV)

There is one way -- expressed here in four different aspects, but only one way -- through faith in Jesus Christ: Notice first how Paul's answer centers immediately on the person of the Savior, not only on his work or his teaching, but on his person. It is by faith in Christ himself that you come into this standing. He is the Savior; it is not what he taught, not even what he gives; but it is he who saves us. Therefore the gift involves a relationship to a living person.

That is why in John's gospel he does not say, "Believe in what Jesus did" but rather, "As many as received him, to them he gave power to become the sons of God," (John 1:12). That means there must come a time when you open your life to Christ, when you ask him to be what he offers to be -- your Lord. Later in this epistle Paul will say, "If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved [another term of this gift of righteousness]. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved," (Romans 10:9-10 NIV). Jesus himself said, in the book of Revelation, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door [the door of your will, of your heart] I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me," (Revelation 3:20). There is no other way. No way can be found in all the religions of earth that can bring men into a sense of value and standing in God's sight, and of worth and love before him, except this way by faith in Jesus Christ. Second, Paul stresses the fact here that it is all who believe who are saved; it is not automatically and universally applied. People are teaching today that the death of Christ was so effective that whether people hear about it or not, they are already saved; they do not even need to know about it, for they are saved by the death of Jesus. But Paul is careful to make clear that this is not true. You are saved when you personally believe. Faith, therefore, is the hand that takes this gift that God offers. What good is a gift if you do not take it? Gifts can be offered, but they cannot be used until they are taken. When that occurs, then the gift becomes effective in the life of the one who takes it.

The third element that describes how we obtain this gift is in the phrase, "justified freely by his grace." Do you see what that says? It is God who does this. If you try to say, therefore, that there is anything man must do to be justified, you will destroy the gift, because it is all of God. We are justified, declared righteous, declared of worth in God's sight, by his grace. If you add baptism to that, or church membership, or anything else, then you destroy the grace of God. It is freely and completely and wholly God who saves us. We do not contribute a thing.

Have you ever sung the hymn, "Nothing in my hand I bring; simply to Thy cross I cling"? That is one beautiful way of expressing this truth. The last word in this section is this: It is "through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." That is, Christ is the one who accomplished something that does the work of redemption. Here we are brought face-to-face with the cross, with the death of Jesus, and the apostle is underlining this fact. Many churches are given over to following the teachings of Jesus, but hardly ever refer to his cross. If you find a so-called Christianity that does not emphasize the cross, you are listening to "another gospel" which is not the true gospel. The real gospel is based only upon the redemption which Jesus accomplished in his cross.

Paul now gives a brief explanation of how and why this redemption works. "How" is found in the opening words of Verse 25, and "why" in the verses that follow:

God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished -- he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies the man who has faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:25-26 NIV)

I want you to give very careful attention to these words. This is the heart of the gospel, and the ground of assurance. Many people, even though they become Christians, struggle with assurance. They do not rest upon the fact that these words are true, so they are filled, often, with a struggle of doubts and uncertainty. They have a sneaking suspicion, deep inside, that perhaps, despite all these wonderful words, God is still not quite satisfied; if something should happen to them, they might be lost. I want you to pay very careful attention to Paul's argument here, because this is the answer to that struggle.

First, he says that God has accomplished a propitiatory sacrifice: God presented Jesus as a "sacrifice of atonement" (that is the phrase here) through faith in his blood. His words, "sacrifice of atonement" are really translating a single word in Greek (hilasterion, for you Greek students), which is translated "expiation" in some versions, and "propitiation" in others. I know that those words are theological terms, and may not make much sense to you. But I want you to understand their meaning, because this is the heart of the gospel:

Expiation is that which satisfies justice;
Propitiation is that which awakens love.

Both of these terms are involved in the death of Jesus, but expiation does not go quite as far as propitiation. Propitiation carries us clear through to the awakening of God's love toward us. That is why I think "propitiatory sacrifice" is a better translation than the word "expiation."

Let me illustrate the difference: In these days, we often read of industrial accidents. Let us say that someone has been injured in the course of his work, and has been partially paralyzed. The company is at fault, having neglected to provide safety equipment, thus creating the conditions that put this man in danger. So the company is held accountable for the man's injury and subsequent paralysis. Therefore the court awards this man a tremendous sum of money, to be paid by the company. When the money is paid, the company has expiated its wrongdoings; it has satisfied the demands of justice. It no longer has any responsibility toward this man; it has paid its costly debt. That is what expiation means. But that does, not say anything about how the man feels toward the company. He may yet be filled with resentment, bitterness, even hatred. He may spend the rest of his life abhorring the name of that company, even though it has given him all the money he could possibly use. The debt has been expiated, but it has not been propitiated.

What Paul is saying here is that human sin has injured God, just as that man was injured by the negligence of the company. Our sin has hurt and injured God, and justice demands that we be punished for that sin in some way. In the death of Jesus that punishment was accomplished, so that God's justice was satisfied. If you read this as expiation, that is all the cross means. In a way, it means that it paid God off, so that he no longer holds us to blame. But that is not all that Paul is saying here. The word means also that God's love has been awakened toward us, and he reaches out to love us, and grants us the feeling of worth and acceptance and value in his sight. That is what propitiation means, that is what the death of Jesus does. It did satisfy God's justice, but it went further; it awakened his love, and now he is ready to pour out love upon us.

Paul shows us why this had to happen, beginning in the middle of Verse 25,

He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished -- (Romans 3:25b NIV)

What is he talking about? He is referring to all the centuries when God apparently had done nothing about the wrongdoings of men. We find people questioning this yet today. They say, "Where is the God of justice? How is it that a just God lets these tyrants rise up and murder millions of people? How can he let people live in poverty and squalor and filth? He never seems to do anything about oppressors! Where is the justice of God?" Those questions have been raised for centuries; in fact, we even find them in the Psalms.

We have to face the fact that the last time in history that mankind got a clear idea of God's holy justice was the time of the Flood. In response to the wickedness of men toward other men, God wiped out the whole human race, except for eight people. The Flood was a testimony to God's sense of justice, but there has never been a manifestation of it to that degree since that time. So the question arises in human hearts, "Doesn't God really care? It doesn't matter whether you do wrong or not, God will let you get away with it. God won't do anything to you." David writes, "Why do the wicked flourish, and the righteous suffer? Where is the God of justice?" Now, God has been patiently restraining his hand, in order that the human race may continue to exist, but people do not see that. Therefore the justice of God seems to be compromised by his self-restraint.

But the cross settles that. The cross says that God remains just. All the stored-up punishment amply deserved by the human race, is now poured out without restraint upon the head of Jesus on the cross. God did not spare his Son one iota of the wrath that man deserves. Just because Jesus was his beloved Son, he did not lessen the punishment a single degree. All of it was poured out on him. That explains the cry of abandonment that comes from the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34 KJV). In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus faced the possibility of being shut away from all love, all beauty, all truth, all warmth, all acceptance, the possibility of being forever denied all that makes life beautiful. There he faced the eternity of emptiness in the judgment of God, and this is what he experienced on the cross; all of it was poured out on him.

Paul's argument is that he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time -- so as to be just, and yet be free to extend love to us who deserve only his justice. That is the glory of the good news of the gospel. God' s love has been freed to act toward us, and his justice satisfied, so that it is no longer compromised by the fact that he forgives sinners. In the closing paragraph, Paul gives us the results of this forgiveness.

Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law. Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles, too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through the same faith. Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law. (Romans 3:27-31 NIV)

Paul raises and answers three simple questions to show us the natural results of this tremendous acceptance that God gives us in Jesus Christ:

First, who can boast? No one, absolutely no one. How can you boast when everyone receives the gift of grace without any merit on his part? This means that any ground for self-righteousness is done away with, and this is why the ugliest sin among Christians is self-righteousness. When we begin to look down on people who are involved in homosexuality, or outright wickedness, or greed, or gambling, or whatever -- when we begin to think that we are better than they are -- then we have denied what God has done for us. All boasting is excluded. There are no grounds for anybody to say, "Well, at least I didn't do this, or this, or this." The only ground of acceptance is the gift of grace. Then, no one is excluded from grace, Jew or Gentile. No special privilege or favor counts in God's sight. He has no most-favored-nation; they are all alike before him. Paul argues, "Is God the God of Jews only? Then there must be two Gods -- one for the Jews and one for the Gentiles. But that cannot be; there is only one God; God is one." Therefore he is equally the God of the Gentiles and the God of the Jews, because both must come on exactly the same ground. This is the wonderful thing about the gospel. All mankind is leveled; no one can stand on any other basis than the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf. Paul's third question is, "Does this cancel out the Law or set it aside? Do we no longer need the Law?" His answer is, "No, it fulfills the Law." The righteousness which the Law demands is the very righteousness that is given to us in Christ. So if we have it as a gift, we no longer need to fear the Law, because the demands of the Law are met. But it is not something we can take any credit for; indeed, whenever we act in unrighteousness after this, the Law comes in again to do its work of showing us what is wrong. That is all the Law is good for. It shows us what is wrong, and immediately, all the hurt and injury accomplished by our sin is relieved again by the grace of God, the forgiveness of God.

Receiving God's forgiveness is not something we do only once; it is something we do again and again. It is the basis on which we live, constantly taking fresh forgiveness from the hand of God. John's letter puts it this way:

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9 KJV)

That is God's gift, and we need all the time to take it afresh from the hand of God. When we find ourselves slipping into self-righteousness, when we find ourselves looking down our noses, when we find ourselves filled with pride and acting in arrogance, being critical and calloused and caustic and sarcastic toward one another, or feeling bitter and resentful -- and all these things are yet possible to us -- our relationship to a holy God is not affected, if we acknowledge that we sinned. We can come back, and God's love is still there. He still accepts us and highly values us. We are his dearly loved children, and he will never change.

That is what God's gift of righteousness means to us. It is wonderful good news indeed, that we never need fear. The God of ultimate holiness, the God who lives in holy light, whom we cannot begin to approach, has accepted us in the Beloved, and we stand on the same ground of worth that he himself has. We can remind ourselves, as I seek to do every day, of three things:

I am made in God's image -- therefore I am able to act beyond the capacity of any animal on earth. I am not an animal; I am a man made in God's image. Second, I am possessed of God's Spirit -- that means I am forgiven, I am freed, and I am filled. Third, I am part of God's plan -- I am part of the working out of his purposes in the world today, and God will make everything I do fit into his plan.

Therefore I can go on with purpose, and with confidence, and with love; without guilt, nor any sense of inadequacy or fear. I have perfect freedom to concern myself with the problems around me, and not be all wrapped up with the ones inside. Those are all taken care of, and that is truly wonderful.

Prayer:
Our heavenly Father, these words are so remarkable, we can hardly believe them. In fact, our hearts still struggle with them at times. We just cannot believe that this can be accomplished. But this is the clear declaration of your Word. And we know that millions before us have believed these words and found them to be true, and have gone shouting off to face death itself with a confidence that they had nothing to fear before your throne. We thank you for that. We pray that we may live on this basis, and thus find the ground of forgiving each other, and being tenderhearted and loving toward one another, knowing that we already have that gift ourselves, in Jesus Christ our Lord. If anyone here has never yet come to that, Lord, we pray that even now he or she might open his heart to you, and say, "You are my Lord, and I invite you to reign in my heart, and deliver me from my guilt." We thank you that this will be accomplished as your Word has declared, in the name of Jesus our Lord, Amen.

by **Need2Know** » Fri Dec 30, 2011 12:49 pm

The Father of Faith

Today we are studying Romans, Chapter 4. Do you remember how this letter from the Apostle Paul began? After a brief introduction, Paul declares, in striking terms, "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile," (Romans 1:16 NIV). In those words you have the theme to the book of Romans. It is the "glorious gospel of the blessed God" (1 Timothy 1:11 NIV), as Paul calls it in Ephesians -- the gospel that possesses something that men desperately need and search for everywhere.

Yesterday morning in Cincinnati, I spoke to a beautiful young woman who had been divorced a few weeks before. Her husband had deserted her and had run off with another woman. This young woman was a Christian, but she was very much afraid even to contemplate what was ahead for her. She confessed that she was upset and nervous, uncertain of what to do, afraid of the future. As I talked with her I could see that what was troubling her was a lack of any sense of self-worth or respect for herself as a person. Therefore she lacked confidence in herself and feared what would happen to her.

Today you can buy books by the score on the subject of the need for self-worth. It is called self-image, or a sense of significance to your life, or loving and being loved, or accepting and being acceptable: These things are what is meant by the word righteousness in Scripture. Righteousness lies at the heart of the gospel. Paul says in Romans 1:17 (NIV), "For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed." Paul is talking about that gift of self-worth, that gift of significance, which you can have in the gospel, not only at the beginning of your Christian life, but every day thereafter. It is the ground upon which you face life and the place from which you operate -- it is a gift of the grace of God.

One of the clearest examples of this in Scripture is Abraham, and, in Chapter 4, Paul uses Abraham as an illustration of a man who found this fantastic gift of righteousness, this gift of worth and standing and acceptance and significance before God. Abraham is one of the great names of all history. There are very few names that are known and honored throughout the world in the entire record of human history, but the name Abraham is. He is known, revered, and honored by three faiths. Jews, Muslims, and Christians all honor the name of Abraham. Here is a man who, by any reckoning at all, stands head and shoulders above most of the human race. Paul uses Abraham as an example especially for the Jewish readers of this letter.

We are going to look at the first twelve verses of Chapter 4 this morning. In these twelve verses Paul discusses three important questions about Abraham: How was Abraham made righteous? When was Abraham made righteous? And why was Abraham made righteous? That is the outline of our study this morning. Let's take this first one, as Paul introduces it in Verses 1-3:

What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, discovered in this matter[that is, in regard to being acceptable before God]? If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about -- but not before God. What does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." (Romans 4:1-3 NIV)

Paul says that Abraham our forefather discovered two ways to gain a sense of worth: One, Paul suggests, is by works. Abraham was a man of good works. In Genesis, the very first account of Abraham, when he was living in the city of Ur of the Chaldea in the Mesopotamian Valley, describes him as a religious man. Abraham was an idolator and worshipped the moon goddess. But he was not deliberately seeking to evade God. He worshipped the moon goddess in ignorance. It was in the midst of that condition that God appeared to him and spoke to him. Abraham believed God, responded to his call, and set out on a march without a map. He trusted God to lead him to a land he had never seen before, to take care of his family, and to lead them into a place that would fulfill the promises of God. So Abraham appears in the Scripture as a man of great works.

Paul says, "If in fact Abraham was justified [i.e., made righteous] by works, he had something to boast about." Abraham thus discovered early in his life one way of gaining a sense of significance, importance, or self-respect -- performance. If you can give a good performance in any endeavor you will be highly thought of, you will gain a sense of being appreciated, you will have a feeling of self-respect, and you will be able to function on that basis.

Paul admits that if Abraham was righteous because of works, he had something to boast about. Works always give you something to boast about. You can look at the record, you can show people what you have done and why you ought to be appreciated. You may not boast openly, but we all have very subtle ways and clever tricks of getting it out into the open so people can see what we have done. You can drop a hint of something you have done, hoping that people will ask some more about it. Somehow you manage things so that people will know you are a person of significance. That is the way the world is today, and the way it was in Abraham's day.

That may work before men, but not before God. God is never impressed by that kind of performance. In fact, God, who sees the heart, is not looking at outward performance; he knows what is going on. He knows the selfishness, the greed, the grasping, the self-centeredness, the ruthlessness with which we cut people out and harm those we profess to love. He sees all the maneuvering and manipulating, the clever arranging that goes on in our lives and in our hearts. Therefore, to his purposes, that beautiful performance is utterly invalid, worthless, to God. That is why the sense of righteousness that results from our performance before men never lasts. It is but a temporary shot in the arm that we need to repeat again and again, almost as though we were addicted to it. But it will always let us down in the hour of crisis. It is only the righteousness that comes from God that is lasting and will work -- not only in time, but for all eternity. That is what Abraham discovered. He discovered that righteousness which comes from performance is worthless.

How did he discover this? Paul says, "What does the Scripture say?" Paul refers to the fifteenth chapter of Genesis, where God appeared before Abraham. He took him out one night and showed him the stars in the heavens. "Abraham, look up!" Abraham looked up into the stillness of that oriental night, with the stars blazing in all their glory. God said to him, "If you can number those stars, you can number your descendants. Their number will be far more than all the stars of heaven." And, Paul says, "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness" -- self-worth, standing before God, acceptance, a sense of love and value in the sight of God.

It says that "Abraham believed God," but we have to be careful. These Old Testament accounts are highly condensed versions. They do not give us the details. We have to fill them in from elsewhere in Scripture, and oftentimes we need to use a bit of sanctified imagination, guided by what the passage gives us. From other passages we know that God did not just say, "Abraham, see the stars? So shall your seed be." But we learn that God explained to Abraham what he meant by "seed."

In the letter to the Galatians, Paul tells us that God made it clear to Abraham that when God said, "so shall your seed be" (Galatians 3:16), he was talking about Jesus Christ, who would be the seed of Abraham. God evidently explained to Abraham that there was One coming who would fulfill all the promises that Abraham would have a heavenly seed as well as the earthly seed of his physical descendants. With regard to his spiritual descendants God said his seed would be Jesus. It is through Jesus that all Abraham's seed would be fulfilled.

That is why, on one occasion, when Jesus was talking to the Pharisees, they said to him, "Abraham is our father." Jesus said to them. "If Abraham were your father, you would believe me, because Abraham saw my day and was glad," (John 8:56). So God evidently explained to Abraham, and Abraham understood by faith that the seed of righteousness, Jesus the Lord, was coming and that he would die on the cross to remove the penalty and guilt of man's misbehavior and to settle the question of the justice of God. He would rise again from the dead as a living Lord to give his life to men and women everywhere, thus fulfilling the promise to Abraham. Abraham believed God. He believed God's promise about the seed, and so he was justified, made righteous, given the gift of a sense of worth.

Interestingly enough, when James quotes this passage from Genesis 15 he says (in James 2), "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness," then he adds, "and he was called God's friend," (James 2:23 NIV). That is acceptance, isn't it? Abraham became God's friend -- not because he behaved so well, or because he was a godly man and obeyed God -- he became the friend of God because he believed God's promise about the seed. Abraham is a beautiful example of what Paul is talking about here in Romans.

Paul illustrates this in Verses 4-5:

Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited[or reckoned] as righteousness. (Romans 4:4-5 NIV)

Here is an illustration taken from common life, and it is very up to date. Tomorrow I must sit down and fill out my income tax. There is a very tantalizing regulation in the income tax law that awakens my cupidity every year. The rule says that if you have money given to you as a gift, it is not taxable. I keep looking for ways that will make it appear to the IRS that all the money I receive from my various functions as a pastor is really a gift. But the IRS will never buy it. They insist that if you work, what you are given is not a gift, but wages, and must be reported.

This is exactly the argument Paul uses. If you work for something, then what you get is never a gift, it is what you have earned. You have it as a result of your labor; it is an obligation that must be paid. Therefore you yourself can take the credit for having earned it. But then Paul draws a conclusion in Verse 5: "However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness." He is reckoned righteous -- not because he earned it, but as a gift. Who is Paul talking about? From the context it is clearly Abraham. This could read:

However, to this man Abraham, who does not work, but trusts God who justifies the wicked, the ungodly, his faith is credited to him as righteousness -- worth, acceptance, standing, and love from God. (Romans 4:5 RCS Paraphrase)

This is an amazing declaration of the gospel. It is startling to think that Abraham was a wicked man, but he was. Anybody who tries to earn acceptance, to earn God's love, to earn a place of respect and standing before God by trying hard to do things for him, is a wicked person. That is what the Scriptures say. We are trying to gain something by our own merit that can never be gained that way. Therefore it is the height of wickedness.

Many, many Christians fall back into this trap. Having once accepted the Christ and believed on him for their eternal destiny, they spend the rest of their lives trying to gain a sense of God's approval and love by hard, exhausting, committed, dedicated labor. And you can never win God's love that way. You never know when you have done enough. You cannot earn the gift of love, but it is yours if you take it by faith in Christ, fresh every morning.

Paul now brings in another illustration from the Old Testament to confirm this. He says David expressed the same idea when he spoke of the blessedness of the man to whom God credited righteousness apart from works. Paul says David is another man who gained this wonderful basis of operation -- not by his performance, but by his faith. In Verses 7-8 Paul quotes David's 32nd Psalm:

Blessed are they whose offenses have been forgiven,
and whose sins have been covered.
Blessed is the man
whose sins the Lord will never count against him." (Romans 4:7-8 NIV)

Those of you who heard Stuart Briscoe Wednesday night heard a marvelous exposition of similar words in the 51st Psalm. During a Monday morning breakfast, he gave a beautiful exposition of the 32nd Psalm which Paul quotes here. The remarkable thing is that David found this gift of self-worth before God when he was tortured by a guilty conscience. His hands were red with the blood of the murder of Uriah the Hittite, and he was troubled with a wrong spirit that had plunged him into deep evil as the king of Israel.

Paul points out that Abraham failed to find righteousness by being devout and moral; he found it when he believed in Jesus, the seed. He was called the friend of God, not because he was such an obedient servant, but because he believed in what God said. And the bloody-handed, lustful king, David, failed to find righteousness by being the king of Israel. In the midst of his evil he found it in Christ when he believed God; he believed that God did not require the sacrifice of animals, but a broken spirit that trusted in what God had to say about the great sacrifice that was yet to come. And David is called a man after God's heart.

Now, would you like to be a friend of God, a man or a woman after God's own heart: This is what Paul is telling us. There is a way -- not by your performance, but by your trust in Jesus' life and death and work and what it means for you every day. The apostle moves on to take up the question of when this happens. He says in Verses 9-11,

Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! And he received circumcision as a sign and seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. (Romans 4:9-11a NIV)

I find a lot of people today who are very embarrassed by God's emphasis upon circumcision. Because of their upbringing, these people feel that sex is dirty, and that our sexual organs are never to be discussed or mentioned. They think that our bodies end at the waist. That, of course, represents a very twisted view of human sexuality. God frequently discusses circumcision. He chose it as the symbol of this marvelous truth that we are talking about this morning, and he gave it to the Jews for a specific purpose. God is not in the least embarrassed by that fact, and I don't think we should be either. Those who fail to think through this whole matter of circumcision miss some very powerful insights into human life.

Paul makes two points here: First of all, Abraham was circumcised fourteen years after he was pronounced righteous by faith, fourteen years after he was called the friend of God. Therefore the ritual of circumcision cannot have any saving value whatsoever. Abraham was already God's friend fourteen years before he was circumcised. You can see how effectively that wipes out all the arguments of the Jews, from Paul's day on, who claim that it is the ritual that makes you acceptable. This, of course, cancels out the modern equivalent of circumcision -- baptism. People are justified -- made righteous, accepted in God's sight -- not by being baptized, but by faith in the Lord Jesus, in his work and in his death.

I will never forget the young man who came into my study one day, Bible in hand, and announced that he had been reading the Bible. He didn't know a lot about it, but he said, "Would you circumcise me?" I blinked three or four times, then said, "Why?" He said, "I've been reading in this Bible that if you want to know God you have to be circumcised. I want to know God, so I want to be circumcised." I had the joy of telling him what circumcision meant, that it was simply a sign of something that was already true by faith. That boy became a Christian and is still in our congregation and growing in the Lord.

The second point that Paul makes here is that not only is ritual valueless in saving anyone, but that the real purpose of circumcision was two-fold: It is a sign and a seal. Now let us not be prudish at this point. I do not want to offend anyone by what I say, but I just want to point out that God thinks this is highly important. God says that he chose the place on a man's body where this sign, this rite of circumcision, would be placed. God chose to put it on the male organ, and I think it is obvious why. God wants us to remember what this ritual stands for. The most important thing you can remember in your life is where you find love and self-acceptance and standing and significance before man and God. So God placed it -- out of all the parts of the body he could have chosen -- on this organ, because a man, by nature, has to handle it several times a day. It is a sign, therefore, that would be impossible to overlook.

Furthermore, Paul says, it is not only a sign, but a seal. A seal is a guarantee of permanency. Once again, the rite of circumcision, which removes the foreskin of the male organ, is an unchangeable act. Once it is done, it cannot be undone. Therefore it is a guarantee of the continuity of this great truth. It is God's expressive way of saying with visible force, "This is the ground of your life, the secret of your functioning as a human being, this great truth of acceptance before me. And it will never change."

In Verses 11-12 Paul discusses the question of why Abraham was made righteous. Beyond the personal salvation of Abraham himself, God had another reason.

So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. And he is also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. (Romans 4:11b-12 NIV)

The words "So then" really should be, "It was to make him" a father. Paul is not talking about circumcision; he is talking about what circumcision stands for: The gift of being made acceptable before God, being loved by God, a gift of worth from God. That was given to Abraham, not only for his own personal purposes, but to make him a father of many more yet to come. Remember the stars in the heavens? That promise is yet to be fulfilled.

We here today are not, for the most part, physical descendants of Abraham. I happen to be; I learned several years ago from the genealogist of the Stedman tribe that the Stedmans go back to Abraham, through Ishmael. That makes me a physical descendant -- but I am not boasting of that. However, we are spiritual sons and daughters of Abraham when we, too, have received worth and self-respect by believing, as Abraham did, that God meant what he said. And he gives us this gift in Jesus Christ, quite apart from any merit on our part. This is what fatherhood means.

Jesus illustrated this when he said to the Pharisees of his day, "You are of your father the devil," (John 8:44). Now Jesus did not mean that in some way the devil had been involved in their conception. What he means is they were following the philosophy of the devil. They were agreeing with and controlled by the philosophy of the devil, so they were sons and daughters of the devil. The devil was their father.

Likewise, we think and act like Abraham when we trust that the basis of our acceptance by God is what Jesus is and has done for us -- not anything that we are doing. In this way Abraham is our father and we are his spiritual descendants. Paul says this is true for those who are uncircumcised, and yet who keep on believing in Jesus; and it is true of those who are circumcised, the Jews, who also walk in the footsteps of the faith of Abraham. So Jews are not saved by being circumcised; they are saved by trust in God.

This is the great secret of life. What a change this makes in your motivation if you know that you do not have to earn God's love, God's favor, God's forgiveness. It is already yours. You do not have to earn it, it is yours every day. There is nothing I know that will set you free more than that. You do not need to take your sense of worth from other people. You do not need to maneuver and manipulate and cleverly show yourself as a person of some significance. You are set free from that. You already have the only standing that ever counts -- your standing before God. So you can relax and give people love without demanding anything back. That is what Christianity is all about. That is a great gift, a fantastic gift.

Let us thank God for this.

Prayer:
Father, we ask that you will forgive us for any lingering desire in our heart to try to earn a standing before you, for any hungering after the righteousness that comes from men -- a gift of self-worth and self-image extracted from others through manipulating and maneuvering and clever posturing. Forgive us that, and help us accept this marvelous gift of acceptance before you, this gift of worth given fresh every day. Help us to live and operate on that basis as Abraham did, and as Moses did, and as the other mighty men and women of God did in the past. We know that these words are true. This is the way you operate, and we can find the effect of them in our lives today. We ask in Jesus' name, Amen.

by **Need2Know** » Tue Jan 03, 2012 9:20 am

The Faith of our Father

This morning we are going to talk about faith -- a simple thing, but hard for many to comprehend. Many people are confused on the subject of faith. Some think that faith is nothing but a mental assent to a truth -- that if you believe a thing is true, then you are exercising faith. But faith is more than simply believing something is true.

Some people believe that faith is a feeling, a feeling of confidence. If you happen to have confidence, you have much faith; if you do not have confidence, then you have little or no faith. Your faith depends upon how much feeling you can generate. But that is not true faith, and that kind of definition of faith deceives many people. There are some who think that faith actually is a type of self-deception. Somebody has said that faith is a way of believing what you know is not true. There are people who actually try to believe something that they know is not true. They talk themselves into believing it and call that faith.

If you really want to know what faith is, you have to see it in action. That is why the Apostle Paul, in Romans 4, brings in Abraham, the man of faith. He is by no means the only man who has faith, but he is pre-eminently qualified as a man of faith. Looking at Abraham you can learn what faith is.

In the first part of Chapter 4 we looked at the righteousness of Abraham -- that gift of self-worth, that essential element which every one of us desperately needs in order to function as a human being. We found that it comes as a gift from God when you believe. That is what the word "righteousness" really means. Abraham obtained righteousness by faith. Today we are going to look at the faith of Abraham.

There are four things that the Apostle Paul points out about Abraham's faith: First, we will look at the opposite of faith -- what faith is not. Sometimes the best way to learn what a thing is, is by learning what it is not. Second, we will look at the effects of faith -- what faith does, what it accomplishes. Then we will look at what faith actually is -- the nature of faith. Last, we will consider the beneficiaries of faith, or whom faith helps.

Let us begin with Verses 13-15, which deal with what faith is not.

It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. For if those who live by law are heirs, faith has no value and the promise is worthless, because law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression. (Romans 4:13-15 NIV)

Here Paul tells us that faith is not trying to obey and fulfill some kind of law. It is not doing your best to try to live up to a standard that you think you ought to live up to. That is the law, and no matter what the law is or where it came from, trying your best to live up to it is not faith. In that case, Paul points out, you are not living by faith, you are living by works. Faith is not expecting God to accept and love you simply because you have tried your best to obey some standard. In fact, if you live on those terms, you will find that you cannot receive what God wants to give you. Abraham is proof that this method will never bring you the gift of righteousness. If you think that God is going to accept, love, and forgive you because you have tried hard to do what you think is right, you are on the wrong track. It will never work, and Paul tells you why.

First, notice that Abraham received the gift, the promise of righteousness, long before the Law ever was given. "It was not through the law," Paul says, "that Abraham and his offspring received the promise." In fact, if you look at Galatians 3:23-29, you find that Abraham received the gift of righteousness 430 years before the Law was given. So righteousness could not come by law, that is clear. Second, the Law renders the promise worthless. "For if those who live by the law are heirs [of the promise], faith has no value and the promise is worthless."

Now let me help you to understand that: If there is anyone here who is quite athletic, I would like you to do something to demonstrate this for us. I want you to stand here before the pulpit and jump up and touch the ceiling. If you do that, I promise I will give you a thousand dollars. I might have to borrow it, but I will give it to you. Are there any volunteers? I'll even let you stand on the platform. No volunteers? Why? Because, you say to me, "Look, your promise is worthless! You are asking something that no one can do. No one can jump up and touch the ceiling by their natural strength. Your promise is worthless." Even though I sincerely mean it, it has no value to you because you cannot do it.

This is what the Scriptures tell us. What does the Law require of man? Basically, it requires something that he cannot do. It asks us to love. That is all that the Law asks. It asks that we love God with all our heart and strength and mind, and our neighbor as ourselves. That is all the Ten Commandments ask, that you act in love all the time, without fail. Very simple, isn't it? Jesus said that love is the fulfilling of the Law. When you love people, you are doing what the Law asks of you. Don't say that by not being angry with them, or not hurting them, you are loving them. Love is a positive thing. Love is reaching out, and the Law requires that you reach out in love.

Now, if you cannot do that, the promise that comes with the Law is useless. The promise is: "Do this and live." If you obey the Law, God will accept you as righteous -- worth, value, and approval will be given to you because you earned them by doing what the Law demanded. But if you can't, then the promise is worthless. And we can't. We can't love everybody, and we don't. We can't love God like we ought. It is not only that we won't, but we can't. Therefore the Law is worthless in obtaining the promise.

But Paul does not stop there. He says there is another reason why you will never be able to gain righteousness by trying to meet the requirements of the Law. The Law brings wrath. It actually subjects you to punishment if you don't make it. And this is what we find. The Law brings wrath.

Wrath is defined in the very first chapter of Romans. It is God's removal of all divine protection -- you can do what you want. Wrath is the removal of restraints from human beings. Three times in Chapter 1 the apostle said, "God gave them up... God gave them up... God gave them over..." (Romans 1:24, 1:26, 1:28). That is wrath. That is God saying, "You can have your own way."

C. S. Lewis said, very wisely, that the whole world consists of just two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God is saying, "Thy will be done." That is wrath. When God removes the restraints, we begin to fall apart. Therefore wrath always results in the disintegration of the human personality. Emptiness, meaninglessness, loneliness, and worthlessness possess us because we feel abandoned and lost. We do not know where to turn, and despair and depression press down on us heavily. That is always the case when wrath comes in. The Law brings wrath. Paul amplifies this by saying, "Where there is no law, there is no transgression." He is explaining why the Law brings wrath. Where there is no law, people do not deliberately disobey God; they disobey in ignorance.

There are a lot of people today who fall into this category. I find many young people who are living in immorality, living together without marriage, in all innocence of any transgression. I actually believe that many of them have no idea that there is anything damaging or destructive or wrong about this. Some of them are so ignorant of reality that they actually think that it is not hurting them or anyone else. This attitude is widespread in our day. What these people lack is light. They have not yet learned that what they are doing will cause them to fall apart. They don't see that it is destroying them in many subtle and effective ways and that ultimately it will lead them into death and hell.

What Paul means when he says, "Where there is no law, there is no transgression," is that death and hell are taking their toll on men whether they know it or not. He will expand this idea in Chapter 5, but here he says that sin reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not yet transgressed (according to Adam's transgression). By that he means that they were acting in ignorance, and yet they were falling apart. When the Law comes in, it makes you aware of what is wrong. In one sense, that only makes it worse, because then you deliberately begin to disobey what God says. But the Law also brings hope, because when things get bad enough, you are ready to turn to the way that can deliver -- faith in the work of Jesus Christ. That is why the Law will never bring us righteousness. Faith is not works.

Next, let us look at Verses 16-17, which tell us what faith does:

Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring -- not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. As it is written: "I have made you a father of many nations." (Romans 4:16-17a NIV)

Here is faith in action. If law cannot achieve righteousness, what does faith do?

First, the promise comes by it. You actually obtain what you are desiring, this sense of being approved and loved and wanted and accepted before God himself. You are a part of his family and you are forgiven of all the past. All that is achieved by faith, not by seeking to earn it. The promise comes by faith. What works could not do, faith does. That is a fantastic promise.

As we have already seen in Verse 13, the promise includes not only this personal self-worth before God, which Abraham achieved, but it also makes you the heir of all the world. In First Corinthians 3:23, the Apostle Paul says, "All things are yours... and you are Christ's; and Christ is God's," (1 Corinthians 3:22b-23 RSV). The promise also says you will be indwelt, as Abraham was, with the Holy Spirit of God. Galatians 3 makes clear that Abraham received that promise by faith, and we receive it the same way Abraham did. So faith obtains the promise.

The second thing that faith does is to introduce the principle of grace. Law and grace are opposed to one another in certain ways. They do not cancel each other out, they simply do two different things. We need both; we need law and we need grace. Do not ever say, "I am under grace, therefore I have no need for law." The Bible never takes that position. It is Law that helps you come to grace, and without it you never would come. But law and grace do not have the same functions. It is grace that lays hold of the promise.

Now what is grace? There are many ways to define it. I love the one that says it is enrichment that you don't deserve: God's Riches At Christ's Expense. It is all the richness of life -- love, joy, peace, and the fulfillment of the heart's longing -- all that enriches your life and that you do not deserve. It is given to you, therefore it is a gift. There is an old hymn that puts it well:

"Do this and live!" the Law demands,
But gives me neither feet nor hands.
A better word is "Grace doth bring."
It bids me fly, but gives me wings.

The Law condemns; grace enables. When grace comes in, it guarantees the promise. If you and I had to earn the standing that we have before God -- not only at the beginning of our Christian life but every day through it -- we would certainly fail somewhere along the line. If it depended upon us, somewhere we would blow it and lose the whole thing. But if it comes by grace, if it is purely a gift and it does not depend upon us at all but upon God alone, then it is guaranteed to us -- because he is not going to fail. That is why Paul says, "Therefore the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring -- not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham." There are offspring of Abraham to whom this guarantee is made. We will see more of that in just a moment.

Now we come to the heart of the passage in Verses 17-20. We are ready now to consider what faith actually is.

He[Abraham] is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed -- the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, "So shall your offspring be." Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead -- since he was about a hundred years old -- and that Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God," (Romans 4:17b-20a NIV)

Paul gives us three things that tell us what faith is: First, he says the key is the object of faith. Don't miss that. Next, he shows us the obstacles to faith. And then he tells us the objectives of faith -- where faith will bring us. Abraham, Paul says, believed God. God is the object. The quality of your faith depends upon the object in which that faith has placed its trust. The amount of faith you have has nothing to do with it. That is why Jesus told us that even if we have a little tiny faith, like a grain of mustard seed, it will work. The object of your faith is the important thing.

You may leave this service this morning and go out to the parking lot with the utmost faith that when you get into your car and drive down the driveway and into the street your car is going to work just as it was working when you parked it there this morning. But maybe, while we were sitting here this morning, someone took off the hubcaps and removed the lug bolts from the front wheels of your car, and then put the hubcaps back on so you cannot see any difference. That may have happened. And though you have the utmost confidence that you car is going to work properly, when you get onto the street and turn the corner, sooner of later the front wheels are going to fall off. You might end up dead -- killed by faith! On the other hand, some of you who have been worried a bit by what I have just said may go out to your car after this service and take off the hubcaps and examine the lug bolts to make sure they are there. And even then, not too confidently, you may start your car and drive it rather timidly down the driveway, still thinking that something might go wrong and it may fall apart. But if no one has tampered with it, you are perfectly safe -- even though you have little faith -- because the object of your faith is strong. That is why you should not talk about your faith; talk instead about the God in whom your faith is fixed!

That is what Abraham looked at. It is not a question of how little or how big your faith is; it is a question of how big your God is! What kind of a God is he? There are two things about this God that helped Abraham tremendously: First, he is the God who gives life to the dead -- the God who makes dead things live, who takes things that once were alive, vibrant, and full of life, but have died and become hopeless, and brings them to life again; and Second, he is the God who "calls things that are not, as though they were." He calls into existence the things that do not exist. He is a creative God.

In the book of Genesis, it is recorded that God said, "Let there be..." and there was. Over and over, for a week, God said, "Let there be..." and there was. Until, after six days, he rested. That is the kind of God that Abraham had: The God who gave life to the dead and who called into existence things that did not exist. It was that God in whom he fixed his faith.

Now let us look at the obstacles to faith. Whenever you have faith or are called to exercise faith, there are obstacles. Abraham teaches us this. There are horrendous obstacles, and Abraham faced two of them: First, there were hopeless circumstances. "Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed..." But it also says in Verse 20, "Yet he did not waver [or stagger] through unbelief regarding the promise of God..." That is, the promise itself was the second obstacle to faith because it had such staggering possibilities. It was too good to be true! It was beyond belief that God would make him heir of all the world and give him a standing before God that he didn't deserve. It was too good to be true, so it was an obstacle to faith. Isn't that interesting? There are two obstacles to faith: hopeless circumstances and staggering possibilities. Let us see what Abraham did with them:

What were the hopeless circumstances Abraham faced? Paul tells us there were two: Abraham's body and Sarah's womb. Abraham's body was a hundred years old and was sexually dead. The promise of God hung on the fact that there must be a child born to Abraham and Sarah. Through that child would come all the descendants from the nations of the world that would be blessed by Abraham. And, more important yet, through that child would come the Seed, which was Jesus Christ, whom Abraham saw and rejoiced in, and who would make possible the gift of righteousness. Everything hung on the birth of a baby.

Abraham looked at the circumstances and saw his hundred-year-old body and the barrenness of Sarah's womb. She was ninety years old and had never had a baby. They had been trying for years and years, and no baby had come. These were the hopeless circumstances. Now, here is the beauty of Abraham's faith. Paul says that he faced the facts. I love that. In this translation it says that "without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact..." Many of us think that faith is evading the facts -- escapism, some kind of dreamy idealism that never looks at facts, a kind of unrealistic adventuring in which you hope everything is going to work out. It is never that!

Abraham looked at the facts. He faced them head-on. He considered his dead body and the barrenness of Sarah's womb. He sat and thought about it, and he saw how hopeless the situation was. There was no chance at all! His body was a hundred years old and Sarah's womb was ninety years old and had never borne children. She was far past the age of childbearing. It was hopeless.

There was no hope, yet Abraham believed in hope. How? Because when he looked at his dead body he remembered that he had a God who raises the dead. And when he thought about Sarah's barren womb, he remembered that he had a God who calls into existence the things that do not exist. That would take care of everything, wouldn't it? And so, against all hope, he believed in hope, because of the God in whom his faith was fixed.

Then he did one other thing. It is not mentioned here, but this has always intrigued me. He told Sarah what God said. I have often wished I could go back in history and observe certain times, and this is one of them. I would have loved to have been a bug on the tent wall when Abraham came in to tell Sarah this news! Can you just imagine it? He came in and she said, "Well, dear, your eggs are ready. What have you been doing?" He said, "Oh, I've been having devotions, and what a wonderful time I had! God told me something." She said, "Well, what was it?" Abraham said, "Well, I don't really know how to put this." "What do you mean?" Sarah asked. "Well," he said, "you'd better sit down. God told me something very startling that is going to happen to us." "That's interesting!" she said. "What is it?" Then, like a man, he just blurted it out. "You're going to have a baby!" And Sarah said, "What?" Abraham said, "That's what God said. You're going to have a baby." "What, me?" "Yes, you!" "Why, how can it be? Abraham, did you stop at the wine shop on your way home this morning?" And Sarah laughed. It says so in Genesis. Sarah laughed, "Ha! God said that I'm going to have a baby?" (Genesis 18:12).

But then Sarah did something else. God had said something to Abraham that applied to Sarah and Abraham must have told her. And I am convinced that Sarah must have made a little plaque and put it over the kitchen sink and meditated on what God said. He said: "Is there anything too hard for God?" (Genesis 18:14). When God says that he will do something, is there anything too hard for God? And you know, when Sarah began to feel pregnant, her faith laid hold of that promise again. And when the baby came, Sarah was a woman of faith, because she had been thinking of the God for whom nothing is too hard.

There is the faith of Abraham. How did he deal with these staggering possibilities? It is unbelievable that all nations should be blessed through them. He would be heir of the world, he would be called the friend of God. Could it be? But Abraham remembered that he had a God who gives life to the dead and a God who calls into existence things that do not exist. And so he believed. In Verses 20-22 you find the objectives of faith. The first is in Verse 20:

...but[he] was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God..." (Romans 4:20b NIV)

His faith was made strong. Faith grows. Jesus said it would. If you have faith like a tiny little grain of mustard seed, but the object of your faith is trustworthy and has promised to do something, then exercise your faith and it will grow. Obey. Abraham did; and as he believed and obeyed, he was strengthened in his faith and he gave glory to God. Faith never glorifies man; it glorifies God. It is God who acts, not we. What is accomplished is not something we do on behalf of God; it is God who does it by us and through us, on his own behalf. God, therefore, is thanked; and God is glorified. So faith grows, and faith glorifies.

In Verse 21 Paul says Abraham also was,

...fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. That is why "it was credited to him as righteousness." (Romans 4:21-22 NIV)

Faith grounds us on the truth, as it did Abraham. He was fully persuaded. This is the faith that was credited to him as righteousness. Faith grasps the promise. Faith lays hold of what God has offered. As Abraham's faith grew, he grasped the promise and found himself loved and accepted by God, a friend of God. Finally, Verses 23-25 deal with the beneficiaries of faith:

The words "it was credited to him" were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness -- for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. (Romans 4:23-25 NIV)

Isn't that interesting? This happened two thousand years before Paul, but Paul says God did not write those words for Abraham alone. For whom were they written then? For us, today. We look at the faith of Abraham and say, "That was extraordinary faith." Paul says it wasn't; it was ordinary faith. Anyone can exercise such faith if they want to.

You can have righteousness too. You can be a friend of God, accepted before him, with worth and value in his sight -- not just once as you begin your Christian life, but every day, taking it fresh from his hand. You are forgiven of your sins, restored, every day afresh and anew -- a thousand times a day if you need it. All that Abraham had -- the promises of the world, the indwelling of the Spirit -- all are ours as well.

This verse says the gift of righteousness is for those "who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead." He is still the God of resurrection, the God who can raise from the dead. "He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification." So we live by his death and by his life. Now if we believe in the God who raised Jesus from the dead and we are ready to live on the basis of his death and his life for us, we, like Abraham, are heirs of all the world. All these things are yours, Paul says. The indwelling of the Spirit is granted to us moment by moment, and day by day, all our life long. And we, like Abraham, are the friends of God.

If you have a God who can raise things from the dead and who can call into existence the things that do not exist, you are going to be a very exciting person to live with. You will never know when a thing that is dead and dull and lifeless may be touched by the grace of God and brought to life again. When something that you cannot possibly hope for -- something which does not now exist, but which will be called into existence by the God who calls into existence the things that do not exist -- when such a thing is promised by a God like this, life is an adventure. That is faith, when all things are yours. Do you have that kind of God? You can settle that now in your own heart as we bow in prayer.

Prayer:
Father, how we thank you for this example of Abraham. What a tremendous example of faith he is. How richly he has endued us! By the example of faith, he has taught us how to trust against the circumstances that surround us, when we have a promise to oppose against it, the promise and a God who says he will do something and who cannot fail. May our eyes therefore be fixed upon that God. May we take from his hand this morning the gift of righteousness which we need daily. Lord, may we grow in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord. We pray in his name, Amen.

by **Need2Know** » Tue Jan 03, 2012 9:23 am

The Faith of our Father

This morning we are going to talk about faith -- a simple thing, but hard for many to comprehend. Many people are confused on the subject of faith. Some think that faith is nothing but a mental assent to a truth -- that if you believe a thing is true, then you are exercising faith. But faith is more than simply believing something is true.

Some people believe that faith is a feeling, a feeling of confidence. If you happen to have confidence, you have much faith; if you do not have confidence, then you have little or no faith. Your faith depends upon how much feeling you can generate. But that is not true faith, and that kind of definition of faith deceives many people. There are some who think that faith actually is a type of self-deception. Somebody has said that faith is a way of believing what you know is not true. There are people who actually try to believe something that they know is not true. They talk themselves into believing it and call that faith.

If you really want to know what faith is, you have to see it in action. That is why the Apostle Paul, in Romans 4, brings in Abraham, the man of faith. He is by no means the only man who has faith, but he is pre-eminently qualified as a man of faith. Looking at Abraham you can learn what faith is.

In the first part of Chapter 4 we looked at the righteousness of Abraham -- that gift of self-worth, that essential element which every one of us desperately needs in order to function as a human being. We found that it comes as a gift from God when you believe. That is what the word "righteousness" really means. Abraham obtained righteousness by faith. Today we are going to look at the faith of Abraham.

There are four things that the Apostle Paul points out about Abraham's faith: First, we will look at the opposite of faith -- what faith is not. Sometimes the best way to learn what a thing is, is by learning what it is not. Second, we will look at the effects of faith -- what faith does, what it accomplishes. Then we will look at what faith actually is -- the nature of faith. Last, we will consider the beneficiaries of faith, or whom faith helps.

Let us begin with Verses 13-15, which deal with what faith is not.

It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. For if those who live by law are heirs, faith has no value and the promise is worthless, because law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression. (Romans 4:13-15 NIV)

Here Paul tells us that faith is not trying to obey and fulfill some kind of law. It is not doing your best to try to live up to a standard that you think you ought to live up to. That is the law, and no matter what the law is or where it came from, trying your best to live up to it is not faith. In that case, Paul points out, you are not living by faith, you are living by works. Faith is not expecting God to accept and love you simply because you have tried your best to obey some standard. In fact, if you live on those terms, you will find that you cannot receive what God wants to give you. Abraham is proof that this method will never bring you the gift of righteousness. If you think that God is going to accept, love, and forgive you because you have tried hard to do what you think is right, you are on the wrong track. It will never work, and Paul tells you why.

First, notice that Abraham received the gift, the promise of righteousness, long before the Law ever was given. "It was not through the law," Paul says, "that Abraham and his offspring received the promise." In fact, if you look at Galatians 3:23-29, you find that Abraham received the gift of righteousness 430 years before the Law was given. So righteousness could not come by law, that is clear. Second, the Law renders the promise worthless. "For if those who live by the law are heirs [of the promise], faith has no value and the promise is worthless."

Now let me help you to understand that: If there is anyone here who is quite athletic, I would like you to do something to demonstrate this for us. I want you to stand here before the pulpit and jump up and touch the ceiling. If you do that, I promise I will give you a thousand dollars. I might have to borrow it, but I will give it to you. Are there any volunteers? I'll even let you stand on the platform. No volunteers? Why? Because, you say to me, "Look, your promise is worthless! You are asking something that no one can do. No one can jump up and touch the ceiling by their natural strength. Your promise is worthless." Even though I sincerely mean it, it has no value to you because you cannot do it.

This is what the Scriptures tell us. What does the Law require of man? Basically, it requires something that he cannot do. It asks us to love. That is all that the Law asks. It asks that we love God with all our heart and strength and mind, and our neighbor as ourselves. That is all the Ten Commandments ask, that you act in love all the time, without fail. Very simple, isn't it? Jesus said that love is the fulfilling of the Law. When you love people, you are doing what the Law asks of you. Don't say that by not being angry with them, or not hurting them, you are loving them. Love is a positive thing. Love is reaching out, and the Law requires that you reach out in love.

Now, if you cannot do that, the promise that comes with the Law is useless. The promise is: "Do this and live." If you obey the Law, God will accept you as righteous -- worth, value, and approval will be given to you because you earned them by doing what the Law demanded. But if you can't, then the promise is worthless. And we can't. We can't love everybody, and we don't. We can't love God like we ought. It is not only that we won't, but we can't. Therefore the Law is worthless in obtaining the promise.

But Paul does not stop there. He says there is another reason why you will never be able to gain righteousness by trying to meet the requirements of the Law. The Law brings wrath. It actually subjects you to punishment if you don't make it. And this is what we find. The Law brings wrath.

Wrath is defined in the very first chapter of Romans. It is God's removal of all divine protection -- you can do what you want. Wrath is the removal of restraints from human beings. Three times in Chapter 1 the apostle said, "God gave them up... God gave them up... God gave them over..." --Romans 1:24, 1:26, 1:28--. That is wrath. That is God saying, "You can have your own way."

C. S. Lewis said, very wisely, that the whole world consists of just two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God is saying, "Thy will be done." That is wrath. When God removes the restraints, we begin to fall apart. Therefore wrath always results in the disintegration of the human personality. Emptiness, meaninglessness, loneliness, and worthlessness possess us because we feel abandoned and lost. We do not know where to turn, and despair and depression press down on us heavily. That is always the case when wrath comes in. The Law brings wrath. Paul amplifies this by saying, "Where there is no law, there is no transgression." He is explaining why the Law brings wrath. Where there is no law, people do not deliberately disobey God; they disobey in ignorance.

There are a lot of people today who fall into this category. I find many young people who are living in immorality, living together without marriage, in all innocence of any transgression. I actually believe that many of them have no idea that there is anything damaging or destructive or wrong about this. Some of them are so ignorant of reality that they actually think that it is not hurting them or anyone else. This attitude is widespread in our day. What these people lack is light. They have not yet learned that what they are doing will cause them to fall apart. They don't see that it is destroying them in many subtle and effective ways and that ultimately it will lead them into death and hell.

What Paul means when he says, "Where there is no law, there is no transgression," is that death and hell are taking their toll on men whether they know it or not. He will expand this idea in Chapter 5, but here he says that sin reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not yet transgressed (according to Adam's transgression). By that he means that they were acting in ignorance, and yet they were falling apart. When the Law comes in, it makes you aware of what is wrong. In one sense, that only makes it worse, because then you deliberately begin to disobey what God says. But the Law also brings hope, because when things get bad enough, you are ready to turn to the way that can deliver -- faith in the work of Jesus Christ. That is why the Law will never bring us righteousness. Faith is not works.

Next, let us look at Verses 16-17, which tell us what faith does:

Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring -- not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. As it is written: "I have made you a father of many nations." (Romans 4:16-17a NIV)

Here is faith in action. If law cannot achieve righteousness, what does faith do?

First, the promise comes by it. You actually obtain what you are desiring, this sense of being approved and loved and wanted and accepted before God himself. You are a part of his family and you are forgiven of all the past. All that is achieved by faith, not by seeking to earn it. The promise comes by faith. What works could not do, faith does. That is a fantastic promise.

As we have already seen in Verse 13, the promise includes not only this personal self-worth before God, which Abraham achieved, but it also makes you the heir of all the world. In First Corinthians 3:23, the Apostle Paul says, "All things are yours... and you are Christ's; and Christ is God's," (1 Corinthians 3:22b-23 RSV). The promise also says you will be indwelt, as Abraham was, with the Holy Spirit of God. Galatians 3 makes clear that Abraham received that promise by faith, and we receive it the same way Abraham did. So faith obtains the promise.

The second thing that faith does is to introduce the principle of grace. Law and grace are opposed to one another in certain ways. They do not cancel each other out, they simply do two different things. We need both; we need law and we need grace. Do not ever say, "I am under grace, therefore I have no need for law." The Bible never takes that position. It is Law that helps you come to grace, and without it you never would come. But law and grace do not have the same functions. It is grace that lays hold of the promise.

Now what is grace? There are many ways to define it. I love the one that says it is enrichment that you don't deserve: God's Riches At Christ's Expense. It is all the richness of life -- love, joy, peace, and the fulfillment of the heart's longing -- all that enriches your life and that you do not deserve. It is given to you, therefore it is a gift. There is an old hymn that puts it well:

"Do this and live!" the Law demands,
But gives me neither feet nor hands.
A better word is "Grace doth bring."
It bids me fly, but gives me wings.

The Law condemns; grace enables. When grace comes in, it guarantees the promise. If you and I had to earn the standing that we have before God -- not only at the beginning of our Christian life but every day through it -- we would certainly fail somewhere along the line. If it depended upon us, somewhere we would blow it and lose the whole thing. But if it comes by grace, if it is purely a gift and it does not depend upon us at all but upon God alone, then it is guaranteed to us -- because he is not going to fail. That is why Paul says, "Therefore the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring -- not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham." There are offspring of Abraham to whom this guarantee is made. We will see more of that in just a moment.

Now we come to the heart of the passage in Verses 17-20. We are ready now to consider what faith actually is.

He[Abraham] is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed -- the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, "So shall your offspring be." Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead -- since he was about a hundred years old -- and that Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God," (Romans 4:17b-20a NIV)

Paul gives us three things that tell us what faith is: First, he says the key is the object of faith. Don't miss that. Next, he shows us the obstacles to faith. And then he tells us the objectives of faith -- where faith will bring us. Abraham, Paul says, believed God. God is the object. The quality of your faith depends upon the object in which that faith has placed its trust. The amount of faith you have has nothing to do with it. That is why Jesus told us that even if we have a little tiny faith, like a grain of mustard seed, it will work. The object of your faith is the important thing.

You may leave this service this morning and go out to the parking lot with the utmost faith that when you get into your car and drive down the driveway and into the street your car is going to work just as it was working when you parked it there this morning. But maybe, while we were sitting here this morning, someone took off the hubcaps and removed the lug bolts from the front wheels of your car, and then put the hubcaps back on so you cannot see any difference. That may have happened. And though you have the utmost confidence that you car is going to work properly, when you get onto the street and turn the corner, sooner of later the front wheels are going to fall off. You might end up dead -- killed by faith! On the other hand, some of you who have been worried a bit by what I have just said may go out to your car after this service and take off the hubcaps and examine the lug bolts to make sure they are there. And even then, not too confidently, you may start your car and drive it rather timidly down the driveway, still thinking that something might go wrong and it may fall apart. But if no one has tampered with it, you are perfectly safe -- even though you have little faith -- because the object of your faith is strong. That is why you should not talk about your faith; talk instead about the God in whom your faith is fixed!

That is what Abraham looked at. It is not a question of how little or how big your faith is; it is a question of how big your God is! What kind of a God is he? There are two things about this God that helped Abraham tremendously: First, he is the God who gives life to the dead -- the God who makes dead things live, who takes things that once were alive, vibrant, and full of life, but have died and become hopeless, and brings them to life again; and Second, he is the God who "calls things that are not, as though they were." He calls into existence the things that do not exist. He is a creative God.

In the book of Genesis, it is recorded that God said, "Let there be..." and there was. Over and over, for a week, God said, "Let there be..." and there was. Until, after six days, he rested. That is the kind of God that Abraham had: The God who gave life to the dead and who called into existence things that did not exist. It was that God in whom he fixed his faith.

Now let us look at the obstacles to faith. Whenever you have faith or are called to exercise faith, there are obstacles. Abraham teaches us this. There are horrendous obstacles, and Abraham faced two of them: First, there were hopeless circumstances. "Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed..." But it also says in Verse 20, "Yet he did not waver [or stagger] through unbelief regarding the promise of God..." That is, the promise itself was the second obstacle to faith because it had such staggering possibilities. It was too good to be true! It was beyond belief that God would make him heir of all the world and give him a standing before God that he didn't deserve. It was too good to be true, so it was an obstacle to faith. Isn't that interesting? There are two obstacles to faith: hopeless circumstances and staggering possibilities. Let us see what Abraham did with them:

What were the hopeless circumstances Abraham faced? Paul tells us there were two: Abraham's body and Sarah's womb. Abraham's body was a hundred years old and was sexually dead. The promise of God hung on the fact that there must be a child born to Abraham and Sarah. Through that child would come all the descendants from the nations of the world that would be blessed by Abraham. And, more important yet, through that child would come the Seed, which was Jesus Christ, whom Abraham saw and rejoiced in, and who would make possible the gift of righteousness. Everything hung on the birth of a baby.

Abraham looked at the circumstances and saw his hundred-year-old body and the barrenness of Sarah's womb. She was ninety years old and had never had a baby. They had been trying for years and years, and no baby had come. These were the hopeless circumstances. Now, here is the beauty of Abraham's faith. Paul says that he faced the facts. I love that. In this translation it says that "without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact..." Many of us think that faith is evading the facts -- escapism, some kind of dreamy idealism that never looks at facts, a kind of unrealistic adventuring in which you hope everything is going to work out. It is never that!

Abraham looked at the facts. He faced them head-on. He considered his dead body and the barrenness of Sarah's womb. He sat and thought about it, and he saw how hopeless the situation was. There was no chance at all! His body was a hundred years old and Sarah's womb was ninety years old and had never borne children. She was far past the age of childbearing. It was hopeless.

There was no hope, yet Abraham believed in hope. How? Because when he looked at his dead body he remembered that he had a God who raises the dead. And when he thought about Sarah's barren womb, he remembered that he had a God who calls into existence the things that do not exist. That would take care of everything, wouldn't it? And so, against all hope, he believed in hope, because of the God in whom his faith was fixed.

Then he did one other thing. It is not mentioned here, but this has always intrigued me. He told Sarah what God said. I have often wished I could go back in history and observe certain times, and this is one of them. I would have loved to have been a bug on the tent wall when Abraham came in to tell Sarah this news! Can you just imagine it? He came in and she said, "Well, dear, your eggs are ready. What have you been doing?" He said, "Oh, I've been having devotions, and what a wonderful time I had! God told me something." She said, "Well, what was it?" Abraham said, "Well, I don't really know how to put this." "What do you mean?" Sarah asked. "Well," he said, "you'd better sit down. God told me something very startling that is going to happen to us." "That's interesting!" she said. "What is it?" Then, like a man, he just blurted it out. "You're going to have a baby!" And Sarah said, "What?" Abraham said, "That's what God said. You're going to have a baby." "What, me?" "Yes, you!" "Why, how can it be? Abraham, did you stop at the wine shop on your way home this morning?" And Sarah laughed. It says so in Genesis. Sarah laughed, "Ha! God said that I'm going to have a baby?" (Genesis 18:12).

But then Sarah did something else. God had said something to Abraham that applied to Sarah and Abraham must have told her. And I am convinced that Sarah must have made a little plaque and put it over the kitchen sink and meditated on what God said. He said: "Is there anything too hard for God?" (Genesis 18:14). When God says that he will do something, is there anything too hard for God? And you know, when Sarah began to feel pregnant, her faith laid hold of that promise again. And when the baby came, Sarah was a woman of faith, because she had been thinking of the God for whom nothing is too hard.

There is the faith of Abraham. How did he deal with these staggering possibilities? It is unbelievable that all nations should be blessed through them. He would be heir of the world, he would be called the friend of God. Could it be? But Abraham remembered that he had a God who gives life to the dead and a God who calls into existence things that do not exist. And so he believed. In Verses 20-22 you find the objectives of faith. The first is in Verse 20:

...but[he] was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God..." (Romans 4:20b NIV)

His faith was made strong. Faith grows. Jesus said it would. If you have faith like a tiny little grain of mustard seed, but the object of your faith is trustworthy and has promised to do something, then exercise your faith and it will grow. Obey. Abraham did; and as he believed and obeyed, he was strengthened in his faith and he gave glory to God. Faith never glorifies man; it glorifies God. It is God who acts, not we. What is accomplished is not something we do on behalf of God; it is God who does it by us and through us, on his own behalf. God, therefore, is thanked; and God is glorified. So faith grows, and faith glorifies.

In Verse 21 Paul says Abraham also was,

...fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. That is why "it was credited to him as righteousness." (Romans 4:21-22 NIV)

Faith grounds us on the truth, as it did Abraham. He was fully persuaded. This is the faith that was credited to him as righteousness. Faith grasps the promise. Faith lays hold of what God has offered. As Abraham's faith grew, he grasped the promise and found himself loved and accepted by God, a friend of God. Finally, Verses 23-25 deal with the beneficiaries of faith:

The words "it was credited to him" were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness -- for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. (Romans 4:23-25 NIV)

Isn't that interesting? This happened two thousand years before Paul, but Paul says God did not write those words for Abraham alone. For whom were they written then? For us, today. We look at the faith of Abraham and say, "That was extraordinary faith." Paul says it wasn't; it was ordinary faith. Anyone can exercise such faith if they want to.

You can have righteousness too. You can be a friend of God, accepted before him, with worth and value in his sight -- not just once as you begin your Christian life, but every day, taking it fresh from his hand. You are forgiven of your sins, restored, every day afresh and anew -- a thousand times a day if you need it. All that Abraham had -- the promises of the world, the indwelling of the Spirit -- all are ours as well.

This verse says the gift of righteousness is for those "who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead." He is still the God of resurrection, the God who can raise from the dead. "He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification." So we live by his death and by his life. Now if we believe in the God who raised Jesus from the dead and we are ready to live on the basis of his death and his life for us, we, like Abraham, are heirs of all the world. All these things are yours, Paul says. The indwelling of the Spirit is granted to us moment by moment, and day by day, all our life long. And we, like Abraham, are the friends of God.

If you have a God who can raise things from the dead and who can call into existence the things that do not exist, you are going to be a very exciting person to live with. You will never know when a thing that is dead and dull and lifeless may be touched by the grace of God and brought to life again. When something that you cannot possibly hope for -- something which does not now exist, but which will be called into existence by the God who calls into existence the things that do not exist -- when such a thing is promised by a God like this, life is an adventure. That is faith, when all things are yours. Do you have that kind of God? You can settle that now in your own heart as we bow in prayer.

Prayer:
Father, how we thank you for this example of Abraham. What a tremendous example of faith he is. How richly he has endued us! By the example of faith, he has taught us how to trust against the circumstances that surround us, when we have a promise to oppose against it, the promise and a God who says he will do something and who cannot fail. May our eyes therefore be fixed upon that God. May we take from his hand this morning the gift of righteousness which we need daily. Lord, may we grow in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord. We pray in his name, Amen.

by **Need2Know** » Wed Jan 04, 2012 1:31 pm

Rejoicing in Hope

Paul's letter to the Romans is a description of the power of God let loose among the ruin of men. It is about the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ. God has found a way, through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, to justify the ungodly. Now, that includes us all, because we are all ungodly. Romans teaches us that as God sees and understands our hearts, he understands all that is there. As a result, no one is able to stand upon his own righteousness in the presence of God. As Paul has told us, "There is none righteous, no, not one," (Romans 3:10b KJV). There is no sweet little old lady, or strong virile man, or boy, or girl, who has lived a clean, moral life and who is able to stand in the presence of the demands of the Law and the love of God. Therefore, we are ungodly to start with.

If you understand that you are ungodly to start with, then you can be justified -- because we have a God who has found a way to justify the ungodly. As we have seen, to be justified means to be given the gift of righteousness, the gift of loving acceptance before God. That is where our lives start. If we are ungodly, we qualify. As long as we remain self-righteous, we don't have a chance. I hope we are facing facts as they really are in our lives.

In Chapter 5 of Romans, the Apostle Paul is tracing the results of having been justified by faith. We can see this from the opening word of the chapter: "Therefore..." Obviously, as a result of what he already has said, Paul is coming to certain conclusions:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into his grace in which we stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:1-2 NIV)

That little word rejoice is the key to this whole fifth chapter. You will find it again in the very next verse. In these first two verses Paul says there are three results when we have really believed in Jesus Christ for our justification, and we rejoice in these results. In Verse 3 he says, "Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, ..." Have you gotten that far yet? That is a higher stage of Christian growth and development. Then, in Verse 11, we find that the apostle, with his very logical mind, says, "Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God ..." This is the third level of Christian growth. There is the outline of the whole chapter: learning to rejoice at these various stages.

As a Christian, if you really understand your theology, you will be rejoicing, even in the midst of suffering. As I look around at Christians, sometimes I wonder if they ever will grasp this idea. Some of them look like they have been marinated in embalming fluid. They never seem to rejoice. But Christian teaching and doctrine is designed to produce a spirit that can't help but rejoice. It is not something artificial -- screwing on a smile and pretending that you are happy when you are not. When you really understand Christianity, it will produce a rejoicing spirit. (If you're a glum-bum, just study the fifth chapter of Romans and it will turn you into a glad-lad!)

In subsequent studies, we will look at this three-fold division of Chapter 5: First, we learn to rejoice in our spiritual position; Then, to rejoice in our present troubles; and Finally, we come to the place where we rejoice in God himself, our powerful Friend. This morning we will look at these first two verses only.

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:1-2 NIV)

When you find a word in Scripture that is repeated three or four times, it is reasonable to conclude that it represents what the passage is all about. The first thing that you learn as a Christian is that you are justified by faith. To help us understand what that actually means, the apostle brought in the example of Abraham. Way back before the Law was given, before the ritual of circumcision, or before anything that we usually associate with religion came into operation, Abraham was justified by faith. Those two terms, "justified" and "faith," are explained to us and demonstrated for us in the person of Abraham. "He was justified" means that he was declared to be the friend of God. He was acceptable to God, he was loved by God. He was God's friend. What we need to understand is that Abraham didn't earn that. He was given that right at the beginning of his relationship with God, when he believed God. And that is what faith means. When Abraham believed that God could and would do what he had promised, Abraham was declared the friend of God and he entered into that close relationship with God that characterized his life. Now that is what it means to be justified by faith, to be given as a gift, this closeness, this nearness, this dearness to God. You receive this with no merit on your part, but by faith alone -- by believing the promise of God, according to the work of his Son. That is justification.

Then, Paul says, there are three ways by which you can test whether you really do believe that and have been justified by faith: Since we have been justified by faith, the first result is that we have peace with God. As you think about your life and your relationship with God, if you really have believed that God justifies the ungodly, you will have peace with God. You are a Christian. That means you are in the family, you belong to the family of God. The war is over. All the conflict between you; and God is ended; you are at peace with him.

I was in Honolulu when World War II ended. We had gone through the excitement and joy of VE Day some months before, when the war had ended in Europe, but that was a long way from the South Pacific. Though we were glad that the fighting in Europe had ended, we still had a war to fight. Out in the South Pacific there were many bloody battles yet to come. But I will never forget the day it was announced that peace with Japan had been signed in Tokyo Bay. All over the world, World War II was at an end. Some of you here remember that. In Honolulu the people simply poured out into the streets. All over the city, lights that hadn't burned in years went on. There was dancing and shouting and music and laughter, with thousands of people jamming the beaches and streets of the city, rejoicing because they were at peace.

That is something of what happens in the heart when we understand that we have been justified by faith. The war is over, we are at peace with God. All conflict has ceased. I think there are at least four things that are true immediately when you are at peace with God:

The first one is, you lose your fear of God. I think there is something in all of us that instinctively fears God. I remember how awesome the person of God seemed to me as a boy. My guilty conscience troubled me when I thought of God. I thought God as a heavenly policeman, always watching me, a stern and forbidding judge, ready to correct me and straighten me out. I will never forget the joy that came into my heart when I realized at God was no longer my judge -- he was my Father. When you have been justified by faith, you no longer fear God as a Judge because, according to this book and the promises of Scripture, it is no longer necessary that God function as a judge in relationship to you. He is now a loving, tenderhearted, compassionate father. Now, as a father, he disciplines. That is what love does. But God is no longer a judge. That beautiful picture our Lord gave us in the story of the prodigal son -- is the picture of God as we learn to see him. Having been justified by faith, we immediately lose our fear of God.

Second, we lose our fear of death. If we have been justified by faith, we no longer are afraid to die. As a boy, I lived for a while in the Red River Valley of North Dakota in a little Scottish settlement named after Ayr, Scotland: Ayr, North Dakota. It was a Presbyterian settlement and held to the old custom of ringing the bell of the church when someone died. I can remember yet, lying in my bed, listening to the tolling of the bell, knowing that someone had died, and feeling the cold clutch of fear on my own heart as I faced the possibility of my own death. Someday I would die. It could even happen while I was a boy. I knew it could, because a friend of mine had died. I knew it could happen to me, and I felt the fear of death.

Last week Hal Lindsey shared with us that certain psychologists and psychiatrists are now admitting that the basic fear behind all other human fears is the fear of death. The conflict with which we constantly live is this shadow of the end that hangs over us all, this awareness that someday this life is going to come to a close for us. Hebrews 2:15 speaks of that. It says, Jesus came "that he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage," (Hebrews 2:14b-15 KJV). So when you come to understand that you've been justified, you've been given a righteous acceptance by a loving father, you immediately lose that fear of death. You are not afraid of what lies beyond. You know it is not judgment, but glory. Third, when you have peace with God, you have the answer to the attacks of doubt and fear that the devil is able to bring into your life. I think this is one of the things that troubles many young Christians. They start out their Christian life with a sense of rejoicing and an experience of peace. But after a while, there will come a time when all that they have been believing and resting on and rejoicing in seems to turn dull and cold and unbelievable. They don't know what has happened. They think they have just been kidding themselves about Christianity, and now they have awakened to the cold reality of life. They do not understand that the Scriptures tell us that this is the power of the devil. Through his angels, he has access to us through our thoughts. He can insert these troubling doubts and fears into our minds without our being aware of it -- even against our will, at times.

I know there are some who think that after you've been a Christian awhile you should reach a point when you never again have any doubts. But you never do. I know some people think that pastors never have any doubts about their salvation or their relationship with God. I can tell you, that's not true.

When I first came here to Palo Alto, there was a dear old Presbyterian pastor associated with the work of this church when we met in the Community Center. Some of you here will remember him. His name was Dr. Francis Russell. He was 96 years old when he died, but he was a dear, alert, godly man, who was a tremendous help to me as a young pastor here. Just a couple of years before Dr. Russell died, I got a call from him, asking me to come see him. I found him in deep distress over his personal salvation. He told me, "I just feel like God is angry with me. If I were summoned into his presence now, there is nothing I could offer to him." I had to help that dear, godly old man, and remind him again that he had been justified by faith in the work of Christ. I reminded him that his salvation had nothing to do with what he was like, but with Jesus, and what he had done. This is how you can deal with these doubts and fears if you have believed you have been justified by faith.

If you do not have that sense of peace, the way to get it back is not by working on your feelings but by reviewing your justification. Go over the facts again, remind yourself of what God has declared, and what kind of a God he is -- Abraham's God, who can raise the dead to life and call into existence things that do not exist. He is able to perform what he has promised. Then your faith is restored and you can handle these doubts and fears. Fourth, if you have peace with God, you have an answer to the accusation of your own conscience when you sin. I know that many young Christians, in that glory and first flush of love in their relationship with the Lord, really think that they are not going to sin again. Sin seems to them an impossible thing. Their hearts are so caught up with the love that God has shown to them that they cannot imagine themselves going back and doing some of the things they once did. But sooner or later they will be back doing some of those things. Old habits will reassert themselves, old ways of thinking will return. Perhaps they will not go back to all that they did formerly, but they will go back to some. They will sin again. Or it may be that after years of Christian life and service, they will fall into some terrible thing they thought they never would or could do again.

What do you say to your accusing conscience that says to you then, "Are you a Christian? Could you possibly be a Christian and act like this?" That is where justification by faith comes in. You remind yourself at that time: "My standing and my acceptance by God does not depend upon me. Even my sin doesn't cancel it out. The whole essence of this truth is that God has found a way to put aside my sin, by faith in the work of his beloved Son on my behalf." That is why you read, at the close of Chapter 4, "He was delivered over to death for our sin, and was raised to life for our justification," (Romans 4:25 NIV).

These are the ways you can test whether you really have believed it: Do you have peace with God? Are you freed from the fear of God and the fear of death? And Do you have an answer to the doubts and fears and attacks that come from the enemy, those "fiery darts of the wicked one" (Ephesians 6:16 KJV) that Paul speaks of in Ephesians 6? Do you have an answer to the accusations of your own guilty conscience when you fall, or sin? Here is where the answer lies: You have been justified by faith.

Notice that Paul is careful to remind us again that our justification is through the Lord Jesus Christ. It is never through ourselves. We have no merit before God ourselves. We never deserve this, we never earn this, and no matter how long we have served God as a Christian, and have lived a clean and moral life, we can only stand on the ground of the work of the Lord Jesus on our behalf. That is why Paul insists on saying this again and again. He knows our prideful flesh. He knows that after we have cleaned up some of the bad areas of our life we will begin to take credit for it and think that we have deserved something from God. So he faithfully reminds us that we are not deserving in this matter at all. The first mark of our justification by faith, then, is that we have peace with God.

The second mark is found in Verse 2:

...through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand. (Romans 5:2a NIV)

We have access to continued grace, to enable us to stand in the midst of pressures and problems and trials and difficulties. This is a constant supply, because we have instant access to God himself, the God of all grace. That is the second way you know you are justified by faith -- you see that you have this instant access to the grace of God -- to the throne of grace, as the writer of Hebrews puts it.

There is a beautiful picture in the book of Esther that illustrates this: Remember Esther, that lovely Jewish maiden, a captive in the land of Persia? The king, seeking a bride, found her and made her his queen. After Esther ascended to the throne as queen, a plot was hatched against the Jews. The king, unwittingly, signed a decree that meant death for all Jews in the land of Persia. Esther's godly uncle, Mordecai, said it would be necessary for her to go to the king and tell him what he had unwittingly done. Esther knew that was a dangerous thing, because it was the law of the Medes and Persians that no one could come before the king without first being summoned by him. It meant death for anyone to dare come before the king in that manner. There were no exceptions -- even for a queen -- for this was the law of the Medes and the Persians and could not be changed. Unless the king extended his golden scepter to that person, he must die. Yet Esther knew that she had to dare to take her life in her hands and go before the king. The story tells us that she fasted for three days and three nights before she went. I am sure that was to prepare her heart and her courage. It doesn't say what else she did during that time, when she was getting ready to come before the king. With a wife, four daughters, and a mother-in-law in my home, I've observed women getting themselves ready for some years now. I'm sure that what Esther was doing was fixing her hair. It probably took three days and three nights to get ready! Then we are told that she dressed herself in robes of beauty and glory. When she was all ready, she stepped into the audience hall of the king, appearing all alone before him. The king was so smitten with her beauty that his heart went out to her. He stretched forth his scepter and accepted her. She had access to the king.

This is a picture of what Paul is telling us. Who would dare stand before the God of all the earth, the God of majesty and power and greatness and glory, unless he has been given access to the King. The wonder of this promise is that, by being justified by faith, we have been given access into his presence. Esther received from the king's hand all that she needed to handle this problem which was a threat to her life. That is what this portrays for us. Dressed in robes of beauty and glory that do not belong to us -- for they are the garments of Jesus -- we have access to the King, to receive from him all that we need to handle any threat that has come into our lives. We have continual acceptance before him.

One phenomenon of our day that has always astonished me is the persistent popularity of the program Hogan's Heroes. My daughter is a fan of Hogan's Heroes, and every night I can hear the story of these Americans in a concentration camp in Germany during World War II and how they always confound the German commandant by the schemes they come up with. To the continual dismay of Colonel Klink, they keep coming up with all kinds of unique weapons and various other things. They have an unseen, undiscovered link with Allied Headquarters, and the Underground supplies them with things they could never get otherwise. I am sure the popularity of that program is due to the fact that we all love to think that there are hidden resources supplying the underdogs and keeping them going in the face of all kinds of difficulties. Surely that is exactly what Paul is talking about here.

We do not get our strength from our circumstances; we get it from our continual access to the power and presence of God in our lives in the midst of danger or difficulty, trouble or pressure. Hebrews 10:19, 22 puts it this way:

Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, ... let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, (Hebrews10:19, 10:22a NIV)

That means we have a supply, a resource, given to us in the hour of need or danger. Now look at the third thing that comes as a result of being justified by faith:

And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:2b NIV)

That means that as we look at life ahead, even though life comes to an end (and it will) that is not the end of the story. There is a confident anticipation that something is beyond. We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

Hope is not a word that means a mere possibility, a good chance. Hope, as it is used in the Scriptures in this way, is speaking of a ringing certainty, based upon the words of Jesus himself. "Because I live, you shall live also" (John 14:19). "If I go to my Father, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, you may be also," (John 14:3). That is the certain hope of everyone who has been justified by faith. If you really have been justified by faith, you know that you have the promise of God that he will do this, and that he is able to do what he has promised.

That promise is given to us regardless of what our conditions here on earth may be. It may be tough here. For some people it is very tough. There are some Christians today who have nothing of the freedom and the joy of relationships that you and I experience together. They are under persecution, they are in danger, they wake up every morning with the dreary expectation that they are going to have to live under the watchful eye of some hostile person. Life may be cold and hard, it may be filled with pain and sorrow, but the minimum promise to all who are justified by faith is that there is a glory beyond death that is absolutely certain.

I have a friend who lives in the Midwest. He told me one day of an experience he had. He lives in the country, and one stormy morning, in the dead of winter, he looked out his window and saw the mailman drive up and leave something in his mailbox. Wanting to see what it was, he dressed warmly and went out into the bitter cold, with the snow swirling about him, and walked about a quarter of a mile down the lane to where the mailboxes were located. He opened the mailbox and, to his disappointment, all that was there was a seed catalog. But he opened it up and began to thumb through it. You know, there is nothing like a seed catalog to capture the beauty and brilliance of the flowers and vegetables. As he stood there in the snow, suddenly he felt as though spring had come. He could taste the crunch of a cucumber and smell the fragrance of those red roses and feel the juice of a red-ripe tomato running down his chin. It seemed as though winter faded away for the moment and he was caught up into the beauty of spring and summer. I think that is something of the experience that we get at times when we read the Scriptures. Here, in the midst of "the winter of our discontent," something of the glory that is waiting beyond, the hope of the glory of God, breaks through.

I will never forget reading, as a young Christian, the words of Samuel Rutherford, that dear old 17th century Scottish Covenanter. At a time when the English Church was persecuting the believers in Scotland, he was a dear and godly man who had come to know and love the Lord Jesus and to understand these great truths in the Scriptures about the inner strengthening that can come through faith. As he was lying on his deathbed, he received a summons from the king of England to come to London and appear on trial for his life. He knew he was dying. Samuel Rutherford sent back by the messenger of the king this word: "Go and tell your master I have a summons from a Higher Court; and ere this message reaches him, I'll be where few kings and great folks ever come." That was the spirit of the man. He wrote many letters that reflect the glory of his faith and expectations. Anne Cousin has gathered them up for us. Some of them are arranged as hymns. One, which was D. L. Moody's favorite hymn, and mine also, is one we have sung many times.

The sands of time are sinking,
The dawn of heaven breaks,
The summer morn I've sighed for,
The fair sweet morn awakes.
Dark, dark hath been the midnight,
But dayspring is at hand,
And glory, glory dwelleth
In Emmanuel's land.

O! Christ He is the Fountain,
The deep, sweet well of love!
The streams on earth I've tasted,
More deep I'll drink above;
There to an ocean fullness
His mercy doth expand,
And glory, glory dwelleth
In Emmanuel's land.

With mercy and with judgment,
My web of time He wove,
And eye the dews of sorrow,
Were lustered by His love.
I'll bless the hand that guided,
I'll bless the heart that planned,
When throned where glory dwelleth,
In Emmanuel's land.

The bride eyes not her garment,
But her dear Bridegroom's face:
I will not gaze at glory,
But on my King of grace;
Not at the crown he giveth,
But on His pierced hand;
The Lamb is all the glory
Of Emmanuel's land.

That is the first stage of the Christian life -- just the beginning. That is what you get, without fail, when you believe that you are justified by faith; but it is just the start. Then we go on to handle life and its suffering, and, finally, we end up rejoicing in God. But everyone who has put faith in what Jesus Christ has done on his behalf -- not in what he himself has done -- has come to a place of complete assurance, continual acceptance, and confident anticipation. When you have those, you know you have been justified by faith.

Prayer:
We thank you, Father, for these riches that are given to us so freely in Jesus. We don't deserve them -- we never can, and never will, Lord, -- but we have them because we have believed your great and mighty promise. How we thank you for it. What courage and strength this imparts to our feeble and faltering hearts, as we face the problems of our life with these great certainties underlying us. We have peace with God, we have been reconciled. We have acceptance in your presence and continual access to your help. We have been propitiated, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. How we thank you for that anticipation. We pray that we will be able to walk in these terms and rest upon them all through this day and through this week, and in every relationship that confronts us. In the name of Jesus our Lord, Amen.

by **Need2Know** » Wed Jan 04, 2012 1:32 pm

Rejoicing in Hope

Paul's letter to the Romans is a description of the power of God let loose among the ruin of men. It is about the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ. God has found a way, through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, to justify the ungodly. Now, that includes us all, because we are all ungodly. Romans teaches us that as God sees and understands our hearts, he understands all that is there. As a result, no one is able to stand upon his own righteousness in the presence of God. As Paul has told us, "There is none righteous, no, not one," (Romans 3:10b KJV). There is no sweet little old lady, or strong virile man, or boy, or girl, who has lived a clean, moral life and who is able to stand in the presence of the demands of the Law and the love of God. Therefore, we are ungodly to start with.

If you understand that you are ungodly to start with, then you can be justified -- because we have a God who has found a way to justify the ungodly. As we have seen, to be justified means to be given the gift of righteousness, the gift of loving acceptance before God. That is where our lives start. If we are ungodly, we qualify. As long as we remain self-righteous, we don't have a chance. I hope we are facing facts as they really are in our lives.

In Chapter 5 of Romans, the Apostle Paul is tracing the results of having been justified by faith. We can see this from the opening word of the chapter: "Therefore..." Obviously, as a result of what he already has said, Paul is coming to certain conclusions:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into his grace in which we stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:1-2 NIV)

That little word rejoice is the key to this whole fifth chapter. You will find it again in the very next verse. In these first two verses Paul says there are three results when we have really believed in Jesus Christ for our justification, and we rejoice in these results. In Verse 3 he says, "Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, ..." Have you gotten that far yet? That is a higher stage of Christian growth and development. Then, in Verse 11, we find that the apostle, with his very logical mind, says, "Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God ..." This is the third level of Christian growth. There is the outline of the whole chapter: learning to rejoice at these various stages.

As a Christian, if you really understand your theology, you will be rejoicing, even in the midst of suffering. As I look around at Christians, sometimes I wonder if they ever will grasp this idea. Some of them look like they have been marinated in embalming fluid. They never seem to rejoice. But Christian teaching and doctrine is designed to produce a spirit that can't help but rejoice. It is not something artificial -- screwing on a smile and pretending that you are happy when you are not. When you really understand Christianity, it will produce a rejoicing spirit. (If you're a glum-bum, just study the fifth chapter of Romans and it will turn you into a glad-lad!)

In subsequent studies, we will look at this three-fold division of Chapter 5: First, we learn to rejoice in our spiritual position; Then, to rejoice in our present troubles; and Finally, we come to the place where we rejoice in God himself, our powerful Friend. This morning we will look at these first two verses only.

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:1-2 NIV)

When you find a word in Scripture that is repeated three or four times, it is reasonable to conclude that it represents what the passage is all about. The first thing that you learn as a Christian is that you are justified by faith. To help us understand what that actually means, the apostle brought in the example of Abraham. Way back before the Law was given, before the ritual of circumcision, or before anything that we usually associate with religion came into operation, Abraham was justified by faith. Those two terms, "justified" and "faith," are explained to us and demonstrated for us in the person of Abraham. "He was justified" means that he was declared to be the friend of God. He was acceptable to God, he was loved by God. He was God's friend. What we need to understand is that Abraham didn't earn that. He was given that right at the beginning of his relationship with God, when he believed God. And that is what faith means. When Abraham believed that God could and would do what he had promised, Abraham was declared the friend of God and he entered into that close relationship with God that characterized his life. Now that is what it means to be justified by faith, to be given as a gift, this closeness, this nearness, this dearness to God. You receive this with no merit on your part, but by faith alone -- by believing the promise of God, according to the work of his Son. That is justification.

Then, Paul says, there are three ways by which you can test whether you really do believe that and have been justified by faith: Since we have been justified by faith, the first result is that we have peace with God. As you think about your life and your relationship with God, if you really have believed that God justifies the ungodly, you will have peace with God. You are a Christian. That means you are in the family, you belong to the family of God. The war is over. All the conflict between you; and God is ended; you are at peace with him.

I was in Honolulu when World War II ended. We had gone through the excitement and joy of VE Day some months before, when the war had ended in Europe, but that was a long way from the South Pacific. Though we were glad that the fighting in Europe had ended, we still had a war to fight. Out in the South Pacific there were many bloody battles yet to come. But I will never forget the day it was announced that peace with Japan had been signed in Tokyo Bay. All over the world, World War II was at an end. Some of you here remember that. In Honolulu the people simply poured out into the streets. All over the city, lights that hadn't burned in years went on. There was dancing and shouting and music and laughter, with thousands of people jamming the beaches and streets of the city, rejoicing because they were at peace.

That is something of what happens in the heart when we understand that we have been justified by faith. The war is over, we are at peace with God. All conflict has ceased. I think there are at least four things that are true immediately when you are at peace with God:

The first one is, you lose your fear of God. I think there is something in all of us that instinctively fears God. I remember how awesome the person of God seemed to me as a boy. My guilty conscience troubled me when I thought of God. I thought God as a heavenly policeman, always watching me, a stern and forbidding judge, ready to correct me and straighten me out. I will never forget the joy that came into my heart when I realized at God was no longer my judge -- he was my Father. When you have been justified by faith, you no longer fear God as a Judge because, according to this book and the promises of Scripture, it is no longer necessary that God function as a judge in relationship to you. He is now a loving, tenderhearted, compassionate father. Now, as a father, he disciplines. That is what love does. But God is no longer a judge. That beautiful picture our Lord gave us in the story of the prodigal son -- is the picture of God as we learn to see him. Having been justified by faith, we immediately lose our fear of God.

Second, we lose our fear of death. If we have been justified by faith, we no longer are afraid to die. As a boy, I lived for a while in the Red River Valley of North Dakota in a little Scottish settlement named after Ayr, Scotland: Ayr, North Dakota. It was a Presbyterian settlement and held to the old custom of ringing the bell of the church when someone died. I can remember yet, lying in my bed, listening to the tolling of the bell, knowing that someone had died, and feeling the cold clutch of fear on my own heart as I faced the possibility of my own death. Someday I would die. It could even happen while I was a boy. I knew it could, because a friend of mine had died. I knew it could happen to me, and I felt the fear of death.

Last week Hal Lindsey shared with us that certain psychologists and psychiatrists are now admitting that the basic fear behind all other human fears is the fear of death. The conflict with which we constantly live is this shadow of the end that hangs over us all, this awareness that someday this life is going to come to a close for us. Hebrews 2:15 speaks of that. It says, Jesus came "that he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage," (Hebrews 2:14b-15 KJV). So when you come to understand that you've been justified, you've been given a righteous acceptance by a loving father, you immediately lose that fear of death. You are not afraid of what lies beyond. You know it is not judgment, but glory. Third, when you have peace with God, you have the answer to the attacks of doubt and fear that the devil is able to bring into your life. I think this is one of the things that troubles many young Christians. They start out their Christian life with a sense of rejoicing and an experience of peace. But after a while, there will come a time when all that they have been believing and resting on and rejoicing in seems to turn dull and cold and unbelievable. They don't know what has happened. They think they have just been kidding themselves about Christianity, and now they have awakened to the cold reality of life. They do not understand that the Scriptures tell us that this is the power of the devil. Through his angels, he has access to us through our thoughts. He can insert these troubling doubts and fears into our minds without our being aware of it -- even against our will, at times.

I know there are some who think that after you've been a Christian awhile you should reach a point when you never again have any doubts. But you never do. I know some people think that pastors never have any doubts about their salvation or their relationship with God. I can tell you, that's not true.

When I first came here to Palo Alto, there was a dear old Presbyterian pastor associated with the work of this church when we met in the Community Center. Some of you here will remember him. His name was Dr. Francis Russell. He was 96 years old when he died, but he was a dear, alert, godly man, who was a tremendous help to me as a young pastor here. Just a couple of years before Dr. Russell died, I got a call from him, asking me to come see him. I found him in deep distress over his personal salvation. He told me, "I just feel like God is angry with me. If I were summoned into his presence now, there is nothing I could offer to him." I had to help that dear, godly old man, and remind him again that he had been justified by faith in the work of Christ. I reminded him that his salvation had nothing to do with what he was like, but with Jesus, and what he had done. This is how you can deal with these doubts and fears if you have believed you have been justified by faith.

If you do not have that sense of peace, the way to get it back is not by working on your feelings but by reviewing your justification. Go over the facts again, remind yourself of what God has declared, and what kind of a God he is -- Abraham's God, who can raise the dead to life and call into existence things that do not exist. He is able to perform what he has promised. Then your faith is restored and you can handle these doubts and fears. Fourth, if you have peace with God, you have an answer to the accusation of your own conscience when you sin. I know that many young Christians, in that glory and first flush of love in their relationship with the Lord, really think that they are not going to sin again. Sin seems to them an impossible thing. Their hearts are so caught up with the love that God has shown to them that they cannot imagine themselves going back and doing some of the things they once did. But sooner or later they will be back doing some of those things. Old habits will reassert themselves, old ways of thinking will return. Perhaps they will not go back to all that they did formerly, but they will go back to some. They will sin again. Or it may be that after years of Christian life and service, they will fall into some terrible thing they thought they never would or could do again.

What do you say to your accusing conscience that says to you then, "Are you a Christian? Could you possibly be a Christian and act like this?" That is where justification by faith comes in. You remind yourself at that time: "My standing and my acceptance by God does not depend upon me. Even my sin doesn't cancel it out. The whole essence of this truth is that God has found a way to put aside my sin, by faith in the work of his beloved Son on my behalf." That is why you read, at the close of Chapter 4, "He was delivered over to death for our sin, and was raised to life for our justification," (Romans 4:25 NIV).

These are the ways you can test whether you really have believed it: Do you have peace with God? Are you freed from the fear of God and the fear of death? And Do you have an answer to the doubts and fears and attacks that come from the enemy, those "fiery darts of the wicked one" (Ephesians 6:16 KJV) that Paul speaks of in Ephesians 6? Do you have an answer to the accusations of your own guilty conscience when you fall, or sin? Here is where the answer lies: You have been justified by faith.

Notice that Paul is careful to remind us again that our justification is through the Lord Jesus Christ. It is never through ourselves. We have no merit before God ourselves. We never deserve this, we never earn this, and no matter how long we have served God as a Christian, and have lived a clean and moral life, we can only stand on the ground of the work of the Lord Jesus on our behalf. That is why Paul insists on saying this again and again. He knows our prideful flesh. He knows that after we have cleaned up some of the bad areas of our life we will begin to take credit for it and think that we have deserved something from God. So he faithfully reminds us that we are not deserving in this matter at all. The first mark of our justification by faith, then, is that we have peace with God.

The second mark is found in Verse 2:

...through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand. (Romans 5:2a NIV)

We have access to continued grace, to enable us to stand in the midst of pressures and problems and trials and difficulties. This is a constant supply, because we have instant access to God himself, the God of all grace. That is the second way you know you are justified by faith -- you see that you have this instant access to the grace of God -- to the throne of grace, as the writer of Hebrews puts it.

There is a beautiful picture in the book of Esther that illustrates this: Remember Esther, that lovely Jewish maiden, a captive in the land of Persia? The king, seeking a bride, found her and made her his queen. After Esther ascended to the throne as queen, a plot was hatched against the Jews. The king, unwittingly, signed a decree that meant death for all Jews in the land of Persia. Esther's godly uncle, Mordecai, said it would be necessary for her to go to the king and tell him what he had unwittingly done. Esther knew that was a dangerous thing, because it was the law of the Medes and Persians that no one could come before the king without first being summoned by him. It meant death for anyone to dare come before the king in that manner. There were no exceptions -- even for a queen -- for this was the law of the Medes and the Persians and could not be changed. Unless the king extended his golden scepter to that person, he must die. Yet Esther knew that she had to dare to take her life in her hands and go before the king. The story tells us that she fasted for three days and three nights before she went. I am sure that was to prepare her heart and her courage. It doesn't say what else she did during that time, when she was getting ready to come before the king. With a wife, four daughters, and a mother-in-law in my home, I've observed women getting themselves ready for some years now. I'm sure that what Esther was doing was fixing her hair. It probably took three days and three nights to get ready! Then we are told that she dressed herself in robes of beauty and glory. When she was all ready, she stepped into the audience hall of the king, appearing all alone before him. The king was so smitten with her beauty that his heart went out to her. He stretched forth his scepter and accepted her. She had access to the king.

This is a picture of what Paul is telling us. Who would dare stand before the God of all the earth, the God of majesty and power and greatness and glory, unless he has been given access to the King. The wonder of this promise is that, by being justified by faith, we have been given access into his presence. Esther received from the king's hand all that she needed to handle this problem which was a threat to her life. That is what this portrays for us. Dressed in robes of beauty and glory that do not belong to us -- for they are the garments of Jesus -- we have access to the King, to receive from him all that we need to handle any threat that has come into our lives. We have continual acceptance before him.

One phenomenon of our day that has always astonished me is the persistent popularity of the program Hogan's Heroes. My daughter is a fan of Hogan's Heroes, and every night I can hear the story of these Americans in a concentration camp in Germany during World War II and how they always confound the German commandant by the schemes they come up with. To the continual dismay of Colonel Klink, they keep coming up with all kinds of unique weapons and various other things. They have an unseen, undiscovered link with Allied Headquarters, and the Underground supplies them with things they could never get otherwise. I am sure the popularity of that program is due to the fact that we all love to think that there are hidden resources supplying the underdogs and keeping them going in the face of all kinds of difficulties. Surely that is exactly what Paul is talking about here.

We do not get our strength from our circumstances; we get it from our continual access to the power and presence of God in our lives in the midst of danger or difficulty, trouble or pressure. Hebrews 10:19, 22 puts it this way:

Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, ... let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, (Hebrews10:19, 10:22a NIV)

That means we have a supply, a resource, given to us in the hour of need or danger. Now look at the third thing that comes as a result of being justified by faith:

And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:2b NIV)

That means that as we look at life ahead, even though life comes to an end (and it will) that is not the end of the story. There is a confident anticipation that something is beyond. We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

Hope is not a word that means a mere possibility, a good chance. Hope, as it is used in the Scriptures in this way, is speaking of a ringing certainty, based upon the words of Jesus himself. "Because I live, you shall live also" (John 14:19). "If I go to my Father, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, you may be also," (John 14:3). That is the certain hope of everyone who has been justified by faith. If you really have been justified by faith, you know that you have the promise of God that he will do this, and that he is able to do what he has promised.

That promise is given to us regardless of what our conditions here on earth may be. It may be tough here. For some people it is very tough. There are some Christians today who have nothing of the freedom and the joy of relationships that you and I experience together. They are under persecution, they are in danger, they wake up every morning with the dreary expectation that they are going to have to live under the watchful eye of some hostile person. Life may be cold and hard, it may be filled with pain and sorrow, but the minimum promise to all who are justified by faith is that there is a glory beyond death that is absolutely certain.

I have a friend who lives in the Midwest. He told me one day of an experience he had. He lives in the country, and one stormy morning, in the dead of winter, he looked out his window and saw the mailman drive up and leave something in his mailbox. Wanting to see what it was, he dressed warmly and went out into the bitter cold, with the snow swirling about him, and walked about a quarter of a mile down the lane to where the mailboxes were located. He opened the mailbox and, to his disappointment, all that was there was a seed catalog. But he opened it up and began to thumb through it. You know, there is nothing like a seed catalog to capture the beauty and brilliance of the flowers and vegetables. As he stood there in the snow, suddenly he felt as though spring had come. He could taste the crunch of a cucumber and smell the fragrance of those red roses and feel the juice of a red-ripe tomato running down his chin. It seemed as though winter faded away for the moment and he was caught up into the beauty of spring and summer. I think that is something of the experience that we get at times when we read the Scriptures. Here, in the midst of "the winter of our discontent," something of the glory that is waiting beyond, the hope of the glory of God, breaks through.

I will never forget reading, as a young Christian, the words of Samuel Rutherford, that dear old 17th century Scottish Covenanter. At a time when the English Church was persecuting the believers in Scotland, he was a dear and godly man who had come to know and love the Lord Jesus and to understand these great truths in the Scriptures about the inner strengthening that can come through faith. As he was lying on his deathbed, he received a summons from the king of England to come to London and appear on trial for his life. He knew he was dying. Samuel Rutherford sent back by the messenger of the king this word: "Go and tell your master I have a summons from a Higher Court; and ere this message reaches him, I'll be where few kings and great folks ever come." That was the spirit of the man. He wrote many letters that reflect the glory of his faith and expectations. Anne Cousin has gathered them up for us. Some of them are arranged as hymns. One, which was D. L. Moody's favorite hymn, and mine also, is one we have sung many times.

The sands of time are sinking,
The dawn of heaven breaks,
The summer morn I've sighed for,
The fair sweet morn awakes.
Dark, dark hath been the midnight,
But dayspring is at hand,
And glory, glory dwelleth
In Emmanuel's land.

O! Christ He is the Fountain,
The deep, sweet well of love!
The streams on earth I've tasted,
More deep I'll drink above;
There to an ocean fullness
His mercy doth expand,
And glory, glory dwelleth
In Emmanuel's land.

With mercy and with judgment,
My web of time He wove,
And eye the dews of sorrow,
Were lustered by His love.
I'll bless the hand that guided,
I'll bless the heart that planned,
When throned where glory dwelleth,
In Emmanuel's land.

The bride eyes not her garment,
But her dear Bridegroom's face:
I will not gaze at glory,
But on my King of grace;
Not at the crown he giveth,
But on His pierced hand;
The Lamb is all the glory
Of Emmanuel's land.

That is the first stage of the Christian life -- just the beginning. That is what you get, without fail, when you believe that you are justified by faith; but it is just the start. Then we go on to handle life and its suffering, and, finally, we end up rejoicing in God. But everyone who has put faith in what Jesus Christ has done on his behalf -- not in what he himself has done -- has come to a place of complete assurance, continual acceptance, and confident anticipation. When you have those, you know you have been justified by faith.

Prayer:
We thank you, Father, for these riches that are given to us so freely in Jesus. We don't deserve them -- we never can, and never will, Lord, -- but we have them because we have believed your great and mighty promise. How we thank you for it. What courage and strength this imparts to our feeble and faltering hearts, as we face the problems of our life with these great certainties underlying us. We have peace with God, we have been reconciled. We have acceptance in your presence and continual access to your help. We have been propitiated, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. How we thank you for that anticipation. We pray that we will be able to walk in these terms and rest upon them all through this day and through this week, and in every relationship that confronts us. In the name of Jesus our Lord, Amen.

by **Need2Know** » Thu Jan 05, 2012 12:39 pm

Rejoicing in Suffering

When I was in Virginia this past week, I met a number of wonderful Christians -- some of whom I had met before, others who were new to me. But one thing that impressed me was the number of people who were going through very severe trials and suffering.

I met a man who was in bed with his wife one morning a year or so ago, when their teenage son suddenly appeared in the doorway with a gun in his hand. Without a word, he suddenly shot them both. When the mother tried to crawl away, the boy shot her a second time. They both managed to escape and called the police, who came and took their son to a mental hospital. This man and his wife managed to survive that terrible time, but I heard him speak to a group of men about it, and he said that God had gotten his attention through that ordeal. He began to learn things that he had never learned before.

I met another man whose son is so mentally disturbed that he has to be kept in a very expensive hospital for treatment which costs $50,000 a year. I met others who were battling with cancer. I was simply amazed at the number of people struggling with severe problems.

I share this with you to let you know that our brothers on the East coast have as much trouble as we do. So if some of you are going through difficulty or danger, you are not alone. Suffering is something that all Christians are called to experience in one way or another. And yet I suppose there is no question that is more difficult for us to handle than this one. "Why do Christians suffer?"

The theme for this study from the fifth chapter of Romans is how to handle Christian suffering. Chapter 5, as you remember, deals with the results that come in a Christian's life when he truly and genuinely believes that God has given him the gift of righteousness in Jesus Christ our Lord. If you have been justified by faith, then certain results will be obtained. As we have already seen, these results come in various stages, or levels of maturity. The first one is found in Verses 1-2:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:1-2 NIV)

The rejoicing comes immediately. We rejoice because we are going to be with the Lord. We have a hope for the future, a hope beyond death. That is the initial and introductory phase of Christian growth. But Paul goes on. Not only is this so, but there is something more, and this is the topic we take up now in Verses 3-5:

Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. (Romans 5:3-5 NIV)

It is clear from this that Christians are expected to experience suffering. We don't like that fact, but, nevertheless, it is a fact. In his letter to the Philippians, Chapter 1, Verse 29, the Apostle Paul puts it very plainly, "For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake," (Philippians 1:29 RSV). So those who think that becoming a Christian will remove them from suffering have been seriously misled and self-deceived, for the Scriptures themselves teach that we are to expect suffering.

The Greek word for suffering, basically, is translated as "tribulation, something that causes distress." It can range from minor annoyances that we go through every day, to major disasters that come sweeping down out of the blue and leave us stricken and smitten. These are the sufferings that we might go through, the tribulations.

According to Romans 5, the Christian response to suffering is to rejoice: "Not only so, but we rejoice in our sufferings." Here is where many people balk. They say, "I can't buy that! Do you mean to say that God is telling me that when I am hurting and in pain, going through mental and physical torment, I am expected to be glad and happy and rejoice in that? What kind of a nut is this Paul, anyway? It's not human, not natural!" There are many who feel this way. I think we all easily reflect the attitude of the lady whose pastor went to see her when she was going through trouble. She kept complaining and grousing and griping about it. He stopped her and said, "I don't think you should talk that way. Christians are not to do that." She was very upset. "Why, I don't understand, pastor. I think that when God sends us tribulation, he expects us to tribulate a little bit!"

Most of us would feel the same way. We feel like tribulating, and we do. But it is instructive to note that not only does Paul tell us to rejoice, but this is the unanimous testimony of every writer of the New Testament. We are told by all to rejoice in our suffering. First Peter 4:12 says, "Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is coming upon you to test you, as though some strange thing happened to you." It is not strange, it is normal. James 1:2 says, "Count it all joy, my brethren, when you fall into various tribulation." There is that word again: joy, rejoicing. Even the Lord Jesus told us, in the Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed are you when men persecute you for righteousness' sake, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. [What does he say?] Rejoice, and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For so persecuted they the prophets before you," (Matthew 5:11-12 KJV). Paul's call to rejoice in suffering is found everywhere in Scripture. Let us take a closer look at what this really means. There are certain things it does not mean, though many people think it does:

First, it is clear from Scripture that rejoicing in suffering is not simply stoicism. It is not simply a 'grin and bear it' attitude, or 'tough it out' and see how much you can take, or 'just hang in there until it's over' and 'don't let anything get you down,' or 'keep a stiff upper lip.' Many people feel that if they do that, they are fulfilling the Word and "rejoicing in suffering." But that is not it. There are non-Christians who can do that. Many people pride themselves on how much they can take. Sometimes people who are not Christians will put us to shame by the things that they can take without complaining. Rejoicing in suffering is not merely being stoical. What else is it not? We are not merely expected to enjoy the pain. There are some people who think "rejoicing in suffering" means that you are to enjoy your pain and hurt, that somehow Christians ought to be glad when terrible tragedy occurs and their hearts are hurting. That is not what Paul is saying. But there are people who feel that way -- they are called masochists -- they like to torture themselves. You have met people like that, who aren't happy unless they're miserable. If you take their misery away from them, they are really wretched, because it is their misery that gives them a sense of contentment. That is a twisted, distorted view of life. That is not what Paul is saying. Nor is he saying that we merely are to pretend that we are happy. Some think this passage is saying that when you are out in public, you should put on an artificial smile and act happy, when inside your heart is hurting like crazy. Now that is not it. Christianity is never phony. Phoniness of any kind is a false Christianity. Neither the apostles nor the Scriptures ever ask us to be unreal and phony. This Scripture clearly tells us to have a genuine sense of rejoicing.

You may not be able to rejoice right at the moment of trial. Hebrews 12 helps us there. It says plainly, "No discipline for the present is pleasant. But afterwards it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it," (Hebrews 12:11). Right at the moment of hurt, you are not going to feel like rejoicing, but it should soon follow that you rejoice in your suffering. And that is what Paul plainly says: "We also rejoice in suffering."

I heard a man some years ago put this very clearly. Some of you may remember this man. He was going through great physical trouble, and one of his legs was amputated. That did not arrest the course of his disease, and he ultimately died because of it. Just a few days before his death I visited him in the hospital and he said something to me that I never forgot because it so perfectly expresses what Christian rejoicing in suffering means. He said, "I never would have chosen one of the trials that I've gone through, but I wouldn't have missed any of them for the world!" Now that is saying it. There is an awareness that this suffering has done something of supreme value; therefore, you wouldn't have missed it. But you wouldn't have chosen it, either! That is rejoicing in suffering.

How do you get to the place where you can rejoice in suffering? That is what this passage brings before us, and that is what we need to know. The apostle's answer is, "We rejoice in suffering because we know..." We rejoice because we know something. It isn't just because it's such a great feeling to be hurt, it is because we know something about it. It is something our faith enables us to know, a kind of inside information that others do not share. Worldlings lack it totally. Something that we know will cause us to rejoice in our suffering.

What do we know? Paul says, "Knowing that suffering produces..." Suffering does something, accomplishes something. It is productive. It is of value. We know it works, and that is what makes us rejoice.

Watch a woman in labor; watch the expression on her face. If you have any empathy in you, you can't help but feel deeply hurt with her because she is going through such pain. And yet, there usually is joy in the midst of it because she knows that childbirth produces children. It is the child that makes it all worthwhile. There are probably women here this morning who will gladly go through childbirth again because they want a child. Suffering produces something worthwhile.

Then what does suffering produce? The apostle says there are four things that suffering produces: First, suffering produces perseverance. In some versions the word may be patience. The Greek word literally means "to abide under, to stay under the pressure." Pressure is something we want to get out from under, but suffering teaches us to stay under, to stick in there and hang with it. These are some of the expressions that we use today, and I think they are very valuable. Perseverance is the opposite of panic, of bailing out. The best translation I can think of is the English word steadiness. Suffering produces steadiness.

When I was a boy in Montana, I used to help a man break horses, working in a corral with 3-year-old horses that had never had saddles on their backs. I was always interested in watching the horses when they first felt a saddle thrown on their back. That must be a frightening experience to an animal. They don't know what in the world is happening to them. Some horses will react with anger, rearing back and trying to get away -- even striking out with their forefeet at their trainer. Their nostrils flare, their eyeballs roll, and they panic! Others will just stand there trembling, shaking like a leaf. They won't move, they're so afraid. They don't know what's happening to them.

I think Christians respond that way, too. Do you remember when you first became a Christian and went through a trial? How easily you panicked and cried out to the Lord, "What's gone wrong?" You were in a panic over what was happening, fearful that it would wreck everything and destroy your hopes and dreams. You were just like the disciples in the boat on the Sea of Galilee when the storm was raging. They panicked. They came to the Lord, and shook him, and said, "Wake up! Don't you know we're about to perish?" (Matthew 8:25, Mark 4:30, Luke 8:24). And the Lord did as he does with some of us. He stood up and said, "Don't panic." Then he said to the storm, "Peace, be still," (Mark 4:39). And quiet came.

That is what suffering does. It steadies you. You go through a time like that and you're all panicky; then the Lord stills the storm and you think, "Thank God that's all over. I'll never have to go through that again! I've learned my lesson!" And two weeks later, there is another storm. But this time you've been through it once, so you steady up a bit. You don't get quite so panicky. You learn something -- you learn about yourself, first. You learn that you're not as strong as you thought you were. You learn that you don't have the 'stick with it' that you thought you had. You wanted to bail out much sooner than you thought you would.

Then you learn something about the Lord -- you learn how gracious he is. You learn that he can handle events in ways that you couldn't dream of or anticipate. You see him work things out in ways that you could never have guessed. So the third and fourth times a trial comes up, you are steadier. You don't panic, you don't bail out. You stay under and let it work itself out. That is what Paul is saying here. Suffering produces steadiness. If you didn't suffer you would never have that quality. Second, not only does suffering produce steadiness, but steadiness, Paul says, produces character. The Greek word for character carries with it the idea of being put to the test and approved. It is the idea of being shown to be reliable. Steadiness produces reliability. You finally learn that you are not going to be destroyed, that things will work out. Steady up, and people start counting on you. They see strength in you, and you become a more reliable person.

We have all seen the tire advertisements on television. A car is equipped with four tires and is put through horrendous tests -- driven through desert sands, bogs, swamps, and marshes, driven over rough, hard, cobblestone roads, over roads with holes and chuck-holes, over boards studded with nails. The tire is twisted and pulled and stretched in every direction, and you are amazed at what that tire can take! After the test is over, they hold the tire up and it looks like it's never been out of its wrapping! Then the ad comes: "Buy Sock'em Tires! They're tested, proven!"

Now that is what this word character means. God is building you up so he can hold you up and say, "He's approved, he's tested." God is in the process of making veterans. I have always like that word. A veteran has been through something and has been tested and proven. Let me read to you from the Living Bible a passage I have always loved, Second Corinthians 1:8-10:

I think you ought to know, dear brothers, about the hard time that we went through in Asia. We were really crushed and overwhelmed, and feared we would never live through it. We felt we were doomed to die and saw how powerless we were to help ourselves; but that was good, for then we put everything into the hands of God, who alone could save us, for he can even raise the dead. And he did help us, and he saved us from a terrible death; yes, and we expect him to do it again and again. (2 Corinthians 1:8-10 Living Bible)

Now, that's a veteran speaking. He's been through some tough things, but he knows that God can take him through them, and he will. He isn't saying, "It's all over." No, he is saying, "There's more coming, but God will take us through." That's a veteran.

Years ago I stayed in a home and asked a 9-year-old boy there, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Usually you get the standard answers, but I was amazed at his. I'll never forget it. He said, "I want to be a returned missionary." He didn't want to be just a missionary, but a returned one -- one that's been through it and it's all behind him. Here Paul tells us that God is in the process of building returned missionaries.

Third, we find that reliability produces something. Suffering produces steadiness, steadiness produces reliability, and reliability produces hope. So now we are back to hope again. In Verse 2, Paul spoke of "rejoicing in hope," the hope of sharing the glory of God, a hope for the future beyond death. But here is hope that we will share the glory of God, which is God's character, right now. We have the hope that God is producing the image of Christ in us right now. That's a great thing! And this hope is a certainty, not just a possibility. We are being changed. We see ourselves changing. We are becoming more like Jesus. We can see that we are more thoughtful, more compassionate, more loving. We are being mellowed. We are becoming like Christ -- stronger, wiser, purer, more patient. To our amazement, a certainty grows in our hearts that God is doing his work just as he promised. He is transforming us into the image of his Son.

That brings us to the fourth step that Paul mentions here, and that is that hope does not disappoint us. (Although I am disappointed in that translation.) I like the King James translation better. It says, "hope does not make us ashamed." That is a figure of speech called litotes, which is the use of a negative to express a positive idea. Paul does this in Romans 1:16 when he says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ because it is the power of God..." What does he mean? He means he is proud; he is confident and bold. I think that is the term that we ought to use here. Hope makes us confident. Hope, or certainty, produces confidence and boldness.

The man I mentioned earlier, who had gone through the terrible trauma of having been shot by his son, stood up last week before a group of men and told them how God used that situation to get his attention. He began to study and to grow. As he spoke, it was evident that a man who previously had been ashamed to speak of Christ was now confident and bold. What the Lord had shown him, and how the Lord supported and sustained him through this terrible tragic time means so much to this man that he didn't care what anybody thought about it. He shared openly what God had brought him through. We lose our fear of ridicule and shame, and we speak up and share out of the reality of our experience of what God has brought us through.

Paul goes on to explain why our hope does not disappoint us. He says it is "because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." Now, to my mind, this is one of the most important verses in the book of Romans. It is a very significant verse because it is adding a thought that we have not had in this book up to now. It is the explanation, above all else, of how to rejoice in suffering. You can see how important this is, because it is the first mention in the book of Romans of the Holy Spirit. This is also the very first time in this book that the love of God is brought in. Up to now, Paul has not said anything about the love of God, but now it is "the love of God that is shed abroad in our hearts, by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us."

We need to be very careful to see how Paul presents this concept here because the love of God is the subject he develops in Verses 6-10. That connection is important because these verses have been extracted from their context and used for evangelistic preaching so many times that we have forgotten what they originally meant.

...God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given to us.

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! (Romans 5:5b-11 NIV)

The argument here is extremely important. It will explain to us how to rejoice in suffering. I know some Christians who are suffering, but are not being made steady and reliable and confident. Instead, they are being made bitter and resentful and angry, even to the point of denying their faith. Suffering, you see, does not produce these qualities automatically. You can go through suffering as a Christian and be filled with anger and rage and resentment against God. What makes the difference?

As Paul explains here, the difference is in seeing your suffering as evidence of God's love, and not his wrath. Then you will experience that love in the midst of the suffering. The Holy Spirit will shed abroad in your heart an experience of the love of God so rich and radiant and glorious that you will not be able to help but rejoice in your suffering. But, if you see your suffering as evidence of God's wrath, you will be rendered frustrated and angry and resentful and miserable. That is why Paul brings in this description of God's love for us.

I am sure that anyone who has gone through any degree of suffering knows that in the moment of pain and hurt it is easy to feel that God does not love you. It is easy to feel rejected, unloved. We are so used to thinking that love is something that blesses us and warms us and takes care of us that it is almost impossible for us to think we are being loved when we are hurting. It is hard for us to believe that the one who is doing the hurting is doing it out of genuine love for us. We feel broken, we feel worthless, we feel forgotten. That is why we need to understand the argument in Verses 6 through 10.

Paul says there is a place where every Christian knows that God loves him, even though he himself is worthless and useless and forgotten. What is that place? It is the cross. In the cross of Jesus Christ you always see two things: First, you see yourself. You see, as Paul puts it here, that you are helpless. If there were any other way to get to God, then there never would have been a cross. But the cross is God's testimony that there is no other way. That is why it says, "At the right time, in due time, Christ died." At that time in history God amply demonstrated to all the world that man could not save himself.

The great Hebrew prophets had spoken, and that didn't help. Greek philosophers had taught, and that didn't help. The Romans had come in with their military might, and law and order was imposed over the course of the whole world of that day, and that didn't help. At the right time, Christ died on the cross so that men could see how helpless and powerless they were to save themselves.

As we look at the cross we see how ungodly we are. We are not like God, we don't act like God. We have the capacity to do so, but we don't. We even want to at times, but we don't. Therefore, we see in the cross how unlike God we are. We see that we are sinners. We are involved in things that are hurtful. We are destroying ourselves and others. We find ourselves lawless and selfish at times, and we know it was man's sin -- our sin, yours and mine -- that nailed Jesus to that cross. It was not his own sin, but yours and mine. There we learn that we are enemies of God, enemies sabotaging God's plan to help us, wrecking everything he tries to do to reach us. For years we fight back and resist God's efforts to love us and to draw us to himself.

We are the enemies of God. And yet we know, if we are Christians at all, that in that place where man's inadequacy is so fully demonstrated, we also have the clearest testimony that God loves us. "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son," (John 3:16 KJV). Jesus came to break through all our despair and weakness and shame and sorrow and sin, all man's ruin and disaster. He came to demonstrate a God who loved mankind and would not let it perish.

Now we come to the force of Paul's argument. If you clearly knew God's love when you became a Christian -- when you were enemies and helpless and powerless -- how much more can you count on the fact that God loves you now that you are his child? Even though you are suffering, even though you don't feel loved right now, even though it seems as though God is against you, how much more you can count on the fact that God loves you.

Paul is arguing from the greater to the lesser. If God could love you when it was so evident to you that you didn't deserve it, how much more must you reckon upon his love now that you know that you are dear to him and loved by him. Therefore, this suffering is not coming into your life because God is angry with you; it is coming because God loves you. It comes from the heart of a Father who is putting you through some development that you desperately need to grow into the kind of a person you desperately want to be. And he loves you enough that he will not let you off, but will take you through it. Therefore it is not his anger you are experiencing, but his love.

That is what Hebrews 12 argues, isn't it? If we have been disciplined by the fathers of our flesh, and we know they love us, why can't we believe that God loves us when he puts us through times of testing and pressure and suffering. When you see that truth, then you can rejoice, because you know that suffering will produce the things that make you what you want to be. There is a hymn that I think expresses this idea beautifully. It goes like this:

When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed, 'ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources,
Our Father's full giving is only begun.
His love has no limit, His grace has no measure;
His power no boundary known unto men.
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.

Prayer:
Our Father, it is encouraging to us to realize that you are a God of utter realism, that you know thoroughly and completely the raw hurt, the agony, the pain, the bleeding that we can go through. You don't try to dress it up and make it look any different. But nevertheless, Father, we thank you that you assure us and reassure us that we are being loved all through this time, that we are being tested and developed and made into something we need and want very badly, and that you know what you are doing. You are faithful and do not allow us to be tempted above that which we are able to bear. You are even showing us how much we are able to bear, when we think we can't bear very much. Thank you, Lord, for that. Thank you that through the pressure and testing you give a deep sense of joy. And as we understand that this is coming from your loving hand, you, by the Holy Spirit, will release in our hearts your love to us, to steady us and enfold us and keep us strong and rejoicing. We thank you for this in Jesus' name, Amen.

by **Need2Know** » Mon Jan 09, 2012 7:49 am

Rejoicing In God

In Romans 5, we have been learning that the one clear mark of a true Christian is that he always rejoices. Three times in this chapter we are given reasons for rejoicing, as believers:

First, we rejoice in our spiritual position. Having been justified by faith, "we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God," (Romans 5:1b-2 NIV). That is our spiritual position. The moment we believe in the Lord Jesus, we can rejoice in the hope of sharing the glory of God. Then we are to rejoice in our growing conformity to the character of Christ. This is produced by suffering. Suffering helps us to become like Jesus now. And as we suffer, knowing we are undergirded, protected, and covered over by the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, we learn to rejoice in our sufferings. In Verses 11-21, we learn to rejoice in our great and glorious God. Verse 11:

Not only is this so[Paul has said that twice in this chapter], but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. (Romans 5:11 NIV)

In my book Authentic Christianity,I call this "an unquenchable optimism." Christians always have grounds for rejoicing. No matter what happens, you have a ground for rejoicing. The three kinds of rejoicing described in Romans 5 represent three levels of maturity. They are not necessarily chronological levels, but they are levels of understanding truth and responding to it that reflect a continually growing and deepening maturity.

The third level is rejoicing "in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation." Notice again that Paul, as he so frequently does, reminds us that everything that comes to us comes through our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is the way to God. He himself said so: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man [-- no man --] comes to the Father but by me," (John 14:6 KJV). Therefore, when you see the greatness of Christ, you have seen the greatness of God. It is he who reveals the Father. Remember how John begins his gospel?

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. (John 1:1, 1:14 KJV)

That is the way we see God. When we see the greatness of Jesus, we see the greatness of God. When we see and know the love of Jesus, we know the heart of God. Therefore, we are to rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

How do you do that? How do you see the greatness of Christ? Paul says it is by understanding the reconciliation. If you want to know how great a person is, you look at the record of his achievements. What has he done? From Verse 12 of Romans 5 to the end of the chapter is a record of the greatness of Christ, his achievement of what Paul calls the reconciliation.

This passage, admittedly, is one of the most theologically important chapters in all of the Bible. It is a very complicated statement, in some ways, and I am going to ask you to follow it very carefully, for it is tremendously important. In this passage is the clearest statement in the Bible on what is called "original sin," that is, the blight that has been passed on to our whole race as the result of the sin of our father Adam. Also, here is the complete answer to those who doubt the historicity of Adam and Eve. There are some who claim that the first chapters of Genesis are merely legend, or myth, that Adam and Eve were not real people. But this chapter shows that that belief is false. For, all through the passage, Adam, as an individual, is contrasted and compared with the person of the Lord Jesus. This section also lays the groundwork for all that Paul is going to say in Chapters 6, 7, and 8. So it is a very, very important passage.

I have found that, if you get involved in the details of the passage, and it would be easy to do so, it would be possible to preach a month of Sundays on this one section alone. People invariably get lost in the argument and lose the main point the apostle wants to make, which is: The greatness and the glory of the Lord Jesus -- the reason why we can rejoice in God through him. So, instead of dwelling on the argument in detail, I want to summarize it for you.

There are four movements in this section: First, in Verses 12-14, Paul begins with us in Adam, where we start as a human race -- in Adam. Then, Verses 15-17 give us a great parallel of what we are brought to if we are in Christ, as contrasted with what we were in Adam. Then, Verses 18-19 give a brief summary of this truth by this master logician, the Apostle Paul. The chapter closes with a brief explanation of the relationship of the Law to all of this (Verses 20-21). Let's start with Verse 12, where we begin, in Adam:

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned -- (Romans 5:12 NIV)

My version has a dash here, which means it is an incomplete sentence. I am going to read that verse again to you, because I don't agree with this translation. Notice that Paul starts out by saying "Therefore, just as..." When you get a "just as," you grammarians know that you have got to have an "even so" a little later. Paul is making a comparison here. The Greek text actually has an "even so," but for some reason, the New International Version doesn't translate it, so we'll correct it. (This is the Stedmaniac version, with which you are all familiar.)

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, so also[or, even so] through one man death came to all men, because all sinned. (Romans 5:12 RCS Version)

This is Paul's argument. He starts with two undeniable, indisputable facts: the universality of sin and the universality of death. We can't deny these. Everywhere we look there is evidence upon evidence that what he says is true, that we are victims of the twin evils of sin and death.

There are some who may not accept the idea of sin. There are people today who do not like this word. You can call it anything you like, but the fact remains that there is clear evidence wherever you look in the human race that something has gone wrong with our humanity. You can call it karma, destiny, fate, evolutionary darkness, or whatever -- but it is clearly evident that something is wrong. G. K. Chesterton said, "Whatever else may be said of man, this one thing is clear: He is not what he is capable of being." I think any line of evidence will substantiate that. Some kind of a twist has come in, something that we cannot explain -- a taint, a moral poison that makes us act in irrational ways -- so that even when we know that something is wrong or hurtful, we want to do it.

I don't have to go any further than my own heart to find evidence of that. There are things that I know would destroy me and my family, and yet at times I catch myself wanting badly to do them. And so do you, so don't look so pious! That is what is called "original sin." And it is not only evident in adults. The striking and remarkable thing is that it is found in babies. Sin is there at the beginning of their life, they are born with it as conclusive proof of what Paul is saying here. It is something that has gripped the race.

My two-year-old grandson comes over to our house frequently and tears up the place. It takes us two days to get it back in shape after a visit from him. His mother was telling us the other day that if she says to him, "Now, eat your food," that's the one thing he doesn't want to do. So she has learned how to make him eat his food: She says, "Now, don't eat your carrots." And he gobbles them up. Anything that is prohibited, that's what he wants to do. Nobody had to teach him that. We've never sent him to school to learn how to disobey. He's only two years old, but he knows how to resist instruction and command; he wants to do what he ought not to do.

I think this universal tendency to evil has been stated most clearly by a totally secular agency. The clearest statement on original sin that I have ever read comes from the report of the Minnesota Crime Commission. In studying humanity, the commission came to this frightening and factual conclusion:

Every baby starts life as a little savage. He is completely selfish and self-centered. He wants what he wants when he wants it -- his bottle, his mother's attention, his playmate's toy, his uncle's watch. Deny him these wants, and he seethes with rage and aggressiveness, which would be murderous, were he not so helpless. He is dirty. He has no morals, no knowledge, no skills. This means that all children, not just certain children, are born delinquent. If permitted to continue in the self-centered world of his infancy, given free reign to his impulsive actions to satisfy his wants, every child would grow up a criminal, a thief, a killer, a rapist.

This is a clear statement on the universality of sin and of the fact, as Paul says here, that by one man, sin entered the world. And along with sin came death. Everyone acknowledges the universal presence of death in our society. Even babies are starting to die. We look at a newborn child and say, "Here is someone who is starting to live." But it is equally true to say of that child, "Here is someone who is starting to die," because death is at work in that child from the moment of birth. We are born to die. This is the story of our race. We don't need to argue it; it is evident on every side. Later on in this passage Paul says, "Death reigned." Still later on, he says, "Sin reigns." So in these two forces that have been introduced into humanity, we have a pair of royal tyrants who rule over men. King Sin and his evil and cruel queen, Death, who hold in their remorseless hands every human being, without exception.

How did sin and death get control of our race? The apostle answers: through one man. That is the key to this whole section. Again and again Paul rings the changes on that phrase: through one man, by one man. Paul is contrasting two men, actually, Adam and Jesus. But, in either case, what comes to us, comes from one man, either Adam or Jesus.

It was through Adam that sin and death gripped our race. We sin because we are sons and daughters of Adam, and we die because we are sons and daughters of Adam. We don't die for our own sins. Normally, we would die for our own sins, but, as Paul goes on to argue, there are even some -- babies, for instance -- who haven't sinned at all, and yet they still die. Therefore, Paul traces the reign of sin and death back to Adam. This is the argument of Verses 13-14:

For before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come. (Romans 5:13-14 NIV)

Paul's argument is simply this: Death is the punishment for breaking a command. In the Garden of Eden, God said to Adam, "Do not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of evil. In the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die," (Genesis 2:17). Adam broke that specific, clear-cut command; he ate of the fruit. That was not merely a little incident, a peccadillo, Adam actually was choosing to be an independent creature and denying his dependence upon the God who made him. It was an act of rebellion; it was an act of idolatry. He was enthroning himself as a god, in the place of God. Those were the implications of his action. Adam broke the command and, as a result, death and sin passed upon all his descendants. Paul is saying that death is the result of breaking a command -- and you need a law in order to be able to break a command.

How many of you have driven down your street for years and never had to stop at a certain intersection because there was nothing that required it. Then one day a stop sign is erected. Now the law has come in. From that time on, to fail to stop at that intersection is to break a command. If you fail to stop, you are subject to a penalty, even though you have been driving through that intersection without stopping for years without any penalty. But now the law has come in, and thus you break a command if you fail to stop.

In order to have death, Paul says, there had to be a command to break. But people were dying long before the Law was ever given. People died from the time of Adam to Moses, even people who never had a command to break. How could that be, if death is the result of breaking a command? Paul's conclusion is: The whole race actually sinned when Adam sinned. We broke the command in Adam.

At this point, many people say, "Well, that isn't fair! God is punishing us for Adam's sin, and that's not fair!" People who argue that way simply are revealing how little they understand the facts about the nature of our humanity. People who talk that way think of themselves as individuals quite separate from other people when, as a matter of fact, we are tied in together, all a part of one great bundle of life. We share life together. We recognize this fact when we speak of the brotherhood of man, and when we say, "No man is an island." But, at other times, we choose to think that we have a right to stand alone, as though no one else exists. Whether you understand it or not, this passage reveals the fact that when Adam sinned, he plunged the whole race into disaster. We are all born with sin at work in us and, as a result, death is taking its toll. So we sinned in Adam.

The most important phrase in this paragraph is the last one: Adam "was a pattern of the one to come." Through the rest of this passage, the apostle is going to show us how Adam is a kind of picture of Christ; and yet there is a great contrast between the two, as well. So the verses that follow draw both a comparison and a contrast between Adam and Jesus. Let's take these verses one at a time and restate the argument so that we don't get lost in this passage, then we'll move on to the conclusion that the apostle makes. First, Verse 15:

But the gift is not like the trespass. (Romans 5:15a NIV)

The gift, what every human being is always looking for, is the gift of righteousness, a sense of worth, a sense of significance to life. That is what righteousness means. And it comes as a gift from the Lord Jesus. The trespass is Adam's disobedient act in the Garden of Eden. The gift, Paul says, is not like the trespass.

For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, Adam, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! (Romans 5:15b NIV)

Paul is saying this: Adam brought a single experience of death to all people. We only die once, don't we? Adam brought that death to us. But Christ brought a repeated and ever-growing experience of life to all that are in him. That is the contrast. We can take life from Jesus a thousand times a day. We can take the gift of worth over and over again. Whenever our spirit feels put down, or crushed, or insignificant, or inadequate, or insecure, we can be renewed, we can take again the gift of life and righteousness from him. So Christ Jesus is greater than Adam; for though the trespass of Adam brought death once, the sacrifice and the death of Jesus brings life a thousand times. Verse 16:

Again, the gift of God is not like the result of one man's sin. The judgment followed one sin, and brought condemnation. But the gift followed many trespasses, and brought justification. (Romans 5:16 NIV)

Adam's single trespass brought in judgment, i.e., death. Adam trespassed once and brought death to all that were in him. Christ died once and, despite thousands of trespasses, brought justification to all that are in him. That is the contrast. Adam trespassed once and brought death to all. Jesus died once and brought life -- despite thousands of trespasses.

What Paul is saying here is amplified before this in the repeated forgiveness of sin. One trespass brought death; the death of Jesus brought forgiveness for thousands of trespasses. All your life, as many times as you sin, you cannot out-sin the grace of God. No matter how many trespasses are involved in your record, there is freedom in Christ and forgiveness for all of them. Now let's look at Verse 17:

For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ? (Romans 5:17 NIV)

His argument: Adam's transgression permitted sin to reign over the whole race. This is talking about more than just the funeral at the end of your life. True, that funeral happens because of Adam's trespass, but there is more to it than that. Not only does death come to us at the end of our life because of Adam, but it reigns throughout our life because of Adam. Paul is talking about forms of death other than the mere cessation of life.

What is life? Life is love, joy, and excitement. It is vitality, enrichment, power; it is fulfillment in every direction, in every possibility of your being. That is life. Death is the absence of life. Death is emptiness, loneliness, misery, depression, boredom and restlessness. How much of your life is made up of death? A lot of it, right? Some people never seem to have anything but death in their lives. Death reigns because of Adam's transgression.

Paul is saying that Christ's death provides such abundant grace and loving acceptance, which are available again and again and again, that all who are in him can reign in life -- now. You can have life in the midst of all the pressures and circumstances and suffering and troubles. Your spirit can be alive and joyful -- experiencing fulfillment and delight. Life in the midst of death! We reign in life now. Love, joy, peace, glory, and gladness fill our hearts even in the midst of all the heartaches and pressures of life.

Paul is drawing this parallel so that we might see how much more we have in Jesus than we ever had in Adam. What we lost in Adam, we regain in Jesus, plus so much more. Just as a climber on a mountaintop can dislodge a pebble which rolls on and accumulates others until it begins to launch an avalanche that will move the whole side of a mountain, so Adam's sin in the Garden of Eden dislodged a pebble that has built into an avalanche of sin and death that has swept through our entire race. But, Paul tells us, Jesus has launched another avalanche of grace, and in him there is ample counteraction against all that Adam has brought. Verses 18 and 19 are a summary of this truth. First, Verse 18:

Consequently, just as the result of the one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. (Romans 5:18 NIV)

Paul is saying that death, i.e., judgment or condemnation, comes to us not because of our own sins, but because of Adam's. It is a gift from Adam. What a terrible gift it is, isn't it? And thus the acceptance and worth that we need to have, the love that we human beings desperately crave and must have in order to function, is also a gift, a gift from the Lord Jesus Christ. We can have all that we want, anytime we need it. Verse 19:

For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:19 NIV)

There are some people who claim that we are righteous because God declares us righteous. But here it is stated very plainly that we are made righteous in Jesus Christ. Paul is saying that since we are born in Adam, sin and guilt are not an option with us -- we have no way of choosing. We will sin because that is part of our nature. And so, when we are in Christ, having worth and love is not something that we have to choose to earn -- it is a gift from the Lord Jesus. In Verses 20-21, the apostle briefly deals with the place of the Law in this matter.

The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 5:20-21 NIV)

Someone might raise the question, "Why then did the Ten Commandments have to be given?" Paul's answer is, "The Ten Commandments never were given to make men do right." That is what we think they were given for, but they were not. They were given to show men how wrong they already are. The commandments actually were given to make men sin more, to increase the trespass. Isn't that strange?

As in the example of my grandson, the Law makes you want to do wrong even more. It increases the trespass. But a strange thing happens at that point. Paul tells us that the worse we get -- the more we fling ourselves into rebellion and sin and evil that we know to be wrong -- the closer we are to being broken, to coming to the end of ourselves and discovering how foolish and hurtful this whole thing is, and the closer we are to discovering the grace of restoration, cleansing, and forgiveness in Jesus Christ.

Last night I listened to a tape by Charles Colson, who was called 'the hatchet man of the Nixon Administration.' He was put in the federal penitentiary because of his involvement in some of the things associated with Watergate. On the tape he told of his experience in prison. In that dark and lonely place, crammed in with forty other men, he found a brother in Christ. The two of them met together and began to pray for others in that prison. They didn't know what God could do -- they almost despaired that anything could happen -- but as they began to pray, God began to work. They found that the Spirit of God swept through that prison in a remarkable way, and men were broken. Hardened, violent, brutal men, who had spent their lives in resistance to right and truth and good, and had given themselves over completely to hardness and cynicism and brutality, began to break and to find forgiveness.

Do you know that there is a spiritual awakening going on in our prisons today? I read last week that last year alone, in the Los Angeles County jails 256 prisoners received the Lord. Prisoners are open to Christ because they have allowed the law to drive them into trespass to such a degree that they are ready to hear the gospel. Sometimes this happens without outward rebellion. Sometimes we become frustrated and hard and cynical. When that happens we learn that the grace of God will abound more and more, for the increase of sin only increases the grace of our Lord Jesus.

The point of all this is that the one who breaks through is Jesus. Adam ruins us all. Only Christ can set us free. Sin and death will never loose their filthy hold on us except at the command of Jesus Christ. Therefore, the one to whom we look is the Lord Jesus, the one who broke the terrible death grip on us and set us free -- Jesus, the head of a new race, the beginning of a new humanity. Jesus is Lord. As we see him thus, we discover what the Scriptures say, that the blessed Lord, who broke through death and sin, has come to live within us, to give himself to us, and to infuse us with his strength and purity, his wisdom and power. All that he is is available to us. Thus we rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, who has made for us the reconciliation. When you understand that, you will sing, along with Christina Rossetti, these words:

None other Lamb, None other Name,
None other Hope in heaven or earth or sea,
None other Hiding Place from guilt and shame,
None beside Thee.

My faith burns low, my hope burns low;
Only my heart's desire cries out in me,
By the deep thunder of its want and woe,
Cries out to Thee.

Lord, Thou art life, though I be dead;
Love's Fire Thou art, however cold I be;
Nor heaven have I, nor place to lay my head,
Nor home, but Thee.

Prayer:
By your Spirit, Father, we rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ. We rejoice in who he is, and what he has come to do in our wretched, miserable lives. We rejoice because he has broken the shackles of evil and death and sin that held us, and he has set our spirit free and has given us the opportunity to draw from him the grace and mercy we need every day.

by **Need2Know** » Mon Jan 09, 2012 7:52 am

Rejoicing In God

In Romans 5, we have been learning that the one clear mark of a true Christian is that he always rejoices. Three times in this chapter we are given reasons for rejoicing, as believers:

First, we rejoice in our spiritual position. Having been justified by faith, "we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God," (Romans 5:1b-2 NIV). That is our spiritual position. The moment we believe in the Lord Jesus, we can rejoice in the hope of sharing the glory of God. Then we are to rejoice in our growing conformity to the character of Christ. This is produced by suffering. Suffering helps us to become like Jesus now. And as we suffer, knowing we are undergirded, protected, and covered over by the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, we learn to rejoice in our sufferings. In Verses 11-21, we learn to rejoice in our great and glorious God. Verse 11:

Not only is this so[Paul has said that twice in this chapter], but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. (Romans 5:11 NIV)

In my book Authentic Christianity,I call this "an unquenchable optimism." Christians always have grounds for rejoicing. No matter what happens, you have a ground for rejoicing. The three kinds of rejoicing described in Romans 5 represent three levels of maturity. They are not necessarily chronological levels, but they are levels of understanding truth and responding to it that reflect a continually growing and deepening maturity.

The third level is rejoicing "in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation." Notice again that Paul, as he so frequently does, reminds us that everything that comes to us comes through our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is the way to God. He himself said so: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man [-- no man --] comes to the Father but by me," (John 14:6 KJV). Therefore, when you see the greatness of Christ, you have seen the greatness of God. It is he who reveals the Father. Remember how John begins his gospel?

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. (John 1:1, 1:14 KJV)

That is the way we see God. When we see the greatness of Jesus, we see the greatness of God. When we see and know the love of Jesus, we know the heart of God. Therefore, we are to rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

How do you do that? How do you see the greatness of Christ? Paul says it is by understanding the reconciliation. If you want to know how great a person is, you look at the record of his achievements. What has he done? From Verse 12 of Romans 5 to the end of the chapter is a record of the greatness of Christ, his achievement of what Paul calls the reconciliation.

This passage, admittedly, is one of the most theologically important chapters in all of the Bible. It is a very complicated statement, in some ways, and I am going to ask you to follow it very carefully, for it is tremendously important. In this passage is the clearest statement in the Bible on what is called "original sin," that is, the blight that has been passed on to our whole race as the result of the sin of our father Adam. Also, here is the complete answer to those who doubt the historicity of Adam and Eve. There are some who claim that the first chapters of Genesis are merely legend, or myth, that Adam and Eve were not real people. But this chapter shows that that belief is false. For, all through the passage, Adam, as an individual, is contrasted and compared with the person of the Lord Jesus. This section also lays the groundwork for all that Paul is going to say in Chapters 6, 7, and 8. So it is a very, very important passage.

I have found that, if you get involved in the details of the passage, and it would be easy to do so, it would be possible to preach a month of Sundays on this one section alone. People invariably get lost in the argument and lose the main point the apostle wants to make, which is: The greatness and the glory of the Lord Jesus -- the reason why we can rejoice in God through him. So, instead of dwelling on the argument in detail, I want to summarize it for you.

There are four movements in this section: First, in Verses 12-14, Paul begins with us in Adam, where we start as a human race -- in Adam. Then, Verses 15-17 give us a great parallel of what we are brought to if we are in Christ, as contrasted with what we were in Adam. Then, Verses 18-19 give a brief summary of this truth by this master logician, the Apostle Paul. The chapter closes with a brief explanation of the relationship of the Law to all of this (Verses 20-21). Let's start with Verse 12, where we begin, in Adam:

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned -- (Romans 5:12 NIV)

My version has a dash here, which means it is an incomplete sentence. I am going to read that verse again to you, because I don't agree with this translation. Notice that Paul starts out by saying "Therefore, just as..." When you get a "just as," you grammarians know that you have got to have an "even so" a little later. Paul is making a comparison here. The Greek text actually has an "even so," but for some reason, the New International Version doesn't translate it, so we'll correct it. (This is the Stedmaniac version, with which you are all familiar.)

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, so also[or, even so] through one man death came to all men, because all sinned. (Romans 5:12 RCS Version)

This is Paul's argument. He starts with two undeniable, indisputable facts: the universality of sin and the universality of death. We can't deny these. Everywhere we look there is evidence upon evidence that what he says is true, that we are victims of the twin evils of sin and death.

There are some who may not accept the idea of sin. There are people today who do not like this word. You can call it anything you like, but the fact remains that there is clear evidence wherever you look in the human race that something has gone wrong with our humanity. You can call it karma, destiny, fate, evolutionary darkness, or whatever -- but it is clearly evident that something is wrong. G. K. Chesterton said, "Whatever else may be said of man, this one thing is clear: He is not what he is capable of being." I think any line of evidence will substantiate that. Some kind of a twist has come in, something that we cannot explain -- a taint, a moral poison that makes us act in irrational ways -- so that even when we know that something is wrong or hurtful, we want to do it.

I don't have to go any further than my own heart to find evidence of that. There are things that I know would destroy me and my family, and yet at times I catch myself wanting badly to do them. And so do you, so don't look so pious! That is what is called "original sin." And it is not only evident in adults. The striking and remarkable thing is that it is found in babies. Sin is there at the beginning of their life, they are born with it as conclusive proof of what Paul is saying here. It is something that has gripped the race.

My two-year-old grandson comes over to our house frequently and tears up the place. It takes us two days to get it back in shape after a visit from him. His mother was telling us the other day that if she says to him, "Now, eat your food," that's the one thing he doesn't want to do. So she has learned how to make him eat his food: She says, "Now, don't eat your carrots." And he gobbles them up. Anything that is prohibited, that's what he wants to do. Nobody had to teach him that. We've never sent him to school to learn how to disobey. He's only two years old, but he knows how to resist instruction and command; he wants to do what he ought not to do.

I think this universal tendency to evil has been stated most clearly by a totally secular agency. The clearest statement on original sin that I have ever read comes from the report of the Minnesota Crime Commission. In studying humanity, the commission came to this frightening and factual conclusion:

Every baby starts life as a little savage. He is completely selfish and self-centered. He wants what he wants when he wants it -- his bottle, his mother's attention, his playmate's toy, his uncle's watch. Deny him these wants, and he seethes with rage and aggressiveness, which would be murderous, were he not so helpless. He is dirty. He has no morals, no knowledge, no skills. This means that all children, not just certain children, are born delinquent. If permitted to continue in the self-centered world of his infancy, given free reign to his impulsive actions to satisfy his wants, every child would grow up a criminal, a thief, a killer, a rapist.

This is a clear statement on the universality of sin and of the fact, as Paul says here, that by one man, sin entered the world. And along with sin came death. Everyone acknowledges the universal presence of death in our society. Even babies are starting to die. We look at a newborn child and say, "Here is someone who is starting to live." But it is equally true to say of that child, "Here is someone who is starting to die," because death is at work in that child from the moment of birth. We are born to die. This is the story of our race. We don't need to argue it; it is evident on every side. Later on in this passage Paul says, "Death reigned." Still later on, he says, "Sin reigns." So in these two forces that have been introduced into humanity, we have a pair of royal tyrants who rule over men. King Sin and his evil and cruel queen, Death, who hold in their remorseless hands every human being, without exception.

How did sin and death get control of our race? The apostle answers: through one man. That is the key to this whole section. Again and again Paul rings the changes on that phrase: through one man, by one man. Paul is contrasting two men, actually, Adam and Jesus. But, in either case, what comes to us, comes from one man, either Adam or Jesus.

It was through Adam that sin and death gripped our race. We sin because we are sons and daughters of Adam, and we die because we are sons and daughters of Adam. We don't die for our own sins. Normally, we would die for our own sins, but, as Paul goes on to argue, there are even some -- babies, for instance -- who haven't sinned at all, and yet they still die. Therefore, Paul traces the reign of sin and death back to Adam. This is the argument of Verses 13-14:

For before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come. (Romans 5:13-14 NIV)

Paul's argument is simply this: Death is the punishment for breaking a command. In the Garden of Eden, God said to Adam, "Do not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of evil. In the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die," (Genesis 2:17). Adam broke that specific, clear-cut command; he ate of the fruit. That was not merely a little incident, a peccadillo, Adam actually was choosing to be an independent creature and denying his dependence upon the God who made him. It was an act of rebellion; it was an act of idolatry. He was enthroning himself as a god, in the place of God. Those were the implications of his action. Adam broke the command and, as a result, death and sin passed upon all his descendants. Paul is saying that death is the result of breaking a command -- and you need a law in order to be able to break a command.

How many of you have driven down your street for years and never had to stop at a certain intersection because there was nothing that required it. Then one day a stop sign is erected. Now the law has come in. From that time on, to fail to stop at that intersection is to break a command. If you fail to stop, you are subject to a penalty, even though you have been driving through that intersection without stopping for years without any penalty. But now the law has come in, and thus you break a command if you fail to stop.

In order to have death, Paul says, there had to be a command to break. But people were dying long before the Law was ever given. People died from the time of Adam to Moses, even people who never had a command to break. How could that be, if death is the result of breaking a command? Paul's conclusion is: The whole race actually sinned when Adam sinned. We broke the command in Adam.

At this point, many people say, "Well, that isn't fair! God is punishing us for Adam's sin, and that's not fair!" People who argue that way simply are revealing how little they understand the facts about the nature of our humanity. People who talk that way think of themselves as individuals quite separate from other people when, as a matter of fact, we are tied in together, all a part of one great bundle of life. We share life together. We recognize this fact when we speak of the brotherhood of man, and when we say, "No man is an island." But, at other times, we choose to think that we have a right to stand alone, as though no one else exists. Whether you understand it or not, this passage reveals the fact that when Adam sinned, he plunged the whole race into disaster. We are all born with sin at work in us and, as a result, death is taking its toll. So we sinned in Adam.

The most important phrase in this paragraph is the last one: Adam "was a pattern of the one to come." Through the rest of this passage, the apostle is going to show us how Adam is a kind of picture of Christ; and yet there is a great contrast between the two, as well. So the verses that follow draw both a comparison and a contrast between Adam and Jesus. Let's take these verses one at a time and restate the argument so that we don't get lost in this passage, then we'll move on to the conclusion that the apostle makes. First, Verse 15:

But the gift is not like the trespass. (Romans 5:15a NIV)

The gift, what every human being is always looking for, is the gift of righteousness, a sense of worth, a sense of significance to life. That is what righteousness means. And it comes as a gift from the Lord Jesus. The trespass is Adam's disobedient act in the Garden of Eden. The gift, Paul says, is not like the trespass.

For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, Adam, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! (Romans 5:15b NIV)

Paul is saying this: Adam brought a single experience of death to all people. We only die once, don't we? Adam brought that death to us. But Christ brought a repeated and ever-growing experience of life to all that are in him. That is the contrast. We can take life from Jesus a thousand times a day. We can take the gift of worth over and over again. Whenever our spirit feels put down, or crushed, or insignificant, or inadequate, or insecure, we can be renewed, we can take again the gift of life and righteousness from him. So Christ Jesus is greater than Adam; for though the trespass of Adam brought death once, the sacrifice and the death of Jesus brings life a thousand times. Verse 16:

Again, the gift of God is not like the result of one man's sin. The judgment followed one sin, and brought condemnation. But the gift followed many trespasses, and brought justification. (Romans 5:16 NIV)

Adam's single trespass brought in judgment, i.e., death. Adam trespassed once and brought death to all that were in him. Christ died once and, despite thousands of trespasses, brought justification to all that are in him. That is the contrast. Adam trespassed once and brought death to all. Jesus died once and brought life -- despite thousands of trespasses.

What Paul is saying here is amplified before this in the repeated forgiveness of sin. One trespass brought death; the death of Jesus brought forgiveness for thousands of trespasses. All your life, as many times as you sin, you cannot out-sin the grace of God. No matter how many trespasses are involved in your record, there is freedom in Christ and forgiveness for all of them. Now let's look at Verse 17:

For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ? (Romans 5:17 NIV)

His argument: Adam's transgression permitted sin to reign over the whole race. This is talking about more than just the funeral at the end of your life. True, that funeral happens because of Adam's trespass, but there is more to it than that. Not only does death come to us at the end of our life because of Adam, but it reigns throughout our life because of Adam. Paul is talking about forms of death other than the mere cessation of life.

What is life? Life is love, joy, and excitement. It is vitality, enrichment, power; it is fulfillment in every direction, in every possibility of your being. That is life. Death is the absence of life. Death is emptiness, loneliness, misery, depression, boredom and restlessness. How much of your life is made up of death? A lot of it, right? Some people never seem to have anything but death in their lives. Death reigns because of Adam's transgression.

Paul is saying that Christ's death provides such abundant grace and loving acceptance, which are available again and again and again, that all who are in him can reign in life -- now. You can have life in the midst of all the pressures and circumstances and suffering and troubles. Your spirit can be alive and joyful -- experiencing fulfillment and delight. Life in the midst of death! We reign in life now. Love, joy, peace, glory, and gladness fill our hearts even in the midst of all the heartaches and pressures of life.

Paul is drawing this parallel so that we might see how much more we have in Jesus than we ever had in Adam. What we lost in Adam, we regain in Jesus, plus so much more. Just as a climber on a mountaintop can dislodge a pebble which rolls on and accumulates others until it begins to launch an avalanche that will move the whole side of a mountain, so Adam's sin in the Garden of Eden dislodged a pebble that has built into an avalanche of sin and death that has swept through our entire race. But, Paul tells us, Jesus has launched another avalanche of grace, and in him there is ample counteraction against all that Adam has brought. Verses 18 and 19 are a summary of this truth. First, Verse 18:

Consequently, just as the result of the one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. (Romans 5:18 NIV)

Paul is saying that death, i.e., judgment or condemnation, comes to us not because of our own sins, but because of Adam's. It is a gift from Adam. What a terrible gift it is, isn't it? And thus the acceptance and worth that we need to have, the love that we human beings desperately crave and must have in order to function, is also a gift, a gift from the Lord Jesus Christ. We can have all that we want, anytime we need it. Verse 19:

For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:19 NIV)

There are some people who claim that we are righteous because God declares us righteous. But here it is stated very plainly that we are made righteous in Jesus Christ. Paul is saying that since we are born in Adam, sin and guilt are not an option with us -- we have no way of choosing. We will sin because that is part of our nature. And so, when we are in Christ, having worth and love is not something that we have to choose to earn -- it is a gift from the Lord Jesus. In Verses 20-21, the apostle briefly deals with the place of the Law in this matter.

The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 5:20-21 NIV)

Someone might raise the question, "Why then did the Ten Commandments have to be given?" Paul's answer is, "The Ten Commandments never were given to make men do right." That is what we think they were given for, but they were not. They were given to show men how wrong they already are. The commandments actually were given to make men sin more, to increase the trespass. Isn't that strange?

As in the example of my grandson, the Law makes you want to do wrong even more. It increases the trespass. But a strange thing happens at that point. Paul tells us that the worse we get -- the more we fling ourselves into rebellion and sin and evil that we know to be wrong -- the closer we are to being broken, to coming to the end of ourselves and discovering how foolish and hurtful this whole thing is, and the closer we are to discovering the grace of restoration, cleansing, and forgiveness in Jesus Christ.

Last night I listened to a tape by Charles Colson, who was called 'the hatchet man of the Nixon Administration.' He was put in the federal penitentiary because of his involvement in some of the things associated with Watergate. On the tape he told of his experience in prison. In that dark and lonely place, crammed in with forty other men, he found a brother in Christ. The two of them met together and began to pray for others in that prison. They didn't know what God could do -- they almost despaired that anything could happen -- but as they began to pray, God began to work. They found that the Spirit of God swept through that prison in a remarkable way, and men were broken. Hardened, violent, brutal men, who had spent their lives in resistance to right and truth and good, and had given themselves over completely to hardness and cynicism and brutality, began to break and to find forgiveness.

Do you know that there is a spiritual awakening going on in our prisons today? I read last week that last year alone, in the Los Angeles County jails 256 prisoners received the Lord. Prisoners are open to Christ because they have allowed the law to drive them into trespass to such a degree that they are ready to hear the gospel. Sometimes this happens without outward rebellion. Sometimes we become frustrated and hard and cynical. When that happens we learn that the grace of God will abound more and more, for the increase of sin only increases the grace of our Lord Jesus.

The point of all this is that the one who breaks through is Jesus. Adam ruins us all. Only Christ can set us free. Sin and death will never loose their filthy hold on us except at the command of Jesus Christ. Therefore, the one to whom we look is the Lord Jesus, the one who broke the terrible death grip on us and set us free -- Jesus, the head of a new race, the beginning of a new humanity. Jesus is Lord. As we see him thus, we discover what the Scriptures say, that the blessed Lord, who broke through death and sin, has come to live within us, to give himself to us, and to infuse us with his strength and purity, his wisdom and power. All that he is is available to us. Thus we rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, who has made for us the reconciliation. When you understand that, you will sing, along with Christina Rossetti, these words:

None other Lamb, None other Name,
None other Hope in heaven or earth or sea,
None other Hiding Place from guilt and shame,
None beside Thee.

My faith burns low, my hope burns low;
Only my heart's desire cries out in me,
By the deep thunder of its want and woe,
Cries out to Thee.

Lord, Thou art life, though I be dead;
Love's Fire Thou art, however cold I be;
Nor heaven have I, nor place to lay my head,
Nor home, but Thee.

Prayer:
By your Spirit, Father, we rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ. We rejoice in who he is, and what he has come to do in our wretched, miserable lives. We rejoice because he has broken the shackles of evil and death and sin that held us, and he has set our spirit free and has given us the opportunity to draw from him the grace and mercy we need every day.

by **Need2Know** » Tue Jan 10, 2012 8:02 am

Can we Go on Sinning?

Let me ask you a question: Now that you are a Christian -- now that you understand that the grace of God forgives your sins, past, present, and future, that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on your behalf settles the debt for sin, no matter when sins occur -- do you then have the privilege to go on sinning, living as you were, knowing that the grace of God will cover those sins? That is a very relevant question, because a lot of people today are asking it, and a lot of people are saying that we can go on sinning:

Last week, after we studied Romans 5, I was told of an individual who claims that he has the right to go on living in a blatantly sinful way because, he says, his sins are forgiven. Last week I heard of a man in this congregation who admitted that he was a homosexual and was living as one. He claimed that he did not need to make any change in his life because, as a Christian, his sins are forgiven. I just quote these to show you that this is not an out-of-date question, but one we all wrestle with and one that we must confront. The Apostle Paul faces this question in the sixth chapter of Romans.

In the closing part of Chapter 5, the apostle began to describe to us the tremendous change that was introduced by Jesus Christ when he died on the cross and rose again from the dead -- the breakthrough in history that came when the second Adam came in to undo, by means of his death and resurrection, what the first Adam did to us the Garden of Eden. That great contrast runs all through the second part of Chapter 5. In Chapters 6 and 7 he interrupts his argument temporarily to deal with two very practical questions: In Chapter 6, Paul is dealing with the question, "What about the sins of believers?" This whole chapter is devoted to answering that question. In Chapter 7, he takes up the very practical question, "What about the Ten Commandments and their demands upon us?" Then, in Chapter 8, Paul picks up his argument again and begins to carry on with the description of the tremendous results that came in Jesus Christ, as opposed to Adam. Perhaps this outline will help us a bit as we deal with these passages.

We will study only two verses of Chapter 6 this morning. As we have seen, the Apostle Paul always states the truth first, in a kind of nutshell summary, a very pithy statement of what he wants to say -- then he logically takes his argument step by step and explains and expounds it until it is perfectly clear. That is what he does here. The whole truth that answers the question, "Can we go on sinning?" is dealt with in just the first two verses of Chapter 6. Paul says,

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? (Romans 6:1-2 NIV)

That is the whole argument, right there. Paul is dealing with the answer to that question, and he will deal with it very logically in the steps that follow. But for now he puts it in this one brief statement: "We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?"

I want you to notice three things about this brief statement: First, notice that the question is logical. "Shall we go on sinning in order that grace may increase?" That is a very good question to ask. If your teaching or preaching of the gospel does not arouse this question in somebody's mind, there is likely something wrong with your teaching, for it is the kind of question that ought to be asked at this point. There is something about the grace of God and the glory of the good news that immediately raises this issue. If sin is so completely taken care of by the forgiveness of Christ, then we don't really need to worry about sins, do we? They are not going to separate us from Christ, so why not keep on doing them? It is a perfectly logical question. It was raised everywhere Paul went, and it is a question that ought to be faced.

But, second, notice that even our very nature would have us raise this question. It is not only logical, but it is also natural. That is because sin, basically, is fun, isn't it? Oh, come on -- you can admit it! Sin is fun. We like to do it. Otherwise we wouldn't keep on doing it, we would not get involved in it. We know sins are bad for us. Our mind tells us, our logic tells us, our experience tells us they are bad for us. But, nevertheless, we like to do them. Otherwise we would not. Therefore, any kind of a suggestion that tells us we can escape the penalty for our sin and still enjoy the action arouses a considerable degree of interest in us. It does in me, anyway. So it is quite natural that this question would come up.

We must clearly understand that the Apostle Paul is talking about a lifestyle of sin, not just a single act or two of failure. He is talking about Christians who go on absolutely unchanged in their lifestyle from what they were before they were Christians. The word for "go on sinning" is in the present continuous tense. It means the action keeps on happening. The question is, "Can we go on sinning?" Verse 15 of this chapter deals with the effects of a single act of sin in a believer's life and what happens when we fail even once. We will come to that in due course. But here Paul is talking about a habitual practice, or something that frequently occurs in a believer's experience, something that was there before he became a Christian. Can we go on living this way?

Finally, notice that this question is put in such a way as to sound rightly motivated and even pious. "Shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase?" This suggests that our motivation for sinning is not just our own satisfaction -- we are doing it for the glory of God, so that grace may increase. God loves to show his grace. Therefore, if we go on sinning, he will have all the more opportunity. What a chance for God to show his grace! It is clear that this question is not asked by a complete pagan or by a worldling, but by someone who seems intent on the glory of God. Having said that, we come now to the answer, the positive answer of Paul.

What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! (Romans 6:1-2a NIV)

Paul immediately reacts with a very positive statement, bluntly put: "By no means!" Or, as it is literally in the Greek, "May it never be!" Absolutely not! It is interesting to me to see how the other versions translate this phrase. The King James Version sounds horrified: "God forbid!" Phillips seems to catch this same note of horror: "What a ghastly thought!" The New English Bible puts it very simply, "No, no." So here is a 'no-no' in the Christian experience. Can we sin? No-no. I gather from all this that the Apostle Paul simply does not agree with this philosophy that you can go on sinning and be forgiven. Why? In his inescapable logic, Paul answers in just four little words: "We died to sin".

We died to sin. How can we live in it any longer? (Romans 6:2b NIV)

Here is the whole truth that Paul wants to confront us with in answer to this question. The rest of the chapter is but an exposition of what he means by that. We are going to take that exposition step by step because there is tremendous understanding involved in it. But Paul is not going to make any advance on his original statement. When we get to the end of the chapter, he has simply made clear what he means by "We died to sin." There is the whole argument, and if we understand what he means, we will see why he asks this question, "How can we go on living in it any longer?" Now let's look at this phrase.

First, it does not mean that sin is dead in me. It doesn't mean that, as a Christian, I have reached the place where I cannot sin, although many people take it to mean that.

Some years ago I was working in the city of Pasadena and I went to get a haircut. I soon found that the barber was a Christian. As we began to discuss some things, he started to tell me about his Christianity. He told me that seventeen years before, he had been 'sanctified,' as he put it, and he was no longer able to sin. For seventeen years he had lived without sin. He made it very clear that he had no sin at all. So I began to discuss this with him, and I brought in certain other passages, and we got into kind of an argument. The longer we went, the hotter he got -- all the while he was cutting my hair. He worked himself up into a lather, just as angry as he could be. I finally said to him, "Look, if you can get so upset, so angry, when you have no sin in you, what would you be like if you were a sinner like the rest of us?" It was two weeks before I dared to appear in public after that haircut! This passage doesn't mean that sin is dead in us; nor does it mean, as some have taken it, that we should die to sin. There are movements and churches based upon this idea. They say that Paul is teaching us that we ought to die to sin. You can attend meetings, conferences, and camp meetings where you will be exhorted to die to sin. We are told that this is the way by which we come to a victorious life. We are told we ought to begin to crucify ourselves, and die to sin. Now I submit to you that Paul is not saying that we ought to do this; he is telling us it has been done: We died to sin.

Third, neither does Paul mean by this that we are dying to sin. There are some people who take it that way. They say this means that the Christian is gradually changing and growing, and the more he does so, the more he is dying to sin, and there will come a time when he will sort of outgrow all his evil. It doesn't mean that at all. Once again, we must face clearly the flat statement the apostle makes. He puts it in the Greek aorist tense, which means this is once for all: We died to sin. That takes us back into Chapter 5, where we have that great contrast with what we were in Adam, and what we are now, as Christians, in Christ. "If in Adam," he says, "we will sin." There is no way we can escape it because Adam has passed on the taint of sin and death as his heritage. And therefore, in Adam we will sin. We all do. But then he says, "If we are in Christ (and the implication is clear that we are), we will not go on sinning." Look at Verse 21 of Chapter 5:

...so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 5:21 NIV)

Now whatever else those words mean, it is clear that what happens in Christ is canceling out what happened in Adam. If death and sin come to us from Adam, then life and deliverance come from Christ. You can see already one reason why the apostle would add, "If this is true, how can we go on sinning?" We need to clearly understand his line of argument in Chapter 5: When you become a Christian, if you have by grace received the gift of God -- which is Jesus himself -- and the gift of righteousness which he brings, then you are no longer in Adam but in Christ.

I have to admit that I quarrel with a very commonly taught doctrine among evangelicals that there are two natures in the believer. I don't believe that. There are two natures, but only one of them is yours! There are two forces at work within us, and we feel the conflict that they arouse -- but only one of them belongs to us. We once were in Adam, but now we are no longer in Adam but are in Christ.

And yet, having said that, we have to face the fact that Christians, who are no longer in Adam but are now in Christ, do sin, and they do die. Chapter 5 told us that sin and death are the results of Adam's transgression. How can we be free from Adam and still suffer the results of Adam's transgression? That, I think, brings us to what we clearly need to understand -- the nature of our humanity. More than anything else that I have found in Scripture, I have been helped by what Scripture reveals about who we are as human beings. When we see that, I think we'll understand what Paul is saying.

The first thing the Scriptures tell us about ourselves is that the most important part of us is our spirit. We are spirit; we have bodies and souls, but we are spirit. That may sound a bit spooky to you. The reason we struggle with this is because we can see our bodies, and feel our souls. We have been brainwashed by the world, which says only those things that can be seen and felt are real -- and who can see or feel a spirit? So we have a struggle at this point. But the Scriptures clearly tell us that basically, down deep, the very nature of our being is spirit, and God is Spirit. You can't see it, nor can you feel it, but that is who you are.

The Scriptures explain and help us to understand the nature of that spirit by a beautiful little symbol. Since we can't see our spirit, we have to view it through a symbol, a visual aid. The most common visual aid in Scripture to describe our human spirit is to call it a vessel. You can think of your spirit as a little cup inside of you, made to hold something. The Scriptures tell us that, in the beginning, this cup was made to hold none other than God himself. All the greatness and glory of God could be poured into that tiny human cup. That is what Adam was, as he came fresh from the hand of God. But in the fall, that cup was emptied, and filled again with a kind of poison. This satanic twist began to poison all our humanity.

I realize I'm speaking in symbols, but this is what we must do in order to understand the nature of spirit. We find in our experience that when the poison that Adam brought in fills our spirit, it spreads into the soul. Now the soul is the realm of soul experience: It is the functioning of the mind (the reason), the will (the power to choose), and emotion (the power to feel). Scripture tells us that this poison has touched us in all those areas, so that we don't think rightly, we don't feel rightly, we don't choose rightly. That is why things go wrong wherever human beings are involved.

You can see this even in a little tiny baby. A baby grows and begins to develop, and sin shows up in his reactions, in his attitudes, in his feelings. Chapter 5 told us about that. What the spirit and the soul feel will be expressed finally in the body's action. That is the way we are made. What the body does is always the reflection of what the spirit and soul are doing. That is, if we have fear (one of the forms of evil and death within us) it will express itself in several ways. Shyness or timidity may be one way; anxiety and worry, another; bluster and boasting, still another way. All these reflect the fear inside.

If we feel angry and hostile, it comes out in sharp words, or even violent actions. We poke someone in the jaw, or we yell at the top of our voice, or storm out of the house and slam a door. All this is revealing what is inside, what is filling the cup of the spirit. If it is self-love that is there, as it certainly is, it comes out in terms of greed and possessiveness and selfishness, or in terms of sexual promiscuity, satisfying self despite the exploitation of another person. Or it may be ambition, power -- hunger, whatever. All of this comes out from within. Remember, this is saying nothing more than what Jesus himself told us in Mark 7,

"What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.' For from within, out of men's hearts [that is the word for spirit], come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,[Ho, you say, you haven't got me yet! Well, hang on!] greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.'" (Mark 7:21-23 NIV)

Paul is saying the same thing that Jesus said. It all depends, you see, on what is filling the cup of the spirit. If it is Adam's life, then that is what is going to come out. There is nothing we can do to stop it. All we can do is to try to pretend that it is something else. We are all adept at giving the things we do different names than we do when we see others doing the same things.

But what happens when that spirit fully and truly turns to Christ, when it receives the gift of God's grace, the gift of worth? Then, according to this argument in Romans 5, the tie with Adam is broken. The spirit is emptied of its satanic content -- sin -- and it is filled again with the Holy Spirit, who releases to it the life of Jesus. That is what the Holy Spirit has come to do. Our human spirit, our essential nature, is no longer in Adam, in any sense at all. It is now in Christ. We are tied to Christ. Now, that is the teaching of Scripture from beginning to end, from Genesis to Revelation.

But, you see, the problem comes by the fact that our souls and bodies, which have been functioning for years under the control of sin in the cup of our spirit, are still going on in the same old way, functioning according to those patterns built up under the control of sin. Our habits, thoughts, and actions, already are established along wrong lines. That is where the evil and sin in a believer's life is coming from.

It is a struggle to re-educate the soul and the body, and we experience many failures until we allow the Holy Spirit to bring it under the control of the new life in Jesus Christ in the cup of our spirit. But it will happen, and it must happen, Paul argues. If Christ is in the cup of the spirit, then just as we could not evade sin because we were in Adam, so in Christ we cannot evade righteousness. Isn't that clear?

The life of Jesus is more powerful, more persistent, more insistent than the life of Adam ever was. That is the meaning of all the "much mores" in this section (i.e., in Romans 5:9-10, 5:15, 5:17). If we had to sin in Adam, then for the very same reason, we have to begin to practice righteousness in Christ. It is not something we can help; it just will happen. That is why Paul asked the question, "Having died to sin, how can we live any longer in it? Why, it's impossible. It's not a question of should we; it's a question of can we?" His answer is, "No, it can never be."

In our neighborhood, right next door to us, is a home that was built a number of years ago and has been inhabited now by several different families. The first was a rather difficult family, the kind of people who would never keep a yard or house in order. Soon after they moved in, the brand new home began to show the effects of their style of life. The yard was littered with trash and garbage, the lawn was dead for lack of care. When it was replanted, it died out again. To enter their house was to enter a shambles. It never was clean or in order, never. These neighbors moved out, and new neighbors moved in. It wasn't very long until it became evident that a different kind of people lived there. They cleaned up the house and painted it. The yard was cleaned up, the lawn was dug up and replanted, and it has been cared for adequately ever since. Things are completely different -- what happened? It is impossible that there would not be a change, because there was a change in those who dwelt therein. This is what Paul is telling us here. There has to be a change!

Now someone asks, "What if a Christian does go on sinning, living in sin, claiming forgiveness, but goes on without any change in his life whatever?" What about that? There are people who are doing that. The answer, in light of this Scripture is very simple: These people simply are revealing that they never truly have been justified by faith; they are not Christians. Let's put it as bluntly as the apostle himself put it. They are deceiving themselves and deceiving others. Though they may do so with good intent, and with utter sincerity as far as they know -- nevertheless the case is clear.

It is impossible for your lifestyle to continue unchanged when you become a Christian. It is simply impossible, because a change has occurred deep in the human spirit. And those who protest, and say they can go on living this way, are simply revealing that there has been no change in their spirit, there has been no break with Adam. They are still in the same condition. The Apostle Paul makes that very plain in a couple of places, and I want to share them with you so that we may clearly understand what he is saying: The first is in Ephesians 5:5:

For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person -- such a man is an idolator -- has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.[He is not a Christian yet. He is claiming to be, but he is not. And lest we be fooled by his claims, the apostle goes on to say,] Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient. (Ephesians 5:5 NIV)

In very much the same terms, Paul puts it again in First Corinthians 6:9:

Don't you know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived[there it is again]: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolators nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were.[They were; they are no longer. Some of them are still struggling, and some of them do occasionally fail and go back to some of these things. But there's a vast difference. They no longer are that way -- there has been a break, a change in their lifestyle.] But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God[and therefore there cannot be the same style of life]. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11 NIV)

I think that is clear and fully answers the question, doesn't it? Paul is saying that there is great hope for those who are caught up in any of these things. There is a way of deliverance. It is not a way that involves going on with the same style of life. Jesus Christ came to free us from sin, and not to allow us to continue in it.

The question we must face about ourselves is, "Have you really begun to hate sin deep inside of you -- your own sin, the things you do wrong and, for the moment, choose to do? Have you begun to hate it? Do you want to be free from it, want to be delivered, want the power of it broken in your life?" You can only want that because there has come into your heart a new Spirit, there has come into the cup of your spirit the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And from that vantage point, he is beginning to assert the control of his purity throughout your whole life. You can't settle for sin any longer. In Chapter 6 Paul helps us to understand more about how this works, but here he makes it unquestionably clear. Can we go on sinning? May it never be!

Prayer:
We thank you, Father, for the honesty of your Word. How clearly it deals with us, always tenderly, always in love, but very plainly, never deceiving us or handing us a line, softening things that we need to face, but truly telling us where we are. We thank you for the grace of our Lord Jesus, who has the power to break the grip of death upon our lives. Thank you that it begins in our spirit, and grows to control our souls, and ultimately will redeem our bodies in resurrection. For this we give grateful thanks, in Jesus our Lord, Amen.

by **Need2Know** » Tue Jan 10, 2012 8:05 am

Can we Go on Sinning?

Let me ask you a question: Now that you are a Christian -- now that you understand that the grace of God forgives your sins, past, present, and future, that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on your behalf settles the debt for sin, no matter when sins occur -- do you then have the privilege to go on sinning, living as you were, knowing that the grace of God will cover those sins? That is a very relevant question, because a lot of people today are asking it, and a lot of people are saying that we can go on sinning:

Last week, after we studied Romans 5, I was told of an individual who claims that he has the right to go on living in a blatantly sinful way because, he says, his sins are forgiven. Last week I heard of a man in this congregation who admitted that he was a homosexual and was living as one. He claimed that he did not need to make any change in his life because, as a Christian, his sins are forgiven. I just quote these to show you that this is not an out-of-date question, but one we all wrestle with and one that we must confront. The Apostle Paul faces this question in the sixth chapter of Romans.

In the closing part of Chapter 5, the apostle began to describe to us the tremendous change that was introduced by Jesus Christ when he died on the cross and rose again from the dead -- the breakthrough in history that came when the second Adam came in to undo, by means of his death and resurrection, what the first Adam did to us the Garden of Eden. That great contrast runs all through the second part of Chapter 5. In Chapters 6 and 7 he interrupts his argument temporarily to deal with two very practical questions: In Chapter 6, Paul is dealing with the question, "What about the sins of believers?" This whole chapter is devoted to answering that question. In Chapter 7, he takes up the very practical question, "What about the Ten Commandments and their demands upon us?" Then, in Chapter 8, Paul picks up his argument again and begins to carry on with the description of the tremendous results that came in Jesus Christ, as opposed to Adam. Perhaps this outline will help us a bit as we deal with these passages.

We will study only two verses of Chapter 6 this morning. As we have seen, the Apostle Paul always states the truth first, in a kind of nutshell summary, a very pithy statement of what he wants to say -- then he logically takes his argument step by step and explains and expounds it until it is perfectly clear. That is what he does here. The whole truth that answers the question, "Can we go on sinning?" is dealt with in just the first two verses of Chapter 6. Paul says,

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? (Romans 6:1-2 NIV)

That is the whole argument, right there. Paul is dealing with the answer to that question, and he will deal with it very logically in the steps that follow. But for now he puts it in this one brief statement: "We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?"

I want you to notice three things about this brief statement: First, notice that the question is logical. "Shall we go on sinning in order that grace may increase?" That is a very good question to ask. If your teaching or preaching of the gospel does not arouse this question in somebody's mind, there is likely something wrong with your teaching, for it is the kind of question that ought to be asked at this point. There is something about the grace of God and the glory of the good news that immediately raises this issue. If sin is so completely taken care of by the forgiveness of Christ, then we don't really need to worry about sins, do we? They are not going to separate us from Christ, so why not keep on doing them? It is a perfectly logical question. It was raised everywhere Paul went, and it is a question that ought to be faced.

But, second, notice that even our very nature would have us raise this question. It is not only logical, but it is also natural. That is because sin, basically, is fun, isn't it? Oh, come on -- you can admit it! Sin is fun. We like to do it. Otherwise we wouldn't keep on doing it, we would not get involved in it. We know sins are bad for us. Our mind tells us, our logic tells us, our experience tells us they are bad for us. But, nevertheless, we like to do them. Otherwise we would not. Therefore, any kind of a suggestion that tells us we can escape the penalty for our sin and still enjoy the action arouses a considerable degree of interest in us. It does in me, anyway. So it is quite natural that this question would come up.

We must clearly understand that the Apostle Paul is talking about a lifestyle of sin, not just a single act or two of failure. He is talking about Christians who go on absolutely unchanged in their lifestyle from what they were before they were Christians. The word for "go on sinning" is in the present continuous tense. It means the action keeps on happening. The question is, "Can we go on sinning?" Verse 15 of this chapter deals with the effects of a single act of sin in a believer's life and what happens when we fail even once. We will come to that in due course. But here Paul is talking about a habitual practice, or something that frequently occurs in a believer's experience, something that was there before he became a Christian. Can we go on living this way?

Finally, notice that this question is put in such a way as to sound rightly motivated and even pious. "Shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase?" This suggests that our motivation for sinning is not just our own satisfaction -- we are doing it for the glory of God, so that grace may increase. God loves to show his grace. Therefore, if we go on sinning, he will have all the more opportunity. What a chance for God to show his grace! It is clear that this question is not asked by a complete pagan or by a worldling, but by someone who seems intent on the glory of God. Having said that, we come now to the answer, the positive answer of Paul.

What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! (Romans 6:1-2a NIV)

Paul immediately reacts with a very positive statement, bluntly put: "By no means!" Or, as it is literally in the Greek, "May it never be!" Absolutely not! It is interesting to me to see how the other versions translate this phrase. The King James Version sounds horrified: "God forbid!" Phillips seems to catch this same note of horror: "What a ghastly thought!" The New English Bible puts it very simply, "No, no." So here is a 'no-no' in the Christian experience. Can we sin? No-no. I gather from all this that the Apostle Paul simply does not agree with this philosophy that you can go on sinning and be forgiven. Why? In his inescapable logic, Paul answers in just four little words: "We died to sin".

We died to sin. How can we live in it any longer? (Romans 6:2b NIV)

Here is the whole truth that Paul wants to confront us with in answer to this question. The rest of the chapter is but an exposition of what he means by that. We are going to take that exposition step by step because there is tremendous understanding involved in it. But Paul is not going to make any advance on his original statement. When we get to the end of the chapter, he has simply made clear what he means by "We died to sin." There is the whole argument, and if we understand what he means, we will see why he asks this question, "How can we go on living in it any longer?" Now let's look at this phrase.

First, it does not mean that sin is dead in me. It doesn't mean that, as a Christian, I have reached the place where I cannot sin, although many people take it to mean that.

Some years ago I was working in the city of Pasadena and I went to get a haircut. I soon found that the barber was a Christian. As we began to discuss some things, he started to tell me about his Christianity. He told me that seventeen years before, he had been 'sanctified,' as he put it, and he was no longer able to sin. For seventeen years he had lived without sin. He made it very clear that he had no sin at all. So I began to discuss this with him, and I brought in certain other passages, and we got into kind of an argument. The longer we went, the hotter he got -- all the while he was cutting my hair. He worked himself up into a lather, just as angry as he could be. I finally said to him, "Look, if you can get so upset, so angry, when you have no sin in you, what would you be like if you were a sinner like the rest of us?" It was two weeks before I dared to appear in public after that haircut! This passage doesn't mean that sin is dead in us; nor does it mean, as some have taken it, that we should die to sin. There are movements and churches based upon this idea. They say that Paul is teaching us that we ought to die to sin. You can attend meetings, conferences, and camp meetings where you will be exhorted to die to sin. We are told that this is the way by which we come to a victorious life. We are told we ought to begin to crucify ourselves, and die to sin. Now I submit to you that Paul is not saying that we ought to do this; he is telling us it has been done: We died to sin.

Third, neither does Paul mean by this that we are dying to sin. There are some people who take it that way. They say this means that the Christian is gradually changing and growing, and the more he does so, the more he is dying to sin, and there will come a time when he will sort of outgrow all his evil. It doesn't mean that at all. Once again, we must face clearly the flat statement the apostle makes. He puts it in the Greek aorist tense, which means this is once for all: We died to sin. That takes us back into Chapter 5, where we have that great contrast with what we were in Adam, and what we are now, as Christians, in Christ. "If in Adam," he says, "we will sin." There is no way we can escape it because Adam has passed on the taint of sin and death as his heritage. And therefore, in Adam we will sin. We all do. But then he says, "If we are in Christ (and the implication is clear that we are), we will not go on sinning." Look at Verse 21 of Chapter 5:

...so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 5:21 NIV)

Now whatever else those words mean, it is clear that what happens in Christ is canceling out what happened in Adam. If death and sin come to us from Adam, then life and deliverance come from Christ. You can see already one reason why the apostle would add, "If this is true, how can we go on sinning?" We need to clearly understand his line of argument in Chapter 5: When you become a Christian, if you have by grace received the gift of God -- which is Jesus himself -- and the gift of righteousness which he brings, then you are no longer in Adam but in Christ.

I have to admit that I quarrel with a very commonly taught doctrine among evangelicals that there are two natures in the believer. I don't believe that. There are two natures, but only one of them is yours! There are two forces at work within us, and we feel the conflict that they arouse -- but only one of them belongs to us. We once were in Adam, but now we are no longer in Adam but are in Christ.

And yet, having said that, we have to face the fact that Christians, who are no longer in Adam but are now in Christ, do sin, and they do die. Chapter 5 told us that sin and death are the results of Adam's transgression. How can we be free from Adam and still suffer the results of Adam's transgression? That, I think, brings us to what we clearly need to understand -- the nature of our humanity. More than anything else that I have found in Scripture, I have been helped by what Scripture reveals about who we are as human beings. When we see that, I think we'll understand what Paul is saying.

The first thing the Scriptures tell us about ourselves is that the most important part of us is our spirit. We are spirit; we have bodies and souls, but we are spirit. That may sound a bit spooky to you. The reason we struggle with this is because we can see our bodies, and feel our souls. We have been brainwashed by the world, which says only those things that can be seen and felt are real -- and who can see or feel a spirit? So we have a struggle at this point. But the Scriptures clearly tell us that basically, down deep, the very nature of our being is spirit, and God is Spirit. You can't see it, nor can you feel it, but that is who you are.

The Scriptures explain and help us to understand the nature of that spirit by a beautiful little symbol. Since we can't see our spirit, we have to view it through a symbol, a visual aid. The most common visual aid in Scripture to describe our human spirit is to call it a vessel. You can think of your spirit as a little cup inside of you, made to hold something. The Scriptures tell us that, in the beginning, this cup was made to hold none other than God himself. All the greatness and glory of God could be poured into that tiny human cup. That is what Adam was, as he came fresh from the hand of God. But in the fall, that cup was emptied, and filled again with a kind of poison. This satanic twist began to poison all our humanity.

I realize I'm speaking in symbols, but this is what we must do in order to understand the nature of spirit. We find in our experience that when the poison that Adam brought in fills our spirit, it spreads into the soul. Now the soul is the realm of soul experience: It is the functioning of the mind (the reason), the will (the power to choose), and emotion (the power to feel). Scripture tells us that this poison has touched us in all those areas, so that we don't think rightly, we don't feel rightly, we don't choose rightly. That is why things go wrong wherever human beings are involved.

You can see this even in a little tiny baby. A baby grows and begins to develop, and sin shows up in his reactions, in his attitudes, in his feelings. Chapter 5 told us about that. What the spirit and the soul feel will be expressed finally in the body's action. That is the way we are made. What the body does is always the reflection of what the spirit and soul are doing. That is, if we have fear (one of the forms of evil and death within us) it will express itself in several ways. Shyness or timidity may be one way; anxiety and worry, another; bluster and boasting, still another way. All these reflect the fear inside.

If we feel angry and hostile, it comes out in sharp words, or even violent actions. We poke someone in the jaw, or we yell at the top of our voice, or storm out of the house and slam a door. All this is revealing what is inside, what is filling the cup of the spirit. If it is self-love that is there, as it certainly is, it comes out in terms of greed and possessiveness and selfishness, or in terms of sexual promiscuity, satisfying self despite the exploitation of another person. Or it may be ambition, power -- hunger, whatever. All of this comes out from within. Remember, this is saying nothing more than what Jesus himself told us in Mark 7,

"What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.' For from within, out of men's hearts [that is the word for spirit], come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,[Ho, you say, you haven't got me yet! Well, hang on!] greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.'" (Mark 7:21-23 NIV)

Paul is saying the same thing that Jesus said. It all depends, you see, on what is filling the cup of the spirit. If it is Adam's life, then that is what is going to come out. There is nothing we can do to stop it. All we can do is to try to pretend that it is something else. We are all adept at giving the things we do different names than we do when we see others doing the same things.

But what happens when that spirit fully and truly turns to Christ, when it receives the gift of God's grace, the gift of worth? Then, according to this argument in Romans 5, the tie with Adam is broken. The spirit is emptied of its satanic content -- sin -- and it is filled again with the Holy Spirit, who releases to it the life of Jesus. That is what the Holy Spirit has come to do. Our human spirit, our essential nature, is no longer in Adam, in any sense at all. It is now in Christ. We are tied to Christ. Now, that is the teaching of Scripture from beginning to end, from Genesis to Revelation.

But, you see, the problem comes by the fact that our souls and bodies, which have been functioning for years under the control of sin in the cup of our spirit, are still going on in the same old way, functioning according to those patterns built up under the control of sin. Our habits, thoughts, and actions, already are established along wrong lines. That is where the evil and sin in a believer's life is coming from.

It is a struggle to re-educate the soul and the body, and we experience many failures until we allow the Holy Spirit to bring it under the control of the new life in Jesus Christ in the cup of our spirit. But it will happen, and it must happen, Paul argues. If Christ is in the cup of the spirit, then just as we could not evade sin because we were in Adam, so in Christ we cannot evade righteousness. Isn't that clear?

The life of Jesus is more powerful, more persistent, more insistent than the life of Adam ever was. That is the meaning of all the "much mores" in this section (i.e., in Romans 5:9-10, 5:15, 5:17). If we had to sin in Adam, then for the very same reason, we have to begin to practice righteousness in Christ. It is not something we can help; it just will happen. That is why Paul asked the question, "Having died to sin, how can we live any longer in it? Why, it's impossible. It's not a question of should we; it's a question of can we?" His answer is, "No, it can never be."

In our neighborhood, right next door to us, is a home that was built a number of years ago and has been inhabited now by several different families. The first was a rather difficult family, the kind of people who would never keep a yard or house in order. Soon after they moved in, the brand new home began to show the effects of their style of life. The yard was littered with trash and garbage, the lawn was dead for lack of care. When it was replanted, it died out again. To enter their house was to enter a shambles. It never was clean or in order, never. These neighbors moved out, and new neighbors moved in. It wasn't very long until it became evident that a different kind of people lived there. They cleaned up the house and painted it. The yard was cleaned up, the lawn was dug up and replanted, and it has been cared for adequately ever since. Things are completely different -- what happened? It is impossible that there would not be a change, because there was a change in those who dwelt therein. This is what Paul is telling us here. There has to be a change!

Now someone asks, "What if a Christian does go on sinning, living in sin, claiming forgiveness, but goes on without any change in his life whatever?" What about that? There are people who are doing that. The answer, in light of this Scripture is very simple: These people simply are revealing that they never truly have been justified by faith; they are not Christians. Let's put it as bluntly as the apostle himself put it. They are deceiving themselves and deceiving others. Though they may do so with good intent, and with utter sincerity as far as they know -- nevertheless the case is clear.

It is impossible for your lifestyle to continue unchanged when you become a Christian. It is simply impossible, because a change has occurred deep in the human spirit. And those who protest, and say they can go on living this way, are simply revealing that there has been no change in their spirit, there has been no break with Adam. They are still in the same condition. The Apostle Paul makes that very plain in a couple of places, and I want to share them with you so that we may clearly understand what he is saying: The first is in Ephesians 5:5:

For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person -- such a man is an idolator -- has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.[He is not a Christian yet. He is claiming to be, but he is not. And lest we be fooled by his claims, the apostle goes on to say,] Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient. (Ephesians 5:5 NIV)

In very much the same terms, Paul puts it again in First Corinthians 6:9:

Don't you know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived[there it is again]: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolators nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were.[They were; they are no longer. Some of them are still struggling, and some of them do occasionally fail and go back to some of these things. But there's a vast difference. They no longer are that way -- there has been a break, a change in their lifestyle.] But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God[and therefore there cannot be the same style of life]. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11 NIV)

I think that is clear and fully answers the question, doesn't it? Paul is saying that there is great hope for those who are caught up in any of these things. There is a way of deliverance. It is not a way that involves going on with the same style of life. Jesus Christ came to free us from sin, and not to allow us to continue in it.

The question we must face about ourselves is, "Have you really begun to hate sin deep inside of you -- your own sin, the things you do wrong and, for the moment, choose to do? Have you begun to hate it? Do you want to be free from it, want to be delivered, want the power of it broken in your life?" You can only want that because there has come into your heart a new Spirit, there has come into the cup of your spirit the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And from that vantage point, he is beginning to assert the control of his purity throughout your whole life. You can't settle for sin any longer. In Chapter 6 Paul helps us to understand more about how this works, but here he makes it unquestionably clear. Can we go on sinning? May it never be!

Prayer:
We thank you, Father, for the honesty of your Word. How clearly it deals with us, always tenderly, always in love, but very plainly, never deceiving us or handing us a line, softening things that we need to face, but truly telling us where we are. We thank you for the grace of our Lord Jesus, who has the power to break the grip of death upon our lives. Thank you that it begins in our spirit, and grows to control our souls, and ultimately will redeem our bodies in resurrection. For this we give grateful thanks, in Jesus our Lord, Amen.

by **Need2Know** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 8:01 am

The True Baptism of the Spirit

The book of Romans is a tremendous revelation of what happens in the believer's life when he comes to Christ. The opening two verses of Romans 6 make it very clear that the apostle is dealing with the question of whether the believer can go on living in sin after he has come to Christ. Can he go on in a lifestyle that is basically wrong and sinful? Can he live as an alcoholic, or a swindler, an adulterer, or a slanderer? Is it possible to maintain such a lifestyle and be a Christian? The apostle's answer -- as we have already seen in the first two verses -- is, "By no means!" (Romans 6:2a NIV). It is impossible, Paul says, because, as he puts it in these four little words, "We died to sin," (Romans 6:2b NIV). Paul's conclusion is: "How can we go on living in it any longer?" (Romans 6:2c NIV).

In Verses 3-14 (of Romans 6) we want to see how the apostle begins to unfold this conclusion so that we might understand in detail what that change means in our lives.

When you become a Christian, when you really, truly receive Jesus Christ as Lord, something happens that makes it impossible to go on living a lifestyle of evil. We died to sin -- and this is what we are examining in this message. The apostle uses two marvelous visual aids that God likes to employ to help us to understand truth. One of them is baptism; and the other, which may be more difficult for you to see, is grafting -- as a plant or a branch is grafted into a tree. Let's see what the apostle says about baptism in Verses 3-4. Beginning at Verse 1:

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. (Romans 6:1-4 NIV)

It is always interesting to me that when some people hear the word baptism they immediately smell water. When I was a boy in Montana, I had a horse that could smell water from farther away than any animal I ever saw. You could be riding across the dry, parched plains, when suddenly he would prick up his ears, lift up his head, and quicken his pace, and you knew that he smelled water somewhere and he was heading for it. There are people who are like that. Whenever they read these passages, and see the word baptism, they smell water. You can just see them prick up their ears, lift up their heads, and head for it. But there is no water here. This is a dry passage.

This passage is dealing, of course, with the question of how we died to sin, how we became separated from being in Adam, how we became joined in Christ. No water can do that. That requires something far more potent than water. It is, therefore, a description for us of what is called "the baptism of the Holy Spirit" elsewhere in the Scriptures.

John the Baptist, who made his reputation because he baptized in water, said, "I indeed baptize you with water, but there comes One after me, greater than I, who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit," John 1:33). That is what Paul is talking about here -- the baptism of the Holy Spirit -- which places us into Christ. Paul says exactly the same thing in First Corinthians 12:13: "For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body -- whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free -- and we were all given the one Spirit to drink," (1 Corinthians 12:13 NIV). Notice how he emphasizes twice that all believers were baptized into one body. We were placed into Christ. You are not a Christian if that isn't true of you. Therefore, people today who say you need to experience the baptism of the Holy Spirit after you become a believer do not understand the Scriptures. There is no way to become a believer without being baptized with the Holy Spirit.

The baptism of the Spirit happened first, historically, on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon 120 people who were gathered in the temple courts, fusing them into one body, joining them to the head, which is Jesus, and thus formed the church, one body in Christ, all members one of the other and members of the Lord Jesus himself. That is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It is not something that is felt; it is not something you can know through your senses when it takes place; it is something the Spirit does to our human spirit. Yet this baptism is very essential to becoming a Christian. It is part of the process by which we share the life of Jesus Christ.

Notice some things that Paul says about the baptism of the Spirit in this passage: First, he says that we are expected to know about it. "Don't you know that we were all baptized into Christ, into his death?" Paul asks. He expects these Roman Christians, who had never met him or been taught personally by him, to know this fact. It is something new Christians ought to know.

Now, how would they know it? Here is where water baptism comes in. Water baptism teaches us, by symbol, the meaning of this baptism of the Spirit. The one is the shadow, or figure, of the other. The people Paul was writing to had been baptized in water after their conversion and regeneration, and Paul supposes that their water baptism had helped them to understand the reality of what the Spirit had already done to them.

Some time ago, Ron Ritchie told me of an experience that he had on Easter Sunday during a baptism service in the ocean near his house. I tell you, you really have to love Christ to be baptized in the frigid waters of the Pacific! A woman came up to him and asked him to baptize her nine-year-old daughter. Ron was reluctant to do so without finding out whether the girl really understood what was happening, so he began to question her and to teach her about the reality behind the water baptism. He was gesturing as he talked to her, and noticed that, as he was using his hand, the shadow of it fell on the sand. So he said to the little girl, "Do you see the shadow of my hand on the sand? Now, that is just the shadow; the hand is the real thing. And when you came to Jesus, when you believed in Jesus, that was the real baptism. You were joined to him, and what happened to him happened to you. Jesus was alive; then he died, was buried, and then he arose from the dead. And that is what happened to you when you believed in him." He pointed to the shadow on the sand and said, "When you go down in the water and are raised up again, that is a picture of what has already happened." The girl immediately caught on and said, "Yes, that is what I want to do because Jesus has come into my life." So water baptism is a picture, a symbol worked out for us, to teach us what has happened to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus.

Notice also that the apostle says, "This is how we died to sin." The great statement of this passage is that when we became Christians, we died to sin. Paul is still discussing the question, "Can a believer go on sinning?" "No," answers Paul, "because he died to sin." How did we die to sin? This is how, Paul explains: The Spirit took us and identified us with all that Jesus did. Now, I don't understand that. That means that somehow this is a timeless event. The Spirit of God is able to ignore the two thousand years since the crucifixion and resurrection and somehow identify us, who live in this 20th century -- as he has all believers of past centuries -- with that moment when Jesus died, was buried, and rose again from the dead. We participate in those events. That is clear.

I don't think we need to struggle with this, because something similar has already been referred to in Chapter 5. There we are told that this is what happened to us in Adam. By being born into this human race, we became part of what Adam did. Way back at the dawn of history, Adam sinned, and we sinned in Adam. I don't fully know how that is true, but I certainly believe it. Every evidence of history demonstrates it to be true. Men sin from the moment they are born. Babies sin. Babies are filled with sinful attitudes and sinful reactions, as we have already shown. If nothing enters their life to help them control these things, they grow up to become criminals and rapists and murderers, because sin is there from the beginning.

Therefore this is not theological fiction; it is fact. Adam sinned, and we sin. Adam died, and men ever since have died. Every funeral throughout the ages has testified to the reality of that fact. The apostle is saying that what was true in Adam has now been ended and now we are in Christ, by faith in Jesus Christ. Once Adam's actions affected us; but now what Christ did becomes our actions as well. Christ died, and we died; Christ was buried, and we were buried with him; Christ rose again, and we rose with him. So what is true of Jesus is true of us. Here Paul is dealing with what is probably the most remarkable and certainly the most magnificent truth recorded in the pages of Scripture. It is the central truth God wants us to learn. We died with Christ, were buried, and rose again with him. That union with Christ is the truth from which everything else in Scripture flows. If we understand and accept this as fact, which it is, then everything will be different in our lives. That is why the apostle labors so to help us understand this.

Notice one other thing about this paragraph: the purpose for which all this happened. Paul says, "We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life." Remember, Paul is answering the question "Can a believer go on sinning?" His answer is, "Absolutely not." We cannot because we have died, have been buried, and have risen again with Jesus, and therefore we too may live a new life. If you are a Christian, there will be a noticeable change of behavior because of a radical change of government. If you do go on living as you were before, then your profession of Christianity is false. There must be a change, and there will be, if there has been a change in the heart. Verses 5-10 introduce a new figure for us and reveal a deeper revelation of what has happened to us. Paul now uses the figure of grafting. Verse 5:

If we have been united with him in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. (Romans 6:5 NIV)

In other words, you can't pick and choose. You can't die with Christ and not be risen with him. If you died with him, you must be risen with him as well. Paul uses a word from botany here. The word united means "to graft a branch into another." Some of you have fruit trees and you have done grafting. You have taken a branch from a nectarine tree and grafted it into a peach tree. The branch is tied together in such a way that the life from the trunk of the tree flows into the branch and they grow together until finally you can't tell the difference between the graft and the natural branch. The life is fully shared. This is the figure Paul is using here to describe our tie with the Lord Jesus. His life becomes our life. We are no longer in Adam, in any sense. The tie is totally broken. We are now in Christ, and he is our life from now on.

This is one of the most important concepts to understand. In order that we might understand it, Paul now gives us both sides to this parallel -- death and resurrection. Verses 6-7 explain what it means to die in Christ; Verses 8-10 explain what it means to be risen with him. We want to look at these verses very carefully because it is so important for us to know the meaning of the death and burial of the Lord Jesus and our death and burial with him. Verses 6 and 7:

For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin -- because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. (Romans 6:6-7 NIV)

Paul is tracing this parallel. Jesus was crucified, and we were crucified too. Our old self, the old man, the man who was in Adam, the tie with Adam, has been broken by death. All that we were as a natural-born human being ended when we believed in Jesus. Paul is referring to the essential you, the spirit within you. We need very much to understand biblical psychology. Biblical psychology tells us that basically we are spirits dwelling in human bodies. You body is not you. Even your soul, which is produced by the union of the body and the spirit, is not wholly you. You are your spirit.

Next, Paul explains that Jesus was crucified in order that the sin which was in his body on the cross should come to an end, that his body be rendered powerless with respect to sin. You say, "Now, wait a minute. There's something wrong here. There was no sin in Jesus." That is true. Scripture is very careful to help us see that in Jesus there was no sin. He did not sin; there was no sin in him until the cross. But this tells us an amazing thing about our Lord when he was on the cross. There, Paul says, "he was made sin for us," (2 Corinthians 5:21). You see, sin, in the believer, is located in the body. Therefore, it was described in Jesus in terms of the body. His body became possessed and controlled by sin. That is why his body died. His body was rendered powerless with regard to sin. That is why he was buried.

Why do we bury a corpse? We bury it because it is useless, inert, inactive. There is nothing it can do any longer, and so we bury it. That is why Jesus was buried -- to prove that the sin in his body was ended. The body was useless, unresponsive. Paul says that is what happens to us. When our spirit has died in Christ, then the body of sin will be rendered powerless. What does Paul mean by this term "body of sin"? He means the physical body that is dominated and controlled by sin. In Adam, sin filled the whole of man -- our spirit, our soul, and our body. Therefore, we had to sin. That is why, before you became a Christian, even when you tried to be good, you couldn't. Something always went wrong and you ended by fouling up in some way. You were a slave to sin, and no matter how much you wanted to be different, you couldn't be. But now that bond has been broken. In Christ your spirit is freed: It has been united with Jesus; It has risen with him, and It is free from sin. This explains that rather interesting passage in First John 3:9, which says, "No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot sin, because he has been born of God," (1 John 3:9 NIV). John is talking about your spirit, the essential you. In that sense, it is proper to say of believers, "We cannot sin."

What Paul makes clear in Romans 6 is that sin remains as an alien power trying to dominate and control our bodies and our souls. It is the presence of the spirit in the body that produces the soul, just as electricity in a light bulb produces light. The soul is our conscious experience and is produced moment by moment as we live, as light is coming from a light bulb moment by moment. Paul makes it clear that our spirits were freed from sin. They do not sin, and cannot sin, because they are linked with Christ, so that we may be able to control the sin which is in the body.

From here on, we do not have to sin. If we do, it is because we allow it to happen. But we are no longer slaves to sin. Throughout the rest of this account Paul deals with this theme. The body is the means by which we are tempted to sin. There is nothing inherently sinful about our bodies -- they are perfectly all right -- but somehow an alien power remains in them, and that is where we are tempted all our life long.

I think I can illustrate this for you. When you sit at the table to eat, you are satisfying a very normal appetite that God gave to your body. It needs food; it needs replenishment of energy. There is nothing wrong with eating. But when we get to the table and find plenty of food on it, each one of us has something within us that makes us eat too much. We eat more than we should. We say that we have a weight problem. What we really have is a sin problem. There is this sin within us that wants to take a natural function of the body and push it beyond what it ought to -- and thus it becomes sin. That is why, when we sit at the table, many of us are going to sin by becoming gluttons and gourmands. (Do you know what a gourmand is? He is someone who eats greedily, who delights in luxurious food, someone who lives for the taste of food.) We are all tempted this way because sin, as a principle, is still in control of the functions of the body. But our spirit opposes it, and we don't have to give in. That is the point.

The body requires rest from time to time. The body of Jesus grew weary and needed rest. But somehow there is in us a principle that wants to overindulge, and we become lazy, slothful, apathetic. We want other people to work and to serve us while we rest. This is so natural that it is even hard to know when we go over the line.

The mind, that amazing instrument of the body, functions in such a way as to reason and to logically deduce and to produce an amazing variety of inventions and technological advances. Yet the mind, with its ability to think and reason, can easily move beyond what it should into evil thoughts and prideful reactions and attitudes of jealousy and lust. We sin with our minds.

Consider the tongue, that member of the body that is so little, James says, yet can be "set on fire by hell," (James 3:6 NIV). With our tongues, designed to be that by which we bless God, we curse him instead. The tongue is like the rudder of a ship, that turns the whole life in the wrong direction because of the words that we speak.

Consider the glands and hormones. Physiologists tell us that they are linked somehow with our actions. Just as the brain is linked with the mind, so the glands are linked with emotions. They are responsible for the way we feel, often. They pour out hormones into the bloodstream and affect the body. Some hormones make us over-react. Instead of normal fears that are designed to protect us from evil, we become paranoid, worried, filled with anxiety; we become lustful and indulge in wrongful attitudes. We become angry, so that we hate and feel jealousy. We indulge in what the Bible calls "inordinate affections," (Colossians 3:5 KJV). Even our loves become twisted. That is sin in the body -- no longer in the spirit, but in the body. I don't have to describe this in terms of our sexual appetites. These are normal, legitimate, valid appetites, made by God to be satisfied; but something within us wants to satisfy them too soon, or with the wrong person, or sometimes in the wrong way.

That is where evil comes from -- the body, not the spirit. I hope this is clear, because it is a very important picture, one that will govern the rest of the book of Romans, as well as all the New Testament. The regenerated spirit cannot sin. It is born of God and it cannot sin. It has been set free of sin in order that we may begin to exercise control over the body of sin, so that it may be rendered inactive and we no longer need to be slaves to sin. Not only have we been set free to choose not to sin, but a new power to resist sin has been given to us. Verses 8-10:

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. (Romans 6:8-10 NIV)

Once we have reckoned ourselves dead to sin with Christ, there is nothing left but to go on to life. Jesus does not go back into sin; he does not go back into death. Sin and death are over, as far as we are concerned, because that is what is true of Jesus. He lives now, and he lives under the will and by the power of God. Therefore, Paul says, the same thing is true in our lives. Not only do we need to recognize that we died to sin with Christ, but also that his life is in us now. His power is available to us. When we decide not to sin, we have the power to carry it out, because Christ is living in us.

Therefore, it all comes down to two simple steps that are described in Verse 11. This is the first time in the book of Romans that we are asked to do anything; this is the first exhortation in all of Romans. Up to now, everything Paul has written has been about what God has done for us. In Verse 11 we are asked to do something. What is it?

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:11 NIV)

When you feel temptation in your body or your mind, then there are two things you are to do: First, remember that you don't have to obey sin. You just don't have to. You are free to refuse it. You are free to say, "No, you don't have the right to use that part of my body for a sinful purpose." And, second, remember his power is in you to enable you to offer that same part of your body to God, to be used for his purposes. Now, that may mean a struggle, because the strength of sin is very strong. When we start to turn away from evil in our bodies, the habits of our lives are so deeply engrained that oftentimes it is very difficult, and we struggle. But we have the power not to sin because we have God himself within us -- the living God.

I have mentioned before a group of ex-homosexuals who live in San Rafael and who have a great ministry with those who are involved in homosexuality. This week I received another one of their papers and I was struck by this paragraph. The writer is describing how tough it is to turn from these evil practices and be different once you have been deeply involved in them. He says:

This very weekend one of our brothers said to me, "How can I last through even one more year of this?" I said in response, "How can I last one more week?" But I will last, and so will he. For we have each other, and the sharing and fellowship and caring are God's ingredients to healing -- long-lasting healing -- that will impart strength beyond endurance, as God does it in His time and in His way.

That says exactly what Paul says in Romans 6. There will be a struggle; it is not always easy, but we have the strength to do it and we have the right to do it. We have the freedom not to sin and the desire not to sin. That is what God has brought to us in Christ. Now you will see how the rest of this fits in. Paul is describing the two steps that we are to repeat over and over again, in dealing with evil in our lives. First, in Verses 12-13a, Paul says to count yourself dead to sin:

Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, (Romans 6:12-13a NIV)

Step #1 is to reckon yourself dead to sin. Step #2 is found in Verse 13b: Offer yourself to God.

...but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have returned from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him[your tongue. your mind, your stomach, your hands, your feet, your sex organs -- offer them to God] as instruments of righteousness. (Romans 6:13b NIV)

That is the way to win over temptation. Then Paul closes with this fantastic statement in Verse 14. This, to me, is one of the greatest verses in all Scripture:

For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. (Romans 6:14 NIV)

Why does Paul bring in the Law? He brings in the Law because he is dealing with one of the most basic problems of the Christian struggle, the thing that oftentimes depresses and discourages us more than anything else -- the sense of condemnation we feel when we sin. You see, the Law produces condemnation. The Law says that unless you live up to this standard, God will not have anything to do with you. We have been so engrained with this that when we sin, even as believers, we think God is angry and upset with us and he doesn't care about us. We think that way about ourselves, and we become discouraged and defeated and depressed. We want to give up. "What's the use," we say.

But Paul says that is not true. You are not under Law. God does not feel that way about you. You are under grace, and God understands your struggle. He is not upset by it; he is not angry with you. He understands your failure. He knows that there will be a struggle and there will be failures. He also knows that he has made full provision for you to recover immediately, to pick yourself up, and go right on climbing up the mountain. Therefore you don't need to be discouraged, and you won't be.

Sin will not be your master because you are not under law and condemnation, but under grace. And even though you struggle, if, every time you fail, you come back to God and ask his forgiveness, and take it from him, and remember how he loves you, and that he is not angry or upset with you, and go on from there, you will win.

I will never forget how, as a young man in the service during World War II, I was on a watch one night, reading the book of Romans. This verse leaped out of the pages at me. I remember how the Spirit made it come alive, and I saw the great promise that all the things I was struggling with as a young man would ultimately be mastered -- not because I was so smart, but because God was teaching me and leading me into victory. I remember walking the floor, my heart just boiling over with praise and thanksgiving to God. I walked in a cloud of glory, rejoicing in this great promise: "Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace."

Looking back across these more than thirty years since that night, I can see that God has broken the grip of the things that mastered me then. Other problems have come in, with which I still struggle. But the promise remains: "Sin shall not have dominion over you. You are not under law, but under grace."

Prayer:
How grateful we are, Father, for this word of assurance that though we are left to struggle with evil that is resident in our body, it has not touched our spirit, and it cannot do so. There is a part of us, the very essence of us, which does not sin, and which remains in control despite temporary failures that we experience in body and soul. Lord, we thank you for this assurance that the struggle is to an end, that we will be victorious, that those of us who are in Christ will not need to be depressed and discouraged and need not fail, for there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord. Sin shall not have dominion over us, for we are not under law, but under grace. Thank you in Jesus' name, Amen.

by **Need2Know** » Fri Jan 13, 2012 12:31 pm

Whose Slave are You?

I invite you now to turn to the book of Romans, where we are going to pick up in the middle of Chapter 6. In this chapter we are dealing with a very practical problem, one that every Christian must wrestle with. The problem is stated by the apostle very plainly in the first verse of this chapter: "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?" This whole sixth chapter deals with what happens when a believer sins. We do not like to think that believers do sin; but, unfortunately, we do.

In Verses 1-14 of Chapter 6, we looked at the answer to this question. Now that you have become a Christian and Christ has entered your life -- you have been joined to him by faith in his work, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and by baptism into his death and being made a part of his resurrection -- the question arises: Can you go on living as you once did? Can you continue on in a lifestyle of sin, just as though nothing had really happened to you except that you will go to heaven when you die? Paul's answer is: "Absolutely not!" You cannot do that; if you do, it is proof that you never really participated in the death and resurrection of Jesus. In other words, you are really not a Christian. Anyone who goes on in an unchanged life after having professed that they have come to Christ is simply giving testimony to everyone that he really has not been changed in his heart at all. He belongs to that crowd of people of whom our Lord Jesus himself said, "Many shall come to me in that day and say, 'Lord, Lord, did we not do many mighty works in your name and cast out devils?' And I shall say, 'Depart from me, I never knew you,'" (Matthew 7:22-23).

The apostle is dealing with a very important subject here, one that we need to understand thoroughly. In Verse 14, Paul has just declared, "For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace." In Verse 15, he raises the question again, but in a slightly different way:

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? (Romans 6:15a NIV)

You can see that is a slightly different question than you have in Verse 1. In Verse 1, the question is: "Can we sin? Can we go on abiding in sin, living in a lifestyle of sin?" Paul's answer is: "Absolutely not! You cannot do it. If there has really been a change in your life, if Christ has entered your heart, there is no way that you can go on absolutely unchanged, justifying the same style of life that you have always had." But now the question is not "can we" but "shall we." Paul is raising the question of whether a Christian ought to choose to sin occasionally because he enjoys the momentary pleasure that sin gives.

That is the situation that every one of us faces from time to time. Sin is fun, isn't it? Sometimes we run up against some especially delicious temptations. At times, we all are confronted with the feeling "Why not give in? After all, I'm not going to hell because of this. My salvation rests on Christ and not on me. And actually, God is not going to reject me because of this, for the Law does not condemn me any longer. I am not under Law. It is love that will discipline me; Law will not condemn me. I can be forgiven; I can be restored -- so why not sin?" I have heard a lot of Christians talk that way, and I have felt the full force of this confrontation in my own experience. Why not give in and enjoy a sin -- we are not under law, but under grace. Do you see the thrust of the apostle's question? It is a very real, very practical one.

In the verses that follow, Paul answers that question. He asks, "Shall we sin?" His answer is: "No. By no means!" If you, as a Christian, go on and sin deliberately, even if it is only occasionally, you must face what sin will do to you. You must face the full results of what will happen when you and I, as believers, choose to do what we know to be wrong, even though we have been set free in Christ and need not do these things.

Paul's answer is three-fold: "Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! First, sin makes you a slave (Verses 16-19). Second, sin will make you ashamed (Verses 20-21). Finally, sin will spread death throughout your whole existence (Verses 22-23). Let's look at the first part of Paul's answer. In Verses 16-19, he tells us that sin will make slaves out of us:

Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey -- whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were committed. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to every-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness and holiness. (Romans 6:16-19 NIV)

Paul says he has gone into the common experiences of the world of his day to give us a picture of what humanity is like. He uses the phrase slaves to describe us. In other words, he is dealing here with a very profound psychological fact: human beings are made to be mastered. Somebody has to master us.

Some years ago in Los Angeles I saw a man walking down the street with a sign on his shoulders. The front of it said, "I'M A SLAVE FOR CHRIST." On the back of it, as he passed, you read, "WHOSE SLAVE ARE YOU?" It is a good question because all of us are slaves to one or the other of these two masters -- sin or righteousness. We have no other choices. By the very nature of our humanity, we are made to serve and to be controlled by forces beyond our power.

A couple of weeks ago, I watched the Republican Convention and was struck by the fact that as these people gathered in Kansas City to make a choice, they were aware that they had to decide between two men, Ronald Reagan or President Ford. The whole convention was gathered together for that one purpose -- to make a decision, to make a choice. Everybody there felt that he was free to make the choice he wanted to make, according to what he saw was important or what commitments he had made previously. And yet, as I watched that convention, I was struck by the narrowness of the choice they had. There were only two men to choose from. There could have been -- and probably were -- many there who gladly would have chosen someone other than those two men, but they had no opportunity to do so. There may have been some there who would have chosen me, strange as that may seem. I don't know that there were, but they had no opportunity to do so. You can see what a fantastic loss the Republican Party has suffered because of that. We think we are creatures of sovereign choice, but we are not. Our choices are very narrow, very limited.

The great question is: Who controls the choices that we have to make? Who controls that narrow band? What forces are at work to limit us to such a narrow range throughout our lives? The answer is: It is always something beyond us that controls these choices. God is at work; Satan is at work. We are given very limited ability to choose.

Paul then speaks of these two kinds of slavery: He says that we Christians have been set free from the slavery to sin. Once we had to sin. Before we came to Christ, there was no choice; no matter whether we chose what we thought was good or chose what we thought was wrong, we ended up making a choice that led to evil. There was no other way out. Even the right things we tried to do were tainted with evil, with selfishness. We have seen experiences that confirm this in our own hearts.

Well then, what happens when we sin as believers? Now we are free, and yet we go back and choose to do something that is wrong. We are confronted with this temptation to give way for the moment and indulge ourselves in some sin we want to do. Most of us try to kid ourselves into believing it is not very serious. "It won't hurt us anyway," we reason, so we make the choice.

Paul says, "Let's look at what happens." First of all, don't you know that you have set in operation a basic principle of life? The principle is this: If you yield yourself to sin, you become the slave of sin. Jesus stated this in John 8:34: "Verily, verily, I say unto you [that is a little formula that means he is stating basic, fundamental, absolutely foundational truth], he that commits sin is the slave of sin," (John 8:34 KJV). Now, what does this mean in practice? A slave, of course, is someone who is not in ultimate control of his own actions, someone who is at the disposal of another person, someone who has to do what that other person says. When we choose to tell a lie, we give one of the clearest evidences of the operation of this principle in our lives. Have you ever noticed what happens when you tell a lie?

A man said to me the other day, "I told what I thought was a little white lie. I thought that would handle the matter. But, you know, I found out that I had to tell 42 other lies -- I counted them -- before I finally woke up to what I was doing and admitted the whole thing and got out from under." You can't tell one lie. You see, you are not in control of the events. You choose to tell one lie, and before you know it, you have to tell another.

The same thing is true with anger. Have you noticed that? You decide you are going to put a little sharpness in your voice when you answer someone. You want to cut him down just a little bit. You don't want it to go too far -- after all, you do like him -- you just want to hurt him a little bit. So you do. What happens? He answers back in kind. So you cut a little deeper, and before you know it, you are embroiled in an argument and a battle that you did not want. It happened because you were a slave to sin. Sin pushed you further than you wanted to go. There was no way you could escape. Secondly, sin not only takes you further than you desire to go, but it also infects others with the same attitude. Did you ever notice that? You wake up in the morning feeling surly and grouchy, and you snap at somebody. Then the other person snaps back, and soon the whole household is reflecting your attitude. You choose to do something a little shady in your business, and soon others begin to do the same thing. So sin begins to spread, like an infection. If you think the Legionnaires' Disease was a killer, you should watch what happens when sin begins to operate. Years ago I heard a little rhyme that said:

I said a very naughty word only the other day.
It was a truly naughty word I had not meant to say.
But then, it was not really lost, when from my lips it flew;
My little brother picked it up, and now he says it, too.

That is the way sin begins to spread. And part of the slavery is that when you yield yourself to something, and do it two or three times before you wake up to what is going on -- it is getting out of control and going beyond what you wanted -- it becomes difficult to begin to change. Something resists every opportunity you take to try to change. It is hard to go back. A habit has begun that is hard to change.

Just as an illustration, somebody said to me the other day, "It's easy to quit smoking; I've done it dozens of times!" What a testimony that is to the power these things have to grip us and to control us. Paul is right, for we become the slaves of that which we obey.
Paul continues in Verses 20-21:

When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit[or what fruit] did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? (Romans 6:20-21 NIV)

Each of us can look back in our lives at something we are ashamed of. It leaves a stain in our minds when we think about it. Shame is the awareness of unworthy actions and irreparable damage that we do to others and our painful feeling about it. We have all experienced shame at times. Sin -- no matter what it is or how small it seems -- always leads to shame. The memories of the past are stained and blotted by this sense of shame that we experience. We all know what it is like -- those shameful deeds that we would like to forget, but can't; hurtful words that we wish we had never said; strained relationships that go on for years, so that whenever we meet certain people we feel uncomfortable in their presence.

This is the inevitable fruit of sin, something that Paul reminds us of many times. In Galatians 6:7-8 he says, "Do not be deceived [don't kid yourself]; God is not mocked," (Galatians 6:7a RSV). "For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption;" (Galatians 6:8a RSV). You can't drop the seed of evil into your heart without reaping from it the harvest, the fruit of corruption; "but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life," (Galatians 6:8b RSV). That is exactly what we see here in Romans 6. The third reason why we should not give way to sin is found in Verses 21-23:

Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:21-23 NIV)

Life and death -- the two results.What is death? When Paul talks about death here, he is not talking about a funeral which comes at the end of your life (though that certainly is what death is). He is talking about something that you experience right now while you are alive. Death is both physical and moral; the one is a picture of the other. Physical death always involves darkness, the end of light and life. It involves limitation, for a corpse is helpless -- what can it do for itself? And it involves, ultimately, corruption -- the corpse begins to stink and smell, it becomes foul and decayed, rottenness sets in.

That is what happens when we sin as believers. These same elements of death are present. There is, first of all, darkness. I can look back in my own life and see how, as a young Christian, there were times when I struggled and struggled to understand passages of Scripture. I couldn't seem to grasp them; they were closed to me. Others understood them and seemed to be rejoicing in them, but I couldn't -- until God, in his mercy, began to deal with me about things that I was doing that I knew were wrong. Finally, God led me to the place where I would be free. I would repent and turn from these things and come into the freedom that God had given me in Christ. Then I would discover that the Scriptures began to open up, and light came into my darkness.

I meet Christians all the time who do not seem to understand many of the truths of the Word of God. I don't know if this is always the explanation, but in many cases it is -- because they are deliberately allowing things in their lives that they know are wrong. They don't realize that these things spread death. Darkness sets in, and they cannot see the light. Paul reminds us in Second Corinthians, "The god of this world has blinded the minds of them that believe not, so that they cannot see the light of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ," (2 Corinthians 4:4).

Not only does darkness set in when we sin, but there are limitations too. Remember the account in the Old Testament about Moses in the wilderness. He became angry one day when the people tested him and frustrated him. God told him to speak to the rock and it would give water. Instead, in his anger, Moses struck the rock with the rod, (Numbers 20:8-11). That was just a little thing, a momentary blowup. For a few seconds, he lost his temper. But God said, "Moses, because you have done this, you will not be able to enter the Promised Land. When the people enter the land, you must stay behind because you have done this thing," (Numbers 20:12).

I am not suggesting that there are things that we do that forever limit the opportunities God gives us. But I know that as long as we cling to things that we know are wrong, justifying them in our lives and refusing to enter into the freedom that God gives us, there is a loss of opportunity. That is why many Christians never seem to have occasion to discover the adventure of serving God. They sit with folded arms, watching other people having fun and excitement, while nothing opens for them. Oftentimes it is because of this very thing -- the choices of sin that we make.

Death means a lessening of our experience of freedom and delight in the things of God and an increase in boredom and banality. Sometimes our lives become utterly nauseating to us. Have you ever felt that way? Sometimes your whole Christian experience almost stinks in your own nostrils. That is a sign of the death that sin brings with it. Now, throughout this account, Paul stresses over and over again the words set free. "You have been set free," he says. "You no longer are the slaves of sin. When you came to the Lord Jesus, a change occurred; you have been freed. You are no longer a slave to evil, but a slave to righteousness." Paul says, "Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness and holiness."

Now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, all this business of being limited, of experiencing death and shame, is totally unnecessary to a believer. That is the tragedy of sin in a believer's life. We don't have to experience death in our lives; we only have it because we choose to. Therefore, any experience of these things in our lives is something that has come because we have chosen to let it, although we were free to choose otherwise.

A member of our family is currently learning to ride a bicycle. I won't say who it is, but she is learning how to balance herself on the wheels and pedal down the street. And she is doing very well at it. But so far, the only way she has ever found to stop is by running into something. I am constantly picking her up out of bushes and off the sidewalk because the only way she has been able to stop is by running into something. The other day I was helping her, and said, "You don't have to run into things to stop; there is another way to do it. A provision has been made so that you can stop this bicycle without having to run into things." I showed her that all she had to do was to reverse the pedals and the coaster brake would bring her to a stop. I had shown her this before, so when I said that to her, she looked at me and said, "Well, I am sure relieved to know that there's another way to stop." I realized that she didn't need me to tell her that. What she did need was to actually do it when it was time to stop. What good does it do to have a bicycle that has a provision for stopping if you never use it? You might just as well not have it.

The question the apostle raises in this passage is: "What good is it to be set free from sin by Jesus Christ and have every opportunity and every possibility of walking in holiness (wholeness, a whole person, one who has got it all together) and in righteousness (a sense of worth, a sense of security, and assurance that you are loved by God and are valuable to him), if, at the moment of choice, we ignore these things and go right on as though we were slaves to sin?"

As I travel across America, I am often struck by the fact that the various cities into which I come are always cities filled with churches. In almost every corner you can find a church. And those churches are often filled with Christians. It seems as if this country has a fantastic opportunity to see a new quality of life demonstrated -- a quality of life so uniquely different from how the world lives that we ought to have people stopping us on the street to ask, "What goes with you? How come you have such peace in your eyes? How come you have such love in your heart? Why are you so different?" Instead, with our cities filled with churches and our churches filled with people, all the world sees is the same old, tired reactions that they themselves are so familiar with and so tired of.

The challenge of Romans 6 is this: Christ has made you free, free to be a king, free to have a sense of worth, free to be secure in your own personhood, knowing who you are before God. He set you free to be a whole person, so that you are not torn by a dozen different conflicting interests, but, with a single eye, you can live to the glory of God, free from the control or the blame or the censure or the praise of men. You are free at last to respond to the greatest calling that a man can have -- the call to know God, this amazing Being.

That is what this closing verse means. "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life." Jesus described eternal life in John 17:3: "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent," (John 17:3 NIV). Here we are, called to this kind of living, called to this quality of existence, and yet, because of the foolishness of our hearts and the weakness of our spirits, we choose to give way to these momentary indulgences that lock us into slavery and shame and death.

May God help us to set sin aside and to live as the free men and women God has made us to be. As Paul said in Galatians 5:1: "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of bondage," (Galatians 5:1 NIV). You have been freed from the slave market; now walk as new men. This is Paul's exhortation to us.

Prayer:
Our Father, we pray that there may be among us today, young and old alike, men and women who will dare to respond to the challenge of your Word, to be what we are capable of being in Christ, who will dare to say, "Yes, by the grace of God, I want to enter into this freedom," who will dare to live according to this and turn away from the subtle, silken claims of evil in our lives, and say "Yes!" to you. We pray that we might manifest this wholeness, this beauty, this reality, this liberty of the children of God. Lord, help us here at Peninsula Bible Church, and those at other churches across this land, to begin to respond to this truth. We pray that this nation, under God, may have a new birth of freedom and that men may come to see the unique quality that Jesus Christ brings into a life. We ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.

by **Need2Know** » Mon Jan 16, 2012 12:33 pm

Free to Win or Lose

This is an election year, and we are hearing plenty about it. On television and radio and in newspapers we are confronted with the question, "What is wrong with this country?" Both of the major candidates are telling us what they think is wrong; and if you listen to them, you hear that the problem is always the other party. But, in our hearts, we know that both parties are wrong, because the problem really isn't in our politics -- it's in us. In those immortal words of Pogo, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

The book of Romans agrees with this, for the Scriptures are always telling us that the problem with man is man himself. Until we deal successfully with that problem, there is little hope in any political change. All we do is rearrange the pattern of the problem when we elect another party's candidate; we really haven't changed the problem itself. Romans tells us that God's solution to the problem of man is to begin a whole new race. He doesn't start with halfway measures; he doesn't patch up the old; he doesn't try to improve what's there until it gets good enough to live with. He cuts us right off at the root and begins a new race. But the wonder and the glory of it is that he starts the new race within the shell of the old. Outwardly, we remain unchanged. Our bodies are still subject to decrepitude and decay and death. Yet, within, a new man has begun if we have exercised faith in Jesus Christ. God's solution is to end the curse of Adam and to release within us the power of a new life, the life of Jesus himself.

Paul brilliantly describes this solution in these opening chapters of Romans, especially in Chapter 5, where there is a tremendous picture of what happens when we put our faith in our Lord and what he has done. We enter into an identification with his death and his resurrection, and the death of Jesus cuts us off from the old Adam that we all began life with. The resurrection of Jesus, Paul says, introduces us to a whole new power -- the life of Jesus available to us. In Chapter 6, the apostle pauses to deal with a problem that this creates. Basically, it is the question, "Can we still sin as believers?" As you remember, his answer is, "Yes," and "No."

No, we cannot go on in the same lifestyle which we had before we came to Christ. There must be a change. The radical transformation within us is going to result in some change in our attitude and outlook and value system, and, therefore, it will result in a change of lifestyle. Anyone who remains basically unchanged is fooling himself about being a Christian, because he is not a Christian unless there has been this inner change. But...

Yes, we can still sin as believers. This is what Paul tells us in Chapter 6. We can sin if we choose to. But if we choose to sin, we cannot escape the enslavement that sin will bring, and it carries us further than we want to go. It will involve us deeper than we would like; it will spread darkness and corruption throughout our lives; it will lead us to do things of which we will be terribly ashamed. Though we can choose to sin, we will not escape the effects of sin in our experience. That brings us to Chapter 7 where the apostle deals with still another question before he goes on to develop more fully this wonderful, glorious gospel. The question in Chapter 7 is this: "Does the Law help us, as believers, to handle the problem of sin in our lives?" Again, the answer is both, "Yes," and "No." Yes, the Law does help us -- but only up to a point. It will help us to define the problem. But no, the Law is no help at all when it comes to delivering us. It can't help us -- in fact, it will only make things worse. Paul deals with the last part of this question first.

In Verses 1-6 he shows the necessity of being freed from the Law in order to handle the problem of sin in the life of the believer. We can't handle our problem with the Law hanging over our shoulder; we must be freed from that. I think you can see already that this is a very pertinent problem in our day. Every Christian believer rejoices in what he reads in the Scriptures about our identification with Christ and about these tremendous terms -- being freed from sin, dead to sin, and alive unto God, alive to righteousness, wholeness, power. Yet our experience tells us that we do not often achieve this. We are aware that we all have a problem with sin in our lives. We still like it, and we still do it. We experience what Paul says we will experience (enslavement, death, darkness, unhappiness, and shame) as a result of our sin.

This is true in all Christendom today. Churches everywhere are filled with Christians who are struggling with this. What's wrong? Basically, it is the same problem that Paul describes in Romans 7: We still haven't learned how to handle the Law. We still want regulations and detailed instructions to follow so we can be freed from our problems. Yet, when we try, even with the best of intentions, it still doesn't work. That is what Paul is dealing with in this chapter. Now, let's see what he has to say in Verses 1-3:

Do you not know, brothers -- for I am speaking to men who know the law -- that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man. (Romans 7:1-3 NIV)

This is a simple illustration taken right out of life. This situation occurred again and again in Paul's day, and it occurs again and again in our day. It is an illustration intended to clarify this whole problem of our relationship to the Law. And yet, I don't think there is any passage in Romans that has become the source of more confusion than these opening verses -- not because the illustration is confusing, but because the commentators are. They twist the illustration. There is a unique phenomenon here that only those acquainted with theological journals and commentaries of our day would see. For some strange reason, this illustration, which is simple and clear, is often twisted by many commentators who insist on applying this as though the first husband is the Law. In the illustration the woman clearly is a picture of the believer -- you and me.

This woman had a husband, her first husband. According to the commentators, that first husband was the Law of Moses. But when you start with that understanding of this illustration, you are bound to end up with hopeless confusion. In fact, many of the commentators go astray even before this. They fail to note to whom this whole passage is addressed, although Paul carefully underlines it for us. Notice the first verse again: "Do you not know, brothers -- for I am speaking to men who know the law -- " In other words, if you are going to understand this paragraph, you must know something about the Law -- you must know its functions, its purpose, and its effects. If you don't know or understand the Law, you are going to end up confused with this paragraph. As Paul says, "I realize that the ones to whom I am writing here are men who understand the Law."

Now, before we plunge into this, my question is: Do you understand the Law? Just as I thought -- not one of you here is a lawyer. As Paul points out here, we have to understand the Law. Let's stop a moment and see just how much we understand about the Law: First, do you know that the Law Paul mentions here is a reference to a standard of conduct, or behavior, which is expected of men. There are other uses of the word law. Sometimes it is used in reference to a principle that governs our lives, such as the law of gravity. But here Paul is talking about a standard of conduct that we are expected to live up to.

The most obvious and perfect expression of that standard of behavior is the Ten Commandments. Everyone has heard of the Ten Commandments -- right? The Ten Commandments tell us: "You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourselves a graven image... You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain... Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Honor your father and mother... You shall not kill. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet..." (Exodus 20:3-17). That is a standard of conduct, isn't it? That, of course, is the Law that Paul talks about here -- the Law that was given to Israel. But Paul already has made clear in Chapter 2 that, in a wider sense, the Law is present among men everywhere. Have you ever listened to people talking about their experiences and relationships with other people? Listen for a while, and you will hear a phrase like this: "I don't think that is fair." What do these people mean? What is it that determines whether a thing is fair or not? It is obviously some unspoken standard of conduct or behavior that both the speaker and the listener have in mind which is universally understood without speaking.

Some might put it this way: "I think this is the right thing to do." There, again, is an unspoken standard of behavior. Somebody says, "I'm going to get even!" How do you know when you are even? There is an unspoken standard in mind. So, as Paul points out in Chapter 2, the Law really is everywhere; it is embedded in the hearts of men. There is an undescribed, unspoken standard of conduct to which we all refer. Every man everywhere thinks in these terms, no matter what his background may be. Now, that is the Law. It is the unspoken agreement that we all understand and which we must measure up to. Do you know that this is what Paul calls "the Law"? Let's see what more you know about the Law. Did you know that the purpose of the Law is to condemn failure? The Law never pats you on the back when you do right. It takes for granted that you ought to do right anyway, and it never says thank you for doing right. But if you do wrong, the Law condemns you. In one way or another, it points out and punishes wrongdoing. It does this in the laws of our land, in traffic laws, and even in our so-called "moral" laws. Evil and wrongdoing always take their toll. Therefore, the nature of law is that it condemns failure. Did you know that? Now, do you know that the effect of the Law is to discourage people? If law condemns -- and no one likes to feel put down and condemned -- then the effect of the Law, invariably, is to discourage, to produce a sense of defeat, and, ultimately, a sense of despair. That is what the Law does. That is why, in our land and in all the nations of the earth, law is producing a sense of despair. That is a major problem that people wrestle with today.

No one likes to feel despairing, and so we react in various ways. Do you know that there are certain invariable signs that you can detect in people who are still under the Law? Paul is writing this to those believers in Christ who were still under the Law. In their minds, at least, they thought they had to live under the Law, and there are certain signs of people who live like that. One of the first signs is that they are always proud of their record. You say, "Wait a minute! I thought you said that the Law's effect was to make you discouraged and defeated. Someone who is proud of his record is not discouraged or defeated." Well, that is a diversion. The Law is making them discouraged and they don't like it. In certain areas of their lives they see defeat, and so they attempt to get people's attention off this area of failure and onto areas where they feel they have succeeded. That is why they are always pointing out the areas of their success and boasting about how well they are doing. They want to keep us from looking at that other area where they are failing. The Law produces failure. Therefore, one of the first marks of a person who is living under the Law is that he is always pointing out how well he is doing. Isn't that strange? Did you know that? I speak to those who know the Law, and you ought to know this.

Another mark of people who are living under the Law is that they are always critical of others. This is another diversionary tactic. Why are people critical of others? Well, if you succeed in getting your friends' eyes fastened on other people, they won't look at you. And you feel justified because the faults you point out in other people aren't the same faults you feel guilty of. You know, God plays some amazing tricks with us. He so blinds our eyes, or allows Satan to do so, that invariably the things we criticize others for are the very things that we ourselves are guilty of. And we don't know it! You see, the Law is producing this sense of failure and defeat, and we are constantly adjusting to it and compensating for it by criticizing others.

Another mark of those under the Law is that they are always reluctant to admit any error or fault in their own lives. It is hard to get them to admit it. I have just finished reading Born Again, Chuck Colson's book about his terrible experiences during Watergate. I was interested in his characterization of former President Richard Nixon. This was one of Nixon's problems -- he could never admit he was wrong in anything. In fact, Colson said that even when Nixon obviously had a cold -- nose running, face red, sneezing, all the symptoms of a cold -- he would never admit it. That is the mentality of those who are under the Law. They feel very heavily the standard of conduct they are expected to have, so they pretend they are living up to it, even though they don't. They hate to admit defeat because that means they must change.

Another symptom of those under the Law is that they invariably are subject to times of inner boredom and depression, and oftentimes experience outward symptoms of depression and discouragement and defeat. They go through times of utter, sheer boredom. That is the sign of someone under the Law. The Law is doing its work condemning, and that sense of condemnation produces depression of spirit. Did you know this? You see, you can't understand this passage unless you know what the Law does. That is why I keep asking "Do you know it?" If you know this, you can see that this is a major problem in the church today. This is what has gone wrong with so much of the church in America today. Now, therefore, we must understand Paul's application of this illustration. Let's get it now in Verses 4-6:

So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. For when we were controlled by our sinful nature[i.e., the flesh], the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code. (Romans 7:4-6 NIV)

Here is the way out, the way to be free from the Law! But I doubt if you understood it. Let's work through this passage so we can see it. Let's go back to the illustration: The woman is you and me. She has two husbands, one following the other. Now, the point of this little story is not that the woman has two husbands. Although that is important, it is not the major point. What Paul is getting at here is what the death of the first husband does to the woman's relationship to the Law -- not what it does directly to the woman herself, but what it does to her tie to the Law. Notice that Verse 2 tells us the place of the Law in this story?

For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage[or, the law of her husband]. (Romans 7:2 NIV)

Do you notice three factors here? First, there is the Law; second, there is a woman; and third, there is the husband. None of those are the same thing, are they? Therefore, the husband cannot be the Law. Many commentators say this woman (us) is married to the Law, and they have missed the point of this illustration. It is not that. It is the Law that binds the woman and her husband together. The Law is outside, saying "You two must stay together because you are married." The Law is not the husband, that is clear.

If the first husband dies, Paul says, the woman is released from the Law. Not only is she released from her husband, but she also is released from the Law. If her husband dies, the Law can say nothing to her as to where she can go, and what she can do, and who she can be with. She is released from the Law. The death of the husband makes the woman dead to Law. Now, who is this first husband? According to the context, it is very clear. We have been looking at it all along. The first husband is Adam, this old life into which we were born. We were linked to it, married to it, and couldn't get away from it. Like a woman married to an old, cruel, mean husband, there is not much she can do about it. While she is married she is tied to that husband. In Verse 3, Paul says:

So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man. (Romans 7:3 NIV)

Now, that is plain, isn't it? The woman cannot have two husbands at once. She cannot have a second husband while she is married to the first. She is stuck with #1, and she has to share his lifestyle. As we have already seen, that lifestyle is one of bondage and corruption and shame and death. That is why we who were born into Adam have to share the lifestyle of fallen Adam. It fits perfectly, doesn't it?

Now, if this woman, while she is married to her first husband, tries to live with another -- for this lifestyle is sickening to her -- she will be called an adulteress. Who calls her that? The Law does. The Law says, "You are a hypocrite." That, you see, is the spiritual counterpart of the physical term "adulteress." The Law condemns her, it points out her failure, it calls her an adulteress. It is only when the first husband dies that she is free from that condemnation of the Law and thus can marry again. When she does, the Law is absolutely silent; it has nothing to say to her at all. Now look at Verse 4:

So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. (Romans 7:4 NIV)

What a fantastic verse! Here is the great, marvelous declaration of the gospel of our Lord Jesus. Notice how Paul draws the parallel: "So ... you also." We fit right into this. The key word here is "you died to the law through the body of Christ," and the body of Christ refers to the death of the Lord Jesus on the cross. He died in a body. He came to take a body, that he might die.

Paul is referring to what the Scriptures say in many places -- that on the cross the Lord Jesus was made sin for us. He took our place, as sinful humanity, on the cross. I don't know how, but he did. In other words: He became that first husband. Do you see that? It is very important. On the cross, he became that first husband, that Adamic nature to which we were married. And when he became that, he died. And when he died, we were freed from the Law.

The Law has nothing to say to us anymore. We are free to be married to another. Who is this? It is Christ risen. Our first husband is Christ crucified; our second husband is Christ risen from the dead. We now share his name. We share his power. We share his experiences. We share his position, his glory, his hope, his dreams -- all that he is, we now share! We are married to Christ, risen from the dead. The Law, therefore, has nothing to say to us. Isn't that clear? Verses 5 and 6:

For when we were controlled by our sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code. (Romans 7:5-6 NIV)

You see, while we were married to sin, the old Adamic principle, we often tried to act as though we were married to someone else, didn't we? We tried to act righteous and loving and kind. Many of us did. We really tried to behave ourselves, but we found we couldn't. The Law refused to go along with us. The Law judged us. It said. "You are really not that way, you are just acting like that. You are pretending." The Law called us hypocrites, and it was right. That is what we were. We were religious hypocrites, many of us, attempting to give the impression that we were OK, and right, and loving, and moral, and kind, and good, when we weren't at all. Inside, all our attitudes were selfish and self-centered and loveless; but we were pretending. And the Law saw through it and named us what we were: hypocrites.

But, according to this, we died to the Law through the death of our first husband. When Jesus was crucified, that first husband died. And now we are free from the condemnation of the Law. We are married to another, Christ risen from the dead. So now, when we seek to be righteous and to do righteous things and to be loving and kind, we are no longer hypocrites. This is the point Paul wants to make. We are doing what we really are. We are tied to Jesus. His life is ours and we are acting according to our true nature.

We are married to a new husband. And because we share his life and power, we are not only able to be what he is, but we are also free from any condemnation or failure in our struggle along the way. We don't always act right, but the Law doesn't condemn us. The Law's purpose was to condemn, and we can't be condemned anymore because we are not hypocrites. We are doing what we were designed to do. We have a new identity. No longer bound to our failures, we can admit them and forget them. We don't have to have them clinging to us; we no longer have to believe that God is unhappy with us because we don't always live exactly right. He has made provision for this. It is not a fraud when we go back to God again and again and accept from his hand his forgiveness.

Therefore, it is not law that straightens us out, it is love. We no longer need the Law to straighten us out, but we have love to do so. We are free to fail and still be loved. And we are also free to win in the new power given to us.

The question Paul asks is, "Is the Law worthless, then, and contemptible?" His answer, of course, is, "No!"Some Christians talk that way about the Law, but Paul never does. There is a place for it, and it is valuable in a certain way, but it can do nothing to deliver us from evil. Only our relationship to love can do that.

Prayer:

Father, our hearts are singing,

Free from the law,
O happy condition,
Jesus hath bled,
and there is remission;
Cursed by the law
and bruised by the fall,
Grace hath redeemed us
once for all.

We thank you for this Father, and we pray that we may understand more and more fully that we are not under condemnation. Even though we struggle and don't always catch on to these truths very quickly, and don't always act on the principles revealed to us, nevertheless, you don't reject us, you don't cast us aside. You are not angry with us, but you lovingly forgive us, and help us, and restore us, and lead us on. That is what will make us free more and more. Thank you for it, Father, in Jesus' name, Amen.

by **Need2Know** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 12:39 pm

The Continuing Struggle

As we have been reading through this great letter from Paul to the Romans, we have seen the gospel of Jesus Christ which is able to set men free. This is the central declaration of the gospel: Christ has come, he has died, he has risen again, and he has come into our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit in order that we who believe in him might be free. That is what the gospel is all about -- freedom!

Freedom from self-centeredness, freedom from hostility and bitterness,freedom from anxiety and all kinds of fears, freedom from bondage to evil habits of any type -- This is the freedom Christ has come to give us. He has come to release us, to free us to be the men and women that God has designed us to be, living in the midst of (as Paul describes it) "a generation of crooks and perverts," yet being lights shining in the darkness of our day. As we have seen all the way through this book, and especially in Romans 5 and 6, this kind of life is totally possible in Jesus Christ. Yet there are at least two ways we can miss this, even though we are Christians: Paul has dealt with one of these in Romans 6. In the last half of Romans 6 he has pointed out that, even though you are a Christian, you can give yourself over to the bondage and slavery of sin. You can continue to give way to sin. You may think it is not worth your while to fight or you may enjoy the pleasure that sin gives you, so you keep on doing the things that are wrong. This is what theologians call antinomianism, which means, simply, "against the law." Antinomianism reflects an attitude that unfortunately is common among us -- the idea that God, in his grace, will forgive us, so why not indulge in sin? I will go ahead and sin because I know God will forgive.

The answer to that attitude is found in Chapter 6, Verses 15-22. The Scripture says that if you do live on that basis, sin will enslave you, it will shame you, it will limit you, it will defile you, it will spread corruption and death in your experience. And though you may be a Christian, you will have a very unhappy, miserable Christian life because you cannot give way to sin without being enslaved by it. The second way we can miss God's freedom for us is exactly the opposite. We attempt to handle this problem of sin by trying our best to do what God wants. By discipline and dedication of heart and the exercise of determined willpower we seek to do our best to do what God asks, to live according to the Law, and to fulfill the requirements that the Law demands.

Now, this takes many forms. Sometimes it comes as a challenge to take certain steps by which we can overcome certain problems. It all sounds very good, because it is an appeal to do that which is right, but it is what the Scriptures call legalism -- the exact opposite of antinomianism. It is a whole-hearted attempt to do what God wants. And yet, as we have already seen in the opening verses of Chapter 7, the end result of attempting to live on that basis is that we become defensive, self-righteous, critical of others, proud of our own record. But also, we become unaccountably bored, dull, discouraged, depressed, and even, frequently, despairing. That, basically, is the story of Romans 7.

We already saw in Romans 7:1-6 that there is no need to be like this. Legalism is not the answer, either, and there is no need for it. We are not under the Law, but under grace. Romans 7 is a commentary on Paul's great declaration of Romans 6:14: "Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace." In the first six verses of Romans 7 we looked at what Paul said about this woman with two husbands -- the woman representing us, and the two husbands representing our being tied to sin in Adam (our first husband), then freed by the death of Jesus on our behalf. Not only are we freed from sin, as Paul points out, but we are freed from the Law as well. The Law condemns us, but we are no longer under Law if we are resting in Christ. Therefore, the Law does not serve any useful purpose in delivering us from sin.

That raises the question: "What, then, is the purpose of the Law in a Christian's life?" Is the Law really contemptible and worthless? Ought we just to dispense with it? There are many Christians around us who say, "I'm a Christian, saved by grace. The Law has no meaning to me at all. The Law was given to Moses for the Israelites but it doesn't apply to a Christian. Let's dispense with it." Now, Paul never speaks this way, and neither does Jesus. In fact, Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount that if anyone disparages the Law, changes it, or waters it down in any degree whatsoever, he is under the curse of God. The Law abides forever.

Therefore, we must clearly understand what Paul is teaching here about the function and purpose of the Law. We must know
that the Law cannot deliver us from sin. It simply cannot do so. But it can always do one thing well -- even with Christians -- it can expose sin in us and drive us back to Christ. That is what the Law is for, and that is the story of Chapter 7, Verses 7-25. This section falls into two parts: In Verses 7-13, Paul discusses how the Law exposes sin and kills the believer. That is the term he uses: "the Law kills us." Then, in Verses 14-25, he takes up exactly the same theme -- how the Law exposes sin and kills us -- but this time it is not explained, it is experienced.

In the first section Paul tells us how it works; in the second section he tells us how it feels. This is a feeling generation, and, therefore, this is a passage that ought to strike a very responsive chord in your heart, for Paul describes how it feels to be under the Law as a Christian. He describes what it does to you and just exactly how it feels. In Verses 7-11, the apostle begins to describe his own experience in relationship to the Law:

What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Far from it! Indeed I would not have known what it was to covet if the law had not said, "Do not covet." But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. (Romans 7:7-11 NIV)

This is Paul's experience. It is clear that he is describing something that he himself went through. But, also, Paul employs the past tense throughout this passage, which suggests that he is describing his experience before he became a Christian. This probably happened not long before he became a Christian, but Paul is describing something that is common to the experience of many of us today. No doubt many of us have had exactly the same experience that the Apostle Paul describes.

Paul, as we know, was raised in a godly home. He was raised a Jew in the city of Tarsus. He was brought up to be a typical Jewish son, and he was taught the Law from birth. So when he says he lived "apart from the Law" he doesn't mean that he didn't know what it was. He simply means that there came a time when the Law came home to him. "The commandment came," he says.

We have all had that experience. We have read Scripture that was just words to us -- beautiful words, perhaps, but we didn't understand them. Then, years after, an experience that we go through makes those words come alive. This is what Paul is talking about here. He knew the Law from birth, but he did not know it in the sense of understanding what it was saying until he went through a certain experience. Here he describes that experience, one that he had before he became a Christian.

In this home in which he was raised, Paul, like many of us today, was protected and sheltered and kept from exposure to serious temptations. He was raised in the Jewish culture, where everyone around him was sheltered also. Therefore, he grew up relatively untroubled with problems of sin. Now, there are many people like that in this congregation. You have grown up in a home where you have been protected and sheltered, and you have run with a crowd of friends who, likewise, have been kept from exposure to various things. You haven't fallen into evil.

Many young people, like Saul of Tarsus, think they have handled the problem. What about keeping the Law? It's not hard! Hardly any temptations come under these circumstances. These people think they have no struggles along this line. They have the world by the tail -- they can handle it. As Paul describes it, they are alive apart from the Law. But then comes a time when they are exposed. They are thrust out into a different lifestyle, a different crowd of people. They move out on their own and suddenly they find themselves removed from the shelter and protection and love and cultural defenses that have been theirs from childhood on. Perhaps the new crowd -- as a way of life -- does things that these sheltered young people have been taught are wrong.

Now, for the first time, they feel the force of the prohibition of the Law. The Law says, "Thou shalt not covet, commit adultery, murder, steal ..." -- whatever it may be. And yet the crowd around them says, "Let's do it -- it's fun!" For the first time, they begin to feel the prohibition of the Law. Then a strange phenomenon happens. Something about that situation arouses within them a strong desire to do the things that are prohibited. Maybe they are able to resist them for awhile, but, nevertheless, they find themselves pressured, pushed by something within them that wants very badly to do these things.

Now, that is what Paul discovered. It was the tenth commandment, "Thou shalt not covet" (Exodus 20:17a KJV), that got to him. He thought he had been keeping all the Law because he had not done some of the external things prohibited in the other commandments. But this one commandment talks about how you feel inside, your desires, you imagination, your ambitions. It says, "Thou shalt not desire what another has." Paul found himself awakened to this commandment and discovered that he was coveting, no matter where he turned. When the Law came, he found himself aroused by it and brought under its power. It precipitated an orgy of desire. Many of us have felt this same way.

I have seen this happen. When young people, raised in sheltered homes, move out on their own -- perhaps when they go to college, or get a job, or move to another city -- they find that suddenly all the control they had seemed to be exercising over evil vanishes. They give way and are plunged into an orgy of evil, in one form or another.

I was in the Colorado Rockies this past week. A man met me to take me into the mountains for a conference. When I came out to the curb, he was waiting in his new, powerful, shiny Lincoln Continental. I got into the car and expected him to turn on the ignition. But to my amazement, he started driving without turning on the engine -- or at least that's how it seemed to me. I suddenly realized that the engine had been running all the time. It was so quiet that I hadn't heard it. As we moved up into the Rockies, the power of that engine became manifest. We traveled up the steep grades in those great mountains without difficulty because of the power released by the touch on the accelerator.

Now, that is something like what Paul is describing here. Sin lies silent within us. We do not even know it is there. We think we have got hold of life in such a way that we can handle it without difficulty. We are self-confident because we have never really been exposed to the situation that puts pressure upon us -- we never have to make a decision against the pressure on the basis of the commandment of the Law "Thou shalt not... "

But when that happens, we suddenly discover all kinds of desires are awakened within us. We find ourselves filled with attitudes that almost shock us -- unloving, bitter, resentful thoughts, murderous attitudes -- we would like to get hold of somebody and kill him, if we could. Lustful feelings that we never dreamed were there surface and we find that we would love to indulge in them if only we had the opportunity. We find ourselves awakened to these desires. As the great engine surges into life at the touch of the accelerator, so this powerful, idling beast within us called sin springs into life as the Law comes home to us. We discover something that we never knew was there before. Now, is this the Law's fault? No, Paul says, it is not the Law's fault. He goes on in Verses 12-13:

So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful[exceedingly sinful]. (Romans 7:12-13 NIV)

That is what the Law is for. It is to expose the fact that this evil force is in every one of us, waiting only for the right circumstance in order to spring into being, overpower our will, and carry us into things we never dreamed we would do. Many of us experience this. According to this passage, the great power of sin is that it deceives us. We think we have got life under control -- and we are fooled. All sin is waiting for is the right occasion when, like a powerful, idling engine, it roars into life and takes over at the touch of the accelerator and we find ourselves helplessly under its control.

The Law is designed to expose that sin, and to make us feel this way so that we begin to understand what this evil force is that we have inherited by our birth into this fallen human race. The Law shows sin to be what it is, something exceedingly powerful and dangerous, something that has greater strength than our willpower and causes us to do things that we are resolved not to do. In Verses 14-25, the same experience is described again, but this time in terms of how we feel when it happens. There is only one major difference between this section and the previous one. In this section, Paul switches to the present tense. That is significant because it means that he is now describing his experience at the time he wrote this letter to the Romans. This, then, is a description of the Law as it touches the Christian's life. It does exactly the same thing as it did before we became a Christian, only now we have it from the point of view of the Christian, the believer who is deceived by the sin that is still resident within. Verses 14 and 15:

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual[carnal, fleshly. Paul gives us now an excellent definition of carnality], sold as a slave to sin. I do not know what I am doing. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. (Romans 7:14-15 NIV)

Some have been convinced, from this verse alone, that Paul was a golfer. If you have ever tried golf, you know that this is the very thing that happens. What you want to do, you do not do. What you do not want to do, that is the very thing you do. Of course, Paul has a much greater problem than playing golf.

The key to this whole passage is Verse 14: "The law is spiritual," Paul says. "It deals with my spirit. It gets right at the very heart of my being." Fundamentally, as we have seen, human beings are spirits. The Law is spiritual, and it touches us in that area. "But I am carnal," Paul says. "I can't respond to it. I am sold as a slave to sin." Now, this always raises a problem. Compare this with Chapter 6, Verse 17, where Paul is speaking of slavery and says, "But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to in, you whole-heartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were committed. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness," (Romans 6:17-18 NIV). If he could write that to the Romans, surely it was true of him as well. And yet, how could a man write that he had become in Christ a slave to righteousness, and just a few paragraphs later write, "I am carnal, sold under sin, a slave to sin"?

Many have said that Paul is all confused here. Of course, he is not confused at all. He is simply describing what happens when a Christian tries to live under the Law. When a Christian, by his dedication and willpower and determination, tries to do what is right in order to please God, he is living under the Law. And Paul is telling us what to expect when we live like that -- for we all try to live that way from time to time. Sin, you see, deceives us. It deceived Paul as an apostle, and he needed this treatment of the Law. It deceives us, and we need it too.

Now Paul tells us what happens. There are two problems, basically, which he gives us in Verse 15: "I do not know what I am doing. For what I want to do I do not do..." That is problem Number 1: I want to do right -- there are things I would love to do, but I cannot do them. The second problem is: "but what I hate I do." In the verses that follow, Paul takes the second problem first, and shows us what happens in our experience. Verses 16 and 17:

And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. (Romans 7:16-17 NIV)

That is a very important statement. Paul makes it twice in this paragraph, and it is the explanation of and the answer to how we can be delivered from this condition. Verses 18-20:

I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature[or my flesh]. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do -- this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. (Romans 7:18-20 NIV)

Let's examine this very carefully. Paul says that as a Christian, redeemed by the grace of God, there is now something within him that wants to do good, that agrees with the Law, that says that the Law is right. There is something within that says what the Law tells me to do is right, and I want to do it. But also, he says, there is something else in me that rises up and says "No!" Even though I determine not to do what is bad, I suddenly find myself in such circumstances that my determination melts away, my resolve is gone, and I end up doing what I had sworn I would not do. Have you ever felt that way?

So, what has gone wrong? Paul's explanation is, "It is no longer I who do it; it is sin living in me." Isn't that strange? There is a division within our humanity indicated here. There is the "I" that wants to do what God wants, and there is the sin which dwells in "me," which is different than the "I." We must understand what this is. Human beings are complicated creatures. They are not simple organisms. We have within us a spirit, a soul, and a body. These are distinct, one from the other. What Paul is suggesting here is that the redeemed spirit never wants to do what God has prohibited. It agrees with the Law that it is good. And yet there is an alien power, a force that he calls sin, a great beast that is lying still within us until touched by the commandment of the Law. Then it springs to life, and we do what we do not want to do.

Notice that Jesus himself agrees with this. On one occasion he said, "If your right hand offends you, cut it off," (Matthew 5:30). He did not mean that you should actually chop off your right hand, because that would be a violation of other texts that indicate that God made the body and made it right and it is morally neutral. What he means is that we should take drastic action because we are up against a serious problem. He indicates that there is a "me" within us that runs our members, that gives orders to our hands and our feet and our eyes and our tongue and our brain and our sexual organs, and controls them. That "me" is giving an order to do something wrong, but there is another "I" in us who is offended by this. That "I" does not like it, does not want it. And so, Jesus' words are, "Cut it off." In a moment we are going to see how that happens, what it is that cuts it off and thus enables us to handle the problem. That is the way man is made. Our will power is never enough; sin will win, and we will do the evil that we swore not to do. Now look at the other side of this problem in Verses 21-23:

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law[another principle] at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law[or principle] of my mind[my agreement with the law of God] and making me a prisoner of the law[principle] of sin at work within my members. (Romans 7:21-23 NIV)

Here is the same problem exactly. You want to do right and determine to do right, knowing what it is and swearing to do it, only to find that under certain circumstances all that determination melts away and you do not do what is right. You do exactly what you did not want to do. So you come away angry with yourself. "What's the matter with me? Why can't I do what is right? Why do I give way when I get into this situation? Why am I so weak?" This is right where we live, isn't it? This is what we all struggle with. The cry of the heart at that moment is (Verse 24):

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (Romans 7:24 NIV)

What is this? Well, right here you arrive at where the Lord Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," (Matthew 5:3). Blessed is the man who comes to the end of himself. Blessed is the man who has arrived at spiritual bankruptcy. Because this is the point -- the only point -- where God's help is given.

This is what we need to learn. If we think that we have got something in ourselves that we can work out our problems with, if we think that our wills are strong enough, our desires motivated enough, that we can control evil in our lives by simply determining to do so, then we have not come to the end of ourselves yet. And the Spirit of God simply folds his arms to wait and lets us go ahead and try it on that basis. And we fail, and fail miserably -- until, at last, out of our failures, we cry, "O wretched man that I am!" Sin has deceived us, and the Law, as our friend, has come in and exposed sin for what it is. When we see how wretched it makes us, then we are ready for the answer, which comes immediately (Verse 25):

Thanks be to God -- through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:25a NIV)

Who will deliver me from this body of death? The Lord Jesus has already done it. We are to respond to the feelings of wretchedness and discouragement and failure, to which the Law has brought us because of sin in us, by reminding ourselves immediately of the facts that are true of us in Jesus Christ. Our feelings must be answered by facts.

We are no longer under the Law. That is the fact. We have arrived at a different situation; we are married to Christ, Christ risen from the dead. That means we must no longer think, "I am a poor, struggling, bewildered disciple, left alone to wrestle against these powerful urges." We must now begin to think, "No, I am a free son of God, living a normal human life. I am dead to sin, and dead to the Law, because I am married to Christ. His power is mine, right at this moment. And though I may not feel a thing, I have the power to say, "No!" and walk away and be free, in Jesus Christ."

Some of you know that my wife and I were in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and made a recording for a television broadcast. With us on that program was a pastor from Canada who had been raised in Russia. He had a burden on his heart to get the Word of God into Russia and was part of an organization (among several that exist today) to get Bibles into Russia. He told us about his first experience of crossing the Russian border with a load of Bibles in the trunk of the car. He wasn't going to try to smuggle them in; he just was counting on God to get them through somehow. He and a friend loaded the boxes of Bibles into the car, and as they drove up to the border, all his resolve and courage began to drain away. Within a mile or so of the border, his friend said, "How do you feel?" He said, "I feel scared." So they stopped alongside the road and there they simply told the Lord how they felt. "Lord, we are scared. We didn't get into this situation because we want to be here. It isn't we who want to get this Word into Russia; it is you. This is your project, and this is your situation. We are willing to take whatever risks you ask, but you have got to see it through. We are scared and we don't know what to do. We don't have any wisdom, we don't know how to handle this situation when we get to the border, but we expect you to do something." He said that as they prayed that way, totally bankrupt, wanting to do good, unable to do it, but committing the matter to the Lord Jesus, they felt the inward sense of the Spirit of God witnessing to them that God would act. They didn't know how or what he would do, but they felt a sense of peace. They drove on to the border, and when the guard asked for their papers, they gave them to him. He examined them, then said, "What do you have in the trunk?" They said, "Some boxes." He said, "Let me see them." So they opened up the trunk, and here were the boxes of Bibles. They expected surely that his next question would be, "What's in them?" But he didn't ask it. He simply said, "Okay," shut the door, gave them their papers, and on they went. Now, that is what this passage is describing for us. This is the way we are to live, the way we are to face every challenge, large or small.

There are teachers who teach that this passage in Romans 7 is something a Christian goes through once, then he gets out of it and moves into Romans 8 and never gets back into Romans 7 again. Nothing could be further from the truth! Even as mighty a man as Paul went through it again and again. This is a description of what every believer will go through again and again in his experience because sin has the power to deceive us and to cause us to trust in ourselves, even when we are not aware we are doing it. The Law is what will expose that evil force and drive us to this place of wretchedness that we might then, in poverty of spirit, cry out, "Lord Jesus, it is your problem; you take it." And he will do so.

The chapter rightly ends with the exclamation in Verse 25: "Thanks be to God -- through Jesus Christ our Lord!" The next sentence belongs with Chapter 8. It is the summarizing verse that introduces the themes of the explanation Paul gives us in Chapter 8. But here is the way of deliverance for Christians. We do need the Law. We need it every time sin deceives us. But the Law will not deliver us from sin; Law will only bring us, again and again, to the mighty deliverer.

Prayer:
Thank you, our Father, for the simple and clear teaching of this passage. Help us to understand that we are freed from the Law once it has done its work of bringing us to the knowledge of sin. We cannot control ourselves by that means or deliver ourselves from evil, but we can rest upon the mighty deliverer who will set us free. We thank you in Jesus' name, Amen.

by **Need2Know** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 12:43 pm

No Condemnation

The eighth chapter of Romans is the favorite chapter of many of you, I know -- and not without reason. This is one of the most significant chapters of the Scriptures. Somebody has likened this to "the brightest jewel in the casket of gems in the Word of God." I like to think of it as a great mountain, like Mt. Shasta, rising above all the surrounding hills and capturing the attention of all. Yet, the interesting thing about this is that it is not until you get to the middle of the chapter (Verse 17) that Paul introduces any new thoughts. In the opening words of this chapter he is simply gathering it up, bringing it to focus.

But first I want to point out that you have to ignore the division between Chapters 7 and 8. I believe that the text of the Scriptures is inspired by God -- "breathed out" by him -- but I believe that the chapter divisions were put in by the devil! Many times they come right at a place where they actually obscure truth. Sometimes these divisions break the continuity of a thought and take it out of the context. Then we may miss something tremendously important. That is certainly true here. The first two verses of Chapter 8 ought to be linked with the closing verse of Chapter 7. They are really all one sentence. When you read them that way, it will help explain the struggle and darkness in Romans 7.

As you remember, Paul is in a very intense struggle because, as a believer, he is trying to keep the Law. Anybody who gets involved in a discipline of the spirit and dedication of the heart to obey God, but is trying to do it through his own efforts, willpower, and determination, will have the same problem. The problem is really legalism. Here you see the tremendous harm that legalism causes throughout the existence of the church. There are thousands and millions of Christians who are struggling like this today because of the power of the Law in their lives. Paul tells us about the struggle: "The things that I would not do, that I do; and the things that I would do, I do not do," (Romans 7:14-20 NIV). We have all felt this way and can identify with his struggle. But Paul does not leave it there. It is a struggle that does not have to go on. That is the point. How does he resolve this struggle? He immediately answers with this one, great, flashing word of relief in Verse 25:

Thanks be to God -- through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:25a NIV)

The rest of Verse 25 in Chapter 7 belongs with the opening verses of Chapter 8. It is an explanation of what he means when he says, "Thanks be to God -- through Jesus Christ our Lord!"

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin... (Romans 7:25b NIV)

That summarizes all that he has been talking about in Chapter 7. But don't stop there, for there should not be even a period between that and Verse 1 of Chapter 8.

[but,] therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.

There is absolutely no question but that Chapter 8 ought to open with the word but. It is a contrast that shows the way out of the struggle of Chapter 7: "But there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." The only reason this verse does not open with but is because some clown put a big8 there, and that has thrown off all the translators. Now, what is Paul saying in this passage when it all is taken together like that? First, it is evident that there is a struggle in the Christian life. There is a struggle between what he calls "the sinful nature" and the Spirit. (I am not sure I like that term "sinful nature" too well -- the word is flesh, and, as the word is used in the Scriptures, it not only means the body, but it means the sin that finds its seat in those bodies.) You see, it is by the body that we are linked with our father, Adam. Genetically, all that we have in our bodies is traceable back through the stream of human history to Adam. God made a body for Adam that is like ours -- with two eyes, two ears, a nose, etc., and we have these characteristics because Adam had them. But we also have inherited from Adam this principle of sin that is in us.

Now, it is hard to define this principle of sin. In some way, it describes the access that the devil has to our humanity. It is the means by which Satan is able to implant in our minds "the fiery darts of the wicked one" (Ephesians 6:16 KJV), as Paul calls them in Ephesians. This refers to those obscene and lustful thoughts, and selfish attitudes, and hostile, bitter feelings that we have toward others -- thoughts that come suddenly, unbidden, into our minds when we least expect them. They come from this root of sin that is in our bodies. In Galatians 5 Paul describes this struggle between the Spirit and the flesh:

For the sinful nature[or, the flesh] desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature [the flesh]. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. (Galatians 5:17 NIV)

That really is a verse of hope. Paul says the Spirit struggles against the flesh, so that you cannot do the things that you would. That is what Paul is describing here in Romans 7. In Verse 25 he says, "I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law." That is, as he said earlier, "I want to do good. I believe in it. I delight in God's law in my inner being. I am changed; I agree that the law is good. But I find I can't do it." In his mind he is awakened to the value and the righteousness of God's law, and this has come about by means of the Spirit. How else can you ever come to the place of agreeing that God is good and holy, his Word is right and the Law is good, except it be by the Spirit of God in you? It is only when a man is filled with the Holy Spirit that he is able to talk like that. Therefore, it is the Holy Spirit, within Paul's human spirit, agreeing with God's law. But set against that is this sin that is in his flesh that takes hold of him and makes him a slave to the law of sin, even though he does not want to be.

How does he break this hold? He breaks it, as he says, by calling upon a new view of himself that is true because he is in Jesus Christ. That is what Romans 8 declares to us. But there is a struggle, and some of us have been very much aware of it.

If you ever have watched an alcoholic, or perhaps have struggled with alcoholism yourself, you know that this is an intense struggle. An alcoholic can come to the place where he can see everything evil happening to him because of alcohol. He wants to quit; he determines to quit. He knows he is going to lose his wife, his children, his reputation, and everything if he doesn't quit. I have seen these people resolve never to drink again. Yet, in a moment of temptation, the very struggle of Romans 7 comes in and suddenly they find themselves overpowered by sin. They give in, and then they hate themselves for it.

Those who struggle with homosexuality feel the same way. Habits of reaction have settled in and they find it very difficult to say "No" even though they want to. Born again, they want to be delivered -- but it is hard.

And it is not only these things that grip us like this. A hot temper or a habit of overeating can do the same thing. How many of you resolve not to eat as much? Perhaps right now you are saying, "When I go home, I am going to take just a very light meal." And someone will spread out a beautiful roast, and apple pie, and, before you know it, your resolve is gone -- and so is the food.

This is a problem of the will, isn't it? We are weak, and we know it. This is what Paul is describing here. This is the struggle of the Christian life. It comes again and again, but it does not have to continue. That is what this passage is about. It is a struggle that we find ourselves in, and sometimes we aren't even aware of it at first. But the struggle does not have to go on.

Some Christians resent the fact that the struggle is there at all. They have gotten a false idea of Christianity. They think Christianity means that God takes this struggle away and removes the temptation so they never have to struggle again. Unfortunately, that is not true; and many people have been hurt, and have become angry with God, because he doesn't do that. I have seen young Christians become very upset at times because they thought they were free and then they found that they weren't.

The text goes on to tell us that this can cease only when we reckon on who we really are in Christ. Basically, what we need is a new self-image. That is what will deliver us, for that is what is true of us. And when we see who we really are, we can say "No" to the flesh and make it stick; then we can say "Yes" to the Spirit and discover a whole new walk of life.

The second major thing the apostle is saying is that not only is there a struggle, but, and this is very important, the struggle is without condemnation. Though I struggle at times, Paul says, there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. The reason there is no condemnation is given in just one little phrase: "in Christ." That goes right back to our justification by faith: We came out of Adam, We are in Christ, and God will never condemn those who are in Christ. He never will! Now, we have to understand what "no condemnation" means. What is Paul talking about? Certainly, the most basic element in it is that there is no rejection by God. God does not turn us aside, he does not kick us out of his family. If we are born into the family of God by faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit has come to dwell within us, and he will never, never leave us. No matter what we do, he will never leave us. And God will never cut us out of his family or treat us as anything less than sons and daughters.

One of the most beautiful stories of the Scriptures is that of the prodigal son. The prodigal son left home, got into deep difficulty, wasted his life in riotous living, and ended up in the pigpen. I was listening to Dr. Vernon McGee the other morning on the radio and, in his colorful way, he asked, "Do you know the difference between the son in that pigpen and the pig? The difference is that no pig has ever said to himself, 'I will arise and go to my father.'" He is right; only sons say that. That is why there will be no condemnation, no rejection, by God. He will always treat you as his child, and not as his enemy. The second thing "no condemnation" means is that God is not angry with you when this struggle comes into your life. You want to be good, or you want to stop doing bad, but, when the moment of temptation comes, you find yourself overpowered and weak, and you give way. Then you hate yourself. You go away frustrated, feeling, as Paul described, "Oh, what's the matter with me? Why can't I do this thing? Why can't I act like I want to?" And though you may condemn yourself, God does not. He is not angry with you about that. He knows, as the Scriptures show us, that you are a child in his family, learning to walk.

The beautiful figure is that of a tender, loving father, watching his little boy begin to take his first steps. No father ever gets angry with his little son because he doesn't get right up and start running around the first time he tries to walk. If the child falls and stumbles and falters, the father helps him; he doesn't spank him. He lifts him up, encourages him, and shows him how to do it right. And if the child has a problem with his feet, maybe one foot is twisted or deformed, the father finds a way to relieve that condition and help him to learn to walk. That is what God does. He is not angry when we are struggling. He knows it takes awhile -- quite awhile, at times. And even the best of saints will, at times, fall. This was true of Paul, it was true of the apostles, and it was true of all the prophets of the Old Testament. Sin is deceitful and it will trip us at times. But God is not angry with us.

The third thing "no condemnation" means is that there is no punishment. God will never take us to the woodshed because of our struggles. He isn't angry and he isn't going to punish us. We may punish ourselves, we may be frustrated, we may cry out, "Oh wretched man that I am!" But God doesn't say that -- he doesn't punish us. Now, let me caution you. When we deliberately decide to sin, and like it, then he will punish us. This is the discipline of a father described in the closing part of Chapter 6. When we deliberately give ourselves back into sin once we have been set free from it, then, as a loving disciplinarian, God will sometimes correct us, and punish us, and even scourge us, until we begin to see what has happened. He does this out of love, just as an earthly father would. But that is a different condition than the one we are facing here.

Here Paul is addressing the times when we want to do good, and we are trying to do good. But we are weak, and, in a moment of temptation, we fail. And we fail again and again. But there is no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus. Even when we are being punished as disobedient sons, we still are not condemned. That remains true no matter what happens to us. Why are we not condemned? The answer that Paul gives in Verse 2 is beautiful:

...because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:2 NIV)

Paul was not left with a continuing, constant struggle; God came in and did something about it. God reminded him of what he knew to be true, and he began to believe it. Paul brings out three reasons why there is no condemnation. First, look at Verse 18 of Chapter 7: "I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good," (Romans 7:18a NIV). His heart is right. Then again, in Verse 22, he says, "For in my inner being I delight in God's law;" (Romans 7:18 NIV). Paul really wants to do right, his heart is right; therefore there is no condemnation. Second, and obviously connected with this, Paul explains that sin has deceived us and overpowered us. It is too much for us. We can't handle this wild beast raging within us when it is awakened by the demands and prohibitions of the Law. And God doesn't condemn us for that, he knows that it is more than we can handle. Third, and this is the most important, God has already made provision for our failure in Christ, and our very struggle is driving us to Christ. When you have come to the place of saying, "Oh wretched man that I am!" the only thing left, if you want any escape at all, is to ask, "Why am I thinking of myself in this way?" and to realize, "God says I am different." Reckoning on that difference that has come to you in Christ, you can rise up to act differently as well. That is the way out. God knows that even your failures are driving you to that moment; and, as a loving Father, he is patiently waiting for it to come.

The third major thing that Paul says is that a provision has been made for victory. The law of the Spirit of life, which is in Christ Jesus, will set you free from the law of sin and death, which is in your members. That is why Paul cries, "Thanks be to God -- through our Lord Jesus Christ!" (Romans 7:25a NIV). This law of the Spirit of life is your faith in what God has already said he has done for you in Christ. He has cut you off, made you a different creature, brought you into Christ, and married you to him -- you are not any longer the same man.

When we are failing, and angry with ourselves, our natural way of thinking about ourselves is something like this: "I'm a mess, a hopeless, helpless mess! Why can't I do what I want to do? Why can't I stop this thing that is hurting me so, and hurting others, too?" You are all wrapped up in your own feelings and you think you deserve to be whipped and punished and cast into hell.

At that point God says to you, "What is wrong is your view of yourself. That is not what you are; that is only a temporary delusion to which you are giving yourself over. The truth is, you have been cut free. You are married to Christ. Your human spirit has been indwelt by the Holy Spirit and it cannot sin. It has not sinned and does not sin. Now, you yourself, as a person, have been deceived by the sin in your flesh, and it has taken over and has gotten you into this difficulty. But that is not who you are. Don't believe that about yourself anymore. There is a fresh provision of the forgiveness of God and the righteousness of Christ waiting for you. You are in Christ -- this is who you are. Take his forgiveness, believe it, thank God for it, and go on, and know that your struggle has ended." That is why Paul says in Galatians 5:17, "They [the Spirit and the flesh] are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want," (Galatians 5:17b NIV).

Of course this does not mean that God has ended the reign of the flesh in our lives. It is still there. The law of sin and death, like the law of gravity, goes on working all the time. But the moment you believe what Jesus Christ says is true about you, and you believe what he has done for you, a new law comes in. This new law is stronger than the law of sin and death; it even uses that law to accomplish its end.

When I was a boy, I discovered that there was a law at work in my members that was affecting my eyesight. It was what I later learned to call the law of myopia, which is nearsightedness. It was in my members, right in my eyes, so that I could not see what other people could see. Finally, I went to a doctor about it, and he told me that I had a law in my members that was constantly working and it affected my eyesight so that I could not see what others saw. Then I discovered a new law, the law of contact lenses -- two little pieces of plastic which I could put in my eyes every morning and they would keep working all day long. All I had to do was put them in. They did not eliminate the law of myopia -- they actually used it. But the result was that I saw perfectly, with 20/20 vision. Now, if I got cocky and decided I didn't need those contact lenses anymore ("I can handle this situation without them!") and took them out -- immediately the law of myopia would take over and I would have the same old problem again. But if I put the lenses in, the law of contact lenses would cancel out -- overcome -- the law of myopia, and I could see perfectly.

That is what Paul is telling us here. God has given us a new image of ourselves. We are not what we feel we are. As a result of that, we can be set free anytime we employ that law, anytime that we, by faith, reckon that what God says is true and we begin to see ourselves that way. The fourth major point that Paul makes in this brief paragraph is given in Verses 3 and 4. It is a review of the basis for victory:

For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by our sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man[flesh] to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the sinful man[the flesh], in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to our sinful nature but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:3-4 NIV)

This is a beautiful description of the good news in Jesus Christ. There is nothing new here; we have had it all before. Paul says the Law is powerless to produce righteousness. It cannot do it. It cannot make us good -- no way. It can demand and demand and demand, but it cannot enable and it never will. This, by the way, is why nagging somebody never helps. Did you know that? Nagging is a form of law, and God will not let the Law nag us because it doesn't help. It only makes it worse. If you try to nag your husband or wife or child, you will find that the same thing happens there. Nagging only makes them worse. Why? The reason, Paul says, is because the Law only stirs up the power of sin. It releases this force, this beast within us, this powerful engine that takes over and carries us where we don't want to go. That is why nagging, or any form of the Law, will never work. It is not because there is anything wrong with what is being said -- it is because of the weakness of the flesh that it cannot work. Paul says in First Corinthians 15, "The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law," (1 Corinthians 15:56 NIV). The Law keeps sin going, it stirs it up.

To break through this vicious circle, Paul says, God sent forth his own son. There is a beautiful tenderness about this. He sent "his own Son." He did not send an angel, he did not send a man -- he sent his own Son as a man, in the likeness of sinful flesh. Notice that. He did not send him just in the likeness of flesh, but in the likeness of sinful flesh. Jesus had a real body, a body like yours and mine. Since sin has been done in the body, it has to be judged and broken in the body. Therefore, Jesus had a body. But it was not just a body of sinful flesh, it was the likeness of sinful flesh. It was like our sinful bodies, in that it was subject to infirmities (Jesus was weak and tired and hungry and weary), but there was no sin in him. Paul preserves that very carefully here.

In that body of flesh, without sin, he became sin. As we read here, he was offered as an offering for sin. And in the mystery of the cross, which we can never, never understand, no matter how long we live, somehow the Lord Jesus, at the hour of darkness, gathered up all the sins of the world, all the terrible, evil, foul, awful injustice, crime, and misery that we have seen throughout history, from every person, gathered it into himself, and brought it to an end by dying. The good news is that somehow, by faith in him, we get involved in that death. We have already seen that. In Chapter 6, Verse 6, Paul says,

For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin -- (Romans 6:6 NIV)

This is the way the Lord did it. As described in Chapter 5, he (Christ-made-sin) was the first husband to whom we were married: And he died. The first husband died, and therefore we were free to be married to the second husband, who is Christ-risen-from-the-dead. Thus he has tied us to himself as a risen, ascended Lord, and that is who we are from now on.

This is not just for a few Christians who have gone beyond all the rest and have some special experience; all Christians are this way. If you are a Christian at all, this is who you are. It is always who you are. To let yourself believe anything else is to delude yourself. To believe your feelings about yourself at any moment of evil or sin is to fool yourself. This is who you are. By the gift of God, without earning it, or without ever deserving it, you are righteous in his sight; just like Jesus, you are righteous with the righteousness of God. The very righteousness which the Law demands is fulfilled in us the minute we believe what God has done about our evil and trust him for it. That righteousness is ours continually, as a gift.

The last thing the apostle says is that this becomes real to us when we choose to live according to the Spirit -- not according to our sinful nature. When we believe what God says about us and see ourselves in a new way, then we will change the way we act. This is always God's way of deliverance. We think that we have to change the way we act in order to be different; God says, "No, I have made you different, and when you believe it, you will automatically change the way you act." Do you see the difference?

Remember that story that Hal Lindsey shared with us on Easter Sunday? It was a beautiful story about a girl who was the daughter of one of the royal families of Europe. She had a big, bulbous nose that destroyed her beauty in the eyes of others -- and especially in her own eyes. She grew up with this terrible image of herself as an ugly person. So her family hired a plastic surgeon to change the contour of her nose. He did his work, and there came the moment when they took the bandages off and the girl could see what happened. When the doctor removed the bandages, he saw that the operation had been a total success. All the ugly contours were gone. Her nose was different. When the incisions healed and the redness disappeared, she would be a beautiful girl. He held a mirror up for the girl to see. But, so deeply embedded was this girl's ugly image of herself that when she saw herself in the mirror, she couldn't see any change. She broke into tears and cried out, "Oh, I knew it wouldn't work!" The doctor labored with that girl for six months before she would finally accept the fact that she was indeed different. But the moment she accepted the fact that she really was different, her whole behavior began to change.

We act from what we know we are. If the evil in us deceives us into thinking that we are not what God says we are, then we are going to keep on acting that way. That is why the way to break the power of the most vicious and evil habit is to see yourself as God sees you. Then you begin to act that way. You can't help it. As this verse makes clear, you are one with Jesus and you share his life, and he himself, with the beauty of his character, is one with you. He is married to you and you to him and there is no distinction. If you can see this when you have temporarily believed something false about yourself and are struggling, then you will be free.

Many of us can testify to the fact that this works. God sets us free in this way. This is what Paul has been saying all along. Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the Law, with its nagging demand that you be different before you can be accepted, but you are under grace, with its affirmation that God has already made you different -- now believe it!

Prayer:
Our Father, I am sure there are many here today who have been struggling against very powerful forces in their lives, many who have been wanting to be free from destructive things -- an evil temper; a critical, judgmental spirit; a hostile, defensive attitude; selfishness; lust; sexual desires that are hurtful and wrong. Lord, thank you that you have found a different way out. Thank you that the way out is not by forcing ourselves to be different, but by seeing that we already are different. We have been cleansed and purified and made whole in Jesus Christ our Lord. He is our life, and we belong to him and always will. What a difference that is! Help us to believe it and to act that way. In Jesus' name, Amen.

The Refugees Unleashed

Multi-Part Study Through Romans: The Master Key To Scripture

Multi-Part Study Through Romans: The Master Key To Scripture

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