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STUDIES IN ROMANS
by
H. BOYCE TAYLOR, SR., M. A., Th. M., D. D.
Author of "Why Be A Baptist," "Bible Briefs Against Hurtful Heresies," "Studies in Genesis, " "Acts of the Apostles," "Studies In The Parables," "Womens work in Baptist Churches"
Edited by
ROY 0. BEAMAN A. B., Pastor Calvary Baptist Church, Tampa, Florida
PUBLISHER'S NOTE
The Bryan Station Baptist Church at Lexington, Kentucky is publishing the writings of the late Boyce Taylor. This volume was published by Roy O. Berman along with the "Studies in Genesis. " Upon receiving permission from Boyce Taylor Jr. and Mrs. Barney Watson, a daughter, for which we are grateful, we are undertaking this task so that the truth once preached and loved by real Baptists will be available to the Baptists of today. In this day of compromise and departing from the faith we pray that God will use these books to help strengthen His people in the faith.
The Bryan Station Baptist Church was organized in 1786. The church has contended for the faith once delivered unto the Saints since that time. If you are interested in future publications of Bro. Taylor's they are in our church paper "The Pioneer Baptist" which will be sent to you free of charge if you will send your name, address, and zip code. Also we are printing the writings of Bro. Claude Duval Cole. Since his death we have permission to publish all of his writings. Eight books are available at this time. They are great doctrinal books and are being used in colleges, Sunday Schools and churches.
May the Lord revive His work in these latter days.
Alfred M. Gormley
Pastor Bryan Station Baptist Church
EDITOR'S NOTE
I have strived to be faithful to the penned notes of the Author and to the typed notes taken from his class lectures. He preached a series of expository messages in his pulpit in Murray, Kentucky, and later taught them until his death in May 1932, to classes in the West Kentucky Bible School, Murray, Kentucky.
The questions at the close of each chapter are similar to those used by the Author, but are those of the Editor used in five years of teaching Romans by means of these notes. All other additions by the Editor are marked off by brackets [ ].
STUDIES IN GENESIS, published in 1937, is a companion volume to this one.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Introduction, 1:1-17 ............................................................. 1
II. Righteousness Needed. 1:18-3:20........................................18
III. Righteousness Provided. 3:21-26 ..................................... 31
IV. Righteousness Received. 3:27-4:25 ................................... 42
V. Righteousness Experienced 5:1-8:17 .................................55
VI. Righteousness Guaranteed Permanent 8:17-39 ..................83
VII. Righteousness Rejected by the Jews chapters. 9-11 ...........93
VIII. Righteousness Manifested in the Life, chapters 12-16 ................................................................................105
CHAPTER I
Introduction
Paul addressed the epistle to the church at Rome, the present seat of the Roman Catholic Church, which has been the worst enemy that Baptist Churches, the true churches of Christ, have ever had.
"It is written" occurs sixteen times in Romans, and in the Old Testament is quoted sixty one times.
We give several outlines for your study:
1. Condemnation-Sin, 1:1-3:20.
2. Justification--Salvation, 3:21-5:21.
3. Sanctification-Separation, 6-8.
4. Dispensation-Sovereignty, 9-11.
5. Glorification-Service, 12-16. (Norman Harrison).
1. Doctrinal, 1-8.
2. Dispensational, 9-11.
3. Practical, 12-16. (Kirk).
1. Doctrines, 1-8.
2. Dispensation, 9-11.
3. Duty, 12-16. (Griffith Thomas).
1. Sin, 1:16-3:20.
2. Salvation, 3:21-5:11.
3. Sanctification, 5:12-8:39.
4. Sovereignty, 9-11.
5. Service, 12-16. (Blanchard).
[1. Doctrinal, 1-11. 2. Practical, 12-16.]
My own outline is as follows:
Introduction, 1:1-17.
Theme--The Righteousness of God.
Text- 1:16-17.
I. Righteousness Needed, 1:18-3:20.
II. Righteousness Provided, 3:21-26.
III. Righteousness Received, 3:27-4:25.
IV. Righteousness Experienced, 5:1-8:17.
V. Righteousness Guaranteed Permanent, 8:18-39.
VI. Righteousness Rejected, 9-11.
VII. Righteousness Manifested in Life, 12-16.
I give a secondary outline: 1. Righteousness Needed, 1:18-3:20. 2. Righteousness Provided, 3:21-26. 3. Objections To a By-faith Righteousness and Paul's Answers Thereto, 3:27-11:36. 4. Fruits of By-Faith Righteousness, 12-16.
ARGUMENTS AND DETAILS IN EXPOSITION OF ROMANS
We now take up the INTRODUCTION, 1:1-15.
I. PAUL: Things Paul Said of Himself, 1:1.
1. A bondservant of Jesus Christ, not simply His ally, subject, or friend. Galations 6:17 shows he bore the brand of the Lord Jesus; that is the picture of a slave bought and branded. In the Old Testament a Slave had a hole bored through his ears. Jesus had bought Paul (I Corinthians 6:20) and therefore Paul was His slave and yet Christ's freeman because Christ had given him liberty. "Freedom in the Lord" is like the liberty of my arm in my body. Its liberty is limited by the will of my body, but that liberty is larger than if my arm was severed from my body. It is a liberty limited by law and life; if my arm were severed from my body, it would be no liberty at all but death. So we have no liberty independent of Christ, I Corinthians 9:21. A bond slave owns nothing; he himself is the property of another. So with us.
2. His Calling. He was an apostle by calling ("to be" is not in the original). That is, the work of an apostle was his calling, and he was that by the will of God, not of his own choosing. I Corinthians 12:6. This calling was for life. The word "apostleship" really means missionary. So being a missionary was his life's program.
3. Separated--set apart--unto the gospel of God from all other calling. He was to give himself wholly to the ministry. God has many ways of separating men to the gospel ministry. Sometimes this is by the call of the Holy Spirit; sometimes by a providential opening; sometimes by sore chastening; sometimes by separating them from all earthly ties and possessions. The preacher is a separated man from all earthly vocations unto prayer and ministry of the Word.
II. THE GOSPEL OF GOD, 1:1-6.
1. The Gospel Defined. The gospel means good news, not good advice, Luke 2:10. [It means glad tidings, not sad tidings.] Neither gospel nor law are good advice: one is authoritative, to be obeyed; the other is an offer of grace, to be accepted. The gospel is good news of what Christ did for us in dying for our sins and in being raised for our justification. There is much difference between good news and good advice; the gospel is good news of something done for us while good advice is something for us to do. Alas, most preachers give good advice rather than preach good news of grace! The gospel is good news "from God, its source, v. 1; through the prophets, its channel, v. 1; concerning His Son, its content, vs. 3-4; for all nations, its objects, vs. 5-6; to all saints, its subjects, v. 7" (N. B. H.)
2. The Gospel of God. (1) It is good news from God, the offended Sovereign of the universe, concerning amnesty and grace, pardon and mercy offered to all through Christ. (2) It is good news about God, that He is propitious and gracious and that He took the initiative in bringing about reconciliation between Himself and the sinner. Illustration: Two men are at outs; each wants the other to begin. God did the beginning in salvation. (3) It is good news which God has determined to have announced to every creature. God is the Author; Christ is the Theme; the Holy Spirit is the Executor or Revealer, Galations 1:12.
3. The Gospel of God Defined, 1:2-7.
(1) It was promised in Old Testament Scriptures, 1:2. Study Genesis 3:15; 15:6; Galations 3:8 with Genesis 12:1-3; Acts 10:43; II Timothy 3:15. This gospel foretold in the Old Testament was concerning salvation received through faith in Christ, Isaiah 28:16; Jonah 2:8; Habakkuk 2:4; Jeremiah 23:6; Daniel 9:24.
(2) The theme of the gospel is Jesus Christ our Lord, 1:3-7.
a. His humanity, 1:3. Genesis 3:15- seed of woman; Genesis 12:3 seed of Abraham; Psalm 89:36; Isaiah 11:10- seed of David. He was born in Bethlehem, the city of David.
b. His Deity. He became man (John 1:14) and the seed of David (Romans 1:3), but Scripture does not say He was made or became God, John 1:1. He was always God, Isaiah 9:6. He was God from all eternity, John 1:1. The word "declared" means defined, evinced, ordained, set forth, demonstrated, manifested, proven. [It does not mean to make or become.] Russellites and Rutherfordites teach that Jesus became God after His resurrection. John says He was God from the beginning or eternally, John 1:1-4. "A Savior not quite God would be a broken bridge on the farther side" (Moule). Jacob's ladder rested on earth and reached into heaven. So Jesus, the Man, one with earth, must be Christ the God, one with God in heaven or He could not have bridged the deep chasm between earth and heaven so that men could pass over Him from earth to heaven. I Peter 3:18; John 14:6.
c. Seven Aspects of His Person and Work. His Deity--God's Son. His official title--Jesus Christ: Jesus means Savior, Matthew 1:21; Christ means the Anointed of the Father. His Lordship--our Lord, Head over all things to His churches. Lord of lords and King of kings, to Whom every knee will bow and all His enemies will be made His footstool. His incarnation--Virgin born. His resurrection--unto power; this is so because He could not be held by death. His authority-- with power; Matthew 28:18-20; Ephesians 1:19-23; Hebrews 2:8-9. His holiness--like the sunbeam, He could touch the most unclean and not be contaminated nor defiled. The gospel of God is how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, and rose again according to the Scriptures. In other words the gospel of God includes, magnifies, and sums up the Person and Work of Christ.
d. In this gospel God gives and we receive, v. 5, and all through Christ and on the basis of grace. (a) Received grace and apostleship. Both are gifts; received, not bought nor worked for. That excludes doing anything except receiving as a condition of getting. The word "received" has a double idea--given and taken--He gives; we take or receive. The word "called" in verse 6 has, too, a double idea-- invited and accepted. (b) Both, the reception and the calling, are on the basis of grace; there is no place for merit nor works. (c) All is by and through Jesus Christ. Ephesians 4:8; Romans 12:3-6. That means it is wholly of grace.
e. This gospel of grace when received, is to be passed on, 1:5. Note the words, "Unto obedience of faith to all nations." (a) We are saved to obey, not obey to be saved. Ephesians 2:8-10. (b) We are saved to obedience of faith, which means obedience to or of the letter of the Scripture. [The genetive, of "faith," may be either subjective or objective. Why not get the full meaning that it is obedience springing from faith and obedience to the system of faith? If one has to choose, I prefer the first.] It means believe and do what God says just because God has spoken. If men believe Him and His word, they cannot avoid being missionary. A work of faith tracks the Bible, does impossible works, and honors Christ's gospel, Mark 8:25; 10:28. (c) Among all nations, world-wide. (d) For His names sake. III John 7.
CONCLUSION, 1:7. The apostolic benediction on God's beloved and called. [Grace always comes first in these situations. Grace is the source, peace is the blessing. His pronouncing grace and peace jointly from the Father and the Son proves the Deity of Christ. "Called to the saints;" that is, saints by calling. "To be" is not in the Greek. Saints means holy ones.]
III. PAUL'S INTEREST IN THEM. 1:8-15. To ingratiate himself into the favor of the church at Rome and insure acceptance of his message, he expresses his deep personal interest in them. This is an
example of God-given tact; he was tactful in soul winning and letter writing.
1. His Thanksgiving, 1:8. The first thing Paul did was to thank God. Note "I" and "my''. Luther said, "Christianity is a religion of personal pronouns." Only a devout believer can say my God. He thanks God for them all. Do you know any church today of which you could say this and tell the truth? I can come nearer saying it of Murray than of any I know. [This was said while he was pastor years ago.] The thing for which he thanked God was their faith. Their faith so manifested itself in missions and soul winning that it was talked about or "carried as tidings" throughout the whole world. Everywhere Paul went, he saw somebody who told him about this church.
2. His Prayer for Them, 1:9. (1) Paul reached more by his praying than he did by his preaching. Preaching is a rare gift; prayer is a rarer one. Preaching, like a sword, is for closer quarters; prayer like a breech-loader, is for long range and more effective (Henham). (2) He prayed without ceasing for a church he had never seen. (3) His making mention of them shows it was personal praying. It was personal remembrance; cf. Romans 16. Do you pray for anyone by name? (4) He appeals to God as his witness as to two things: a. His sincerity-- "Serve in my spirit." b. His service--"Serve in the gospel;" i. e., in its propagation.
3. He Made His Coming to Them a Matter of Prayer, 1:10, 13. (1) His purposes were limited "by the will of God." Man proposes; God disposes. He was an apostle by the will of God; he was going to Rome by the will of God. Wherever he went, he tried to find the will of God before he went. Across the resolutions, plans, and purposes of Paul, he wrote, "If the Lord will," James 4:13-15. In His will is our peace (Dante). (2) His making request indicates his submission to God's will. The phrase "making request" means a submissive request, not a demand. Prayer makes much difference in our feelings toward others, and makes a difference in their feelings toward us if they know we are praying for them (Gore). (3) His prayer was answered, but oh how differently from the way Paul planned! (4) Through God's will he was hindered in going to Rome at this time, and we have the Book of Romans because he was hindered. (5) He prayed for a prosperous journey, which comes from God alone.
4. He Longed for or Was "Homesick" to See Them, 1:11. Why was he homesick? Some he knew; some he did not know. Prayer made him homesick for them.
5. His Purpose in Longing to See them Was That They Might
Be Mutually Helpful to Each Other, 1:11-12. (1) This was a master stroke of Divine Tact. But it was truth too. The youngest can be helpful to the oldest, and vice versa. Paul, the mature theologian, could be helped by the faith of a babe in Christ. Paul, the aged, wanted the fellowship of young Timothy. (2) He wanted to impart spiritual gifts to them and receive sympathy and help from them.
6. He Wanted to Have Some Fruit in Them. 1:13. He was looking for an opportunity for fruit-bearing in the souls won and in saints trained. His passion for souls made him anxious to enter new fields for the gospel.
7. Paul Put Missions as a Debt and Was Eager to Pay It. 1:14-15.
[I don't believe I have ever heard a greater sermon on missions than one the author preached on "THE MISSION DEBT" from these verses in 1925. I here combined the notes I took that day and the notes he used in school.]
(1) Missions Is Not a Matter of Charity But of Debt. On what ground do I say it is a debt? a. Redemption through Christ, I Corinthians 6:20. We do not belong to ourselves but to Jesus. Hence it is ours to be fully yielded to Him as His property. The precious blood is the ground of indebtedness. b. Entrustment from Christ, I Thessalonians 2:4. Jesus Christ put Paul in trust with the gospel. How we need to acknowledge the claims of Christ! We may owe our fellowman and get by with it, but not so with Jesus. If you spend more for gas than for missions, then you are not faithful with the truth Jesus gave you.
(2) We Are Debtors to Everybody. Paul sought to preach to the masses and classes, to the rich and poor. The Greeks were the cultured or educated. The Barbarians were the ignorant or the tribes away from the centers of culture and civilization. When an evolutionist eats animal meat, according to his own logic, he eats his own kinsfolk. Logically, he is as bad as the cannibals. The wise were the literati, men of letters. The unwise were the unthinking masses.
(3) Our Debt Is to Give Them the Gospel. We owe it both to Christ and a lost world. The mission debt is a Baptist debt. Two reasons: The Great Commission was given to Baptists; the world field is a Baptist opportunity. Illustration: Baptists have done more in seven years in Chile than Protestants in seventy years. A Baptist preacher went to a new field and read the New Testament to twenty Presbyterians and won them all to New Testament Baptism. The Presbyterian Missionary was quite irritated and said, "An ignorant Baptist preacher came here and undid in a week what I have been trying to build up for twenty years."
(4) How Can We Pay This Debt? a. Pray, Matthew 9:38. It costs to pray. We need to count the cost; we do not want to pray blindly. It takes time to pray. One of my deacons said that he did not see the need of an hour of prayer; he could do all the praying he could think in five minutes. But it costs not to pray. God "thrusts" workers out in answer to prayer. A preacher prayed, "Lord, thrash out workers." The brother's error teaches us a lesson; God has to thrash some workers before He can get them out. The balance of the missionary enterprise will take care of itself if we have intercessors. Praying may cost you yourself. Do you say that you are too old? Christ did not call many young men with whom to start His work. All the twelve were married. A man in Murray said that he was afraid to pray about missions for God might ask him to give more than he wanted to give in money or might ask for a boy or girl. Our mission debt continues because we are not praying, Isaiah 59:16. It took only one sleepy-headed devil to guard the church, but it took many at the widow's house where they were praying. People that are doing things are constantly praying. It takes a lot of knee work to pay this debt. b. Take a good look, John 4:35. The facts about mission fields need to be gotten before the people. Read missionary books. c. Go. Go wherever God calls you. There is no paying the debt without much going. d. Help go--send, Romans 10:15.
(5) How Much to Pay. Paul said, "As much as in me is." He meant that he would go his full length. Too many give miserly and niggardly. They are like the engine on the sidetrack; it makes much noise but gets nowhere. A church that is not doing more for missions than for home expenses needs to get on the main line; it is still playing at the job. What are you doing with the gospel entrusted to you? Are we going our length for him? "As much as in me is" means time, service, and money. Paul was eager and ready. We may call him a spiritual and theological "Rough and Ready." They complained, "You are a long time in coming." His answer, "I am eager." An ox between the plow and the altar represents a Christian. Paul was ready for either service or sacrifice, II Timothy 4:6. Lord Clyde, at the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny, when asked how long it would take him to get ready to start to India, said: "I am ready now." Are you?
IV. THE GOSPEL, 1:16-17. The gospel is the theme of the epistle. These two verses contain practically all the leading thoughts of the entire Book.
Garvie gives this alliterative outline of 1:16. Its character-- power of God. Its content--righteousness of God. Its claim--received by faith. Its comprehensiveness--Jew and Gentile. Its consequence-- salvation and life. Its confirmation in the Scriptures--even as it is written.
1. Paul Was Not Ashamed of the Gospel. Who are ashamed and why are they ashamed of the gospel?
(1) The Jews were ashamed of it because Jesus, the theme of this gospel, died the ignominous death of the cross, being crucified by the Roman law as a common malefactor.
(2) The Romans were ashamed of it because Jesus was an obscure, backwoods, and crucified Jew.
(3) The intellectual, high-brows, Literati, then and now, are ashamed of the gospel because it is too simple for them. There is no show of wisdom in the gospel; no chance to display philosophy and education. The gospel is just as foolish now to the cultured, except such as belong to the elect, as it was in Rome and other centers of culture and power in the day of Paul. They seek wisdom, and to them the gospel is foolishness, I Corinthians 1:22-23; Colossians 2:18-23.
(4) The social or elite are ashamed of the gospel or look with contempt upon it because of the insignificant position of the followers of Christ. It has always been thus. Jesus was the despised Nazarene, I Corinthians 1:26-27; John 7:48. The Presbyterians and Episcopalians especially want the elite and boast of them in their churches. The gospel, however, moves upward from the lowest strata of society. Even many Baptist Churches today want a "man of parts," a man of persuasible
words, and funny jokes. They seek an imposing ritual, enriched services, etc. All such are ashamed of the gospel of Christ.
(5) Moralists, ritualists, and legalists are all ashamed of the gospel because the cross is an offence to them. To them, Christ is a stone of stumbling and rock of offence. A gospel that saves men all the way from earth to heaven without their own help, works, or obedience, or that of any other man, is an offence to man's pride and self-righteousness. They declare that the gospel is a "dangerous doctrine" and that if they believed such, they would "take their fill of sin." They want to embellish the gospel with man's additions, works, ritual, fol-de-rol, show, and all sorts of improvements and up-to-date methods. But the gospel, though it may be ugly and unattractive as a stick of dynamite or an ugly copper wire charged with electricity, has power, is power, and will blow up things when it is given a chance. [It is a powerful gospel men need rather than a beautiful gospel.]
(6) Unionists call the gospel narrow and unpopular and are ashamed of it, Matthew 7:13-14.
2. The Gospel Is God's Power unto Salvation to Every Believer. The gospel is dynamic, not ethic nor ideal (Thomas). The gospel is God's power both to save and to keep men. [This does not define the gospel in its content but in its energy, its working power. This verse tells what the gospel does; I Corinthians 15:3-4 tells what it is. Saying that dynamite is a high explosive tells what it does; to tell its chemical content is to define dynamite.]
(1) Power Needed. Power is the first consideration of any great task. a. Romans 1:18-3:21 shows that the salvation of the sinner is a task of stupendous magnitude. The trouble with too many churches every where is that they are powerless. b. Is there sufficient power to accomplish it? That is the question asked by men everywhere. Will the gospel hold out? False religions have not failed for lack of effort but for lack of power. "Without strength" is man's lament, Romans 5:6. The gospel is all-powerful; it is a miracle. It saves all the way from earth to glory.
(2) Power Illustrated. When we think of power, two things come to mind--dynamite and electricity. The gospel is God's dynamite to blow sin, error, legalism, unbelief, an unforgiving spirit, all kinds of excuses, and hard-heartedness hell ward. Calvary cuts deeper than Sinai (Joshua Gravett). Man's way is to reform, quit sin, uproot an unforgiving spirit, destroy bad habits by man's strength, get all these things out of the heart, and then you are ready to be saved. All who try that are sure to fail. Dependence on the strength and efforts of men for salvation is sure to fail. God's way is to put the gospel into the heart of sinners and, like dynamite under stumps and rocks, the gospel will tear up by the roots everything that is contrary to the Bible when God's dynamite is touched off by the gospel. The curse of this age is emotionalism, telling funny jokes, pathetic stories and death bed scenes to stir the emotions of sinners, but the great underlying stony heart is not touched. The stony ground and thorny ground hearers had only a shallow work of grace and brought forth no fruit.
(3) The Definite End and Purpose of God's Power Is unto Salvation. The gospel has power because it has life. Salvation is a great inclusive word: It includes deliverance, safety, preservation, healing, soundness of mind and spirit (C. I. Scofield). Salvation includes deliverance and equipment and implies safety to the fullest possible extent; it includes justification, sanctification, and glorification; it is threefold in its relation to the past, present, and future (Griffith Thomas). The past is deliverance from the penalty of sin; the present is deliverance from the power of sin; the future is deliverance from the presence of sin. The object of the gospel is salvation-the salvation of men; their deliverance from the state of degradation, danger, and misery into which sin has brought them; their deliverance from the guilt of condemnation, from ignorance and error, from depravity and suffering in all their forms--complete everlasting deliverance from all of these (Brown's Analytical Commentary (Page 7). The gospel is God's power to do all this. [The Hardshell theory that salvation here means merely being delivered from errors and being brought to know a salvation we already possess contradicts Paul's primary thesis of salvation from the guilt of sin.]
Electricity furnishes an electric car with heat and light to make the passengers comfortable, but this is secondary: the main purpose is power to propel the car or move the machinery to its destination. The house where the electricity is generated is called the power house, not lighting nor heating house. Exactly so with the gospel. It gives light, warmth, and comfort to the passengers on the gospel car. But these are incidental. The main thing about the gospel is that it has power to move or carry believers up the "steep ascents of heaven." There is power to move the car all the way to the terminus without the help of the passengers. Thank God for an all-the-way salvation! No matter how heavily loaded, how steep the grade, nor how long the journey, God's gospel is God's power all the way and is sufficient to land every believer in glory without any help from the passengers. The old stage coach had first, second, and third class passengers: mens cars have only second and third class passengers: God's gospel car has only first class passengers. "She has landed many thousands," etc., may apply to the gospel. The fare on the gospel car is paid clean through to the terminus. A free ride all the way, all invited, plenty of room, no accidents, never failed to make a trip through, never lost a passenger in six thousands years, John 17:12. There are two cars up Lookout Mountain from Chattanooga; the gospel car is the only one that takes to heaven. Hebrews 7:25. Some cars are all right on the level, power sometimes gives out on a steep grade, and the passengers have to get out and push. The power of God's gospel car holds out to the end. Man's gospel car pictures man's pushing qualities as holding out faithful to the end. On which car are you? One depends on God's power to hold out while the other depends on your own.
(4) To Every Believer. That includes harlots, drunkards, thugs, dying robbers, dying gypsy boys. The gospel car picks up many of this kind. Man's car stops at the valley of the shadow of death; it cannot cross nor ford the river of death, Matthew 7:22. The gospel car comes along; in their helplessness men look to Jesus and cry for help. None ever look to Him in vain, John 6:37, Romans 10:13. Jesus always stops His car, steps down, and takes the helpless victim on board.
3. The Gospel Is a Revelation or Unveiling of the Righteousness of God. The righteousness of God includes the sinless life of Christ, His perfect obedience to God's law, and His substitutionary death to pay in full the penalty of our sins. His resurrection is God's receipt that the sin-debt is paid in full for all those who trust Him. The righteousness of God is that consistency with His own revealed character whereby He receives sinful man on the ground of the work of Christ (W. H. G. Thomas). It is the acceptance accorded by the Holy Judge to sinful man (Moule). It is the divine method of justification (Brown). It is the best robe with which the believing sinner is clothed upon (Mauro). [To define the righteousness of God in Romans as a righteousness which God requires man to produce and live is to mistake the chief thesis of the entire epistle. It is rather a righteousness which God provides and gives
to man. The epistle defines this genitive as subjective, a righteousness that proceeds from God. In a word, it is the finished atonement of Christ on the cross. See 3:21-27.] The Jew first indicates precedence, not preference (W. H. G. Thomas).
4. Faith To Faith. cf., Psalms 84:7; II Corinthians 2:16; 3:18. That is faith unto faith. Faith means personal reliance. Faith is trust. The faith of Jesus and the Apostles is trust. Christ is all and in all. Faith is man's acceptance of Him as such. Faith to faith is reliance first, last, midst, and without end, on Christ and His word (Moule). Out of faith to faith (Mauro). It means from little faith to large faith. It means from natural faith to supernatural faith, Galations 4:28; Ephesians 1:19. It means from man's faith to Christ's faith. Romans 3:22; Galations 2:20. The faith of Christ means the faith of which He is the Author, object, end, and finisher, Hebrews 12:2. [1. Salvation begins with or at faith, Luke 7:50. 2. Salvation is supported by faith. After we are saved by faith, the principle is not changed to faith and works nor to works; it remains faith alone. 3. Salvation is finished by faith. Nothing is added to faith to complete it. To add baptism, church membership, or holding out faithful as a condition of salvation is to change from faith to something else. The expression is literally, "Out of faith into faith."]
SUMMARY OUTLINE OF ROMANS
I. RIGHTEOUSNESS NEEDED, 1:18-3:20.
1.The Heathen Are Not Righteous, 1:18-32.
(1) Unrighteous in holding down the truth, 1:18-20.
(2) Unthankful and irreverent, 1:21-23.
(3) Unclean and reprobate in life, 1:24-31.
(4) Therefore they are justly condemned, 1:32.
2. The Jews Are Not Righteous, 2:1-3:8.
(1) The Jew condemns himself in condemning the heathen because he is guilty of the same things, 2:1.
(2) The four principles of judgment, 2:2-16.
a. According to truth and therefore impartial, 2:2-5.
b. According to absolute justice, 2:6-10.
c. God has no favorites in judgment, 2:11-15.
d. According to Paul's gospel and by Jesus Christ, 2:16.
(3) Application to the Jews, 2:17-24.
(4) The externals of religion do not protect anyone from wrath, 2:25-29.
(5) Objections answered, 3:1-8.
3. The Verdict of the Scriptures, 3:9-20.
II. RIGHTEOUSNESS PROVIDED, 3:21-26.
III. RIGHTEOUSNESS RECEIVED, 3:27-4:25.
1. God's Righteousness Excludes Boasting, 3:27-28.
2. The Oneness or Unity of God Proves That There Is But One Way of Justifying Sinners, 3:29-30.
3. A Righteousness Received by Faith Establishes the Law, 3:31.
4. By-faith Righteousness Illustrated by Two Old Testament Examples, Ch. 4.
(1) Abraham and David were justified wholly without works, 4:1-8.
(2) Abraham was justified by faith before his circumcision, 4:9-12.
(3) Abraham became heir of the world by faith, 4:13-18.
(4) Abraham is the pattern to all believers, 4:19-25.
IV. RIGHTEOUSNESS EXPERIENCED 5:1-8:17.
1. Will a By faith Righteousness Last to the End? 5:1-19.
(1) Affliction will not destroy but rather strengthen it, 5:1-4.
(2) This is a hope of future glory and never makes
ashamed or disappointed. 5:5-11.
(3) The analogy between Adam and Christ, 5:12-21.
2. Where does the Law Come in and What Good Is It? 5:20-21.
3. A By-faith "Righteousness Will Not Lead Men to Take Their Fill of Sin, 6:1-8:17a.
V. RIGHTEOUSNESS GUARANTEED PERMANENT, 8:18-39.
VI. RIGHTEOUSNESS REJECTED BY THE JEWS, Chs. 9-11.
1. God Has Not Mistreated the Jews, 9:6-10:4.
2. A By-faith Righteousness and a By-law Righteousness Contrasted, 10:5-21.
3. Israel's Rejection by God, 11:1-36.
VII. RIGHTEOUSNESS MANIFESTED IN THE LIFE, Chs. 12-16.
1. Religious Duties, Chapter 12.
2. Civic Duties, Chapter 13.
3. Fraternal Duties, 14:11-15:13.
Conclusion, 15:14-16:27.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Be sure to memorize the Author's seven-point outline.
2. What is the Editor's two-point outline?
3. What does the word "gospel" mean?
4. What three things does "the gospel of God" denote?
5. What does "declare" in 1:4 signify?
6. Mention two evidences of Paul's tact in Chapter one.
7. What is the twofold idea in both "called" and "received?"
8. Is missions a debt or mere charity?
9. What is the theme and the text of the epistle?
10. In what sense does 1:16 define the gospel?
11. Contrast man's way and God's way of salvation?
12. What are the two illustrations of power?
13. What does the term salvation mean?
14. What is meant by the righteousness of God?
15. What does "from faith to faith" signify?
16. Master the summary outline of the epistle.
CHAPTER II
Righteousness Needed
1:18-3:20
Introductory: The gospel is God's power unto salvation because therein is revealed the righteousness of God. Paul's argument begins with verse 18. Why is righteousness necessary? Because we have none of our own. Paul's aim in 1:18-3:20 is to prove there are none good... none righteous, all sinned, all guilty, no difference. Salvation must mean that we become righteous for God's wrath is against all unrighteousness. So Paul sets out to prove: 1. That all are unrighteous--none righteous. 2. That God provides a perfect righteousness through Christ. 3. That the gospel is God's revelation of God's righteousness. God's gospel reveals God's righteousness because God's law reveals God's wrath. [If the gospel reveals a righteousness which we must produce, the gospel is useless for it is the province of the law to reveal the righteousness that God requires from man. The gospel reveals a righteousness to fulfill man's need because man failed to produce the righteousness which the law demands.] That is why the heathen have to have the gospel preached to them. Before man will want salvation he must feel the need of it. The question immediately arises, Salvation from what? From God's wrath, 1:18. Another asks, What is the reason for God's wrath? Because no man is righteous. Another question arises, Wherein is man not righteous? 1:18-32 is God's answer to the Gentiles. 2:1-3:8 is God's answer to the Jews. 3:9-20 proves from Old Testament Scriptures that all are unrighteous.
GOD'S EIGHTEEN REASONS WHY THE HEATHEN ARE LOST
[This outline was often reprinted by request in NEWS AND TRUTHS. People not grounded in the fact that the heathen are lost without the gospel will not do much to give them the gospel.]
1. They hold down or hold back the truth, 1:18.
2. They do this in unrighteousness to cover up their sin, 1:18.
3. Truth held back by the heathen was truth as to God's power and Godhood, revealed in creation. 1:19-20.
4. They have two witnesses against them--one on the inside, conscience, and one on the outside, creation. The phrase "unto them" has reference to creation.
5. These two witnesses testify of God's power and deity or Godhood. Instead of believing that truth, they hold down the truth and that without excuse.
6. They do not glorify God, 1:21.
7. They are ingrates, 1:21.
8. They follow reason rather than conscience and the testimony of God's created works, 1:21.
9. Their foolish hearts were darkened by their own reasonings, and they were to blame. 1:21.
10. God calls them fools though they claim to be wise, 1:22. (This is against Modernists.)
11. Their folly is seen in that they worship images and beasts instead of worshipping the Creator, 1:23.
12. Because of the uncleanness of their hearts God gave them over to uncleanness and unmentionable sins, 1:24.
13. They lied on God, by refusing to worship Him, 1:25.
14. They became the vilest of sinners, 1:26-27.
15. Their minds became reprobate, 1:28. .
16. Full of all injustice and unrighteousness, 1:29, 31.
17. They do these things with their eyes open knowing they are worthy of death, 1:32.
18. Their wickedness is seen in that they love to do them and have pleasure in them, 1:32.
Conclusion:
They know that they are sinners and deserve death.
They cannot be saved except by the righteousness of God.
That righteousness is revealed in the gospel.
Therefore the heathen cannot be saved without the gospel.
I. THE HEATHEN OR GENTILES ARE NOT RIGHTEOUS, 1:18-32. Paul immediately proceeds to give the proof. 1. They Are Unrighteous in Holding Down the Truth, 1:18-20. But how or wherein do they hold down the truth? The first truth they hold down is God's existence. This is proven in two ways. It is proven to them and in them. (1.) It is manifest in them in their consciences. Conscience tells every man that he is a sinner, vs. 1:18-19. (2) God's creative works prove to them that there is a God, v. 20. Three things are proven by creation: A. The Eternal Power of God. B. His Godhead and Godhood. Cf. Psalm 19. C. The Proof is so Clear that whether in Christian or heathen lands, they are without excuse. The Agnostic (ignoramus), Infidel, Atheist, Deist, New Thought, Modernist, Higher Critic, and Heathen all have two witnesses that there is a God, conscience and creation. Though they know the truth, yet instead of worshipping the true God, they bow down to stocks, stones, and all kinds of images and deny the existence of God. Because they worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator, therefore they are without excuse.
2. They are Unthankful and Irreverent, vs. 21-23. This is true in spite of their knowing the truth. Instead of living up to the light they had and worshipping God, they turned to worshipping images of men, birds, four footed beasts, and creeping things. In spite of their claim for wisdom, God calls them fools and gives these reasons why they are fools: (1) They do not glorify God, v. 21. (2) They are base ingrates in not thanking God for food, clothing, and the things of life. (3) They became vain in their reasonings, vs. 21b-22. A. The word "vain" means fallacious, erroneous, against the truth. The word translated "imaginations" means reasonings. Pure reason, unaided by the Holy Spirit and untaught by revelation, is always against truth. B. Their stupid hearts became darkened. They tell a lie until they believe it. They say there is no God and worship a false god until, because of their darkened mind, they believe what they say. C. They made themselves fools. Dr. T. T. Eaton said that the biggest fool was a psychological fool. Modernists today, in the eyes of God, are as foolish as the men of Paul's day. God calls educated people who do not believe the Bible fools. D. Reason leads men to deny God. (4) They worship idols, v. 23. Aristotle, Socrates, Demosthenes, Homer, and many other Greek scholars were among the world's greatest thinkers, yet Greece was idolatrous. Athens, though the seat of culture, was idolatrous, Acts 17. Though Rome had her Cicero, Tacitus, Vergil, and Livy, yet she was notoriously idolatrous. Their idolatry proves that they were fools. Though men are not idolaters, man's wisdom without God always and logically leads to idolatry. In this sense who are idolaters today? Evolutionists, Higher Critics, New Thought Devotees, just as Catholics and other ignorant classes who reject the Bible are idolaters. Theosophy, Spiritualism, Christian Science, and other heathen cults and modern heresies are making their converts from the educated ranks. God's wrath is against all such because they hold down the truth in unrighteousness.
3. They are Unclean and Reprobate in Life, vs. 24-31. Because of their uncleanliness God gave them up to three things: (1) Sexual vice and immorality, vs. 24-25. (2) Vile or shameful passions, vs. 26-27. (3) Reprobate minds, vs. 28-31. That means minds that cannot stand the test,
4. Therefore They Are Justly Condemned, v. 32. They do things worthy of death and revel in their filth. They are not ignorant but impudent. They are both condemned and without excuse.
Justly condemned--without excuse, vs. 32, 20. 1. They know the truth or know right from wrong. 2. They are worthy of death or know wrong justly deserves God's judgment and wrath. 3. Yet knowing the wrong and knowing its just penalty, they deliberately do the wrong. 4. They not only do the wrong but actually take plea sure in doing the wrong, though they know its penalty. 5. So they are not only justly condemned but are without excuse.
II. THE JEWS ARE NOT RIGHTEOUS, 2:1-3:8.
Whoever sins incurs the judgment of God, 2:1-16. The heathen taught by nature and conscience (1:18-32) and the Jews under the Mosaic Law (2:17-3:8) have sinned by falling short of their respective standards of righteousness. Paul is trying to show the certainty and justice of God's wrath on sinners by proving that all are guilty.
1. Paul now takes up the self-righteous, be he Jew or Gentile, 2:1-16. This has special application to the Jews. [Paul tactfully says, "0 man, whosoever thou art." Had he named the self-righteous Jew openly in this verse many of them would not have read further when they found their name.] In chapter one they are charged with holding down the truth in unrighteousness; in 2:1-16 they are charged with proclaiming the truth in unrighteousness by judging.
(1) He condemns himself in condemning the heathen for he is guilty of the same sin, 2:1. The self-righteous man assents to Gentile condemnation, thereby condemning himself. Jesus said, "...Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee..." Luke 19:22. The indicted man incriminates himself by his own judgment and testimony. In John Jesus condemns the Jew on this very ground. They had caught a woman in the act of adultery and they bring her to Him for Him to pass judgment on her. The law said, "Stone her"; " So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her" (John 8:7). Card playing church members condemn themselves when they condemn horse racing, gambling, and shooting craps. Those who play cards for prizes are guilty, just as the gambler. The bootlegger and all of the lawless liquor crowd are no worse in God's sight than the man who drinks it and those who patronize them or the men who furnish the money for them to conduct their business or the men who justify it. All are guilty.
(2) God's four principles of judgment, 2:2-16.
A. God's judgment is according to truth and therefore impartial, vs. 2-5. (A) There is no escape, v. 3. (B) God's goodness or kindness leads to repentance, v. 4. [The present tense "leadeth" does not here speak of what God accomplishes, but of the tendency of God's goodness. Theologians raise the question as to whether God's love ever inclines a man toward repentance without full accomplishment in bringing him to repentance. Paul strongly implies in verse 5 that some are potentially led to repentance who go to hell. The elect resist the grace of God to a certain point; then their hearts are tenderly yet irresistibly drawn to repentance; the finally impenitent, often called the non-elect, resist His goodness to their eternal undoing.] (C) This means piled up wrath later, v. 5. [The figure of treasuring up wrath strongly implies degrees of punishment in hell.]
Joshua Gravett suggests FOUR WAYS OF ESCAPE: 1. One might not be found out, but God says, "...Be sure your sin will find you out" (Numbers 32:23). 2. One might get beyond God's jurisdiction, but God is everywhere "If I ascend," etc., Psalms 139. 3. One might fail to be convicted in trial, but "every transgression" will receive "a just recompeirce of reward" (Hebrews 2:2). 4. One might get out of the pen and hide, but there is an impassable gulf (Luke 16) and nothing is hid from God's eye (Hebrews 4:13).
B. God's judgment is according to absolute justice, vs. 6-10. (A) According to deeds, v. 6. [This proves degrees of punishment in hell.] (B) God will always do right, v. 7. If anyone continues patiently in well doing, he will be saved by works. God will do right. If any man obeys God's law perfectly, he will get eternal life. But do any do that? Romams 3:20 is the verdict of Scripture that no one does. Galations 3:10 and James 2:10 prove that no one perfectly obeys the law, and therefore all are condemned. If he disobeys in one point, he is a convicted transgressor. [Some have entirely missed the message of Romans by thinking that Paul here teaches salvation for us through our obedience. One must look to the context. Paul is not discussing how God saves sinners, but telling what would take place if a man did not sin at all.] (C) Wrath for the disobedient, vs. 8-9a. (D) Whether Jew or Gentile, there is exact justice for them, 9b-10.
C. God has no favorites in judgment, vs. 11-15. (A) He is a Just God; He considers no man's person in judgment, v. 11. [It is twisting the context to use this statement against the doctrine of election when Paul applies it only to judgment.] (B) They will be judged by known and God-given standards, v. 12. God's absolute justice forbids His sending to hell the heathen for violating a law about which he did not know and letting the Jew go to heaven when he had violated his own law about which he knew. The standard of judgment for the Jew is the law of Moses; for the heathen it is the law of conscience. God, therefore, has no favorite; every man will be tried, by the law he is under and about which he knows. (C) Obedience is the test, vs. 13-14. (D) God's witnesses, v. 15. Note the double work of conscience.
D. God's judgment will be according to Paul's gospel and by Jesus Christ, v. 16. That is, every man will be tested by God's righteousness. Cf. 3:23. The final test will be one's relationship to Jesus Christ.
2. Application to the Jews, 2:17-24.
(1) The Jews boast of superior knowledge, vs. 17-20. Paul now openly names the man of verse 1 a Jew. A. Their five privileges that God gave them will not help them escape, vs. 17-18. These privileges are: They are called Jews; they rest in the law; they boast that God is the God of the Jews; they know His will; they approve things that are right. B. Their five claims to superiority over others will not prevent their condemnation, vs. 19-20. These are: A guide of the blind; a light to those in darkness; an instructor of the foolish; a teacher of babes; a possessor of the Word of God.
(2) They do not live up to their law; therefore they are justly condemned, vs. 21-23. This was an argument "ad hominem." Paul takes the Jew on his own ground and shows that he defeats himself.
(3) The Jews are worse than the heathen; they are stumbling blocks, v. 24. They cause the heathen to blaspheme God. God said it as well as Paul, "As it is written" (Isaiah 52:5). The Book is against them and condemns them for teaching the law and not living up to it.
(4) The externals of religion do not protect anyone from wrath, 2:25-29. The outward in religion is worthless if you are not right on the inside. It is as the seal on a can if there is nothing on the inside. It is as the seal on a document if there is only blank paper within. Note Simon Magus. If there is no Holy Spirit on the inside, baptism on the outside is worthless, Acts 19:2. A. The law is God's standard of judgment, not circumcision, v. 25. B. The Gentiles obey the law better than the lawless Jews, vs. 26-27. C. God judges the inside, not the outside, vs. 28-29. [Spiritual circumcision is the same as the new birth. "Whose praise is not of men but of God." Paul here plays on the meaning of the word Jew, a corruption of Judah, which means "praise." Genesis 29:35.]
3. OBJECTIONS ANSWERED, 3:1-8. When Paul shows the hollow sham and greater sinfulness of the Jew, he immediately runs up against objections
(1) "What is the advantage in being a Jew?", 3:1-2. Paul's answer- Much every way, but chiefly because they have the Bible (II Timothy 3:15). Many of its promises are to the Jews and are yet un fulfilled. So far as sin and salvation are concerned, there is no profit. The Jew and the Gentile are judged, condemned, or saved the same, 2:16. God is not going to be partial to the Jew and let him escape God's wrath and his sin go unpunished when the Jew has greater advantage over other nations in having the Scriptures to tell them how to escape the wrath of God.
(2) Objection two-- "What, advantage is there in leaving the Bible if some do not believe it?" 3:3-4. That is, Will their unbelief make void God's faithfulness? Will disbelief hinder God from faithfully keeping His covenant of circumcision? ["The faith of God"; better, "the faithfulness of God" (R. V.).] Paul's answer--God forbid: God is true anyhow; God will be true if He thereby proves every man a liar. God's Word is true even though it condemns the Jew as well as the heathen. They are responsible for their own belief, and it will not prevent God from visiting His wrath upon them but on the contrary will aggravate their sin because they make God a liar in their unbelief of the Bible. God's Word will stand even though it makes every man a liar. God's Word will stand against every man's in the world. This is a good place to drive down a peg-- the Old Book stands. Like the blacksmith's anvil which has worn out many hammers, but His Word stands and will stand forever. The Modernist, Unionist, and Worldling in our day who try to excuse their sins by saying they do not believe the Bible, instead of excusing themselves they are bringing on themselves greater punishment by giving the lie to God's Word. Man's sins will only cause God's faithfulness to stand out in bolder relief. Note that unbelief is lying because it makes God's Word unworthy of trust, cf. I John 5:10.
(3) Objection three-- "If that is so and God is righteous in condemning my sin," says the Jew, "how can He justly punish me?" 3:5-6 Cf. Acts 4:27-28. That is, How can God justly punish me, the Jew, if my sin proves Him righteous in fulfilling His Word? Paul's answer--If that were so, then He could not punish sin in the heathen. Then He could not punish it in anybody, Jew or Gentile, because He makes all things glorify Him. There would be no judgment then. God forbid: away with the thought! Their argument proves too much. If God cannot punish any sin that He overrules, then He would not punish any at all, for He overrules all sin to His glory. The wrath of man praises Him. The Jew would not stand for that for he believed in a judgment, especially for the Gentile. If men are saved, God is glorified by their sin in the praise He gets from their salvation. If men are not saved, God's righteousness and justice are glorified in their damnation. The dilemma in which Paul puts the Jew is: You say He is just in punishing the Gentile, He must as justly punish you. God must judge you Jews justly and impartially and without favoritism or not judge at all.
(4) Objection four-- A concrete case, 3:7-8. "Why not do evil that good may come if God is glorified by sin?" Cf. women voting. Paul's answer-- A. That is a slander. B. The condemnation of the man who said it is just. This is Paul's only answer.
III. THE VERDICT OF THE SCRIPTURES, 3:9-20.
Scripture, not reason, is the final authority. In 1:18-3:8 Paul reasoned with them. He then clinches all he had said by an appeal to Old Testament passages. His arguments however reasonable were worthless if he could not back them up with a "thus saith the Lord." The "thus saith the Lord" settles everything with all Baptists and all others who love the Lord. Buttress your arguments with Scripture. Do not be afraid to quote the Old Testament. Paul was not. He either quoted or referred to twelve Old Testament passages of Scripture. He had proved that none were righteous; the Scripture said it.
ANALYSIS OF 3:9-20: 1. Charge, v. 9. 2. Proof. A. Scriptures final authority. B. Twelve Old Testament Passages. 3. What he proved. A. Character bad, vs. 10-12. True of all. a. Negative, v. 10f. b. Positive, v. 12. B. Conduct bad, vs. 13-17. a. Speech all bad, vs. 13-14. b. Acts all bad, vs. 15-17. C. Reason or cause, v. 18. 4. Conclusion, vs. 19-20. A. Whole world guilty, v. 19. B. No defense, v. 19. C. Law shows it, v. 20. 5. Therefore, all need God's righteousness, v. 20.
1. None better, v. 9. The Jew is not better than the Gentile; the educated are not better than the unlearned; nor one nation better than another. None better: all are on a level. No difference in rotten apples. Isaiah. 1:4-5. The trouble with this world is that every nation thinks that it is better than any other nation.
2. None righteous, vs. 10-18. (1) None righteous in character, vs. 10-12. (2) None righteous in conduct, vs. 15-18. Their conduct is corrupt, deceitful, deadly; they are blasphemers, murderers, destructive and lawless.
3. No defense, v. 19. Every mouth is stopped, all are guilty in the sight of a holy God, and so guilty that they have no comeback, no answer to God.
4. No exceptions to this rule, v. 20. There are no exceptions in the whole human race as to the guilt of man when they stand in His presence. God searched in vain for one good man. Mr. Brown shows that the necessity of God's free grace and righteousness is seen: (1) In the disorder of man's whole nature. (2) In the universality of human guilt. (3) In condemnation of the whole world. (4) In that none can be justified by obedience to law.
None better! None righteous! None good! No difference! All guilty! This is Paul's summary.
NO DIFFERENCE, 3:22-23
The conclusion to the whole matter, vs. 22-23. There is no difference between the Jew and the Gentile. The differences between men are all external, superficial, non-essential. No difference as to
sin, sorrow, sickness, sadness, suffering, heartache. The great experiences of life are all universal. In the great facts of life there is no distinction--Birth, growth, trouble, loss, tears, sunshine, shadows, love, marriage, home, old age, death come to all alike in all nations. All distinctions between men are incidental and trivial, external and superficial. The Bible is full of illustrations of these facts. Death, three corpses--one dead for years, one four days, one an hour--no difference as to life, decay, death. Lepers in Bible days were all put out of camp. Cf. small-pox, yellow fever. Debt--two creditors who had nothing to pay--all on same footing, hopeless bankrupts, Luke 7. God says, "All sinners look alike to Me." In the army a standard must be met--one who lacks little is told to stand aside just as the one who lacks much--they come short of the standard. The flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Egyptian bondage all show that there was no difference. God says all are guilty, and the mouths of all are shut. There is no difference as to sin. That is what he proved in 1:18-3:23. There is no difference as to salvation, Romans 10:12; Acts 15:9; Revelation 5:9; 7:14. "Only a sinner saved by grace."
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What three things does Paul set out to prove?
2. Why are the heathen lost without the gospel?
3. What is the three-point outline of 1:18-3:20?
4. What are God's two witnesses to every man?
5. What two truths about God do the heathen know?
6. How does Paul show tact in showing the Jew's condemnation?
7. What are God's four principles of judgment?
8. Explain the last part of 2:4.
9. What two Scripture statements here show there will be degrees of punishment in hell?
10. What is meant by "respect of persons?"
11. Wherein do they err who claim that Paul teaches salvation by man's obedience in 2:7-10?
12. What are the two witnesses against the heathen and the three witnesses against the Jews?
13. What are the respective standards by which God will judge both Jew and Gentile?
14. What does Paul say of external religion only?
15. Summarize the four objections and four answers in 3:1-8.
16. What is meant by "the faith of God" in 3:3?
17. In what dilemma does Paul put the Jew?
18. By what two methods did Paul show the guilt of all?
19. What is the relation of arguments and Revelation?
20. Explain "no difference."
CHAPTER III
Righteousness Provided
3:21-26
We adapt this analysis from Stifler: 1. Source of righteousness - God. 2. Relation to law. A. Apart from law. B. Witnessed by law. 3. Chief characteristic of righteousness--by-faith righteousness. 4. Beneficiaries--all believers. 5. Extent-unto all and upon all that believe. 6. Reason for by-faith righteousness-- no difference in sinners. 7. Its bestowment. A. How? a. Freely; that is, without any cause in us-- manner. b. By grace--cause. c. Through redemption--means. B. Why by blood? That He might be just and the justifier of them that believe in Christ Jesus, 3:21.
In studying Righteousness Provided we go back to 1:17, where God's gospel reveals or unveils God's righteousness. In 1:18-3:20 he proved that men have no righteousness of their own so as to show the need and necessity of God's providing a righteousness for men. In that Scripture is painted the dark background of man's total and universal depravity and guilt in order to show forth God's righteousness. In that discussion Paul proves five things-- None better, none righteous, none good, all guilty, no distinction. He then turns to unveil God's righteousness. "No white can stand against God's white."
Four times in 3:21-26 is God's righteousness mentioned. [The entire epistle may be divided into three sections: 1. The need of righteousness, 1:1-3:20. 2. The exposition of righteousness, 3:21-26. 3. The application of righteousness, 3:27-16:27. Thus 3:21-26, though it is comparatively short, is the heart and center of the epistle. All before it looks toward it, and all after it, grows from it. These few words are a complete exposition of the righteousness of God.]
1. GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS IS APART FROM ALL LAW, ANY LAW, v. 21. The law principle is Do and Live, Galations 3:12. The doing has to be perfect, however; if it is not perfect, no man can be saved by it, Galations 3:10. In Deuteronomy 6:25 Moses says that our obedience is our own righteousness and Paul says we are not saved by our own righteousness but by God's righteousness, and God's righteousness is a by-faith righteousness. That is, righteousness not by law nor by obedience nor any other kind of righteousness of men, Titus 3:5. [Deuteronomy 6:25 gives the clearest definition of our righteousness found in all the Bible. All explanations of Romans that confuse our righteousness, what we do, and God's righteousness, what Christ did on the cross, misconstrue the whole epistle. It has been made manifest (perfect tense); it is not yet to be done by man.] Exodus 24:7 shows that any man who teaches obedience as a condition of salvation teaches the law. The law cannot justify the guilty, but the innocent. Since all men are guilty, therefore all men have to be justified apart from law. The gospel is a revelation of God's righteousness; God's righteousness is apart from law; therefore God's gospel is apart from law; and the man who preaches "do and live" or "obey and live" does not preach God's gospel.
2. GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS IS WITNESSED BY THE LAW AND THE PROPHET'S, v. 21. "Law" is the Pentateuch, more particularly the ten commandments. "Prophets" includes the rest of the
Old Testament. They bear witness to two great principles respecting the righteousness of God. (1) That every man under law is under condemnation because he has not kept it all. (2) That every man needs the perfect righteousness of Christ as the only. ground of His acceptance before God. The ground of justification is not the sinner's own doing or suffering, but the doing and suffering of another; and the means of justification is not working but believing, Acts 10:43. Where do they witness? Every bleeding sacrifice testifies to forgiveness by the suffer ings of another. Genesis 15:6 shows that believing is the means. Isaiah 28:16. ["Being witnessed," a present participle.; the Old Testament is not out of date. "By the law and the prophets;" a single "by" emphasizes one harmonious testimony for Christ.]
3. GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS IS A BY-FAITH RIGHTEOUS NESS, v. 22. We get the benefits of God's righteousness through ac ceptance of Him who is God's righteousness; God's righteousness is a person. That person is the Lord Jesus, I Corinthians 1:30; II Corinthians 5:21; Galations 3:13-14; 2:16. God's righteousness is offered to all men as sinners, and as sinners they must accept it. Man has no righteousness of his own, and God must provide a righteousness for him if he is ever righteous. No man can be righteous by law because all break the law and are therefore condemned. ["By faith" in verse 22 and "through faith" in verse 25 translate the same Greek expression. It is always through faith ("dia" with the genitive) and never on account of faith ("dia" with the accusative). Faith has no justifying power; it is merely the channel through which righteousness comes to us.
4. GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS IS MANIFESTED TO AND TAKES EFFECT ON ALL THAT BELIEVE, v. 22; Acts 13:39. It cannot take effect on an unbeliever, nor can it fail to take effect on a believer because: (1) There is no distinction as to sin, v. 23. (2) There
is no distinction as to guilt, v. 19. (3) There is no distinction as to law,
v. 20. (4) There is no distinction as to righteousness, v. 10. (5) There is no distinction as to profitableness, v. 12. This means literally that they are as soured meat or milk, fit only for the slop-bucket. (6) There
is no distinction as to intellectuality, v. 11. (7) There is no distinction
as to God's glory, v. 22. The word "glory" here means approval, or praise, John 12:43. Men fight the idea that God's righteousness takes effect on all believers harder than nearly anything in the gospel; that is why they fight a by-faith righteousness. They want a little credit to themselves. They want to add something to faith. All are treated alike regardless of race, color, condition, nationality, or their previous lives, John 3-4. He cannot do otherwise since sin has brought all to one common level. All need it; all equally need it.
5. THIS RIGHTEOUSNESS IS BESTOWED AS A GIFT UPON ALL WHO ACCEPT IT WITHOUT ANY DISTINCTIONS, vs. 22-23.
6. GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS IS BESTOWED FREELY, v. 24. God's gospel reveals God's righteousness as bestowed-
(1) Freely, that is gift-wise without any cause in us. As men hated Jesus, John 15:25. There is nothing in Jesus to make sinners hate Him as they do. Even so this passage says we are justified freely by His grace. That means without any cause in us, Isaiah 55:1.
(2) It also means without any merit in us. Man deserves wrath and hell; justice demands death; the law with drawn sword says, "Slay the guilty culprit;" grace steps up and offers to provide a substitute.
(3) We are not only justified freely by His grace but through, the redemption that is in Jesus Christ, Romans 8:32. He is the Judge's Son. Redemption means a release purchased by a ransom. "He paid the debt and made me free." He was the ransom price for our redemption. We are delivered by receiving Him. [Modernists try to confuse the meaning of the word "ransom" by referring to the ransom paid to kidnapers. They press the point that the kidnaper has no rightful claim. But the Bible use of the word "ransom" pertains to release from debt, a just debt. The ransom is paid to God whose justice has been outraged by our sins.] He was the ransom that paid the price of the unlocking of the fetters of guilt and our deliverance from the curse of the law. God offers, not amnesty or pardon, but justification based on full payment and complete satisfaction of divine justice and outraged law. [One may be pardoned at the expense of justice, but justification always implies perfect satisfaction to justice.]
(4) Jesus is the mercy-seat. v. 25. He is not only our ransom but the mercy-seat on which the blood of ransom is sprinkled. [ The Greek for "propitiation" is mercy-seat.] An altar of prayer or mourner's bench is no mercy seat, Exodus. 25:22. Christ is the place where God and the sinner meet. Hebrews 9:5, 7; John 14:6. He is the blood-sprinkled mercy seat. The blood with which the mercy-seat is sprinkled is between God and the broken law so we can draw near in full assurance of faith, Hebrews 10:19-20. The blood is not only between God and the broken law but between the sinner and the broken law, Leviticus 16:14-15. The mercy seat was not revealed to men until the veil was rent from top to bottom by divine hands, Hebrews 10:20. Thus God set forth Christ as the mercy-seat only by rending the veil of Christ's humanity and making His soul an offering for sin, Isaiah 53:10-12. Now since the mercy-seat has been sprinkled with the blood of the sin offering and God has dealt with Christ about our sins, we may come boldly to God through faith in that blood-sprinkled mercy-seat. Are you trusting in the merits of that precious blood?
(5) Showing forth His righteousness, v. 25-26. The righteousness which is the heart of the gospel is declared or revealed in two ways-
A. In passing over the sins of Old Testament saints. The blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin. The sins of Old Testament believers were passed over, but not really dealt with, remitted, or taken away until God dealt with them on Calvary through Christ. That is why Old Testament saints were kept in Paradise, John 3:13; Hebrews. 9:8; 11:13, 39; Ephesians 4:8-9. After the death and resurrection of Christ, certifying that the sin debt had been paid when Christ finally ascended, He took all the Old Testament saints on to heaven with Him.
B. God's righteousness was not only shown in His passing over the sins of Old Testament saints until atonement was made and finished and God had certified by the resurrection of Christ that the sin debt was paid in full, but God's righteousness is declared in justifying every be liever once for all the moment he believes, Psalms 85:10. All this is done that God might be just and the justifier of the believing sinner and be just in doing it. "The problem is not how to get men to God, but how to get God to men" (Stifler). How a just God can pronounce a guilty sinner just before God is exactly what justification is. Justification is God's declaring a guilty man not guilty; and telling the truth when He declares it, through faith in the blood of Christ. [The modern conten tion that there was only a supposed obstacle in the way throws overboard this whole paragraph. Paul certainly believed that God's justice was outraged by man's sin and had to be satisfied. Paul declares that justification apart from Christ's propitiatory sacrifice would make God unjust. Christ's death was propitiatory-- it satisfied God; Christ's death was expiratory–it removed man's sin; Christ's death was substitutionary --it did for the sinner what he could not do for himself.]
7. GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS IS PROVIDED BY GRACE, v. 24. Grace is always humbling to man. Grace always excludes man's efforts, merits, or worth.
8. GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS IS OFFERED FREELY AND BY GRACE BECAUSE CHRIST RANSOMED US BY HIS OWN PRECIOUS BLOOD, v. 24.
9. GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS WAS WROUGHT OUT AND REVEALED ON CALVARY, vs. 25-26.
(1) Calvary reveals Christ as the mercy seat where sinful man and holy God meet in peace over the shed blood of Jesus. Blood satisfies God and reconciles man.
. (2) Calvary exhibits God's justice in passing over the sins of Old Testament saints because in the fulness of the time they were to be expiated by God's Lamb in fulfillment of all Old Testament types.
(3) Calvary makes it possible for every believer to be justified forever the moment he receives Christ because his sin debt has been paid off and cancelled by Christ's blood.
(4) Calvary indicates and exhibits God's justice in turning loose the violator of His law because all the claims and demands of that law have been met and satisfied by Jesus.
RESUME OF GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS, 3:21-26
God's gospel reveals God's righteousness to guilty man who has no righteousness of his own.
1. Apart from law. He cannot get it by doing. "It is apart from any human obedience as a condition of its attairment" (W. H. G. Thomas).
2. Witnessed by law and prophets.
3. Bestowed through faith.
4. Unto and upon all them that believe.
5. Without distinction, for all are on a common level, v. 22.
6. Freely or gift-wise, v. 24. The cause of justification is not in us but outside of us; it is through the imputed righteousness of Christ.
7. By the grace of God. It is not merited by the obedience of men.
8. Through a ransom paid by Jesus Christ's purchasing our release from God's broken law. 9. The blood sprinkled mercy-seat is the place where God's righteousness is revealed in passing over the sins of Old Testament saints and in the present justification of every believer because it shows God's righteousness as consistent with His justice in not forgiving his sins or admitting him to heaven until the penalty was paid and the justice of God fully satisfied by the merits of Christ. God's gospel reveals Jesus Christ as God's mercy seat where through faith in the sprinkled blood the sinner may meet a sin avenging God in peace. Moule says, "Grace shuts out the foul inflation of a righteous boast." Ruskin says, "I believe that the root of every schism and heresy from which the Christian church has ever suffered has been the effort of men to earn rather than receive salvation."
10. The results of setting forth of God's righteousness are-
(1) The shutting out of man's boasting, vs. 27-31. (2) This Includes Jew and Gentile in one universal plan of salvation. The Jew said, there is only one God, Jehovah. Therefore it is impossible for God to have two different ways of justifying sinners. Saving the Jew by works and the Gentiles by faith would require two Gods and two different Saviors. The same God cannot save two equally guilty men by opposing methods. A righteous judge cannot render contradictory judgment where all are alike guilty.
A SECONDARY OUTLINE OF THE REST OF THE EPISTLE
I. RIGHTEOUSNESS NEEDED, 1:18-3:20.
II. RIGHTEOUSNESS PROVIDED, 3:21-26.
III. OBJECTIONS TO A BY-FAITH RIGHTEOUSNESS AND PAUL'S ANSWERS THERETO, 3:27-11:36.
(I) Objections to the Doctrine Itself, 3:27-8:39.
1. "Where then is boasting?" 3:27-30. Answer--It is excluded; a by- faith righteousness leaves no ground for the Jews to boast.
2. "It makes void the law," 3:31-4:25. Answer--It establishes the law, for both Abraham and David were saved by a by-faith righte ousness.
3. "Is a by-faith righteousness safe? Will it last?" 5:1-19. Answer --Afflictions and persecutions will not destroy, but strengthen it.
4. "What was the law for then?" 5:20-21. Answer--To make the trespass abound and grace more abound.
5. "Why not take one's fill of sin?" 6:1-14. Answer-- The saved are dead to sin and cannot live therein.
6. "If he is dead with Christ and not under law and therefore not subject to condemnation, why not sin as much as you please?" 6:15 8:17a. Answer (1) Sin is no longer your master, 6:15-23. (2) Dead to the law, 7:1-24. (3) Now under grace, therefore, no condemnation, 7:25-8:4. (4) Indwelt by the Holy Spirit, 8:5-13. (5) Sons and heirs with Christ, 8:14-17a.
7. By-faith righteousness is a sure guarantee of eternal security to and of all who receive it, 8:17b-39.
(II) Objections to a By-faith Righteousness as Applied to the Jews,
Introduction--I am not the enemy of the Jew, 9:1-5.
1. "God mistreated the Jews," 9:6-10:14. Answer--(1) God has not gone back on His Word, 9:6-13. (2) God is just to the Jews, 9:14-10:4.
2. "A by-faith righteousness is something new," 10:5-21. Answer -By-faith righteousness is foretold and described by Moses and the prophets, 10:5-21. (1) Defined, 10:5-11. (2) For all, 10:12-18. (3) Jew has no excuse--he rejected it, 10:19-21.
3. "Israel is cast off," 11:1-36. Answer-- (1) Not total-- none of the elect have been cast off, 11:1-10. (2) Not final-- all will be saved when Christ returns,11:11-36.
IV. FRUITS OF BY-FAITH RIGHTEOUSNESS, 12-16.
1. Consecration of life, 12. (1) Consecration voluntary and complete, 12:1-2. (2) Fruits of consecration, 12:3-21. A. Humility, 12:3-8. B. Brotherly love, 12:9-13. C. Universal love, 12:14-21.
2. Believer's relation to government, 13.
(1) Duties to the state, 13:1-7.
(2) Duties to citizens, 13:8-10.
(3) Christian motives enforcing these motives, 13:11-14.
3. Fraternal duties in matters of conscience, 14:1-15:13. (1) Conscience toward weak, 14:1-12. (2) Right use of liberty by strong, 14:13-23. (3) Christian forbearance the will of God, 15:1-13.
4. Conclusion, 15:14-16:27. (1) Paul's rule in choosing his field, 15:14-32. (2) A chapter from the book of life, 16.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What is the second division of Romans? 2. Give the points of this discussion.
3. To what point in the discussion does 3:21 return? 4. What is the relation of 3:21-26 to the entire epistle?
5. What passage best defines our righteousness? Memorize it. 6. What is meant by "the law and the prophets?"
7. To what two great principles of righteousness does the Old Testament testify?
8. What does "through faith" signify? 9. What does "glory" mean in 3:22? 10. What does "freely" mean?
11. Explain the word "redemption."
12. What is the difference between pardon and justification? 13. Define the word "ransom."
14. What does "propitiation" mean?
15. Discuss or define the meaning of the mercy-seat. 16. What did the vail of the temple typify?
17. In what two ways did the cross declare God's righteousness? 18. Define "justification."
19. What was the greatest problem in man's redemption? 20. Calvary reveals what four things?
21. Give the four-point outline of Romans.
22. What two classes of objections are urged by the Jews?
CHAPTER IV
Righteousness Received
3:27--4:25
[The question of the reception and application of righteousness is now discussed in detail. The text of the Epistle emphasizes righteousness as a by-faith righteousness. "Everyone that believeth," "from faith to faith," 1:16,17. It was again stated in the last section; see verses 22, 25, 26. Now it is developed fully. This illustrates a necessary principle of interpretation, often seen in this epistle, that what is merely mentioned in another discussion may be made the theme later of a full discussion.]
1. GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS EXCLUDES BOASTING, 3:27-28.
Poor Jew! No righteousness, mouth shut, the only righteousness is apart from law and by faith. In despair he cries, "Where is boasting therefore?" There is no place for it nor the boaster. Paul gives the glory to God, not to man. In 3:19 we see that man's mouth was shut by Paul's proving him guilty before God. Man's mouth being shut, God has a chance to talk. Paul sets forth God's righteousness in contradistinction to man's sin and man's righteousness. When God's righteousness is revealed to depraved man and he accepts it, the braggart's mouth is shut forever, I Corinthians 15:10; Psalms 51:14-15; Philipians 3:4-9; Revelation 5:9.
How excluded? By works? Nay, verily. But by faith. Works occasion boasting; faith magnifies God's righteousness and thereby excludes boasting and everything that occasions boasting. A Campbellite preacher said that he would claim an entrance to heaven because he obeyed the gospel, Matthew 7:22. There is no credit for believing, Ephesians 1:19. Paul's, conclusion, v. 28.
[Here is a peculiar designation for faith, "the law of faith." The word "law" is here equivalent to our word principle. Righteousness be comes ours on the principle of faith. Another peculiar designation for faith is found in John 6:29, "This is the work of God that ye believe." That is, the act (of the soul) that God requires is faith. Faith is both a principle and an act.]
II. THE ONENESS OR UNITY OF GOD PR0VES THERE IS BUT ONE WAY OF JUSTIFYING SI NNERS, 3:29-30.
The Jew said that there was only one God, Jehovah. It is impossible for Him to have two different ways of saving mankind. In its universality and sameness it is consistent with and flows from the unity of God. "There can be no step-children in God's family" (Denny). There can be no half-brothers, no brothers-in-law; all are full children in God's family. Even Christian Jews thought that Christian Gentiles while uncircumcised ought not have the same rights and privileges of the Jew. If not, they are step-children, not full children. Catholics feel the same way about those who are outside "the church." Campbellites and other legalists and ritualists feel this about the unbaptized. They plus faith in Christ by good works as a condition of final salvation. No, one thousand times no, all believers are equally sons, joint-heirs. There are no degrees in sonship or salvation. Galations 3:26 and Romans 8:15-17 teach clearly that there are no degrees in sonship, that all believers are sons, heirs, and joint-heirs through Jesus Christ. Joint-heirs means equal-heirs.
God justifies "by" (Greek "ek) faith the Jew; that is, from the starting point of faith. He justifies the Gentile "'through" (Greek "dia") faith ; that is, through the instrumentality of faith. The Jew is not justified by his lack of faith; the Gentile not through circumcision or becoming a Jew, but through his faith.
III. A RIGHTEOUSNESS RECEIVED BY FAITH ESTABLISHES THE LAW, 3:31.
Men claim that by-faith righteousness cancels law, opens the door to immorality, and makes one take his fill of sin. Paul's answer: Nay, we establish it by saying that
1. Man cannot be saved except by perfect obedience to the law in his own person or in the person o f a substitute, Rom. 5:19. The law demands perfect obedience as a condition of salvation by law, and man can't furnish it. The admission that the law is holy, and just and good and that we are unholy and unjust and bad establishes the law. Christ magnified the law by meeting perfectly the law's demands.
2. Christ paid the penalty in full by His death on the cross, Gal. 3:13. He not only obeyed, the law in His life, but bore in His death the curse that rested on man because of disobedience. A by-faith righteousness admits the claims o f the law and satisfies them ia Christ's death. 3. A by-faith righteousness gives a new motive power for obedience. Love is the fulfilling of the law.
IV. BY-FAITH RIGHTEOUSNESS ILLUSTRATED BY TWO OLD TESTAMENT EXAMPLES, Chapter 4.
Chapter four gives the proof that faith establishes the law. Romans four is Paul's tract on faith. The theme of this chapter is justification by faith alone. 1. Abraham was justified by faith, vs. 1-5. 2. Abraham was justified by faith before he was circumcised, vs. 9-12. 3. Abraham became heir of the world by faith, vs. 13-17a. 4. The faith demanded by the gospel is the same as Abraham's faith, vs. 17b-25.
Abraham and David were the two men most revered by the Jews. Go to the Old Testament for illustrations. Paul did.
In the argument Paul goes back to 3:21. He takes up two cases to show that faith not only does not void the law but is witnessed by the law and the prophets. Their two most talked of fathers are mentioned and made to testify against them. Reason is followed by Paul here, but the final appeal is to the Book. Note Paul's argument: 1. Wholly without works, vs. 2-8. 2. Without circumcision, vs. 9-12. 3. Apart from law, vs. 13-16. 4. Patterned after Abraham, vs. 17-25.
1. Abraham and David were justified wholly without works. vs. 1-8.
. (1) Abraham, vs. 1-5. "If boasting is cut off, what therefore about Abraham?" What did he find according to the flesh? What did he acquire by religious works? What did he get unassisted by grace, v.1? Answer: Nothing at all, certainly not justification. If he were justified by works, he had an occasion for boasting, but not towards God. vs.1. If he did it himself, no praise is due God for his salvation. He could not boast of what God did but what he himself did.
What do the Scriptures say? Verse 3; Genesis 15:6. "Justify" means to declare or treat as righteous, not to make righteous. The verdict of the jury does not make a man innocent, it only declares it. Justification clears or frees from the penalty of sin.
There is no grace in saving a man if he works for it. It is a debt, a wage, an earning, his right. Man has a legal right to what he earns. Grace means unearned, unmerited, a favor to the undeserving, a gift, unmerited favor to the ill-deserving. Naaman had the idea that he could merit or pay for God's blessing. To try to get good enough is works. Quit your meanness and join the church is works. Pay your debts and give to the poor is works. Some say God sells on the credit, that He lets men have salvation on condition that they work for Him the rest of their lives or hold out faithful to the end. Jacob got Rachel that way.
Salvation is to the man who is not working for it but believes. "To him that worketh not but believeth," v. 5. "Trust is man's answer to God's truth" (W. H. G. Thomas). It is not faith in God's goodness, existence, almightiness, sovereignty, etc., that saves. The Jews had all of these but they were unsaved. It is not a faith perfected by our own obedience. The faith that saves is faith in God's Son and His death for our sins and His resurrection for our justification.
Three facts about Abraham's justification, v. 5.
A. The man God saves is the man who does not work for it. [The Mormons change this to read, "That worketh AND believeth." Many people so believe. What Paul said was, "To him that worketh NOT BUT believeth." Working for salvation and believing for salvation are opposites; you cannot do both at once] .
B. God justifies the ungodly, I Timothy 1:15. Abraham was ungodly in that he was an idolater. Joshua 24:2. God does not justify good people but bad ones. The bad are not working for salvation. Man justifies the innocent; God the guilty.
C. God's method of justification is to account the ungodly righteous through faith in Christ's righteousness. If Abraham was counted righteous then he was not naturally righteous; but had a righteousness not his own put to his account by faith. Christ was counted a sinner, though not one, because He took my place, II Corinthians 5:21. So am I counted righteous though ungodly.
Philemon 18,19 shows clearly what the Bible means by imputa tion. The expression "put that on mine account" is the same Greek word as is in v. 8 translated "impute." That means that our future sins, no sin after we are once justified is charged to us or put to our account. II Timothy 4:1 translates the same word "laid to (their) charge."
[The word "impute" (Greek "logidzomai") is very important in this Chapter. It occurs eleven times and is translated three different ways, twice by "count," vs. 3, 5; thrice by "reckon," vs. 4, 9, 10; and six times by "impute," vs. 6, 8, 11, 22, 23, 24. This familiar term in Greek business would signify a transfer and record of debit or credit, payment or charging. Compute, calculate, count over, pass to one's account, lay to one's charge, put down to the account of these express the idea conveyed. The instance in verse 4 means just this. In verse 8 we are assured that sins committed after justification will not be charged to the believer. The imputing of sin to Christ is not positively discussed here; that was discussed in 3:21-26. II Corinthians 5:21; Galations 3:13; I Peter 2:24, and Isaiah 53:6 amply prove imputation of sin to Christ. Christ's righteousness is imputed to us, and our sins are imputed to Him. There is a double imputation. In verses 3, 5, 9, 10, 22, 23, 24 faith is said to be counted "for righteousness." The expression "for righteousness" occurs in four of these instances and is implied in the other three. A few superficial students have taken "for" here to mean "instead of." The meaning of "for" (Greek "eis") forbids such a meaning. That would make faith the ground of justification whereas it is only the means or instrument. The contention would negative the whole section on Righteousness Provided, wherein what Christ did on the cross is defined as the righteousness we need and that God accepts. Haldane well says, "Rather unto righteousness . . . The expression unto righteousness' is elliptical and signifies unto the receiving of righteousness." The two other instances (vs. 6, 11) show that righteousness is what is actually imputed "God imputeth righteouness" (v. 6), "that righteousness might be imputed (v. 11). Hodge remarks, "It is laying anything to one's charge and treating him accordingly. It produces no change in the individual to whom the imputation is made; it simply alters his relation to the law." It satisfies the law.]
(2) David, vs. 6-8. What says the Scripture? Psalms 32:1-2. Daviel also was blessed by God apart from works. The blessed man is not the man who never sinned, nor the man who made atonement for his own sin, nor the man who is forgiven because he obeyed. But he is: A. The one to Whom God imputes righteousness. The sinner has none of his own. B. The one whose sins were forgiven are covered by blood. C. The one to whom no more sin will be imputed. The blessedness here described is threefold: a.. Past--Our sins are forgiven and covered. b. Present--we are saved and justified. c. Future--No sin to be charged or imputed to us. Justification is once for all and covers the past, the present, and the future. The word translated "blessed'' means happy. Therefore this means, "Happy are the freely- justified.".
2. Justification apart from circumcision, vs. 9-12. Abraham was justified by faith before his circumcision. This was a knock-out blow to the Jewish claim of salvation apart from circumcision. He was justified fourteen years before he was circumcised.
Paul here answers the question of 3:1 as to the profit of circumcision. It was a seal or sign, an attestation or bearing witness that Abraham's justification came before his circumcision. A seal is worthless unless there is something on the inside to seal or to attest. The Jew tore off the seal and therefore the act of circumcising was a worthless form, 2:27-29. How may we know one is a Jew? The Jew claims "Because I have been circumcised." "No," says Paul, "you are no Jew at all." We cannot know we are Christians because we have been to the mourner's bench or have been baptized; we know we are Christians if we have Christ in us the hope of glory. A seal is worthless unless there is something to seal; a sign is worthless unless there is something to signify. Neither a seal nor sign adds anything to the terms or conditions of the thing sealed; hence cannot add to justification. No bodily act has anything to do with the sinner's justification. Baptism like circumcision is a sign of something already done, not a condition of its being done.
Justification before circumcision or to the Gentiles without cir cumcision was that Abraham might be the father of all believers irrespective of nationality. There is no salvation to the descendants of Abraham except those who belong to the faith clan, v.12. Not that the Gentiles must come to the Jew's circumcision for salvation, but the Jew must come to the Gentile's faith if he would be saved (Stifler). Faith saves; circumcision is a pledge of nationality. God never promised salvation except to faith; he never promised perpetual nationality except to circumcised men. Abraham is the father of both.
The Campbellites make much of the "steps of faith," v. 12. The steps of faith are these: hearing the word, John 5:24; believing that Christ is able to save, Romans 4:20-21; committing the soul to Christ, II Timothy 1:12. In Romans 4:5 and 11:6 works are specifically excluded from having part in salvation. The steps of salvation are steps of faith, not steps of works. ["Steps of faith," that is steps that belong to faith, that make up faith. 1. Belief that Christ is able to save, Hebrews 7:25. 2. Belief that Christ is willing to save. I Timothy 2:4. 3. Committal to Christ to save, II Timothy 1:12.]
3. Abraham became heir of the world by faith, vs. 13-17a. The promise to Abraham was not through law but through faiths righteousness. ["The righteousness of faith." v. 13. cf. v. 11. That is righteousness that belongs to faith that comes at or by means of faith. "Righteousness which is obtained by faith" (Hodge). "The righteousness of faith is an elliptical expression, meaning the righteousness which is received by faith" (Haldane).] If men are heirs through law; as the Jews claimed, faith is vain, false, void, empty, and the promises are annulled, that is, if God promises to give me a thing and I believe His promise and don't get it unless I work for it, or earn or merit it, my faith is void in that it did me no good and God's promises are worthless. No promise made under law is effective unless the law is perfectly kept. And it is never perfectly obeyed by anyone. Therefore all promises under law are of none effect and all men under law are under a curse, Galations 3:10.
The law works wrath but never works justifications. v.15. Where there is no law, there is no transgression and therefore no wrath: and where there is no wrath, there is no law. 4:8. Salvation, justification, and heirship are based on God's unconditional promises that cannot be forfeited by those who believe His promise. For law-works, faith-works, or any other kind of works had nothing to do with our justification, 4:5. What man did not procure by obedience to law he cannot forfeit by dis obedience to law. If one is under law, he is under wrath: if one is justi fied by faith, he is not under law and never can be under condemnation, 10:4.
Faith is trust in a person. Abraham believed God and he was justified apart from either law or circumcision.
(1) That justification, salvation, and inheritance might be by grace. 4:16. None of these are by merit, obedience, or works. ["There fore it is of faith, that it might be by grace" (4:16.) No other principle but faith, in receiving righteousness, is consistent with grace. If it is not faith alone or if faith is plussed by obedience or human merit, it cannot be by grace. This one statement kills all arguments for salvation by works, either in part or wholly. Also, it kills the Hardshell contention that our making faith a means or instrument of salvation contradicts grace. Paul says it is of faith (literally, "out of faith") that it might be by grace (Greek, "according to grace," consistent with grace).]
(2) That the promise might be sure to all the seed, v. 16. These would not be sure to any of the seed if there were an if in the promise, but they are sure to all of the seed because all are received by faith in God's bare word of promise. Psalm. 89:27-34. The believer is never again counted a transgressor, Romans 4:8. How many seed are sure? All seed. What kind? Jew or Gentile, 4:16b-18.
(3) Promise of what? Heirship as well as justification, sanctification, and salvation. Heirship of what? All the world, universal dominion. The promise of Psalm 2:8 was to Christ, but Romans 8:14-17 shows that we are joint-heirs with Him of all that is included in His inheritance. By faith Abraham is the father of all believers, and all our hopes of world supremacy through Christ are conditioned on just one thing, our faith in Christ. Psalms 89:27-34 tells how God deals with the disobedient, but the believer never loses his inheritance.
4. Abraham is the pattern to all believers; his faith is the same as ours, 4:19-25. ["Us also," v. 24, draws the parallel between Abraham and us. Moses wrote for us as well as for people of his day.] This faith of Abraham which is the faith by which the sinner, is justified includes three things: (1) Christ died for our sins, or His substitutionary death. (2) By the death and resurrection of Christ our sin debt was cancelled. (3) The sin account settled forever--past, present, and future.
His faith was not simply historical believing in the existence and power of God, but it was believing in the resurrection of Christ. Paul says in verse 17 that Abraham believed God Who quickens the dead. This is the kind of faith all the promised seed have. Isaac who is a type of all believers was not a child of nature but of faith, Galations 4:28. His birth was possible only by the quickening of the dead womb of Sarah, v. 19. The impossibility of the birth of Isaac did not cause the faith of Abraham to waver.
So we are just as dead and hopeless, and what God promised is just as impossible with us without a miracle as the birth of a child was with Abraham and Sarah. God saves us, and our spiritual birth is just as miraculous as the birth of Isaac. God gave both Abraham and Sarah strength to conceive; so He gives all the elect faith to believe, Ephesians 1:19. God's bare word of promise is all that Abraham had. His bare word is all that we have. But Abraham believed God; he did not stagger; so with all the elect. Faith in God's promise justified Abraham, and faith in the promise of God will justify every believing sinner, vs. 22-25.
Justification was so sure that Christ was raised on account of our justification, v. 25; that means, it is because of it and accomplishes it. All men naturally are in sin, dead, lost, and would continue so eternally if it were not for the resurrection of Christ. But all believers are justified from sin once for all and forever because of the resurrection of Christ once for all. "Jesus Paid It All." W. H. Griffith Thomas well said, "The resurrection of Christ is God's full receipt of the full discharge of the debt." That is why no future sin can be charged to the believer. That is why our once-for all salvation covers past, present, and future. When a man is jailed for a debt, his being or getting out is not have came out of God's prison and been raised from the dead, Matt. proof that his debt is paid. If Christ had not paid our debt, He could 18:34: 5:26; Romans 8:32; Acts 2:31, 24.
[Jesus our Lord "was delivered for our offences and was raised again for our justification," 4:25. Because this verse contains the two great truths of the gospel, Christ's death and resurrection, it resembles I Corinthians 15:3-4 more closely perhaps than any other New Testament passage. The Greek word for "for" is in each instance "dia" (on account of, because of) with the accusative. The first statement means "on account of their guilt, which is expiated by the propitiation" (Shedd). "On account of them and for their expiation" (Hodge). "On account of our offences. This shows the need of Christ's death. It was not for an example, or for a witness merely; but for our offences" (Haldane).
[Just what does the second statement mean? "Because of our justification which was accomplished by His death" (Godet). "Our justification attested as complete" (Forbes). The expression naturally indicates a causal relation between His resurrection and our justification. Moule pointedly remarks, "Because our acceptance had been won, by His deliverance up. Such is the simplest explanation of the grammar and of the import. The Lord's Resurrection appears as, so to speak, the mighty sequel, and also the demonstration, warrant, proclamation, of His acceptance as the Propitiation, and therefore of our acceptance in Him. For indeed it was our Justification, when He paid our penalty. True, the acceptance does not accrue to the individual till he believes and so receives." We summarize Stifler's arguments: It is easy to misunderstand the preposition "for" because the mind unconsciously gives a different meaning to the two instances of the same word. The parallel between the two clauses will not allow different meanings. The word means in both instances "because of." The difficulty arises from confusing the time of the cause of the believer's justification and the moment he is actually Justified at faith. Chalmers says that we are set free because the debt was paid. His resurrection was thus a public vindication of Christ's atonement and a sign of God's acceptance thereof. Faith sees in His death the only atonement for sin and receives in His resurrection the crowning proof of that finished atonement.]
Faith that saves is not faith in the fact or act of the resurrection but in its import (Stifler). He who believes in the import of the resur rection believes that his gui1t is cancelled forever. "To believe in the resurrection of Jesus, then is to accept the two prime articles in the Christian creed, sin and grace: sin that slew Jesus and grace that ac cepts Him as our justification" (Stifler).
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Give the four points under Righteousness Received.
2. What does "the law of faith" mean?
3. What argument does Paul draw from the unity of God?
4. What is the difference between by "faith" and "through faith" in 3:30?
5. In what three ways does a by-faith righteousness establish the law?
6. What connection is there between Chapter four and 3:31?
7. What is the popular name for Romans four?
8. What two men from the Old Testament are used as illustrations? Why?
9. In 4:1 Paul's argument goes back to what verse?
10. What is the four point outline of Chapter four?
11. Define the word "justify."
12. Define the word "grace."
13. What is meant by the faith that saves?
14. Name the three facts about Abraham's justification.
15. Define the word "impute."
16. Discuss imputed righteousness and imputed sin.
17. What is a good illustration of imputation?
18. Discuss the threefold blessing on David.
19. What are the three steps of faith?
20. What is meant by "the righteousness of faith?"
21. Explain "raised for our justification."
22. What does it mean to believe in the resurrection of Christ?
CHAPTER V
Righteousness Experienced
5:1-8:17
[Chapter four may be looked upon as a digression to prove the harmony of a by-faith righteousness with the Old Testament. In 5:1 Paul goes back to 3:21 and discusses the consequences of justification by faith.]
Paul having proven in 1:18-3:21 that men are without righteousness, having proven that the righteousness of God is received by faith, without works, without circumcision, without law; then having proven the great doctrine of justification that covers past, present, and future once for all; he goes on now to show that this by faith righteousness lasts forever. For convenience sake and in order to answer various objections to it in the next two divisions of our argument (5:1- 8:17 and 8:18-39) we submit the following:
I. WILL A BY- FAITH RIGHTEOUSNESS LAST TO THE END? IS THE BY- FAITH METHOD SAFE? 5:1-19.
1. Affliction Will Not Destroy But Rather Strengthen It, vs. 1-4. We are justified from past sins when we believe, but what about our future sins is the constant question of those who do not believe in a by-faith righteousness. Paul's answer (1) We have peace with God through Jesus Christ the moment we believe, 5:1. This peace is a present possession. This is peace of conscience as to past sins because our sins are forgiven and covered. This is also a peace of mind as to the present because we are not under law; if not under law, then there is no transgression and if no transgression, no condemnation. Also, this is peace of heart, as to future safety and glory; no fear for the future, 4:8. We have internal peace because through Jesus Christ we have external peace with God. God is appeased by Jesus Christ Whose blood has been sprinkled on the mercy seat for us, and God's receipt has been given to us by the resurrection of Jesus. This peace has been made once for all through the blood of Christ on the cross.
[Distinction between peace with and of God:
[ 1. Peace with God. (1) Procured at the cross, Colosians 1:20. A. Enmity existed between man and God because man sinned. Man consequently has turmoil of soul, Isaiah 57:20-21. B. Justice draws the sword to slay guilty man. C. Jesus, the Go-Between or Mediator, paid the debt and satisfied enraged justice. (2) Proclaimed in the gospel, Acts 10:36. (3) Possessed by the believing soul, Romans 5:1. Some argue for the Revised Version margin, "Let us have peace." Scrivener well says, "Inference not exhortation is the apostle's purpose." Sanday and Headlam admit, "Inference and exhortation are really combined. The declaration of not guilty, which the sinner comes under by a heart felt embracing of Christianity, at once does away with the state of hostility in which he had stood to God and substitutes for it a state of peace which he has only to realize."
[2. Peace of God, Philippians 4:6-7. (1) What? It means the calmness, serenity, and peacefulness with which God faces difficulties. He never gets ruffled or disturbed. (2) How? Its conditions are freedom from worry, trustful prayer, constant thanksgiving. (3) The reward or result, Philipians 4:7. A. The degree--it passes understanding. B. Its value "keep." This is a military term and means guard or garrison. C. Its extent--"hearts and minds"--emotions and thoughts.
[3. Differences between them. Illustration: If I am at outs with a man, I need things set right so that I may be at peace with him. However, all trouble may be settled and leave me unhappy and worried while he is content and full of joy. My second need is the peace that he has. Note seven contrasts between peace with and of God: Based on the cross vs. based on service; indestructible vs. easily disturbed; unchangeable vs. changeful; standing vs. state; perfect vs. imperfect; eternal vs. temporal; external vs. internal.]
(2) Access (free admission) into the very presence of God through Jesus Christ, 5:2. This is by faith into His grace, not by works, law, or obedience. We have no access to our president or to any other of the dignitaries or kings of this earth because they are surrounded by guards. But we have constant access to God through Christ. This is the same as Hebrews 4:16. It is the basis of prayer.
(3) We have standing with God in this grace, 5:2. As sinners we stood or fell in disgrace, but in grace we have standing by grace. Most of us do not have much standing in the business, social, or educational world, nor with the officialdom of our own denomination. Our standing is not on personal merit but in the merits of Christ. Our standing cannot fail because Christ's merits cannot change.
(4) We not only have these present possessions but we can boast, exult, and glory in the hope of our future, 5:2-3. Hope of what? The glory of God with all it includes. Some boast of being saved up to date. Paul boasts of the future glory which includes every true believer through all eternity. Future glory was so sure with Paul that he put it in the past tense in 8:30. In 4:16 Paul says that the promise is sure to all the seed. Suppose we have tribulations, Paul says, "I boast of them too because they work perseverance," 5:4. We do not simply bear but glory in them because it matters not how hard the thing we go up against, it makes our future glory more sure. It works endurance, patience, continuance. This is the difference between the saved and the professor. Test makes the professor quit, but the saved endure. Experience works hope. ["Experience"; the Revised Version gives "approvedness." The Greek word means the quality of one who has stood the test.] The man that has this hope is never ashamed of it nor disappointed in it.
2. This Hope Has a Sure Basis in God's Love, 5:5-11. This hope is apart from works, circumcision, law, or obedience. This is a hope of future glory and never makes ashamed or disappointed at any future time after faith because the love of God is poured forth into our hearts like a torrent. This love is so poured out on the believer that he is never put to shame in the future. Paul gives a five fold argument on security.
(1) God's love to us makes it safe, v.5-8. This is the love of God to us, not our love to Him. If God so loved me when I was an enemy, a weak ungodly sinner, how much more is He going to keep on loving me when I am reconciled to Him through Jesus? He Who gave His Son cannot refuse us heaven. When we are justified by blood, we are safe from wrath. This much more is based not only on our reconciliation and justification by His blood, but also on His life of intercession at the right hand of God. v. 10. On a foundation like this, it is no wonder that Paul boasted of future glory.
(2) Christ's death for us makes the future safe, vs. 6-8. [Paul distinguishes between a righteous and a good man, 5:7. A righteous man is one who does what is right or "toes the mark": a good man is one who goes beyond what is required of him and is merciful, "one who goes beyond the mark." Illustration: It is right to pay my debts; it is good to pay anothers debt for him. It is right to feed my family; it is good to feed my enemy. . . . Note two phases of the love of God: A. Objective love, 5:8. This was on the cross. Christ's death proves His love. This is no benefit however, to the individual unless it is personally applied. B. Subjective love, 5:5. This is in our experience. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. By this the outpoured love of the cross is poured out (Greek for "shed abroad") into our hearts.]
(3) Christ's blood is a sure protection from future divine wrath, 5:9.
(4) Christ's life of intercession makes the future safe, sure, and secure, 5:10. [One cares very little for the Scriptures who makes "saved by His life refer to the life He lived here; the context makes it refer to His resurrection and intercession life. It is His life that follows His death; it is His life of power.]
(5) A new relationship of friends makes the future safe, 5:11. If God could become reconciled to men while they were enemies, how much more can He remain reconciled since they have become friends? [Prefer the margin and the Revised Version rendering of "reconciliation" instead of "atonement."]
The only plan of justification that guarantees the future is a by faith righteousness. Paul declares that we have peace, access, standing, and grace here and now as a present possession and can exult in glorification. Christ died for me when I was a poor, weak, ungodly sinner, and God's enemy in order to take me out from under law and wrath. Now much more being justified by blood, I shall be saved from wrath through Him. Being reconciled by His death we shall be saved by His life. Present peace, admittance, standing, and grace of those justified by faith warrant our boasting of future glory. Present justification by blood guarantees, by all that is included in Paul's much more, the future salvation of all believers. Present reconciliation by the death of His Son guarantees future safety through His life of intercession. Not only so but this justified reconciled believer can boast of his security forever through Jesus Christ our Lord. The preeminence of the believer's justification, and its certainty to last through all the future is further proved by the analogy between Adam and Christ.
3. Analogy Between Adam and Christ, 5:12-19. As man's relationship to Adam never fails, so the believer's relationship to Christ never fails.
Romans 5:12-21 is the logical center of the epistle to the Romans. Everything necessary for human salvation from justification to glorification is secured by the redemption of Christ. This is proven by contrasting condemnation through Adam with justification through Christ. There is a remarkable coincidence in the way we become guilty and in the way we become righteous.
What we get through Adam ......... What we get through Christ Sin ...............................versus ......................Obedience Death .............................. versus ................................Life
Condemnation .................. versus ...................Justification
Note three things about this analogy: (1) The fact on which the analogy is based and stated, 5:12-14. (2) The points in which the analogy does not hold, 5:15-17. (3) The points in which the analogy does hold, 5:18-19.
(1) The fact on which the analogy is based, 5:12-14.
A. The Fact Stated, 5:12. By one man sin entered the world. By Adam guilt became a worldwide thing. Death became universal because death and guilt go together. Where there is death, there is evidence of guilt. All men are exposed to death and die in consequence of the first sin of the first man. Therefore all men are treated as guilty on account of the one offense of Adam.
B. The Fact Proven. 5:13-14. (A) All men from Adam to Moses. They could not have died for their personal transgressions for there was no law to transgress. Therefore, they must have died because of Adam's sin. (B) Infants and idiots die. They cannot be guilty of personal sin but they die. Hence they are sinners. But they have no personal sin of their own; therefore, since they die and death is the evidence of sin and guilt, they must become sinners because of Adams sin imputed to them. That is the argument here. They die on account of the first sin of the first man. [The similitude or likeness of Adam's transgression," 5:14. How did Adam sin? With his eyes wide open. Infants and idiots are the only ones who have not sinned consciously and knowingly.]
(2) Points in which the analogy does not hold, 5:15-17. Adam was a type but not a perfect type of Christ. In some places the type fails to fit.
A. The analogy does not hold in that we get more through Christ than we lost in and by Adam. "Much more." The two cases are not exactly alike or parallel. Christ did much more through grace than Adam undid by sin.
B. The parallel does not hold in this: Condemnation came on all of Adam's posterity for one offence or sin; justification comes upon all of Adam's descendants from the Adamic sin through Christ. The parallel does not go any further between sin and justification, justification does not come through Christ from personal offences of our own unless we repent and believe the gospel, Acts 13:39. Justification covers past, present, and future for our actual transgressions for none except those who accept the Lord Jesus, 5:16.
C. The analogy does not hold in this: Grace not only guarantees my reigning with and through Christ but puts me higher than I ever could have been if I had not sinned. That means that the justified man is not under law as Adam was, but he is above Adam, law, and angels. This is our standing in grace, and is another reason why apostasy is impossible. When we are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ, we never again can come under law and, therefore, can never be condemned any more. How many reign? All who receive grace. How much grace? The abundance of grace, and that means just as much grace as any believing sinner needs to take him to heaven and to bring him to reign with Christ. Adam and angels could never reign, but all believers do reign through Jesus Christ our Lord. Since that is true, are not all believers safe forever? Surely.
(3) Where the analogy does hold, 5:18-19.
A. Universal condemnation comes on all the descendants of Adam because of his offence or sin; even so universal atonement and justification from the penalty of the Adamic sin came upon every descendant of Adam by the righteousness of Christ, 5:18. He tasted death for every man, Hebrews 2:9. That is true of the Adamic sin only. He did not bear the sins of anybody except those who trust Him. He is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe, I Timothy 4:10. He is the Savior of all men from the penalty and consequence of the Adamic sin. He is especially the Savior of all believers. He is the ransom for all, I Timothy 2:6.
B. All are condemned because of Adam's sin. All are constituted sinners because of the sin of Adam. All are constituted righteous because of Christ's atonement, from the penalty and result of Adam's sin. That is what is meant by justification of life, 5:18. On account of that all infants and idiots go to heaven when they die. The only sin they have is the Adamic sin. I John 2:2 does not say sins of all the world. Jesus is not the propitiation for all nor the Savior of all men from their sins.
Jesus did two things in His universal atonement for all men: a. He justifies all men from the penalty of the sin of Adam. b. By justifying all men from the penalty of the Adamic sin He made possible the resurrection of the bodies of all men, 5:12. Christ's death is as universal as Adam's sin in the resurrection of the body. If not, the bodies of the wicked would not be raised. [In his book, BIBLE BRIEFS AGAINST HURTFUL HERESIES, the author indicates two other universal phases in the atonement of Christ. c. God makes a bona fide universal offer of pardon to every sinner on earth. d. God's providential dealings in grace with all men in this present age.]
C. Paul distinguishes in verse 19 between accountable and unaccountable beings as to who are constituted righteous. In verse 18 "all"; in verse 19 "many." Many has reference to those who reach the year of accountability and are actual sinners. In that case the analogy holds between Christ and Adam. The word translated "sin" or "sinners" here means "to miss the mark." Paul's argument is this: as many as reach the age of accountability and miss the mark are constituted sinners; so as many as trust Christ and His righteousness are constituted, declared, or treated as righteous. All accountable beings are responsible for their own sins. If they reject Christ, they go to hell for their own sins. If they never hear the gospel, they still go to hell for their sins, but the sins they go to hell for are not violations of the Bible but the violations of the laws of God written in their consciences, Romans 2:12-15.
[Verse 18 gives two likenesses and three unlikenesses. The two likenesses are: 1. "One"--Adam; "one"--Christ. The two important actors in these verses are Adam and Christ. 2. "All men". Men are here represented as being influenced or affected by others, instead of acting on their own part. The point is that Adam's fall influenced all men; similarly the death of Christ influenced all men. But their influence was contrastive in three ways: (1) "Offence" vs. "righteousness"-- this is the contrast in the acts of the first and second Adam. (2) "Judgment" vs. "free gift." (3) "Condemnation" vs. "justification"-- this is the contrast in consequences of what the two Adams did.... Verse 19 contains two likenesses and two unlikenesses. The likenesses: 1. "One"--Adam; "one "--Christ. There is no change here in verses 18 and 19. 2. "Many"-actual, personal transgressors; "many"--those actually and personally justified by Christ from their personal transgressions. This is a chief difference between verse 18 and verse 19. Some have lightly argued that "all men" in verse 18 and "many" in verse 19 are the same in extent. This could not be unless Paul used words carelessly. There is no need to argue with the distinction, but there is need of unquestioning acceptance. Some contend that the word for man (Greek, "anthropos") is omitted from such passages as Hebrews 2:9. Be that as it may, one thing is certain: "All men" is here "pantas anthropous." The language cannot mean anything less than universality. Now note the unlikenesses: 1. "Disobedience" vs. "obedience." What a gulf of difference! The Greek uses two prepositions to enforce this contrast. Disobedience is to hear aside, to hear amiss (Greek, "para"). Obedience means to hear under, to hear submissively (Greek, "hupo"). 2. "Made sinners" vs. "made righteous." The word "made" indicates declared, treated, constituted.
["The Adamic sin." Some claim they are unable to find any Adamic sin. Two words are used here. One means transgression, a going over or beyond, a disregarding of God's law, 5:14. The other word is an offence, a falling sideways, a false step, 5:15, 17-18. Add to this disobedience in verse 19 and sin (a missing the mark) in verse 16. The fact that Adam's sin made us guilty is to be accepted on the authority of inspiration, as Hodge well says. Sanday and Headlam have this to say, "All turns on this that the effects of Adam's Fall were transmitted to his descendants; but Paul nowhere says how they were transmitted; nor does he even define in precise terms what is transmitted: He seems, however, to mean (1) The liability to sin, (2) The liability to die as the punishment of sin."]
II. WHERE DOES THE LAW COME IN AND WHAT GOOD IS IT, OBJECTS THE JEW? 5:20-21. If men are condemned without law because of Adam's sin and justified without law through Christ's righteousness, what good is the law? Paul's answer is twofold:
1. The Law Entered That Sin Might Abound. 5:20. This means two things: (1) Because of the law sin becomes more grievous. (2) The law gives occasion for the sin of our own nature to show itself by making us want to violate a thing God forbids. That shows the heinousness of sin. A child finds little or no pleasure in jumping off a porch if it is not disobeying some one's command not to do it. A father started to tell his child not to do a certain thing. The daughter answered, "Now, Daddy, do not say that for that would make me want to do it."
2. Where Sin Abounded, Grace Did Much More Abound, 5:20. Grace superabounded in that it gives us present peace and guarantees future glorification. If one saved man is ever lost, sin has superabounded and God's grace has failed and He is disgraced.
But if grace superabounds, as is here said, then God's grace abounds more than all our sins in that the righteousness of Christ covers past, present, and future of all our sins, and apostasy is impossible. That means this - Methodists, Campbellites, and all other Arminians tell us that God saves us from all past sins when we believe and puts us on probation; and if we hold out faithful to the end, we go to heaven: if we do not, we go to hell. If that were the gospel, no one would be saved for no one holds out because Jesus never atones for any man's sins but once.
Paul's answer is this: Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. This means that "when we are saved, we are put above Adam, angels, and law. We are put on an equal footing with Christ and we are in the family of God. We are not on probation any longer, but are adopted as sons into the family of God and are as high above Adam, angels, or those under law as Christ is; and because we are on the same footing with Christ, we can never be condemned any more than He can. [Note two likenesses --both sin and grace abounded; both chose the same scene--"where." This is the marvel of grace that it works its miracle in the same place where sin did so much injury. The big point with Paul is the contrast--grace superabounded. The only thing to outreach sin is grace. Sin and grace are both pictured as kings, 5:21. Both reign, but what a bridgeless difference!]
III. A BY-FAITH RIGHTEOUSNESS LEADS MEN TO TAKE THEIR FILL OF SIN, OBJECTS THE JEW, IF GRACE SUPERBOUNDS BY FAITH. IF BY-FAITH RIGHTEOUSNESS GUARANTEES ETERNAL SALVATION, WHY NOT TAKE OUR FILL OF SIN? 6:1-8:17a.
Six reasons why this objection does not hold: 1. We are dead to sin, 6:1-14. 2. We are delivered from sin as a master, 6:15-23. 3. We are not under law, 7:1-24. 4. We are under grace, 7:25-8:4. 5. We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, 8:5-13. 6. We are sons and heirs, 8:14-17a.
If God's gospel reveals God's righteousness apart from works, circumcision, or law but through faith in Jesus Christ unto all believers on account of Christ's release of the sinner who was purchased by a ransom; and if this righteousness purchased by Christ brings present peace, access, and standing in grace and guarantees the believer's future glorification; and if Adam is a figure of Christ in that all of his descendants are condemned because of the Adamic sin and all are justified from the Adamic guilt through Christ and many are constituted actual sinners through Adam when they become accountable and many are treated as righteous through the obedience of Christ when they believe; and if where sin abounded grace superabounded in our reigning with Christ- then what? Shall we go on sinning that this superabounding grace may have a chance to abound yet more? This is the force of the question in 6:1. Paul's answer:
1. Sin shall not have dominion over us because we are DEAD TO SIN, 6:1-14. The strongest evidence that Baptists preach the true gospel that Paul preached is that Arminians, legalists and ritualtists raise the same objection to it as was raised in the day of Paul. The stock argument of these objectors is, "If I believed what you believe, I would take my fill of sin." Our answer is, "Not if you really believe as we do." If they did believe as we do, they would not want to take their fill of sin. If they really want to take their fill of sin, they are not saved. The man that has a new nature is dead to sin. He not only does not want to take his fill of sin, but every time he does sin he commits more sin than he wants to commit. Paul tells why a saved man will not go on living in sin
(1). God forbid, 6:2. That means, Far be it, perish the thought, away with such an idea, always his answer when a thing is preposterous.
(2). How shall we who died to sin live any longer therein? 6:2. If the effects of Adam's sin on his posterity be to make all sinners, then the effects of Christ's death for my sins will be to make me die to sin. His death was counted as my death, Galations 2:20; II Corinthians 5:14f. Christ's death was the believer's death; in His death we died to sin, self, and the world. How can a man continue to love a world to which he is dead? How can a man in Christ, a new creature in Christ, love any longer the world of sin to which he is dead? The men who say that if they believed once in grace always in grace they would take their fill of sin, prove thereby that they have never died to sin at all.
(3). Our baptism declares our death to sin and the old life, 6:3-5. "Know ye not that," literally, "are ye ignorant that?"
A. Our baptism was in respect to Christ's death, 6:3. That proves that we are totally depraved, and the only thing that can do us any good is death to our past life and the impartation of new life. ["Baptized into Christ." "Eis" (into) may here mean "in respect to;" it cannot mean "in order to" here. Some who teach baptismal regeneration make much of this expression. They forget that only twice (here and Galations 3:27) do we find this expression. Forty-seven times does the New Testament say that we believe into (Greek, "eis") Jesus Christ. Take John 3:16-----"in Him" is "into (the same Greek word "eis") Him! English is smoother if rendered "in", but the Greek put it "into". Let us see the whole picture: we are actually put into Christ by the Holy Spirit in the new birth; we are instrumentally put into Christ by faith; we are symbolically put into Christ in baptism. The symbolical must follow the actual and instrumental and can in no wise be essential to the real transaction.]
B. Our baptism declares our death and entombment with Christ, 6:4. The Greek word "thapto" means to pay the last tribute of respect or dues to a corpse, to inter. We paid the last tribute of respect to the old man in our baptism; henceforth the old life should be dead and we should walk in newness of life.
C. Our baptism declares our union with Christ in burial and resurrection, 6:5. The Greek word for "planted together" is "sumphuton." We are planted together in the likeness of His death. This shows the awful sin of joining a church because a parent or relative belongs to it. When we do that we testify to the world that we are one with our parent or relative and not with Christ.
D. Our baptism declares our resurrection with Christ to walk with Him in newness of life, 6:4. a. This is unanswerable for immersion. If this refers to Holy Spirit baptism, then when one is baptized he ceases to have any connection with the Holy Spirit. He is left worse than before. Water baptism is the "one baptism" for today. We are to be filled with the Spirit today but not to be baptized in the Spirit. b. This is unanswerable for the subject of baptism to be one who died with Christ and is a new creature in Christ apart from works and before baptism. We do not bury to kill, but bury in baptism those that are already dead to sin, already saved.
(4). Since we died to sin, we are not in bondage to sin any longer, 6:6-7. Because of the death of the old man, we should no longer be subject to him in anything but be freed from his bondage and control and be under the control of the new man, I Corinthians 9:27. The body of sin is cancelled, rendered" inoperative, annulled by our death with Christ. [So means the Greek for "destroyed;" it does not mean the eradication of the sinful nature here and now from the Christian.] The body itself is not actually dead, but the old man through which the body works is dead, and we ought to make the body as dead in our experiences as it really is in our union with Christ.
(5). We died with Christ; we shall live also with Him, 6:8-11. Christ died once for all; so did we when we died with Him, I John 5:11-13. Death has no more dominion over Him or us, John 11:25f. In repentance we died to sin; we became alive in Christ. In reality the believer never dies. Death to him is only a sleep. The unbeliever dies twice: he dies in body and dies in spirit. The man who is born twice does not die at all. Christ lives forever more; we too are made alive with Christ forever more. Paul exhorts us to count ourselves dead. [The word "reckon" means to count, regard, treat. This is the believer's duty and blessed privilege.]
(6). Let the new man be in control; keep the body in subjection (to the new nature), 6:12-14. [We Christians are in a warfare; we may let sin or Christ use us as weapons. Paul not once hints that we live above sin; we must keep the new nature in the saddle.]
(7). The final climax--"sin shall not, have dominion over you," 6:14a. A. The believer will never again be brought into bondage of sin. B. The believer cannot be brought under condemnation. C. If the believer does not buffet his body to bring it into subjection, God will, I Peter 5:10; II Corinthians 4:16-18.
2. Sin shall not have dominion over us because we are DELIVERED FROM SIN AS A MASTER, 6:15-23. Sin was our king and master, but we are no longer under his dominion. We will not take our fill of sin because we are not under his control and because he is no longer our master.
(1). Paul's answer was as usual, "God forbid," 6:15. It is an unthinkable proposition. To suppose that a man justified from sin will want to take his fill of sin is an absurdity. To take encouragement to live in sin from our being freed from or freely justified from sin would be the most enormous and loathesome of all self-contradictions and absurdity (Brown).
(2). To whomsoever a man acknowledges allegiance he is the servant of that one, 6:16. If he acknowledges allegiance to king sin, he is a slave of sin. If he acknowledges allegiance to king grace, he is a free man in Christ and is no longer a slave to sin. A tree is known by its fruits. If a man wants to take his fill of sin, that proves he is a slave to sin. If he wants to obey righteousness, that proves he is a servant of Christ. The thing you desire to do proves whose servant you are. [Paul is not here discussing how we change from one master to the other; the question of the way of salvation is not in mind. He is stating the way of proof, no t the way of procuring. He does not turn from regeneration to reformation, from God's righteousness to man's as the way of life. Verse 23 would alone show that interpretation of this paragraph false. Salvation is a gift, not an earned wage.]
(3). Once a slave of sin; now delivered from that slavery, the true child of God delights to obey king righteousness, 6:17. Note the R. V. says that the born again man obeys from the heart the form of doctrine to which he was delivered. The form of doctrine is baptism, and baptism comes after deliverance, not before. Paul puts deliverance before obedience.
(4). The believer is free from sin because he has been delivered from its dominion. He is now a servant of righteousness, 6:18. We are not free from the presence of sin and will not be as long as we are in the body. But we are free from the love of sin, its rule, reign, dominion, and power. In other words, a justified man will not take his fill of sin because he has been delivered and freed from sin's dominion and power. Paul here personifies sin and righteousness as two kings. We are not afraid of boss-sin any more for he is no longer our boss. Christ is our "boss," and we delight to obey Him. (In verse 19 Paul says by way of digression, "I speak as a man." He says this to make plain what he is saying. He does not herein disclaim inspiration, but it does mean that he brings down to the level of the most ignorant of men what he is saying in order to make it plain to them.)
(5). Righteousness is our new master, and all who have been truly born again yield their members as readily to obey righteousness as they formerly yielded them to the service of sin, 6:19b-22. We formerly obeyed king sin readily, freely, fully, solely. Now let us be as ready to obey king grace in all things. When we were servants of sin, we were free from the reign of righteousness and did things of which we are now ashamed. Now since we are free from the dominion of sin and are servants of God, we bring forth fruits unto holy living. If we are really alive unto Christ, our fruit will be holy. A. We cannot obey two masters, we cannot serve sin and righteousness at the same time, 6:20. B. Fruit is the test of your allegiance as to which is your master. If the fruit is good, that proves Christ is your master. If the fruit is bad, that proves sin is your master. C. What fruit (good) had ye when ye were the servants of sin? 6:21. None, absolutely none. The end of those things is death. A dead tree cannot bear fruit.
(6). The two courses contrasted, 6:23. Sin, shame, and death belong to the old life. Freedom from sin, servants of God, and fruit bearing for Christ are the marks of the eternal life which we have in Christ, Matthew 7:13-14. The saved man cannot and will not take his fill of sin because he is not in the sin way. Paul closes this chapter with this added statement to show his contrast. "The wages of sin is death." "Wages" is a military term. Law pays death; every man under law gets his pay, Galations 3:10. On the other side, the free gift (R. V.) of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. Grace gives life; every man under grace gets his free gift of eternal life, Romans 5:20-21. [There are three definite con trasts here: a. Wages vs. gift. What is earned vs. what is bestowed freely. Many wages vs. one gift. b. Sin vs God. Sin is still personified as king and paymaster. c. Death vs. eternal life.]
3. Sin shall not have dominion over us because we are NOT UNDER LAW, 7:1-24.
The word "I" occurs thirty-eight times in this chapter; the Holy Spirit is mentioned once. Self's best efforts spell failure and defeat. The "I" of the self-life cannot live a Christian life. God does not ask it, 7:24. Self disappears and the Holy Spirit takes self's place when we pass out of Romans 7 into Romans 8. Self efforts give way to the power of the Holy Spirit and defeat gives way to victory and miserableness gives way to joyousness when self ceases to reign and Christ takes control.
7:1-24 shows that we are not under law; 7:25-8:4 shows we are under grace. Therefore we are not under the dominion of sin. Paul here discusses the relation of the believer to law under the figure of a husband.
Note the argument in brief: (1). The marriage relationship is here used to illustrate why sin does not have dominion over God's children. In justification we died to our old husband sin. In salvation we are betrothed to another husband, even Christ our Lord, 7:1-4. (2). The law cannot make a bad man good, 7:5-13. (3). The law cannot make a good man better, 7:14-24.
(1). Paul's illustration of marriage, 7:1-4. He was speaking to Romans who knew the law. The law of marriage binds as long as a man lives. The only thing that can annul the law of marriage is death ; so with the law of God. The only escape from the law of God is death. All under law are cursed and condemned, Galations 3:10; Romams 3:19. In 7:4 Paul says that we are put to death to the law and by the law, through the body of Christ, I Peter 2:24; Galations 3:13; Hebrews 10:10. If we are under the law at all, we are bound, condemned, and cursed by it. If we have received Christ as our Surety and are saved, we are dead to law through His body and death.
We are completely freed from the law when we trust Christ as a married man is freed from the marriage tie when his wife dies. If we are out from under law by our death and resurrection with Christ, we are completely so. We are not joined to Christ for life, justification, righteousness, and sanctification and then under law as a rule of life. No man would stand for supporting his wife if she had been married before and was living with and under the rule of her former husband. [It is sometimes urged that Paul here contradicts the language of Jesus in Matthew 19:1-10. Such is not the case. Jesus is showing that there is one and only one permissible ground for divorce, namely, marital unfaithfulness. Paul does not here deny this exception; he is speaking of the law as it was intended, the ideal of the law, the law as it should be. Jesus showed that marriage was originally intended that we have one wife and one husband. Paul and Jesus agree perfectly; only Jesus goes further than Paul. It was not Paul's purpose to deny or approve the exception Jesus mentioned. His illustration called for the law in its ideal state.]
(2). Law cannot make a bad man good, 7:5-13. It lacks two things, power and motive. Christ does make bad men good for He gives both power and motive for a new life.
The only hope for bad men who are condemned by law is deliverance from the law. Deliverance from law is necessary because the law instead of making us holy only excites us to evil, 7:5. The depraved heart of everyone under law is irritated by the prohibition of the law. The enmity of the unregenerate heart toward God and His law is thus seen. Some men say that, if the law provokes me to sin, it is wrong. God forbid! The law is holy, just, and good; but we are shown to be exceedingly sinful because we make a good law an occasion of sin. The prohibition is not the cause of men's violating it but the occasion. Their depravity makes them want to disobey a good law instead of obey it; it is so with the law of God. The depravity of man and the exceeding sinfulness of sin are both shown in any man who wants to disobey any righteous law or commandment of God or man.
Is the law sin? God forbid. Is it wrong because it is the occasion of man's sin? God forbid. The righteous law which men want to disobey only reveals the total depravity of those who want to disobey it. Men say that what they call blue laws are wrong because they make hypocrites out of men. God forbid. The very fact that they will not obey them shows that they are depraved and rotten at heart. God's law holds a straight edge to their lives; that is why they hate it and will not obey it. The law is not the cause but only the occasion of their sin. Sin on the inside is the real cause.
The believer who is now dead to law obeys not the letter of the law from fear but obeys Him to whom we are now joined from love, 7:6. The obedience of the believer to Christ is not the obedience of a slave to a master but the obedience of a wife to a husband or a child to a parent from love. Law has ten commandments; grace has only one, the law of love. Paul appeals to his own experience. He kept the letter of the first nine commandments, and had no consciousness of his sin. The tenth, however, revealed to him himself because it showed him that he had the wrong desire on the inside.
That is what Paul meant when he said that he was alive without the law once, 7:9. As a self-satisfied legalist he had no sense of sin and condemnation. When the tenth commandment revealed to him his covetous desire on the inside, then he died to all hope of being saved by keeping commandments. He fought it; that is what Christ meant when He said that it was hard for Paul to kick against the pricks. How he did go after the church and those that preached grace, but the fight ended on the Damascus road.
Verse 10. The commandment which was unto life to those who obey it perfectly, Paul found to be unto death because he had not kept the ten commandments. The law was all right, but the tenth commandment showed Paul he was all wrong. Paul found out that a good law could not save bad Paul, Philippians 3:1-9. [The three records of the conversion of Paul in Acts are mainly historical. Romans 7 and Philippians 3 are interpretative. These two passages throw more light on the real experience Paul had than any other mention of his conversion.]
(3). Law cannot make a good man better, 7:14-24. Paul has just proved that law cannot make a bad man good, [that law cannot save a lost and guilty sinner.] The law is good, but the sin in Paul made him take advantage of that which is good to work evil. Law can reveal man's helplessness but it cannot give power to obey the law. Law demands obedience as a condition of life but it cannot deliver from the dominion of sin; so that, if a bad man is ever made good he must be freed from law and brought under grace. This can be done only by death to law. Law does not suppress evil in us; it only excites it to increased activities and exasperation of our carnal nature within us. To continue under law is, therefore, to continue under sin. The only way to get out from under the dominion of sin is to get out from under the dominion of law.
Paul now passes from the experience of Saul the sinner to Paul the saved man. Note the change from the past tense to the present.
The law could not take away our past sin, nor can it take away indwelling sin out of the believer. Law cannot make a saved man better. The saved man cannot get dominion over his sins by his own efforts to keep commandments. We get victory over indwelling sin by trusting Christ. The only wav to have dominion over indwelling sin after we are saved is by grace, not by law. The future of salvation is as wholly a matter of grace as the past was. Obedience, self-efforts, and good works can no more keep a man saved than they can save him. The final defeat and overthrow of all our efforts to live right are sure if we depend on self-efforts. Proof:
A. The law is spiritual; it not only passes on and directs my conduct but judges my motives and discerns my thoughts. Christ taught that in his first sermon, Matthew 5:8; I John 3:15.
B. Contrasted with God's spiritual law, Paul sees his carnality and impotence and indwelling sin, 7:15-24.
C. Originally we were all flesh; now we are flesh and spirit, and that is why the fight goes on.
D. Paul's two natures contrasted, 7:14-23. On one side the carnal nature, and on the other the mind of the spiritual nature. Under the old, sold under sin; under the new, hate sin. Under the old, no good in us; under the new, the will or wish to do right. Under the old, sin dwells in us; under the new, a new man dwells on the inside, Philippians 3:3; Galations 5:17.
Paul was not different from the rest of us. As long as he tried to get better by improving himself or tried to help God in his growth in the Christian life, he met defeat, failure, and sin. It is not try but trust just as truly in getting victory over sin as in being saved. Instead of the future's being safe if it depended on us, we would be in captivity to sin again. If we are under law at all, we are captive, wretched, pitiable, miserable, and condemned, 7:23-24. Paul refers here to the Roman custom of tying a prisoner to a corpse; the prisoner represents the new nature of the born again; the corpse represents the old nature, what one is before he is born again.
Not I but sin rules as long as self has anything to do with it, 7:17. Not I but grace, wholly of grace, I Corinthians 15:10. Not I but Christ in Christian living, Galations 2:2O; Romans 7:25. Who therefore, shall deliver the saved man from the power of indwelling sin? Not I, law, nor self-help, but Christ and Christ alone!
4. Sin shall, not have dominion over us because we are UNDER GRACE, 7:25-8:4. Yielding to Christ is the secret of victory over sin and of growth in grace to the believer. Law could not save from the bondage of sin, neither can it save from the power of indwelling sin. Grace saves the sinner and grace alone. Grace also saves the believer from the power of indwelling sin and grace alone, Psalm 37:23-24. Because we are under grace final victory is guaranteed. Deliverance from the past, present, and future of sin; from the penalty, power, and presence of sin; actual sins and indwelling sin are all guaranteed through grace. (1). Grace frees from the condemnation of sin, 3:19. (2). Grace frees from the law of sin and death, 8:3. (3). Grace does what law could not do. The law itself is all right, the weakness is not in the law; but the subject with which it had to deal is all wrong. Grace fulfills the law's requirements for us by Christ and in us by the Holy Spirit, 8:3-4.
"For sin" in 8:3 means to expiate sin. " Condemned sin in the flesh" means condemned indwelling sin and sinful acts; also it shows the inability of man to justify himself by his own obedience or get rid of indwelling sin by his own efforts. [The Author always held that the expression "who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit" in 8:1 lacked textual authority, that it does occur in 8:4. If it is taken as rightly in 8:1, it does not even then condition our salvation on man's walk. The Spirit-guided walk is the result of Christ in us, not the condition nor the preservative. It is not a conditional cause but a descriptive adjective clause. "In the likeness of sinful flesh," 8:3. Likeness affirms similarity but not sameness. Jesus was not made sinful flesh. Adventists teach that Jesus had a depraved nature. Paul here denies that. If Jesus had a depraved nature, the Virgin Birth was valueless, for the main reason for such a supernatural birth was as a safeguard against the contamination of the Holy One by sin. But we have here more than the mere statement that Jesus was made flesh. That is gloriously true; but more is true. He came as near being like us as possible without taking the taint of sin; He had all the weaknesses of the flesh incident to man's fall without sin itself. Jesus was not made like innocent and unfallen Adam; that is one reason for His great sympathy with us in our infirmities.]
5. Sin shall not have dominion over us because we are INDWELT BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, 8:5-13. Romans 8 begins with no condemnation and ends with no separation.
Twenty one times in Romans 8 is the Holy Spirit mentioned; "I" not once. The surrendered life is our part; the Spirit-filled life is the part of the Holy Spirit. We surrender; He takes possession. We yield; He takes control. We present ourselves to Him; He accepts and uses. "Once I tried to use Him; now He uses me." Beware of the self-charted and self-centered life.
8:1-4 has just shown what grace has done for the man whom law could not justify from past sins and to whom the law could hold out no promise of future surety because of indwelling sin. Law condemns; grace has no condemnation. Law curses; grace frees from the curse and from the law itself. Law brings us into captivity; grace not only frees us from the curse of the law, and law itself but actually fulfills the righteousness of the law in us through the power of the indwelling Spirit, 5:9.
(1). Who the justified are:
A. As touching the ground of salvation, they are believers, justified by God's righteousness by obedience through faith in the blood apart from works, circumcision, or law, 3:21-5:21.
B. As touching our standing, we are dead to and freed from law, 6:1-8:4.
C. As touching our state, we are in the Spirit, not in the flesh, 8:4b-13. This is another reason why we will not take our fill of sin. Those in the flesh are born once; those in the Spirit are born twice. [Much confusion has arisen from failure to distinguish between the standing and state of the believer. Note several contrasts: grounded on Christ's obedience vs. conditioned on our obedience; essential to getting to heaven vs. essential to getting rewards; perfect vs. imperfect; in Christ vs. in us; how God sees us in Christ vs. how He sees us as we really are; external vs. internal; unchangeable vs. changeable; attained by one act of faith in Christ vs. maintained by daily trust in Christ; Christ for us vs. Christ in us; Christ on the cross vs. the Holy Spirit in us; Christ dying for us vs. Christ interceding for us; the same for every believer vs. much variance in believers. We must strive that our state may be as perfect as our standing; that is the ideal for us.]
(2). Marks of those in the flesh:
A. They mind the things of the flesh, 8:5. [The present tense of the verb "mind" means they do it habitually.] Mr. Brown said that the most morally accomplished worldling is at heart as thoroughly carnal as the most reckless profligate. Mr. Moody said that they are refined, cultured children of wrath, I Corinthians 2:14. Dress, show and shows, food and fashion, pleasure and money are all things of the flesh and those who live for and in them are dead, I Timothy 5:6; I John 2:15, 16; James 4:4-5.
B. They are dead to the things of God, 8:6.
C. Enmity against God. It cannot obey and does not want to obey God, 8:7-8. [Sin is both weak and wilful; God does not even draw the line between these two. We must never so draw it as to make men feel they are not responsible.] How can a snowflake be warmed? It ceases to be a snowflake when it gets warm. So the mind of the natural man ceases to be a carnal mind before it becomes obedient to God. [The carnal mind is more than an enemy to God, it is the principle of enmity; an enemy can be changed, enmity never.]
(3). Marks of a spiritual man:
A. He minds or prefers the things of God, 8:5. [Again the present tense indicates the habit of the life; it does not affirm sinlessness for the Christian.]
B. He has life and peace, 8:6..
C. He is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, 8:9; Acts 19:2, R. V.; Galations 3:2, 14. No church member is Christ's unless he is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit indwells through faith. If one is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, he is dead to sin, 8:8. If the Holy Spirit indwells, possesses, and controls us, then He will quicken these mortal bodies of ours in this life and give us health and power. [A "mortal" body is a body subject to death, a dying body.] The Holy Spirit's dwelling in us guarantees that we will have a part in the first resurrection. If we are yielded to the Holy Spirit, He will put to death the deeds of the flesh which will be an evidence that He dwells in us, 8:13-14. Scofield says that it means "to make die the doings of the body."
6. Sin shall not have dominion over us because we are HEIRS AND CHILDREN OF GOD, 8:14-17a.
(1). If children of God, we are led by the Holy Spirit, 8:14. [Their being led by the Spirit does not make or keep them children of God but it does prove they are such. This does not indicate infallible but habitual leadership by the Spirit.]
(2). The Spirit of sonship is the spirit of love, not of fear, 8:15. The man who is afraid that if he sins he is going to hell is not God's child. Fear of hell and condemnation is the spirit of bondage, and we have been delivered from it. ["Abba" is the Chaldee word for father.]
( 3). If we have the Spirit of sonship, we have the witness of the Spirit, 8:16; cf. Acts 5:32. [This justifies the Baptist emphasis on an experience of grace. Salvation is of the heart, not merely intellectual. The Spirit bears witness to the trustworthiness of the promise of Christ.]
(4). If children, then heirs and joint heirs with Christ, 8:17. This is not the same as rewards; we work for rewards. ["Sons" or children indicates relationship, kinship, and privilege. "Heirs" emphasizes what we possess in Him. "Joint-heirs" emphasizes that our inheritance is bound up indissolubly with that of Christ; --we can no more lose ours than He can lose His. What is His is ours. We not only inherit because of Christ but along with Him. The construction of verses 16-17 indicates that the Spirit witnesses to all three-- sonship, heirship, joint-heirship.] In law a joint inheritance is one left by a father for his children with the specification that his different children must share the inheritance together and cannot divide it.
Having answered the objections urged, Paul now comes to a conclusion in which he givers his imagination the widest possible liberty to suggest any and all possibilities or things that could prevent the future glorification of believers in Christ.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What are the three main points under RIGHTEOUSNESS EXPERIENCED?
2. How will affliction affect a by-faith righteousness?
3. Distinguish between peace with and of God.
4. What does the word "experience" in 5:4 mean?
5. What is the difference between a righteous and a good man?
6. What are the two phases of the love of God in Romans 5?
7. What is meant by "saved by His life"?
8. Discuss the word "atonement" in 5:11.
9. What is the "logical center" of the epistle?
10. Give the three points under the analogy between Adam and Christ.
11. Contrast three things we get through the First and last Adam.
12. What fact proves Paul's analogy?
13. Who is it that does not sin "after the similitude of Adam's transgression" ?
14. What are the three points in which the analogy does not hold?
15. In what three points does the analogy hold?
16. In what four senses is the atonement universal?
17. What is the difference in "all" and "many" in 5:18-19?
18. Is the expression "Adamic sin" a Scriptural expression?
19. What argument does 5:20-21 furnish for the eternal security of the saints?
20. When infants die, do they go to be "angels"?
21. Give six reasons why the saved will not take his fill of sin? Give references.
22. What is meant by "God forbid"?
23. What does it mean to die to sin?
24. Discuss the three phases of how we get into Christ.
25. What two truths does burial for baptism prove?
26. Does Paul teach eradication of the sinful nature from the Christian in this life?
27. Under what figure is sin pictured in Rom. 6, last half?
28. Contrast the occurrences of 'I' in ch. 7 and the 'the HOLY SPIRIT' In chapter 8.
29. What is the three-point outline of 7:1-24?
30. Why is reference to fornication as a ground for divorce absent from 7:1-4?
31. In what two ways does Paul use his experience in chapter 7?
32. How do we know when he passes from one phase of his experience to the other?
33. What is the difference between being or living in the flesh and the flesh or sin dwelling in us?
34. In what sense is the law weak?
35. In what sense does Paul use "for sin" in 8:3?
36. How answer the Methodist argument on 8:1?
37. What does-8:3 teach as to Christ's humanity?
38. What is the difference between the standing and the state of the believer?
39. What are Paul's three marks of carnality?
40. What is the difference between "enmity against God" and "at enmity with God"? On 8:7.
41. What are Paul's three marks of spirituality?
42. What is meant by a mortal body?
43. Outline 8:14-17a.
44. Define Abba in 8:15.
45. Why the change from "Jesus" to "Christ" in 8:11?
46. Is it right to call the Holy Spirit an "it" or an "It"?
47. What is the difference between sons, heirs, and joint-heirs?
CHAPTER VI
Righteousness Guaranteed Permanent
8:17b-39
Nothing will prevent the heirs of God from getting their inheritance. The afflictions of the children of God are not inconsistent with the permanence of their salvation.
1. Suffering cannot keep them from getting their inheritance, 8:17b-18. (1). Our suffering with Jesus only guarantees our being glorified with Him, 8:17b. Joint-suffering brings joint-glory. (2). Our present suffering is nothing compared with the glory that is to be re vealed, 8:18. [The word "reckon" does not indicate any uncertainty. This is due to the weakened use of "reckon" in American to mean "to guess." The Greek word is the same as is translated "impute" and "reckon" in Romans 4 Paul uses "spiritual arithmetic;" he sets down the disadvantages of suffering and the advantages of glory and calculates glory as incomparbly superior. This "glory" will be revealed at the Second Coming of Christ. "Revealed in us;" better, "revealed to us" We shall be the recipients as well as the subjects of the glory.]
2. The whole creation is in expectancy for the revealed glory of the children of God, 8:19-25 ["Creature" and "creation" here render the same Greek word; prefer throughout "creation" as does the Revised Version. Natural creation is personified in Paul's lively language.] The quaking earth, ceaseless tides, sighing boughs, mourning winds, angry waves are all the cries of nature for deliverance from the curse of sin, Genesis 3:17-19. Malaria germs, contagious diseases, septic fever, weeds, briers are all parts of the bondage of corruption manifested in nature. All nature, as well as the children of God are now waiting in hope for the revealing of the children of God when we awake in His likeness, I John 3:1-2. [Salvation includes the rescue of the whole man. The future rescue of the body is presented from different angles. It is to be adopted because it seems cast aside and disowned in death. It is to be redeemed because it is under the bondage of sin. It is to be raised because it is fallen in death. It is to be sanctified because it is defiled by the pollution of sin (I Thessalonians 5:23).]
3. The Holy Spirit is our helper in all our infirmities, 8:26-27. The Holy Spirit is the Person of the Godhead Who is always alongside to help in our infirmities. He is like the switch engine, waiting at the foot of the mountain, to help up the steep grade. [Three groans are here mentioned: the groan of creation, 8:22. The groan of the Christian, 8:23. The groan of the Holy Spirit, 8:26.]
4. All things work together for our good, 8:28. He does not say that they independently work our good, but they work together. Sin alone does not work our good, but sin and chastisement do. Peter's sin and chastisement worked to his good because it destroyed his self-confidence.
5. God's great eternal and unchangeable purpose is to make everything conform us to the likeness of Jesus in final glorification, 8:29-30. God's purpose is twofold and never fails: (1). To conform us to the image of His Son. (2). To glorify us with Jesus, Isaiah 14:24-27; 46:1011; Acts 10:23; 4:28. These Scriptures show that His purposes do not fail but that He works out in us just what He sets out to do. Note God's chain of five links reaching from one eternity to the other: foreknowledge and predestination both antedate creation. Calling and justification are both in time. Glorification is after time ceases to be. He puts the word "glorified" in the past tense because in God's purpose it is as certain as if it were already done. All who are foreknown are going to be glorified; therefore apostasy is impossible. The calling here mentioned is by the gospel and the justification is by faith.
6. No conceivable opposer can prevent the glorification of God's children, 8:31-39.
(1). God is for us, and for that reason His purpose cannot be thwarted, 8:31-34a. A. God, having bought us at the price of the blood of His Son, will spare no pains to bring all the justified to Himself. ["He that spared not" is an illustration by contrast taken from Genesis 22. Isaac, the beloved son of Abraham, was spared though God's beloved Son was not spared. Isaac is there a type of the sinner who is spared because the Lamb of God dies in his stead.] B. Who can prefer a charge against us if God is for us? Romans 4:8. The Judge justifies on the merits of Christ. His decision is final and irrevocable; for that reason we can never be condemned. You cannot condemn without a charge.
(2). Christ is for us, 8:34b-39.
A. Christ died for us and arose for our justification, and for that reason we can never be condemned, 8:34.
B. Christ makes intercession for us when we do sin, and God always hears Him pray, 8:34.
C. Nothing can separate us from His love, 8:35-37. Some opposers say you may quit loving Christ and that He will quit loving you. Paul's answer: (A). Nothing we experience can separate us from the love of Christ, 8:35-37. It is primarily the love Christ feels for us instead of ours for Him. Tribulation, distresses, persecutions, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, vexation from enemies without, anxieties and perplexities within cannot separate us because in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. To be more than a conqueror means that we can never go down in defeat, never see final defeat. Napoleon was a conqueror but later he was conquered and went down in defeat. (B). We may be killed for His sake but still we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us, John 13:1.
D. Paul's final climax, 8:38-39. Nothing in life, nothing in hell (angels, principalities, and powers), nothing in time, nothing in space, nothing in creation can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. For fear he might have left out something, he makes the sweeping statement of no other creature. That includes both the devil and man himself; both are creatures.
MORE THAN CONQUERORS
(This message was preached by The Editor over WPAD, Paducah, Ky., Sunday, May 29, 1938, and recently in Tampa before Calvary Baptist Church.)
In the letter to the Romans Paul is the cool headed logician. He shows that man has no sufficient righteousness of his own and must have a divine righteousness. Then he sets forth the righteousness of God in Christ wrought out at the cross and imputed to the guilty sinner at faith and affecting every phase of the life of the believer. He closes this doctrinal discussion in Romans 8:31-39 with "the hymn of Triumph" (Stifler). Erasmus observed, "What did Cicero ever say more eloquent than this?" It has been variously styled, "a triumph shout" (Crain), a "hymn of victory" (Gifford), a "pean of triumph" (Thos.), a "lyric outburst" (Gairdner), "a shout of triumph, a song of assurance" (Forrester), but nothing brings before us its majestic tone of triumph like reading it. I think the key phrase of the song is MORE THAN CONQUERORS.
What I shall say this afternoon will be grouped around verse 37, "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us." Paul found no word in the Greek language strong enough to express his overflowing conviction of triumph for everyone that has faith in Jesus. He just coined a word. Various efforts have been made to translate it--"Super-conquerors" (Thos.), "Conquerors, and more than that" (a French Version), "We do more than overcome" (Diaglott), "gloriously triumphant" (Wey, mrg.). "We far overcome" (Luther), "more than victorious" (Goodspeed), "We are over victorious" (American Comm.), "overcome strongly" (Tyndale), but none suits better than that introduced by the Geneva Bible in 1557, "more than conquerors."
First, THE ARRAY OF ENEMIES --"all these things." These tempt the believer to think he is forsaken. Christian life is a warfare, a most familiar way of picturing the Christians walk. Paul first calls a list of seven foes-- "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?" Then he develops this last one in verse 36, "As it is written, For Thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." The sword as an instrument of death is the climax, the extreme peril.
He says, "Who," not "What." Circumstances are personified as angry foes to destroy the justified believer.
He raises his shout of victory over all these. "Nay, etc." "If the Redeemer's love is unchanging in the extraordinary circumstances of His people, it certainly will be in the ordinary. If He walks with His disciples on the sea, He surely will on the land" (Shedd).
Then the Apostle catalogues the enemies again, this time ten of them,--"For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." He names whatever orders of beings that might be unfriendly to Christ and the saints. Note the sweep of these statements. "NEITHER DEATH NOR LIFE." One must either live or die; that includes all possible conditions or circumstances. Death cannot separate us but rather conduct us to His presence. As Jackson put on the tomb of his wife, "Even death, when he tore her from the arms of her husband, could but transport her to the bosom of her God." Christ has the keys of death. If Christ's love holds us in and through death, what fear need we have? Nor can life with its enticing allurements and bewildering toils separate us from Christ's love for us.
The next group-- "ANGELS NOR PRINCIPALITIES NOR POWERS." This includes whatever being, good or bad, that might fight against the final glorification of the justified believer. Each indicates a being of stronger force. The most powerful foes cannot separate us from the love of Christ.
The next group --"NOR THINGS PRESENT NOR THINGS TO COME", includes all events of time. Nothing involved in the great span of time can separate us.
All extents of space are next viewed triumphantly "NOR HEIGHT NOR DEPTH." Nothing in heaven, earth, nor bell. All illimitable spheres of space are defied.
One more thing is added. "NOR ANY OTHER CREATURE." Better, "Nor any other created thing of any kind" (Westminster New Testament). All other things mentioned are created, but for fear he left out something under the whole realm of heaven, this all comprehensive statement is used. It signifies anything and everything to be found in creation. Someone says sin may. This is included; rather, we are already justified from it. The Greek word "other" means of a different kind. That includes sin. Some say the individual may separate himself from Christ's love. This would obliterate the whole argument. Is he not a creature? Then the believer cannot separate himself from the love of God in Christ. "No thing, no being, under the (great) Uncreated One" (Moule). What foes! Yes, but what security!
Second, let us inquire into the GROUND OF SUCH VICTORY. It is not in our imperfect, feeble, and changeable love for Him, but in His perfect, almighty, and unchangeable love for us. "THROUGH HIM THAT LOVED US."
Paul first mentions the things that God the Father does for us. Man's greatest problem, the problem of guilt, is met in justification (8:31-34). He is "for us" as an Advocate. Who can be "against us" with Him as our Protector and Guide? He is our Provider in delivering Jesus as a sacrifice for us. The fact that God did not spare Jesus echoes Genesis 22:16 and is the "climax of God's mercies" (Theodoret). He gives us the best in His Son and will give all else that is needed. Paul argues from the greater to the less. The greatest Gift insures and assures of all that is necessary to take us to glory. God is our Justifier. Since He is satisfied, the case of our guilt is settled; beyond Him there is no appeal. Will a flaw be found in our claim? If so, the flaw will be in His perfect justification. We cannot be cast out of court because there is no one to override His blessed judicial decree.
Then Paul sums up the things that Christ does for us in four blessed events (8:34). "As if bounding from one rock to another, he passes from the Father's love to that of the Son" (Gifford). 1. His Atonement. The death of Jesus Christ tells of His love. Even the darkness of death could not for Him overcome His love. He died to save us. 2. His Resurrection. This tells of His power to make good and secure to Himself what He purchased in His death. His resurrection is evidence incontestable that His sacrifice was accepted. 3. His Exaltation. Our case is in His hands, Who has the power of universal dominion. 4. His Intercession. His love continuously presents the merits of His death, a claim that cannot be denied.
This fourfold cord of love can never break. Not until Christ forgets the supreme act of the cross will He forget to love and care for those for whom He died and whom He has personally redeemed. "The Christian's faith in providence is an inference from redemption" (Denny in Expos. Gk. Test.) The ill winds of trying circumstances are made to blow in our favor. Spurgeon saw the words, "God is love," written on a weathervane and remarked that he thought the words inappropriate on so changeable a thing. The correcting answer has its lessons for us, "God is love whichever way the wind blows." Who, therefore, can speak of condemnation for us so long as he keeps his eye on the crucified, risen, exalted, and interceding Christ of God? "He loved me and gave Himself for me" answers once for all.
Third, let us join in THE TRIUMPHANT CRY. What are we to understand by the shout, "MORE THAN CONQUERORS? Let us look at it from several angles until its force burns itself into our souls.
It means a permanent victory. A bare victory may leave the victor in a very weakened condition, but "more than conquerors" means the overwhelming defeat of every spiritual foe without injury to the redeemed.
It means a decisive and unquestionable victory. A man might win once and lose later. That is what so many fear. To be more than a conqueror is to be unconquerable. Alexander the Great wept that there were no more worlds to conquer but was conquered by himself through indulgence in drink. Napoleon's victories soon burst like bubbles into black defeat. 0 saint of God, our victory through Christ will never turn to defeat. What assurance!
It means a fruitful victory. He makes even our enemies a gain to us. We gain more in Christ than we lost in Adam. Every battle makes us stronger and better for the next battle (Worrell). The Indians felt that every tomahawked foe sent fresh strength into the warrior's arm. Here is a new order of victory. The persecutors are not conquerors, but the persecuted and slaughtered are, "more than conquerors." Why then complain at the hardships we endure for the Savior? The set of the sail counts which way we will be blown by the wind. As "more than conquerors" we not only tread upon our spiritual foes; we spoil them and find them occasions of glorious triumph. Jesus will make even our adversaries to fight on our side, harnessing opposing things to work out our good. He deprives them of power to do permanent harm; He turns them into ministers to our good; after all they will swell the glory of victory. O faltering and discouraged believer, get on this high pinnacle of assurance and rejoice.
It means a victory certain from the beginning. Other conflicts are not. (Who knows just now the outcome of the Second World War? We often fight here a known losing battle, but it is not so with the saint of God. "Armies that go out without the inspiring presence of hope prepare themselves for defeat. There is what we call the courage of despair, but it lacks the very elements of victory. It has dash but no sight; it has force but no song; it is a wild leap and not the jubilant march of strength" (Robertson Nicoll). False religion can pretend victory or know its own defeat; salvation by works has no certain assurance to spur on its devotees; but the one who rests on Christ's atoning blood ought to be ashamed not to be assured and happy. In the purpose of God victory is sure from all eternity; our personal assurance begins when we come into His purpose by faith in Jesus.
It means a victory that comes through our defeat and surrender. Self is slain in yielding to Christ. Like Alexander, self remains uncon quered in the hearts of too many professors. Repentance kills to love of self and sin. Faith trusts Jesus for salvation from that moment to final glorification.
It means victory for the powerless against the strong. In our strength we are sure to lose. In the invincible power of Jesus we cannot lose.
It means, lastly, victory while we are in the very midst of strife and seeming defeat. Our victory comes when we are still surrounded by and beset by countless foes. From the field and scene of battle we hear the saint's triumphant shout "MORE THAN CONQUERORS THROUGH HIM THAT LOVED US." It all comes through Jesus.
Saint of God, what more can you wish? Sinner friend, what more do you need? In Christ you will find just what you need forevermore. Believe it now; let Christ take command without delay!
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Why prefer the rendering "creation" to "creature"?
2. What is the point in each of the several descriptions of the salvation of the body?
3. Discuss the Holy Spirit and the Christian.
4. What are the three groans of chapter 8?
5. What is Paul's five-link chain, and to what point of time does each refer?
6. Why can "foreknow" in 8:29 not mean mere prescience or prevision? 7. What three things did Christ do for our security (8:34) ?
8. What does each Person of the Trinity do for our security?
9. What is meant by "more than conquerors"?
10. In the expression "the love of Christ," does Paul refer to His love for us or our love for Him?
11. Discuss the sermon on "More Than Conquerors."
12. Can the individual separate himself from God's love?
CHAPTER VII
Righteousness Rejected by the Jews
Chapters 9-11
After answering the objections of legalists to a by-faith righteousness, Paul goes back to 3:1 and takes up the question of what advantage has the Jew or what profit is circumcision if a by-faith righteousness is the only way to be saved. In 3:1-8 he answers that objection as it touched God's righteousness in dealing with the sins of the Jews. He showed there that there is no difference in Jew and Gentile under sin, except that the added light given to the Jew had made only added condemnation. In chapters 9-11 he discusses these questions as related definitely to the Jews.
INTRODUCTION: I am not an enemy to the Jews, 9:1-5. He here shows that he is not an enemy to the Jews but is broken hearted over their rejection of Christ. Paul calls upon Christ and the Holy Spirit to witness what he said. He appeals to two Persons of the Godhead. 9:2-3 explains his wish; vs. 4-5 gives the grounds of his wish. They were Israelites. This adoption is national. The glory refers to the shekinah glory. The law includes the ritual. The service is temple worship. Even Jesus is theirs as far as the flesh is concerned. [Paul said that he could wish himself accursed from Christ but he would not do it. He saw that was not right. It tells, however, the depth of Paul's concern for the salvation of his kinsmen. This and 10:1-2 show that belief in the doctrine of election does not dry up one's concern for the salvation of the lost. To be accursed from Chist is to have the curse of God on one's soul; it means to be lost. Verse 5 gives indisputable witness to the Deity of Christ.]
1. GOD HAS NOT MISTREATED THE JEWS, 9:6-10:4.
1. God Has Not Gone Back on His Word, 9:6-13.
(1) God did not promise salvation to the natural seed of Abraham, 9:6-9. A. God did not promise salvation to all Israel but to those who are of Israel, 9:6. B. Only Isaac's seed are included in the promise of God, 9:7-13. He left Ishmael out. C. Not all of Isaac's seed but only believers are the promised seed. 9:8. The Jews admitted all these things. [These verses picture two elections, an election within an election. One is the election of national Israel; the other is the election of a spiritual seed inside of and out from fleshly Israel. The elective dealings of God with Israel illustrate both a national and personal election. Some blindly today see only a national or class election. That is precisely what Paul tells the proud Jew that he is overlooking.
(2) God promised to save none of Isaac's seed but the elect, 9:11,13. Election is not based on works of foreseen repentance and faith, nor on character, but on the sovereign will of God.
2. God is always just in dealing with all of the rejecters of a by faith righteousness, 9:14-10:4.
(1) God is not unrighteous in His treatment of the non-elect, 9:14. Perish the thought!
[Perhaps we should draw a distinction just here. Every phase of " mercy elect" because they could not find the exact phrase in the Bible. He answered that he used the term for want of a better and did not mean by it an active rejection of anyone. Election is always positive, never negative; always inclusive, never exclusive. It cuts no one out of salvation; each man cuts himself out by his own sins. Even if He had chosen none at all, His justice would have remained without blemish.]
(2) Old Testament Proof, 9:15-18. He cites the case of Moses and Pharaoh. Every Jew admitted that God was righteous in His dealing with Pharaoh. "Raised up" means brought him on the stage of action. Therefore He is just as righteous in dealing with non-elect Jews for He deals with them on the same basis. A. God's mercy is bestowed sovereignly on the Jews, 9:15-16. B. God was just in His severity on Pharaoh and He is equally as just in His severity on the Jews.
(3) God is both sovereign and just in either mercy or wrath, 9:14-24. Paul uses the illustration of the potter. Vs. 19-20 show man's impiety and blasphemy. A. God is sovereign in mercy. B. God is merciful to all, the non-elect too, 9:22. Those who fight election pay no attention to the argument of Paul in 9:22, namely, that God deals with infinite patience with the rejecters of His grace until, their cup of iniquity is full. [This longsuffering toward the finally impenitent must have some just basis. God as Judge cannot wink at sin; if a respite or delay in execution of the penalty is granted, it must be in mercy. There is no mercy for guilty man outside the atonement of Christ. Every moment and instance, and both are multitudinous, of longsuffering toward the vessels of wrath proves a universal phase in the atonement of our Lord.] C. God is just in His wrath, whether it is visited on Jew or Gentile. He is merciful and bears a long time, but He is just in His wrath.
[Perhaps we should draw a distinction just here. Every phase of mercy is sovereign. The will of God works spontaneously in choosing the objects, the time, and all phases of this making known of the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy. But the wrath of God is not sovereign in every phase. It is sovereign in the objects- "Therefore hath He mercy on whom He will, and whom He will he hardeneth," 9:18. But wrath is not sovereign in its ground. God by the just principles of His own nature must punish sin. He could show mercy or not show mercy and still be God. He must show his righteous disapproval of sin or cease to be God. This necessity is not imposed from without, but is the necessary law of His own perfection of being. He is the God that cannot lie; He is the God that cannot look on sin with approval. God never whimsically punishes men; the ground is always that of their own sin and guilt. [Note also that the vessels of mercy are afore prepared unto glory, 9:23. But the vessels of wrath are fitted to destruction by their own sins, 9:22. To say, with a few fatalists, that God fits men to destruction makes God the author of sin and the sinner not accountable.]
(4) There are elect ones among both Jews and Gentiles, 9:23-29. A. This is proven by Old Testament Scriptures; he quotes both Hosea and Isaiah. B. Election includes some Gentiles. It includes only a remnant of the Jews. This argument cuts going and coming.
(5) The failure of the Jews to be saved was due wholly to themselves, 9:30-10:4. A. The Jews were wilful rejecters of God's righteousness, 9:30-31; 10:4. B. The Jews are without excuse because they rejected the righteousness of God, 9:32. The works way to heaven is a closed way. Cf. the drawn sword in the garden of Eden. We must submit to His righteousness, as a baby to be clothed or a paralytic to be fed. C. The Jews are ignorant of the righteousness of God, and there is no excuse for it except that it is wilful, 10-1-4.
[10:1-2 shows the Christian's Place in the Sinner's Salvation. Paul again shows his deep interest in his lost kinsmen. 1. Desire of heart--the salvation of the lost must become a heart concern. 2. Prayer to God. He unbosoms his heart to God; this gives him a right to unbosom his heart to men. 3. Witness to the lost. "Record;" better, "witness." Prayer to God and testimony to man are the two great avenues of help to the lost. One's relation to his own soul--desire; one's relation to God--prayer; one's relation to the lost--testimony . . . "Zeal of God" in 10:2 is better "zeal for God" (R.V.) since Paul speaks of God as the object of the zeal instead of the source. Zeal for God, however earnest and sincere, does not save. How much zeal is futile in all walks of life because it is not regulated by knowledge! . . . One cannot establish his own righteousness or trust his own efforts to save himself and submit to God's righteousness in Christ at the same time, 10:3. There are two sides to faith: distrust in self and self- efforts to save and trust in Christ to save ... To make the word "end" in 10:4 mean intent is to rob the whole epistle of its chief doctrinal con tention. The word "end" has here its simplest significance. The law has no dominion whatever over the believer. He is out of its territory and reach.] "End' means terminal, goal.
II. A BY-FAITH RIGHTEOUSNESS AND A BY-LAW RIGHTEOUSNESS CONTRASTED, 10:5-21.
1. A by-faith righteousness defined, 10:5-11. It is received by the hearing of faith, not by obedience to commands. By faith righteousness is not difficult to know or obtain. It is not distant but near and easy. [Some have stumbled at the mention of confession before believing in verse 9. But note carefully that the mouth comes before the heart in verse 8 which Paul adapts from Deuteronomy. Paul first follows the order of mention as in the adapted passage, but gives the natural order in verse 10; that is, faith before confession. The legalistic emphasis on confession as necessary to actual salvation subverts the whole plan of salvation by grace through faith. Paul is saying that faith will confess itself and evidence salvation before men. From the fulness of the heart the mouth speaks. Verse 11 shows that the importance is on faith, that faith is the essential thing. Righteousness is not to be achieved but believed and received.]
2. A by-faith righteousness is for all nations. 10:12-18. Faith does not come by asking but by hearing. A universally believed gospel is not God's gospel; it is too popular. [See the end of this Chapter for the Author's argument based on 10:17. Paul mentions obeying the gospel but immediately defines obeying as believing. 10:16. The contention that baptism is a part of obeying the gospel is here forever denied by a pointed definition of what is meant by the expression by the man (Paul) who alone uses it in the New Testament.]
3. Israel has no cause, 10:19-21. Their own prophets told it, and they did not believe it, Acts 10:43. ["I was found by them that sought me not." I cannot find the Author's words but well recall how he tore the heart out of Arminianism with this expression. He showed that God was found by those that were not even seeking God. Too many preachers place all emphasis on man's seeking God whereas the Bible puts the emphasis on God's seeking man in His tender mercy. Man runs from God; God must overtake man to press on him the gift of life eternal.]
III. ISRAEL'S REJECTION BY GOD. 11. Since Israel rejected God's righteousness. God rejected them. In some respects this is the hardest chapter in the Bible.
1. Israel's rejection is not total, 11:1-10. A. The elect were not rejected or cast off. 11:1-4. Paul's conversion was a strong case in point. "Reserved." Their not bowing to Baal was due to God. The thing emphasized is God's keeping power. Nothing is stronger on eternal security, cf. 8:28-30. B. God's election is wholly of grace and only a remnant are the elect, 11:5. C. Grace and works will not mix. 11:6. They are naturally exclusive one of the other. Where faith ends works begin, and vice versa. It is not like two rails running parallel but in opposite directions. Grace began with and includes election. Many brethren quote this with reference to salvation without noting that it contextually refers to election. D.The rest were hardened, 11:7-10. They were willing for Ishmael, Esau, and Pharaoh to be hardened, but kicked when Paul applied it to them.
2. Israel's rejection was not final, 11:11-36.
(1) Israel's rejection as a nation was the hope of the Gentiles, 11:11-24. A. Their fall gave the gospel to the nations, 11:11. B. If their fall did that much, how much more their fulness, 11:12-15. Verse 13 is really a parenthesis. Note especially the words "I magnify mine office." C. The wild olive tree parable, 11:16-24. This illustration is contrary to nature. In nature the good branch is grafted into the wild branch. In this parable the wild branch is grafted into the good root. The Gentiles are the wild branch. Therefore there is no universal fatherhood of God. The act of individual grafting is faith in Christ. The Gentiles need to take waring against pride.
(2) Israel's future salvation, 11:25-36.
. A. Israel's blindeness is not final but only until the fulness of the Gentiles comes 11:25. This mystery was a hitherto unrevealed secret. This is national, not personal. .
B. All living Israel will be saved when Christ comes, 11:26-27. In I Corinthians 15:8 where Paul speaks of himself as one born out of due time or as an abortion, he has reference to the fact that just as he was born spiritually by seeing Jesus, so every living Jew will receive Christ when He comes in the air. Then will a nation be born in a day.
[I think it interesting to add here the Author's notes for a debate on this question. This was one of the four propositions debated in December, 1925.]
Proposition: The Scriptures teach that all Jews, living when the Lord Jesus comes again, will be elect Jews and will be saved by seeing and receiving Him as their Savior and Lord.
1. Christ will return, Acts 1:11; Luke 19:12-15; Zechariah 14:4; Revelation 1:7. His coming will be personal and visible.
2. Christ will sit on David's throne, Zechariah 14:9; Matthew 25:31; Luke 1:32-33; Isaiah 9:6-7; Psalm 122:5; Jeremiah 13:13; 22:2.
3. He will make an end of all other nations, Jeremiah 30:11: 46:28. Jerusalem will then be the capital of the world, Zechariah 14:16-17; Isaiah 2:2-4; Micah 4: 2-3.
4. The twelve apostles will sit on twelve thrones, Luke 22:29-30; 5. How long will He reign? Revelation 20:1-7. There will be universal peace, Isaiah 2:4; 65:20-25. Children will grow to be 100 years old. The purpose of the 1000 years is temporal, not evangelical and spiritual. I do not believe people will be converted during the millennium.
6. Living Jews will be elect Jews. Jeremiah 50:20; Romans 11:4; Micah 2:12; 4:7; 7:18. Isaiah. 65:22-23. Matthew 24:30-31 refers to elect Jews; Matthew 25:32 refers to Gentiles.
7. All living Jews will be saved at the Second Coming of Christ, Romans 11:25-26; Zechariah 12:10-14; 13:1; Isaiah 66:8, 20; Mark 13:27. They will not be saved until after the resurrection of the saints. The Zionist movement is an example of history tracking prophecy.
C. The Jews are at present enemies of Christ and His gospel for the sake of the Gentiles, 11:28-32.
D. God's unsearchable riches, wisdom, and judgment are Paul's only answer and explanation of His dealings with Jew or Gentile, especially the Jews, 11:33-36. Their question seems to be as to why God could not save the Jews and Gentiles both in their fulness at the same time. In this outburst of praise we have the answer to all our whys.
NO ACCOUNTABLE BEING EVER WAS OR EVER WILL BE SAVED WITHOUT THE GOSPEL
Text: Romans 10:17
Note: These arguments are presented in the form of syllogisms. That means "an argument presented in logical form, consisting of three propo sitions, the first two being called the premises and the last the conclusion which contains the matter to be proved."
1. A man cannot be saved outside of the kingdom of God, John 3:5. He cannot enter the kingdom of God without the new birth. He cannot be born again without the word, James. 1:18; I Corinthians 4:15 I Peter 1:23-25.
2. Men cannot be saved without being justified. Men cannot be justified except by faith, Romans 5:1; 28, 30; Acts 13:39. Men cannot exercise faith without hearing the word of God (text).
3. No man can be saved without becoming a child of God. No man can become a child of God without faith, Galations 3:26, 29. No man can get faith without hearing (text).
4. The unsaved man is under condemnation, Romans 5:18-19; John 3:18. He cannot get out from under condemnation without faith, John 3:18; 5:24. He cannot have faith without the word (text).
5. No man was ever saved except by grace. No man can be saved by grace except through faith, Ephesians 2:8; esp. Romans 4:16. Grace does not work in salvation in any other way. No man can have faith without the word (text):
6. Men cannot be saved except through Christ. All of God's prophets, apostles, and preachers, in both Testaments, testify this. Acts 10:43; II Timothy 3:15; Acts 4:12. Men cannot receive Christ except by faith, John 1:12-14. Men cannot have faith without the word (text).
7. Men cannot be saved without the blood, Hebrews 9:22; Revelation 5:9; 7:14. Men cannot get the blood except through faith, Romans 3:25; Acts 26:18; Hebrews 13:12. Men cannot get faith without the word (text).
8. Men cannot be saved without the righteousness of Christ, and they cannot have the righteousness of Christ without the gospel, Romans 1:16-18. Men cannot get Christ's righteousness except by faith, Romans 10:4. Men cannot get faith without the word (text).
9. Men cannot be saved without believing the gospel because Jesus himself said in John 8:24 that if men do not believe in Him, they will die in their sins, and in verse 22 of the same chapter He says that where He is they cannot come; if they do not believe that they will die in their sins and if they die in their sins they cannot go where he is. Men cannot believe without faith. Men cannot have faith without hearing the word (text).
10. There is just one way to heaven, and Jesus is the way, John 14:6. Men cannot go to heaven except through him. Men cannot receive Jesus except by faith. John 1:12. Men cannot have faith without hearing the word (text).
11. Men are not saved until they get eternal life, all men get eternal life by receiving Christ. John 3:36; 5:24; I John 5:11-12. Note "hath," present tense. Men receive Christ by faith. Men cannot have faith without hearing the word (text).
12. There is only one foundation for salvation, and Christ is that foundation, I Corinthians 3:11. Every man not on that foundation will be destroyed. Matthew 7:24-27. Men get on that foundation by faith, Isaiah 28:16. Men get faith by hearing (text).
13. No man is saved without receiving the Holy Spirit, Romans 8:9. The Holy Spirit is received by faith, Galations 3:2,14.
Men cannot have faith without the gospel (text).
WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT ELECTION
1. Election is God's act, John 15:16; Mark 13:20; James 2:5; Luke 18:7; I Thessalonians 1:4; Ephesians 1:4.
2. Election is God's sovereign act, Romans 9:15-19; Ephesians 1:5,11.
3. Election is an act of sovereign grace, Romans 11:5-7; 9:14-15.
4. Election took place before the foundation of the world, Ephesians 1:4.
5. Election was from the beginning, II Thessalonians 2:13. This beginning is explained by John 1:1 and Genesis 1:1.
6. In Romans 9:11 election is said to be before the birth of Esau and Jacob.
7. The elect are sure of salvation, Matthew 24:31; Romans 11:2; 8:29-30.
8. Only a remnant are elected, Romans 11:5.
9. Election was unto salvation, II Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Peter 1:2. Election took place in eternity; salvation takes place when men hear and believe the gospel. The call of Romans 8:29-30 is the effectual call.
10. Election includes preaching the gospel as a means of saving the elect, I Corinthians 1:21. "Pleased" is the verb of the same root as the noun in "God's good pleasure." II Timothy 2:10; Romans 8:29-30; II Thessalonians 2:13-14. God elected the means as well as the individuals.
11. All the elect will believe, Acts 13:48; John 6:37. Faith and coming to Christ are the same act of the soul.
12. Election guarantees the salvation of some, Romans 10:20; John 15:16. Election guarantees that Christ's work was not in vain. Left to themselves, all men would reject Christ.
13. The gospel is to be preached to all, Matthew 28:18-20; Mark 16:15. Matthew 20:16 and 22:14 refer to the external and general call of the gospel and to the effectual and special call. Only the elect have the effectual call. Election makes sure that some will hear; otherwise all would reject the gospel.
14. Every New Testament writer teaches election. Matthew in 24:31; 20:16; 22:14; 11:27. Mark in 13:20. Luke in 18:7 and Acts 13:48. John in 15:16; 6:37. Paul in Romans 9:15-17; 8:28-30; 11:5-7; II Timothy 2:10. James in 2:5. Peter in I Peter 1:2. Jude in verse 4.
[An Analysis of These Fourteen Points: The SOURCE of election, pt. 1. The NATURE of election, pts. 1-3. The TIME of election, pts. 4-6. The SUBJECTS of election, pts. 8, 12. The RESULTS of election pts. 7, 9, 11, 12. The MEANS of election, pts. 10, 13. The PROOF of election, pt. 14. The CERTAINTY of election, pts. 7, 11, 12.]
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. To what point does Paul return in 9:1?
2. What is the three-point outline of chapters. 9-11
3. What is the relation of 9:1-5 to these chapters?
4. Give two proofs that Paul's doctrine of election did not dry out his interest in the salvation of the lost.
5. What two elections are mentioned in 9:6-13?
6. How does God deal with the impenitent?
7. What is the difference between sovereign grace and sovereign wrath?
8. What can Christians do to get sinners saved?
9. Explain the expression "zeal of God."
10. Discuss the meaning of "end" in 10:4.
11. Why is the order reversed in 10:9-10?
12. How does 10:16 define "obey the gospel"?
13. What is the two-point outline of chapter 11?
14. Explain 11:6 in the light of its context.
15. What is the story of the olive tree?
16. Explain "all Israel shall be saved."
17. Master the syllogistic arguments on 10:17.
18. What does the Bible teach about election?
CHAPTER VIII
Righteousness Manifested in the Life
Chapters 12-16
[The word "therefore" in 12:1 is a consequential and inferential particle and stands as the dividing word in the whole epistle. Chapters 1-11 are doctrinal; chapters 12-16 are practical. We are to do chapters 12-16 because chapters 1-11 are true. Observe here the relation between the doctrinal and the practical. One is the tree, the other the fruit. Practice fruits from sound doctrine, not sound doctrine from practice. Doctrine is the foundation, the ground, and the mainspring of all practical living. "The mercies of God" sums up all Paul has said in chapters 1-11, especially in chapters 1-8. Paid says. "Think over our study of the mercies of God and let them move you to godly living." Therefore chapters 1-11 are argumentative, chapters 12-16 are hortatory.]
I. RELIGIOUS DUTIES, 12:1-8.
l. Consecration, voluntary and complete, 12:1-2. ["Conformed" means formed with or fashioned after, and refers to the outward life. "Transformed" mean, formed across or different from, and refers to an inward change that expresses itself outwardly.]
2. Special duties based on the gift of faith through the Holy Spirit, 12:3-8.
3. General duties, 12:9-21. The fruits of consecration are:
A. Humility, 12:3-8.
B. Brotherly love, 12:9-13. ["Dissimulation" is, in the Greek, without hypocrisy or pretense. "Fervent" means red-hot for God. "Instant" signifies urgent, ready.]
C. Universal love, 12:14-21. [David in his treatment of Saul and the rival kingdom of Ishbosheth illustrates 12:21.]
II. CIVIL DUTIES---the believer's relation to government, chapter 13.
1. Duties to the state, 13:1-7. ["Higher powers" indicates government and all its officers. Note the twofold purpose of governinent: First, the praise of the obedient; second. the punishment of the disobedient. The twofold motive to obedience to civil law: the right kind of conscience and the fear of wrath, 13:5.]
2. Duties to fellow-citizens, 13:8-10.
3. Christian motives for enforcing these duties, 13:11-14. [The Greek word for "rioting" means dancing and night carousals; the Greeks fancied that a god Comus presided over their night carousals and dances. This prohibition forever forbids a Christian to take part in dances and all such. This stage of Salvation which is constantly getting nearer is the salvalion of the body. There are three phases or tenses of salvation. This refers to the third and last.]
THE THREE TENSES OF SALVATION FROM SIN
[I. The Phase of Sin Involved: 1. Its penalty-the guilt of sin that sends to hell. 2. Its power--the reign and rule, dominion and enslavement of sin that ruins the life and influence and robs of reward and dishonors the Savior in our conduct. 3. Its presence--the defiling and depraving, the disease and death--dealing effects of sin on the body; sin will also then be eradicated from our nature.
II. Act or Process? 1. An act, momentary and instantaneous. 2. A process that continues from the moment we are saved until we die. 3. An act.
III. The Time: 1. Past. 2. Present. 3. Future.
IV. Its Permanency: 1. Final. 2. Full of change--its changes as often as we increase or decrease in our faithfulness. 3. Final.
V. Its Ground: 1. Grace, the shed blood. 2. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit. 3. Grace.
V1. The Means: 1. Simple faith in the blood, one act of faith. 2. Conditional--man must be yielded to the Holy Spirit to let Him work through him. 3. Unconditional--what man does will have nothing to do with it.
VII. The Chief Blessing: 1. Once-for-all salvation, security and preservation. 2. Victory over sin--perserverance, growth in grace, usefulness, fruitfulness, joy, peace, answers to prayer, faithfulness, soul winning. 3. The resurrection of the body-glorification, freedom from sinning, conformity to the likeness of Christ, in His presence.
VIII. Its Relation to the Threefold Nature of Man: 1. Deliverance of the spirit. 2. The deliverance of the soul or life--we thus secure our reward for service rendered. 3. The deliverance of the body.
IX. The Person of the Trinity Prominent: 1. The Son. 2. The Holy Spirit. 3. The Son.
X. Relation to Heaven: 1. Essential to going there-- preparation for heaven. 2. Reward in heaven. 3. Entrance to heaven.]
III. FRATERNAL DUTIES AS MATTERS OF CONSCIENCE, 14:1-23.
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE LIVED (Chapter 14). 1. In the light of the Lordship of Christ, vs. 1-8. 2. In the light of judgment, vs. 10-12. 3. In the light of love, vs. 11-15. 4. In the light of Calvary, vs. 16-21. 5. In the light of faith, vs. 22-23.
1. Our treatment of the weak brethren ought to be in matter of conscience, 14:1-12. "Receive" in verse 1 refers to receiving; into church fellowship. "We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ" in verse 10 refers to all Christians, not sinners, in receiving their rewards.
2. The right use of liberty by the strong, 14:13-23.
3. Christian forbearance is the will of God for all who are His children, 15:1-13. [Christ first, others second, self third, 15:1-3. Christ is our great Example in not pleasing ourselves, 15:3. [Note that all things written in the Old Testament are profitable for us.. The contention of some that the Old Testament is no more than a last year's almanac is wholly false. [The purpose of the Old Testament for our learning; the use of the Old Testament--patience and comfort. Worldwide missions, 15:8-12. Note that he quotes from each division of the Old Testament. In verses 9 and 11 he quotes from the Psalms in verse 10 from the Law; in verse 12 from the prophets. Note these glorious titles for God, the God of patience and consolation, 15:5; the God of hope, 15:13; the God of peace, 15:33, 16:20.]
[''The Authorized Version has "trust" in 15:12. The Revisers changed to "hope" with a semblance of scholarship but betrayed their own scholarship here. Only superficial students say that the word "trust" does not occur in the New Testament. All scholars recognize Hebrew and Septuagint influence on the Greek of the New Testament. The Koine influence does not offset this entirely. The Hebrew had a number of rich words for "trust." It is a fact that the word usually translated "hope" is used here. But the word should be translated by both "hope" and "trust." The New Testament student must recognize this especially in the case of a quotion as this assuredly is.]
CONCLUSION, 15:14-16:27
I. EPISTOLARY, 15:14-33.
1. Paul justifies his writing, 15:14-16. The Gospel of God, 15:16. See notes on 1:1. The Gospel of Christ. He is the center and heart of the gospel.
2. Paul's rule for choosing his field, 15:17-21.
A. Paul glories in two things pertaining to God--the spread of the gospel and also his glorying was worthy through Christ and Christ received the glory.
B. Paul's reasons for his glorying: a. The work he had done was pioneer work, 15:20. b. He had fully preached the gospel, 15:19. c. Paul's preaching the whole truth had fruited in their obedience to the truth. d. Paul was what Austin Crouch calls a "glutton for work." e. God the Spirit was in him and with him in this great program. f. God's call in Isaiah 52:15 which is quoted in Romans 15:21, was Paul's motto.
3. Hindrances, 15:22-29.
A. Abundance of work, covering a period of fifteen years, 15:22-24.
B. No more place in these parts, 15:23.
C. He had much desire to get to Italy and Spain, 15:24.
D. One more task was on him, then he would come 15:25-29. This was to minister to the poor saints at Jerusalem. The funds were raised in Macedonia and Achaia. He did not put this raising of funds as charity, but as a pleasure, a debt, a duty, and a fruit in their lives, 15:27-28.
E. The fulness of blessing would be on him and them in finishing this work, 15:29.
4. Pray for me, 15:30-33. There is no warrant for our praying for Jesus sake except in a great prayer for missions, as here. This common close to our prayers ought to be as Jesus taught us, in Jesus' name; that means on the ground of His name and what He is. Note the things included in this prayer.
A. That God will deliver me from unbelievers, 15:31.
B. That I may be accepted by believers. 15:31.
C. That I can come to you with joy, 15:32. His Farwell and Benediction or Goodbye. 15:33.
II. LOVE TO ALL THE SAINTS, chapter 16. In this chapter, we have postscript in which he mentions by name each person or group of persons whom he knew in Rome, and he sends to each a personal word of cheer, greeting, and commendation. It is astonishing how many he knew by name and how much he knew about the different Baptist churches in Rome and how much he knew about their organized work and life although he had never been there. The early churches met in private homes.
[Some argue that the word for "servant" in 16:1 signifies that Phebe was a deaconness in the Cenchrean church. The word is "diakonos" and is sometimes translated "deacon." Their argument implies that this is its ordinary and necessary meaning here. It is neither the common significance of the word, nor is there anything in this passage to lead us to believe that it has any meaning other than its ordinary significance, which is "servant" and means literally, "one who runs through the dust" (Trench). Many modern deacons are a travesty on the true meaning of the word, and it is feared that most deaconnesses prefer bossing or ruling to the running through the dust in humble service. Again and significantly, the contention proves too much. The word is masculine gender, not feminine. It means only that she was a servant of this particular church. Incidentally, let someone tell its how a woman can be a husband. That is one of the requirements mentimied by Paul to Timothy.]
The expression, "the churches of Christ", in verse 16; means no more than that they are His: they belong to Him, by gift by purchase, etc. This is by no means a suggestion that we should make THE CHURCH OF CHRIST the denominational name. Those unsound in doctrine are to be disciplined. 16:17-19. [This church was noted for two things: Missions, chapter 1; soundness in the faith, chapter 16.] Note that the R.V. has it, "Quartus the brother," 16:23. [Brother Taylor said of one of his friends, "If I live to preach his funeral. I shall use these words."]
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Discuss the word "therefore" in 12:1.
2. What three general classes of duties are discussed here?
3. Define the expression "higher powers."
4. Does the Bible prohibit dancing?
5. Discuss the three phases of salvation.
6. What rule guided Paul in choosing a field for his work?
7. What hindrances did Paul face?
8. What are the three things in Paul's prayer?
9. What light does chapter 16 throw on New Testament church life?
10. Are women deacons Scriptural?
11. Why does 16:16 not give a denominational name?
12. For what two things was the Roman church noted?
Publications Books by C.D. Cole: Definitions of Doctrine; Volumes I, II, III Lectures in Biblical Theology--N.T. Doctrine of Election Heavenly Hope Divine Order of the Sexes Eternal Punishment
Books by H. Boyce Taylor: Studies in Romans Studies in Genesis Bible Briefs Against Hurtful Heresies Acts of the Apostles Studies in the Parables Why Be A Baptist? Womans Work in Baptist Churches
Books b Mark W. Fenison Baptist Women Exalted Once Delivered Sunday-the Forth Commandment
Books by Al Gormley We See Not Our Signs Why Baptist Believe and Practice Closed Communion Was Jesus A Child At Conception
Books by Rosco Brong Following Holiness Christ Church and Baptism Better Than the Angels Love Builds Up
Other Books: Rethinking Baptist Doctrine By: Various Authors God's Astounding Grace By: D. Scott Meadows Resetting An Old Landmark By: Tom Ross Courtship of Jesus By: M.W. Hall Fully After the Lord By: Steve Flinchum Studies in Types By: J. A. Schumid 24 Sermons on Various Subjects By: C.D. Cole and Al Gormley When Loved Ones are Taken By: Lehman Strauss Evangelism 101 By: Matt Waymeyer The Trail of Blood By: J. M. Carroll The Trail of Blood (Spanish) By: J. M. Carroll The Biblical & Historical Sinificance of the Beard By: Jesse Powell BSBC: Our History, Our Heritage By: Various Authors Who Are The Baptist? By: Curtis Whaley Revelation By: Gerald Smith
Printed by Bryan Station Baptist Church 3175 Briar Hill Road Lexington, Kentucky 40516
Internet Address: www.bryanstation.com E-Mail: mail@bryanstation.com 500 Copies September 2002
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