From Guilt To Glory: Hope for the
Helpless
Expository Studies in Romans
Volume One
By Ray C. Stedman
Cover
design by Phil Maylon and Judy Quinn Photograph by Russ Keller
FROM
GUILT TO GLORY
Volume
One
©
1978 by Ray C. Stedman
Reprinted
by Discovery Publishing,
Palo
Alto, California
Originally
published: Multnomah Press
Portland,
Oregon 97266
All
rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
consent of Discovery Publishing.
Library
of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stedman,
Ray C.
From
guilt to glory.
Contents:
v. I. Hope for the helpless.
I.
Bible N.T.-Romans-Sermons.
American
I Title ISBN 0-88070-123-4 (v. I)
2.
Sermons
CONTENTS
Preface
1.
Introduction to Life (1: 1-17)
2.
The Tragic Sense of Life (1: 18-23)
3.
The Deepening Darkness (1:24-32)
4.
Sinful Morality (2: 1-11)
5.
According to Light (2: 12-29)
6.
Total Shortfall (3: 1-20)
7.
But Now (3:21-31)
8.
The Father of Faith (4:1-12)
9.
The Faith of Our Father (4: 13-25)
10.
Rejoicing in Hope (5: 1-2)
11.
Rejoicing in Suffering (5:3-10)
12.
Rejoicing in God(5:11-21)
13.
Can We Go On Sinning? (6: 1-2)
14.
The True Baptism of the Spirit (6: 1-14)
15.
Whose Slave Are You? (6:15-23)
16.
Free to Win or Lose (7:1-6)
17.
The Continuing Struggle (7:7-25)
18.
No Condemnation (8: 1-4)
19.
Why Not Live? (8:3-13)
20.
The Sons of God Among Men (8: 14-17)
21.
The Agony and the Ecstasy (8: 17 -28)
22.
If God Be For Us (8:28-39)
PREFACE
Paul's
letter to the Romans is a description of the power of God let loose amid the
ruin of man. It declares the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ. God has found
a way, through the death and resurrection of Jesus, to justify the ungodly.
That includes us all, because we are all ungodly. Romans teaches us that God
sees and understands all that is in out hearts. No one can therefore count upon
his own righteousness in the presence of God. As Paul tells us, "There is
none righteous, no, not one." There is no sweet little old lady, no strong
virile man, no boy or girl who has lived a clean moral life, who is able to
stand in the presence of the demands of the law and the love of God. We are
ungodly to start with.
If
we understand that, then we can be justified. To be justified means to be given
the gift of righteousness, the gift of God's loving acceptance. That is where
true life begins. As long as we remain self-righteous, we don't have a chance.
If we recognize our ungodliness, we qualify.
In
this book we will look at only the first eight chapters of Romans. In
bite-sized sections we will follow Paul's masterful logic as he explains the
process God takes us through to reach an extraordinary goal; to make us like
God's Son, while somehow also making us more uniquely ourselves, This process
involves our entire being. Paul explains to us what we have in Christ so that
we will be able actively to participate in God's plan for us, We are not being
acted upon by some blind force. Rather, our Lord is prodding us awake to make
us realize the almost incredible potential of our lives, both now and in
eternity.
1
INTRODUCTION TO LIFE
(Romans 1:1-17)
The
letter to the Romans is unquestionably the greatest and widest in scope of all
of Paul's letters. It is intense and penetrating, and is one New Testament book
with which every Christian ought to be thoroughly familiar. If you cannot think
through the book of Romans without a Bible before you, then I urge you to make
that your goal. Master the book-- be so well acquainted with it that you can
outline it and think of its great themes without referring to your Bible. This
will require careful reading, study, and working it through in detail.
Romans
is probably the most powerful human document ever written. During this
country's bicentennial celebration the Freedom Train traveled around the nation
displaying great documents from American history, such as an original copy of
the Constitution and Thomas Jefferson's copy of the Declaration of
Independence. We rightly value these great documents of human liberty. In many
ways, our freedom rests upon them and we Americans honor and respect them. But
even they cannot hold a candle to the impact the epistle to the Romans has had
upon human history.
To
this letter we owe the conversion of some of the greatest church leaders of all
time. St. Augustine, whose shadow has loomed large over the church since the
fifth century, was converted by reading but a few verses of the thirteenth
chapter. The sixteenth verse of the first chapter spoke volumes to Luther's
heart as he thought and meditated on the great phrase. "The righteous will
live by faith." The effect on Luther ushered in the Protestant
Reformation, the greatest awakening our world had seen since the days of the
apostles.
John
Bunyan, studying Romans in the Bedford jail, was so caught up by the themes of
this great letter that he wrote Pilgrim's Progress, which since the l600s has
taught countless people how a Christian relates to the world. John Wesley,
listening one day as Luther's preface to his commentary on Romans was being
read, found his own heart "strangely warmed"; and out of that came
the great evangelical awakening of the eighteenth century, In our own day, Karl
Barth's studies in Romans have shaken the theological world. We may not always
agree with everything Barth has written, but one thing is clear: His arguments
on the book of Romans were devastating to liberal theology.
Romans
was written about A.D. 56-58, when Paul was in the Greek city of Corinth on his
third missionary journey. As you read this letter, you can catch glimpses of
conditions in Corinth. Located at a crossroads of trade, it was one of the most
wicked cities in the Roman Empire. Much of that atmosphere is reflected in
Paul's words.
Romans
was written only about thirty years after the crucifixion and resurrection of
the Lord Jesus. The memory of these events was still sharply etched in the
minds of Christians all over the empire. This letter was sent to teach and
instruct them, to remind them of the meaning of these events that so startled
and amazed men in that first century.
Bull's-Eye
The
first seventeen verses of Romans are introductory. Here are the great themes of
this epistle, which Paul returns to again and again as he boldly details
concepts that have dramatically altered men's lives. Besides their literary
order, these themes also have a logical order--a progression that forms a kind
of target, as shown on page 13. The bull's-eye, the heart of the target, is the
major theme: Jesus is Lord. We see this theme in the first seven verses of the
introduction.
Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an
apostle and set apart for the gospel of God--the gospel he promised beforehand
through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his
human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness
was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead:
Jesus Christ our Lord. Through him and for his nameās sake, we received grace
and apostleship to call people from among all the gentiles to the obedience
that comes from faith. And you also are among those who are called to belong to
Jesus Christ.
To all in Rome who are loved by God and called
to be saints:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and
from the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 1:1-7).
At
the heart of Paul's argument is the central figure, Jesus Christ our Lord. The
lordship of Christ is the theme of Romans, as it is the theme of all Paul's
writings and all the New Testament. Our union with Christ as Lord is the
central truth God wants us to see, as Paul himself wrote in the letter to the
Colossians: "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27).
That is the great salvation theme from which all others flow. Some commentators
and the Bible teachers identify certain central elements that come from this
truth. Some may emphasize justification by faith, or sanctification--that is,
solving the problems of sin. But these themes all stem from the great, central
theme: union with Christ. That is why the person of the Lord Jesus is always
central in the apostle's thinking, just as he is central in God's program for
mankind everywhere. We are not simply followers of a philosophy, or even of a
philosopher, but a savior, a redeemer, a person--and he must be first in
all things.
From
this central point Paul builds a logical progression of concentric circles,
like a target. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is the next theme flowing
out from the person of Jesus himself. Next, since the gospel is brought to us
through the apostle, Paul speaks of himself as the apostle to the Gentiles,
through whom the gospel is spread. Next comes those who receive that
gospel--the Roman Christians to whom this letter was written, as well as
ourselves, the twentieth-century recipients of the letter.
Then,
as the final outthrust of this movement, the gospel reaches out to all
nations--to Jew and Gentile alike. We will see this logical order as we go
through the introductory paragraph of the letter.
The
Promised One
Paul
first points out that the gospel was predicted long before Jesus came; God
foretold it all in the Old Testament. The gospel was "promised beforehand
through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures." One of the most important
things we can learn about our faith is that it comes to us through the
anticipation and prediction of centuries of teaching and preaching. Recall
Jesus walking with the two men on the road to Emmaus, and how "beginning
with Moses and all the prophets" he taught them the things concerning
himself. Jesus saw himself clearly in the Old Testament. We too can see him
there, in great messianic passages that point unerringly to Jesus.
To
read the Old Testament is to be gripped by the feeling that Someone is coming! All the
prophets speak of him, all the sacrifices point to him, all the longings and
dreams of men are of someone to come who will solve all their problems. But
when you close the Old Testament, he has not yet arrived.
Then
the New Testament tells us that angels appeared to shepherds near Bethlehem and
sang a great song of hope to them: "I bring you good news of great joy
that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been
born to you; he is Christ the Lord" (Luke 2:10-11). The Promised One at
last appears on the scene.
So
Paul reminds us in his introduction that Jesus is the one who was promised
beforehand. And Paul presents him in two unique ways: first, concerning Jesus'
human nature, the apostle says he was a descendant of David. Now the actual
Greek here is much more earthy; it says he came of the very sperm of David,
emphasizing Christ's intense humanity. We all come that way. We come by the
union of sperm and ovum in the miracle of conception. Jesus came in the same
way, through the sperm of David. Thus his humanity is emphasized and
underscored. But second, linked with that, is his deity; Christ "through
the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God." That
phrase, "the Son of God," unmistakably describes the deity of our
Lord. He was God. Paul emphasizes this several times throughout his letter. But
he also stresses that in the uniqueness of his personality Jesus combined all
that was human and all that was divine.
And
yet, as we will learn later, Christ voluntarily laid aside the exercise of his
deity. He did not come to act as God, but as a man filled with God. This is
hopeful and helpful to us. If we are called on to act like God we might as well
give up right now. We won't make it. But we are called on to be men and women
possessed by God. This is the level on which Christ lived, and on which we too
can live. This is the heart of the gospel. God has made it possible for us to
live as Jesus lived and to follow his example.
Paul
will develop these thoughts much more thoroughly in this epistle.
There
were three things, Paul says, that marked the deity of Jesus. First,
"power." This refers to the miracles, the displays of remarkable
power Christ exhibited among men. These were a sign that he was a man of God, a
man fully indwelt and possessed by God.
Second,
"the Spirit of holiness. " I have always been concerned about how we
so often misunderstand holiness. We don't like the word holy. It is something bad-good,
but bad. We don't like to be called holy ourselves, and when we call someone a
"holy Joe" it isn't a compliment. And yet it is a great word! Perhaps
its meaning can be recaptured if we use a similar term that comes from the same
root, the word whole. Paul is saying that when Jesus came, he was a whole
person. He demonstrated whole humanity--humanity as it was intended to be.
We
too are called to be whole persons. The glory of the good news is that God's
goal is to make us whole, so that we are capable, able to cope, ready to walk
through the pressures and turmoils and tragedies of this world and handle them
as whole persons--holy persons. This wholeness is what Jesus fully demonstrated.
The
third great authenticating mark of Jesus' deity is "his resurrection from
the dead." On this our faith ultimately rests, We can have confidence that
God has told us the truth by the unshakable fact that he raised Jesus from the
dead, No one can remove that fact from the annals of history. It happened, and
our faith rests on it, Whenever anyone persists in trying to shake your faith,
ask him about the resurrection. It cannot be explained away. It is the
undeniable fact through which God has broken into history, and Paul rests his
whole story upon it. This too will be explored further in his letter.
The
way these opening verses are worded also tells us much about the Roman
Christians. And what Paul says about them also applies to us, In verses 6 and 7
he says:
And you also are among those who are called to
belong to Jesus Christ, To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be
saints: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus
Christ.
First,
Paul says the Roman Christians (the "saints") are "called."
We are not self-made saints, we are not manmade saints; we are
"called" saints. God called us. Every one of us can tell a different
story of how it happened--how God's voice was heard, how we felt the drawing
and pulling of God's Spirit in our life. This is true of every Christian, and
it reveals a remarkable thing: God sought us! We really did not seek him. We
thought we did, but he sought us. This is why Jesus said to his disciples,
"All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I
will never drive away" (John 6:37, italics mine).
And
thus we came--called by God, sought by God.
The
remarkable thing about this calling is underscored by Paul: "We are loved
by God." Paul always starts his letters on the basis of God's love for us.
He may have to scold the saints he is writing to, he may have to correct them,
he may have to speak sharply to some of them; but he always starts by reminding
them they are loved by God. Paul understands that this is the fundamental
relationship we have with God. He loves us. We don't deserve his love, but
nevertheless we have it because of Jesus. We ought to remind ourselves of that
every day, as I am sure these Roman Christians did.
The
grace and peace God gives his saints are proof of his love. The word grace stands for all the
empowerment and enrichment God can give--all that he daily pours into our
lives. We do not earn grace, but it is given us in view of our daily needs, All
those moments when strength and courage flow into our lives, when God's Word comforts
and heals us--this is God's grace. And the result is peace, rest! Grace and
peace are our inheritance. They ought to characterize Christians everywhere,
all the time, so that the world sees the difference in our lives.
Startling
Faith
Paul
points out a second characteristic of the Roman Christians in verse 8.
First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for
all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world.
Notice that the faith of the Roman Christians is
being talked about, not the number of buses they operate, or the size or cost
of the pipe organ, or the size or cost of the building in which they meet. It
was their faith that startled the Roman world. These were vital believers, and
Paul gives a clue as to why this was true in the next verses:
God, whom I serve with my whole heart in
preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you in
my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God's will the way may
be opened for me to come to you (1:9-10).
Their
faith was reported all over the world because the apostle and other Christians
were praying for them. Paul had never been to Rome, and while he had met some
of these people elsewhere, he had never known many of them. But he prayed for
them "constantly . . . at all times"! That is why this church
flourished. If there is one thing we need more than anything else today, it is
to recover again this sense of concern and prayer for one another. It would
make all the difference in the world if we began to uphold each other regularly
in prayer.
The
third characteristic mentioned about the Roman saints is this: They were
strengthened by gifts.
I long to see you so that I may impart to you
some spiritual gift to make you strong--that is, that you and I may be mutually
encouraged by each other's faith (1:11-12).
The
exercise of spiritual gifts is what makes a congregation strong. When Paul
says, "I want to impart to you some spiritual gift," he does not mean
he has all the gifts in a bag which he carries around like an ecclesiastical
Santa Claus, doling them out to people. "Impart" really means
"share with you." Only the Holy Spirit can give spiritual gifts, and
Paul wants to share with the Roman believers the gifts God has given him. He
wants to minister to them, as they are expected to minister to him with the
spiritual gifts they have. Thus they will all be mutually strengthened by one
another's faith. This is how God wants a church to function--the saints
ministering to each other, building up one another by their faith, and
exercising the gifts God has given them.
Set
Apart
Going
back to the logical outline of this epistle, remember that Jesus as Lord is at
the center, with the gospel next to that. Then comes Paul himself as the
apostle through whom the Gentiles were being reached. What does Paul say about
himself? In verse 1, he says he was "called to be an apostle and set apart
for the gospel of God." Paul is a called apostle. God did the calling, and
he did this---as we learn in Galatians--before Paul was born.
This
is the wonder of the God we serve. He does not have to wait until we appear in
human history to call us, but does so long before we are conceived, long before
our family tree ever begins to take shape. Then he sets us apart. This is the
process of eternal history, and this is what happened to Paul. All the events
of his younger life--his training under Gamaliel, his ascendancy among the
Pharisees, even his antipathy toward the gospel--all these were part of God's
process of setting him apart to be an apostle. And when the time came, God
pulled the trapdoor and Paul fell through. He was caught. This is what happens
to us all; this is the way God works in our lives.
What
is an apostle? Paul tells us in verse 5. Through Christ "and for his
name's sake," he says, "we received grace and apostleship to call
people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from
faith." An apostle is a man sent to call people out. As Paul himself tells
us in verse 14, "I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the
wise and the foolish." Paul sensed a deep imperative to tell all people
the gospel because he knew they desperately needed it. If you alone had a
remedy for cancer, would you be quiet about it, or would you feel compelled to
share the secret with others? This is what Paul says urged him on--this
constant consciousness that he had the secret of release which all people
desperately needed.
As
an apostle, he ventured our to take them this secret. He begins to tell how in
verse 9: He says he served God "with my whole heart in preaching the
gospel of his Son." Here is a wholehearted, single-minded man with his
spirit fully engaged in his work. He tells us more in verse 15, where he speaks
of being "so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome"
after mentioning his obligation to all the world's people. If Paul is going to
reach the nations, why does he preach the gospel to the Christians at Rome? It
is because through Christians the nations will hear the gospel. The changes God
brings in the lives of his people will cause others to rake note. This is how
true evangelism occurs, and Paul says this is why he wants to preach the gospel
to those at Rome. And by "the gospel," Paul does not mean simply
explaining how to become a Christian. These Romans were already Christians.
Rather, the gospel includes all the great facts about humanity and about God
that! God wants to impart to us--facts that will enable us to be whole persons.
That
brings us to the message itself. This is what Paul says of the gospel in verses
16 and 17.
I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is
the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew,
then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a
righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written:
"The righteous will live by faith."
This
quotation from Habakkuk ("The righteous will live by faith") is the
Scripture that gripped Martin Luther's heart. Paul says this is the great fact
he is expounding in the gospel. He says he is not ashamed of it--which is a way
of saying he is proud of it. He canāt wait to get to Rome that he might fully
declare it.
Powerless
Romans
Especially
to the Romans is Paul unashamed of the gospel; for the gospel is "the
power of God," and the Romans appreciated power, just as Americans do. The
Romans prided themselves on their power. Their military might could conquer any
nation standing in their path. They could build tremendous roads and cities,
and they had some of the greatest lawmakers in history. They had the power to
create great literature and art. But Paul knew the Romans were powerless when
it came to changing hearts. They were powerless to eliminate slavery--half of
the empire's population were slaves. They couldn't eliminate violence and
corruption--the Roman world was full of it, and the suicide rate was extremely
high. They were powerless to change the stubborn, hostile, hateful hearts of
men and women. The Romans could do nothing about any of that. That is why Paul
was so proud of the gospel: it is the power of God to do the very things that
men cannot do. We never need to apologize for the gospel. It is absolutely
without rival.
Some
years ago I received a letter from Dr. Richard Halverson, chaplain of the
United States Senate. He wrote to tell me of the book Born Again by Charles Colson, one of
the men who went to prison in the Watergate scandal. This book tells how Colson
became a Christian. Halverson said the Story was so remarkable it could be
compared only with the conversion of the apostle Paul. Colson's experience was
so drastic and different that people still have trouble accepting it. But there
is no question he is a changed man. Anyone who has heard him speak or followed
his life since those dark days after Watergate knows his conversion was
genuine.
Now
what got hold of Colson's heart and changed him like that? The gospel of the
blessed God--the good news about Jesus Christ. It is the power of God for
salvation!
Second,
Paul is not ashamed of the gospel because in it "a righteousness from God
is revealed." Righteousness is an old word that we don't understand very well.
I would like to substitute for it a modern term, "worth." Full
acceptance, or worth, before God is given to us in the gospel. We cannot earn
it and we certainly do not deserve it, but it is given to us. God really
accepts us because of the gospel, because of the good news of the work of Jesus
Christ on our behalf. It is something that you or I or anyone can have. It is
complete, perfect, needing nothing from us to supplement it.
The
last thing Paul says is that this righteousness is received by faith. We can
never earn it, but we can have it by faith anytime we need it--and that is good
news! Our worth before God is not something we receive once at the beginning of
our Christian lives. It is something we have continually and are to remind
ourselves of every time we feel despairing or defeated. God has loved and
restored us, and we have perfect value in his sight. He already accepts us and
loves us as much as he possibly can; nothing more can be added to it. This is
the righteousness revealed in the gospel; by faith it is available to all who
believe, no matter what their background or training.
So
these are the great themes of Romans. Centering upon the Lord, the gospel Paul
preaches is the power of God to release men from their vicious cycle of sin and
to establish them as whole people, filled by God and able to appropriate by
faith their true worth before God. I hope these themes will have their effect
upon our hearts as they did upon many in the first century church.
2 THE
TRAGIC SENSE OF LIFE
(Romans 1:18-23)
Paul's
introduction to Romans concludes with the tremendous declaration, "I am
not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of
everyone who believes; first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the
gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith
from first to last" (1: 16-17). By that statement Paul sets in focus the
great theme of this letter--the power of God to heal our hurts and free us from
the bondage of evil.
Beginning
with verse 18, however, a more somber note is sounded. This section introduces
the most extensive, careful, and logical analysis of the human dilemma ever
penned. Extending through chapter 3, verse 20, it is introduced thus:
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven
against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by
their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, became
God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's
invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly
seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse
(1:18-20).
In
the preceding verses Paul spoke of the Son of God--the key and the heart of the
gospel. He declared that the power of God is released among men as they believe
the gospel; he declared that the righteousness of God is granted to us by
faith--a gift which we cannot earn or deserve, but which is ours nevertheless.
Yet now Paul speaks of the wrath of God. It is the first negative note in this
letter, but it is necessary because it introduces a passage that tells us why we
need the gospel. We need it precisely because men everywhere suffer the wrath
of God.
Judgment
and Lightning
What
do you think of when you see the words the wrath of God? Most think of it as
something yet to come, something that follows death--the judgment of God. It is
true that hell and all that may follow are an expression of the wrath of God.
But that is not what it means at this point. Others think of the wrath of God
as thunder, lightning, and judgment, fire and brimstone, and the sudden destruction
and catastrophes that may come upon obviously guilty sinners. Indeed these are
examples of God's wrath.
But
the wrath of God isn't only something yet to come; it is present now. As the text says, it is
"being revealed from heaven." It does not pour down from the skies
upon us. The phrase means it is everywhere present. It comes from invisible
forces at work in our lives; therefore it is inescapable. Everyone is
confronted with and suffers from the wrath of God , without exception. His
wrath is everywhere present, and it shows itself in the invisible resistance of
God to the evil of men.
In
1962 I visited Mexico City with a group of businessmen. We were invited to hold
witnessing sessions in the homes of businessmen and wealthy leaders of Mexico.
To properly orient us to the country's unique culture, we had a session in a
downtown hotel in Mexico City. In a beautiful and elegant address, Dr.
Baenz-Camargo, a local Christian and a very wise university professor, captured
for us the heart of Mexican life. He said we should understand five traits of
the Mexican people. The first is that they have a sense of the dramatic; they
love eloquence and oratory. With that comes a love of beauty and pageantry.
Third, and stemming from these first two characteristics, is a deeply embedded
sense of inferiority--the Mexicans feel they are a small nation and an inferior
people, desperately trying to catch up with the rest of the world. That sense
of inferiority produces the fourth mark of Mexican society, a resistance to authority.
Rebelliousness and revolution are close to the surface in Mexico. All these
traits find their ultimate expression in a kind of fatalism, which is the fifth
characteristic, a strong belief in the role of chance and a lack of a sense of
personal responsibility.
As
Dr. Baenz-Camatgo discussed the first characteristic, the awareness of the
dramatic, he used the phrase "the tragic sense of life." I have not
forgotten that phrase because I find that it applies not only to the Mexican
people, but to people everywhere. We are continually confronted with this
tragic sense of life. It describes the wrath of God which Paul is talking
about.
Why
is it that tragedy is so close to life's surface? Even in our moments of joy
and gladness we experience it. We have all felt this bittersweet side to life
when, in the midst of the warmth and joy of the home circle, there comes an
underlying sense of fear, of the probability of the whole thing suddenly
turning into tragedy and sorrow. Why at Christmas time, for instance, when men
are traditionally more glad and joyful and mellow (perhaps) than at any other
time of year, does someone commit suicide? Anyone who has borne loneliness
throughout the year knows that it can be deeply etched in bitter symbols upon
our hearts at Christmas. Sorrow and grief seem to be more foreboding then than
at any other time. Why? It is because of the wrath of God. God's resistance
against human evil is creating a sense of tragedy and darkness that we must all
live with.
Moses
expresses this perfectly in Psalm 90,
For all our days pass away under thy wrath,
our years to come to an end like a sigh.
The years of our life are threescore and ten,
or even by reason of strength fourscore;
yet their span is but toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away (9-10 RSV).
The
shortness of life, the brevity of it, the sorrow of it, the tragedy of it--all
this is part of what Paul captures in his words, "The wrath of God is
being revealed from heaven." No one escapes God's wrath; it is revealed,
and we have to face it. It tinges with sorrow all our brightest days.
The
test of verse 18 reveals that God's wrath is drawn forth by "the
godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their
wickedness," Life's tragic aspect is caused by the attitudes and
subsequent actions of men; first godlessness, then wickedness. The order is
never reversed. It is the godless attitude that produces the wicked actions,
and this is why the wrath of God is being revealed constantly from heaven
against man.
The Secular
Attitude
What
is godlessness? It is not necessarily atheism, the belief that God does not
exist. Godlessness is acting as though he doesn't exist. It is disregarding
God, never taking any account of him, not expecting him to be active. This attitude
is still widespread today, and it is what the apostle speaks of here.
Godlessness
makes men unrighteous, wicked, selfish, and spiteful. Why do we hurt each
other? Because we disregard God. This is Paul's analysis--and he says these
hurtful and selfish acts suppress the truth. That is just the problem! In a
world where truth from God is breaking out all around, men are busy covering it
up, hiding it, suppressing it, keeping it from being prominent in their
thinking. Against this, the wrath of God burns. The reason so many lives have
turned tragic is that the world is deprived of the truth necessary for life and
freedom and godliness. The truth is being hidden and suppressed by men.
Verses
19 and 20 tell the kind of truth that is suppressed:
. . . since what may be known about God is plain
to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the
world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been
clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without
excuse.
The
truth men labor to suppress is the greatness of God, that he is the God of
eternal power and majesty. Job 9 eloquently expounds this truth that the world
hides:
His wisdom is profound, his power is vast.
Who has resisted him and come out unscathed?
He moves mountains without their knowing it
and overturns them in his anger.
He shakes the earth from its place
and makes its pillars tremble.
He speaks to the sun and it does not shine;
he seals off the light of the stars.
He alone stretches out the heavens
and treads on the waves of the sea.
He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion,
the Pleiades and the constellations of the
south.
He performs wonders that cannot be numbered (
4-10).
How
great God is! And yet men seem loath to mention him in public, or to act as
though he had anything to do with their affairs. Isn't that strange? An unknown
poet put it this way in "The Humanist":
He exists because he was created.
He's here because he was placed here.
He's well and comfortable
because divine power keeps him so.
He dines at God's table.
He's sheltered by the roof God gave him.
He's clothed by God's bounty.
He lives by breathing God's air
which keeps him strong and vocal
to go about persuading people that whether
God is or not,
only man matters.
There
are times when men cannot evade the fact of God. But when those times come,
when they simply must speak of God, they often resort to euphemism. They call
God something else. They may call him "nature," for example. Nature,
they'll say, is responsible for the way we are.
This,
of course, is because "nature" is what we are. Nature is the sum
total of all the phenomena of the natural world. Bur to say that the sum total
of the phenomena of the natural world produces the phenomena of the natural
world is nonsense, though everywhere this is the way men talk. Or they may call
God "fate" or "karma" or "destiny." Those are
simply other ways to avoid recognizing God at work in human affairs.
Yet
one of the ironies of life is that God, who sits in the heavens, has arranged
it so that men can't even rip off a round oath without mentioning his name. You
never hear people swear, "By nature, I'm going to do this." You never
hear them say, "Fate damn you!" Though they will not acknowledge him
in any other way, God sees to it that men recognize his presence when they must
be most emphatic.
Revelation
in the Stars
How
has God made plain the truth about himself? Scripture says God has revealed it.
Truth isn't a vague, invisible, difficult thing to comprehend; it is clearly
seen. God himself has ensured that. How? Paul says in Romans 1:20 that it is
"understood from what has been made"--that is, from everything around
us--and that it has been evident "since the creation of the world."
It is present everywhere, and always has been, for everyone to see. No one is
left out--all can read God's revelation if they want to.
One
night my daughter Laurie and I were out walking at Forest Home in the mountains
of Southern California. It was one of those beautiful evenings when the stars
were out in all their glory--we were above the smog. We walked through the
darkness and looked up at the stars and felt the sense of awe chat comes upon
the human spirit on occasions like that. I pointed out the Milky Way and explained
to Laurie that it was part of the galaxy to which our world belongs, and that
millions of galaxies like this were whirling on in their determined
courses-never lace, always on time, strange and mostly unexplorable by man. I
pointed out the Big Dipper, the North Star, the Pleiades. We talked about the
universe.
Then
I jokingly said, "But remember, dear, all this happened just by chance;
all these things came together by accident." And she began to laugh. How
ridiculous that anyone should say this imposing display of beauty and light and
order all happened by chance! Laurie sensed the total nonsense of that claim.
For how can we say that watches are built by intelligence and wisdom and
skill--but that stars shine and hearts beat and babies grow and roses smell
simply by chance. It's ridiculous!
This
argument from design and order has never been refuted. Those who disregard God
cannot avoid or explain away the evidence because the truth about God breaks
our everywhere around us. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote,
Earth's crammed with heaven,
and every common bush aflame with God.
But only those who see take off their shoes;
the rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.
Thus,
as Paul says, "men are without excuse." No one who really wants to
find God need miss him. But what about someone who has never heard the gospel?
One of the great verses confronting this problem is Hebrews 11:6--"And
without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him
must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek
him." Just two things are necessary for such a person.
First,
he must believe that God is there. Everything in his life is telling him that.
Everything about himself is shouting at him, shrieking at him, that God has planned
all these things. The easiest thing in the universe to believe is that God is
there. You must work hard at convincing yourself that he's not there, and it
seems only the highly educated are able to do it. The rest, who simply see
facts and believe them, readily accept that God is there.
Second,
he must diligently seek God. The Scriptures promise that if we seek after God
he will give further light on himself, and this light will eventually lead to
the knowledge of Jesus Christ--for without the Son, no man can come to the
Father. There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be
saved. And knowledge about Jesus starts with where you are and with the
revelation in nature and in yourself about the majesty and power and greatness
of God.
To Suppress
the Truth
In
verses 21 through 23, the apostle details how men suppress the truth about God.
For although they knew God, they neither
glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile
and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they
became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to
look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
Three
steps are traced here, all having distinct effects upon the race. First, men
neither glorify God nor give thanks to him. They ignore him. There is an
obvious conspiracy of silence about God. That is why children are not allowed
to sing Christmas carols in many of our public schools. That is why there is
great resistance to having the Bible read on almost any public occasion. No one
wants to admit there's a God.
The
effects are immediate. Paul says two things appear when this attitude prevails:
the people's thinking becomes futile; and their hearts become darkened. Futile
thinking means that clever ideas and procedures and programs will fall apart
and come to nothing. In my own lifetime I have lived through the New Deal, the
Fair Deal, the New Society, Peace with Honor, and the Great Recovery. All of
them have failed dismally! They all scatted with brilliant promises, with
glowing words of hope and expectation. And each one came to the same futile
end.
When
hearts are darkened, human needs which ought to evoke pity and response are
ignored. People lose compassion and awareness of the struggles of others.
Perhaps you've seen newspaper accounts of people in desperate need, calling out
for help, while passersby ignore them because they don't want to get involved.
This is a sign of a darkened heart, and it is the result of ignoring God.
The
second device men use to suppress the truth is the claim to be wise. They
imitate God. They claim the ability to know everything and to handle anything.
Paul describes the result in one brief, blunt, pungent phrase: "they
became fools".
Just read the intellectual magazines of our day and see how clever the secular
writers are. They are masters at taking some simple discovery and making it
sound impressive and profound, as though it were on par with the creation of
the universe as recorded by Moses. They claim to be wise, but they become
fools, and their inventions cause greater problems than the ones they solve.
Of Men and
Snakes
The
third device men use to suppress the truth is to exchange God's immortal glory
"for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and
reptiles." Notice the descending order. When idolatry begins, it begins
first with men making images of men. Then it degenerates to likenesses of
birds, animals, and finally reptiles. Man is at one end and a snake at the
other!
I
believe it's no accident how we tend to name our cars. We once named them after
men: Lincoln, Ford, Chrysler, Dodge, DeSoto, Edsel, Since then, birds and
animals have become more popular as names: Thunderbird, Firebird, Impala,
Cougar, Mustang, Pinto, Jaguar, Rabbit, Panther, and even a Greyhound bus!
Reptiles may be in fashion next: We already have a car called the Cobra, and we
may soon have the Python, the Viper, and (a larger, slower model) the
Crocodile!
Just
like the statues in ancient times, today's world is filled with images that are
either worshiped themselves or are symbols of ideas that men worship. But these
images invalidate God; they debase him by substituting something for God that
makes him seem less than what he is. This is what idolatry always does, making
it a destructive force in human affairs.
But
do people today really worship images and bow down before idols? Why else do we
have rock stars and athletic heroes? What are movies and television shows, but
images attracting our devotion? We worship forces like sex, ambition, and
greed. We worship beauty, youth, adventure, leisure, life. We worship military
power--planes, guns, bombs, tanks. All these are our gods, aren't they? We have
exchanged the glory of the undying God--in all his majesty and greatness--for
mere images.
Comparing
our own society and the first-century world Paul is analyzing, we find them
exactly the same: idolatrous. We are right where they were. And the effect upon
us is profound and terrible.
The
amazing thing in Romans is that this accounting of God's wrath in chapter one
is shown to be wholly and fully met by the righteousness of God. God's
righteousness cancels his wrath. Wouldn't you think, therefore, that men
everywhere would be eager to discover this marvelous gift? All our pain and
heartache and darkness, the death, the depression, the despair--all come from
God's wrath, and are the products of ignoring God, trying to replace God, and
invalidating God in our lives. Wouldn't you think men everywhere would rush to
accept the good news of how to escape God's wrath, and enjoy the righteousness
that heals our hurts, corrects our errors, and gives a sense of peace and joy
and forgiveness to the heart?
Yet
the wonder of our times, and the hallmark of our twisted, demoralized,
distorted world, is that we cling to our hurts and refuse the healing of God.
3 THE
DEEPENING DARKNESS
(Romans 1:24-32)
Just
how much progress have we made in the last twenty centuries? Anyone reading
Romans 1 recognizes that today's moral climate is no different from that in the
first century when Paul lived. The apostle mentions two characteristics of the
civilization he lived in, and they also describe our society today. The first
characteristic is godlessness; the second, wickedness.
Godlessness
is disrespect of God, and it results in wickedness--injury and hurt to others.
The epistle to the Romans is built on the thesis that in every generation there
is godlessness, resulting in wickedness.
The
apostle has traced the source of godlessness. He begins with God's
self-disclosure in nature; God has spoken to this world and has shown himself
in the natural scene. Nature includes mankind, for we are all part of nature.
God has made himself knowable in every age and place. The truth about God pours
out from every direction, if only we have eyes to see. But men respond to this
truth, the apostle says, with an unspoken agreement to suppress it. You may
have seen the rather remarkable television presentation called The Ascent of
Man. Here
was a clear example of man's attempt to trace all that has happened to mankind
without a single reference to God.
When Men
Lose God
In
verses 24 through 32 of Romans I, the apostle reveals the effect of this
godlessness--wickedness inevitably follows. When men lose God, they lose
themselves. They do not understand what is happening and are not able to
diagnose the sicknesses and problems that break out in society.
In
The Great Divorce,
C. S. Lewis said hell is made up of people who live an infinite distance from
each other. That alienation is the result of the loss of God in their lives.
Wickedness
at Work
Paul
says wickedness follows a three-step process. The process is identified in this
passage by the thrice repeated phrase "God gave them over ," a phrase
that explains what is going on in our culture.
The
first reference is in verse 24:
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful
desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies
with one another.
The
first mark of wickedness in a godless society is widespread sexual
immorality--the degrading, or dishonoring, of the body. Note that the sentence
begins with the word "Therefore." This immorality is a result of the
idolatry into which men fall. Idolatry is common in our day, although we do not
worship idols and images so much as concepts and ideas. But such idolatry leads
to widespread sexual immorality.
Many
read "God gave them over" as though it said God "gives up"
on people because of the evil they do. They believe God washes his hands of
such people because they are so filthy. But this certainly is not what the
account says. When men run after other gods and refuse the testimony of their
own hearts and of nature around them, when they do not glorify or thank the true
God, God removes his restraints--"giving them over"--so that what was
done in secret is allowed to break out into the open and be widely accepted.
This is the sign of the wrath of God. The first mark of wickedness in a
civilization is that sexual immorality (which has always been present) becomes
widely accepted.
This
means God allows men and women to experience the full effects of their attempts
to satisfy their hungers, cravings, and desires apart from him. He allows
people to discover they do not have the answer. God removes the societal
restraints so that immorality comes to the surface. He thereby forces us to
suffer the full effect of what we do. God makes us harvest the crop we insisted
on sowing, however much we now want to abandon our field. God says we cannot
keep on sowing wild oats without reaping the evil results. We must live with
them. This is what Paul calls, "the wrath of God at work among us."
The Supreme
Vice?
You
may ask, "Why is it that sex always seems to be singled out in God's judgment?
Why is sexual immorality the first sign of a disintegrating civilization?"
There
is a good reason. Many Christians have wrongly concluded that sexual sins are
the worst kinds of sin. But that is not true. Sexual sins are not the worst
kind. C. S. Lewis saw this clearly, and in Mere Christianity he says,
If anyone thinks that Christians regard
unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are
bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely
spiritual: the pleasure of pulling other people in the wrong, of bossing and
patronizing and spoiling sport, and backbiting; the pleasures of power, of
hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which
I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The
Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous
prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute.
But, of course, it's better to be neither. (from "Sexual Morality"
in Book III, Christian Behavior)
This
passage in Romans confirms Lewis' words. Wickedness begins with sexual impurity
and then proceeds to sexual perversion. But the final outcome, in the climax of
the chapter, is not sexual sin but the sins of the spirit. Widespread animosity
and heartlessness--these are the worst sins.
But
God allows perverted sexual practices to become publicly acceptable to show us
what is going on in our spiritual lives. It may sound curious, but sex is
linked with worship. A serious reading of the Scriptures will make this clear.
Sex is mans longing after worship. It is a desire to possess another body and
to be possessed by another. It is a deep-seated craving inherent in every human
being. We have all heard the statement, "Women give sex in order to get
love; men give love in order to get sex." Superficially this is true. But
what both are really after is not sex at all; they are after worship. They
really want to worship and to be worshiped. They want a sense of total
fulfillment, a oneness, an identity. And this is what they think they are
getting when they indulge in illicit sex.
The
Scriptures tell us that only God can give this fulfillment. Only God can
satisfy our deep sense of longing for complete identity and unity with another
person. This is what we call worship. When we worship, we long to be possessed
of God, and to possess him fully. Thus the highest possible description of the
relationship between a believer and God is found in the words of Jesus in John
15, "You in me, and I in you." When men think they will find this
fulfillment in sex, in effect God says to them, "Look, it won't work. But
you wont believe me until you try it out." So he removes the restraints
and allows immoral sexual practices to become widely accepted, knowing that men
indulging in these things will finally find themselves just as dissatisfied,
empty, and hopeless as they were when they started. Only thus will they learn
that sex is not the way to find fulfillment. This is true even in marriage. We
find complete fulfillment only in a relationship with God.
Shameful
Lusts
This
brings us to the second mark of a godless and wicked society, found in verses
25-27:
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and
worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever
praised, Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even
their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the
men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for
one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in
themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
Homosexuality
is the second sign of a godless and wicked society. Paul says shameful lusts
arise from inside, desires that are part of the soul of man. The apostle thus
describes the rise of widespread psychological confusion. Notice the irony.
This is God's silent way of forcing men to demonstrate their sin so they can
see what is going on in their lives. Paul says that because they have exchanged
truth for a lie and exchanged the Creator for created things, God allows them
to exchange natural functions for unnatural functions--to use a man for a
woman, and a woman for a man.
When
restraints are removed, homosexuality becomes widely accepted. It was a common
practice in Paul's world of the first century. The great philosophers, for the
most part, extolled and practiced it. Socrates and other great thinkers of
ancient Greece had been homosexuals, as were fourteen of the first fifteen
Roman emperors, some of them openly and blatantly.
Once
again the restraints are being removed, and these things are thrusting
themselves into public acceptance. The truly awful thing about the rise of
homosexuality today is that homosexuals widely believe the lie that their
condition is biological and cannot be helped. They are encouraged to adjust to
it. Even churches are falling into this trap and consenting to this deceit. One
newspaper article reports the inclusion of a homosexual church into the local
council of churches. It is hard to believe that pastors stood up and said they
could not judge whether homosexuality was good or evil.
Yet
I was also encouraged by a paper sent to me by a Christian who is an
ex-homosexual. It was written by other Christians like him who had been
delivered from homosexuality by the power and grace of the gospel of the Lord
Jesus. To help those still enmeshed in this vice, they published a forthright
plea to those trapped in homosexuality not to believe the lie that it is a
biological condition and that they cannot help themselves. This widely believed
lie holds its victims in a fatal grip. As long as homosexuals believe it, there
is no help for them. But if they understand that homosexuality is a sin like
other sins, that it can be forgiven, and that they can be delivered and freed
from its power by the might and grace of Jesus Christ, then there is tremendous
hope in the midst of their darkness.
Paul
speaks also of a "due penalty" for this perversion. Anyone who has
spent time with homosexuals knows what this penalty is. It is a loss of one's
sense of identity, an uncertainty as to one's role and place. We see this to a
considerable degree in the women's liberation movement, as well as in androgynous
dress styles and in the unisex emphasis in education. Its ultimate expression
is a sex change operation that mutilates the sex organs. The sexual confusion
that results from all this is an attempt to mar and defeat God's precise plan
in making us male and female.
Desire to
Exploit
The
third and final mark of a godless and wicked culture is given in verses 28-32.
Furthermore, since they did not think it
worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved
mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind
of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder,
strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent,
arrogant, and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their
parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
This
is a terrible list of sins, and they are marks of a civilization nearing
collapse. They reflect a contemptuous and arrogant disregard for others--in a
word, a desire to exploit other people. The term "depraved mind"
literally means an unacceptable mind, a mind that cannot be lived with, a mind
that refuses to fit into any kind of civilization or culture or society. A
depraved mind destroys, rends, and fragments everything it touches. And its
public hostility is marked by increasing cruelty and violence.
Probably
the most vivid picture of this in our day is given in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The
Gulag Archipelago,
in which an entire culture is characterized by this terrible, senseless
cruelty. But we in the Western world are not escaping. Every day our newspapers
report senseless vandalism, along with vicious and unprovoked attacks upon
innocent and often helpless people. The rise in child abuse is a symptom of
this. It culminates, as Paul makes very clear in verse 32, in an attitude of
callous disregard:
Although they know God's righteous decree that
those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do there very
things but also approve of those who practice them.
Sneering
at the fact that harm comes from their wickedness, they try to spread it more
widely. They invade the field of education; they dominate the media; they seek
legal status for their evil ways and defy all attempts at control. This is what
is going on today. The deepening darkness that Paul traces in his own day is
spreading in our day as well.
But
it is also clear that God does not turn his back on man. This passage is not a
record of people whom God despises and therefore turns aside from with
contempt. The Bible never views man as an object of contempt, or as a worm.
Rather, God's concern for humanity underscores these words. He is at work to
bring men to their senses, to awaken a drugged and dying civilization and show
how desperately it needs deliverance--which can come only as a gift of
righteousness from God's hands.
You
may ask, "Why does God give a civilization over to this kind of
thing?" He does it because it is only when darkness prevails, and despair
and violence are widespread, that men welcome the light. Remember Isaiah's
prediction:
The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of
death
a
light has dawned (Isaiah 9:2).
In
the first century, mankind was sunken in the darkness of despair. Idolatry had
spread through the whole world; men had turned from the true God, whom they
could have known, Hopelessness and misery lay like a heavy blanket upon the
earth.
In
that hour, in the darkness of the night, over the skies of Bethlehem the angels
broke through and a great light of hope shone forth. From that hope all light
streams. The angels told of the coming of the Lord Jesus, of the availability
of God's gift of righteousness.
Against
the growing darkness of our own time we need to make this message as clear as
possible--by our testimony, by our lives, by the joy and peace of our hearts.
God has found a way to break through human weakness, arrogance, despair, and
sinfulness to give us peace, joy, and gladness once again. Just as Jesus was
born in Bethlehem so long ago, so he can be born in your heart now. This is the
good news of the gospel. In this decaying world we can see again the glory of
this truth as it delivers people from their sins. "Thou shalt call his
name JESUS, for he shall save his people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21
KJV).
4 SINFUL
MORALITY
(Romans 2:1-11)
Many
people think they do not belong in the picture of degraded society Paul has
been describing. I am sure there were thousands in Paul's day--and millions
today--who do not see themselves in Romans 1. "That isn't talking about
us," they say. "We're not like that. It may describe others, but it
does not describe us."
Whenever
you read this first chapter of Romans, that division immediately becomes evident:
"others" and "us." The "others" are obviously
gross, wicked people; "we" are not. Many would say, "We're
law-abiding, home-loving, clean-living, decent people." Many have been
church members most of their lives.
Others
perhaps do not go to church at all, but nevertheless pride themselves on their
moral standards, their ethical values, and their clean, law-abiding lives. They
believe the world is in its present condition because of the wickedness of
gangsters, radicals, revolutionaries, prostitutes, pimps, and the perverts of
our day; but they see themselves as the salt of the earth.
It
is on these people that the apostle turns his spotlight in chapter 2. We will
see his argument developed in three separate steps. The first is given in verse
I.
You, therefore have no excuse, you who pass
judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are
condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.
Here
the subject is those who pass judgment on others. If anyone reading this book
does not belong in that category, you can go on to the next section. But to
those who have, at one time or another, passed judgment on someone else, I want
you to notice that the apostle makes two points about such people.
First,
he indicates that they know the difference between right and wrong; otherwise
they would not presume to judge. They have a clear standard. They know that one
thing is wrong and another right. They are clearly aware, therefore, that wrong
actions merit the judgment and wrath of God.
Guilty
Judges
Paul's
second point is devastating. He says these people are guilty because they do
the same things themselves. The judges are as guilty as the ones they have in
the dock.
As
a practiced, self-righteous hypocrite, I am always surprised at this statement.
"What do you mean?" I want to say, "How could this be?"
Such
a response brings to mind our Lord's account of his return, when he will
separate all people into two bands, the sheep and the goats. He will make
judgment according to how they have treated one another. He will say to the
sheep, "When I was thirsty you gave me drink, when I was hungry you fed
me, when I was naked you clothed me, when I was in prison you visited me."
To the goats he will say, "When I was thirsty you did not give me drink,
when I was hungry you did not feed me, when I was naked you did not clothe me,
and when I was sick or in prison you did not visit me." Both groups are
taken by surprise and say, "When did this happen? When did we see you
thirsty or hungry or naked? We don't remember that!" This feeling of
surprise shows how little men understand themselves, and why we all need a
passage such as this. We are all guilty, even though we are not consciously aware
of it.
Blind Spots
If
my own attitudes are typical, then I see three ways in which we try to deny our
guilt for doing the same things we condemn in others.
First,
we are congenitally blind toward many of our own faults. We are just not aware
of them. We do not see that we do the same wrong things others do. I don't see
it, and neither do you see it in yourself; and yet others see it in us. We all
have these blind spots.
One
of the greatest lies of our age is the idea that we understand ourselves. We
often argue, "Don't you think I know myself?" The answer is no. We
are blind to much of our lives. There may be very hurtful and sinful areas of
which we are unaware. "A man's deeds are right in his own eyes," the
Old Testament says.
I
once stayed with a pastor and his delightful family. The oldest son was about
sixteen, and--not unusual for someone his age--very concerned about the faults
of his twelve-year-old brother. One day he came in all upset and said,
"Who does he think he is? Why, he acts as though he's as good as the rest
of us!" What a typical example of the attitude we all have-only this boy
was honest enough to admit it.
I
often tell someone, "Relax! Take it easy!" Only afterward do I hear
my own voice and realize that I myself am neither relaxed nor taking it easy.
Have you ever lectured your children on the sin of procrastination and then
completed your income tax return barely on time, if at all? How blind we are!
We just do not see many of our own faults, and thus we can indeed be guilty, as
the verse says, of doing the very things we accuse others of doing,
A
second way we deny guilt is to conveniently forget our own wrong, We may have
been aware of our sin at the time, but somehow we assume God will forget it, so
we need not acknowledge it in any way. As the sin fades from our memory, we
think it fades from his as well.
Let's
consider our thought life, for example. Much of this passage in Romans must be
understood in light of our Lord's teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus
says that God, who looks at the heart, sees what is going on inside and judges
on that basis; he doesn't judge as men judge, according to appearances. In the
Sermon on the Mount we learn that if we hold a feeling of hatred against
someone, if we are bitter and resentful and filled with malice, then before God
we are as guilty of murder as if we had taken a knife and plunged it into that
person's breast. If we find ourselves lusting for the body of another, if we
play with this idea over and over in our mind, and treat ourselves to a fantasy
of sex, we have committed fornication or adultery. If we are filled with pride,
yet put on the appearance of being humble and considerate, we are guilty of the
worst of sins, for pride of heart destroys humanity.
We
think these things will go unnoticed, but God sees them in our hearts. He sees
everything we have conveniently forgotten. When we demean people, or speak with
spite and sharpness and deliberately try to hurt them, he sees it. He sees it
when we are unfair in our business, and when we are arrogant toward someone we
think is on a lower social level. When we are stubborn and uncooperative in
trying to work out a tense situation, he sees that too. All these things God
notices. We, who condemn these things in others, are guilty of the same things.
Isn't it remarkable that when others mistreat us we think it is horrible,
demanding immediate correction? But when we mistreat others we say,
"You're making so much out of a little thing! Why, it's so trivial and
insignificant!"
The
third way we try to evade our guilt is by cleverly renaming things. Other
people lie and cheat; we simply stretch the truth. Others betray; we are simply
protecting our rights. Others steal; we borrow. Others have prejudices; we have
convictions. We cry, "Those people ought to be stoned!" Jesus says,
"He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone." We
are all guilty of the same things we accuse others of doing.
Only One
Standard
In
verses 2-4 Paul develops the second step of his argument by asking two
questions. Here is the first:
Now we know that God's judgment against those
who do such things is based on truth, So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on
them and yet do the same things. do you think you will escape God's judgment?
What
a ridiculous ground of hope! How tenuous to hope that God--who sees all men
openly and intimately, who sees not only what is on the outside but also what
is on the inside--will pronounce judgment on others but not on us. People will
say, "How can a just and loving God permit the injustice and vileness that
takes place in this world? How can he allow a tyrant like Hitler or Stalin to
arise and murder millions of innocent people? How can he allow these godless
regimes to come into power and crush people, usurp their rights, put thousands
in prison, and spread destruction and sorrow across the land? Why does he allow
these things to go on year after year? Why doesn't God judge these men?"
The
question we ought to ask is, "Why didn't he judge me yesterday, when I
said that sharp, caustic word that plunged like an arrow into a loved one's
heart and hurt her badly? Why didn't he shrivel my hand when I took a pencil
and cheated on my income tax? Why didn't he strike me dumb when I gossiped on
the phone this morning, sharing a tidbit that made someone look bad in someone
else's eyes? Why didn't God judge that?" The God of truth and justice sees
all of this; so how, Paul asks, do we think we can escape the judgment of God?
Then
Paul asks the second question, the other horn of the dilemma.
Or do you show contempt for the riches of his
kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you
toward repentance? (2:4)
First
Paul asked, "Why are you acting this way-constantly judging others so
critically, yet never seeming to judge yourself? Surely you don't think you're
going to escape! If you know God judges according to truth, you must be
included in that judgment as well." But now he says in verse 4, "If
you know you can't escape his judgment, then you must be treating with disdain
the opportunities God gives you to repent."
Why
are you alive? Why are you being allowed to experience life today, with all its
opportunities to correct wrong attitudes and behavior? It is because God's
goodness, tolerance, and patience are giving you a chance to change, a chance
to acknowledge your sins and be forgiven. A faithful God, judging the innermost
part of our lives, gives us these opportunities. He knows we are blind. He
knows we often struggle to recognize what is wrong in our lives. So he gives us
these opportunities to repent and change, moments of truth that are extremely
important.
In
Romans 2:5-11, the apostle presents the last step of his argument and describes
what lies ahead for those who refuse to face the true condition of their lives.
But because of your stubbornness and your
unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of
God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God "will give
to each person according to what he has done." To those who by persistence
in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, he will give eternal life.
But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil,
there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every
human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory,
honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the
Gentile. For God does not show favoritism.
I
am amazed to see in my own heart how often I expect God to show favoritism.
Even as a Christian, I expect him to overlook areas of my life without my
having to acknowledge them. I hope he'll forget them without revealing to me
what they are really like. Yet the Scriptures tell us that God constantly
allows us moments when we can see ourselves clearly--and what valuable times
these are!
Treasures
of Wrath
Here
in Romans 2, Paul says that when we refuse to judge the sinful areas of our
lives that God allows us to see, we are: storing up wrath for ourselves. In the
King James version the word is "treasures." We are laying up
treasures--but the treasure is wrath! This is the same word Jesus employed when
he said, "Lay up treasures for yourselves in heaven." We are
constantly making deposits in a bank account which we must one day collect. In
his wrath, God allows us to deteriorate. We become less than what we wanted to
be, and it is because we are receiving back the deposit of wrath we have laid
up for ourselves.
C.
S. Lewis has described this eloquently in Mere Christianity.
People often think of Christian morality as a
kind of bargain in which God says, "If you keep a lot of rules I'll reward
you, and if you don't I'll do the other thing." I do not think that is the
best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a
choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses,
into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life
as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are
slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or info a
hellish creature: either info a creature that is in harmony with God, and one
with other creatures, and with itself; or else into one that is in a slate of
war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself. To be
the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge
and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and
eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state
or the other. (from "Morality
and Psychoanalysis" in Book III, Christian Behavior)
God
is a righteous God. He judges men and assesses wrath against those who do
wrong. No matter how the outward life may appear, he sees the inward heart and
judges on that basis. Righteous judgment is waiting; and yet it comes (in part)
throughout all of life, because we experience the wrath of God even now. But a
day is coming when it will be fully manifested. The question Paul brings out
here is this: What do you really want out of life? What are you seeking? Do you
"by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality"?
That is, do you want God's life, do you want to be his kind of a person, do you
want to honor him and be of value to him? If that is what you really want above
everything else, then you will find it. God will give you eternal life. In the
context of the whole Scripture, this means you will find your way to Jesus
Christ, for he is life eternal. You will find him as your Redeemer and Lord and
Savior. You will grow increasingly like him as you judge these evil areas of
life, and honestly confess them rather than assuming God will pass over them.
What do you really want? Is it pleasure, fame, wealth, power, and prominence?
Do you want to be the center of things and have everyone thinking of you and
looking at you and serving you? If so, then according to this passage, for you
and "for every human being who does evil" the reward "will be
trouble and distress."
Consistent
with Love
Now
if all this sounds harsh and unloving, you have not read the passage in its
context. For the picture given is of a God who loves us so much that he tells
us the truth--and that is true love. He loves humanity and wants to restore it.
Having fallen into the trap of self-deceit, we hear him tell us the only way
out.
God's
love helps us see that there is only one way to deal with sin; Admit it is
there, and recognize that God has already dealt with it in Christ. On this
basis, God offers us full and free forgiveness. There is no other way.
Other
voices lead us to rationalize our faults and accept them as something other
than ugly sins before God. But anyone who listens to these voices will discover
ultimately that he has stored up a treasure house of wrath. That is why God
tells us the truth now.
In
great love and at tremendous cost, God has provided a way out. It is that we
surrender self. We must give up self-seeking and living for ourselves and begin
to live for the God who made us. By the power of the Lord who forgives us and
restores us and makes us his own, we will have heaven instead of hell.
This
principle of giving up self must run all through life, from top to bottom, as
C. S. Lewis urges (again, in Mere Christianity):
Give up yourself, and you will find your real
self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your
ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the
end: submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep
back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours.
Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for
yourself; and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair,
rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him
everything else thrown in. (from "The New Men" in Book IV, Beyond
Personality)
This
is the gospel at which Romans 2:1-11 is aiming. There is no hope, none
whatsoever, except in a day-by-day yielding to the plan and the program of God
as we find it in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Perhaps
you are now seeing yourself in a new light. You see your need to stop
justifying and excusing yourself, and you know you need God's forgiveness just
as much as if you were a cold-blooded murderer. We all do.
Or
perhaps as a Christian you are realizing how often you condemn and criticize
other people, thereby blocking the flow of God's life within you, and keeping
back the joy and peace he wants you to enjoy.
If
so, then above all else take seriously God's way of escape. Admit your sins
freely. Receive the forgiveness of God on the basis of the work of Jesus Christ
in his death on the cross, and take hold of his resurrection life now available
to us.
That
is our only hope.
5 ACCORDING
TO LIGHT
(Romans 2: 12-29)
Men
and women everywhere desperately need the gospel. In the gospel, God found a
way to condemn our sin and to destroy it without destroying us. No man can do
that. When we want to correct evildoers, we have to punish them by imprisoning
them. Sometimes, to protect society, we have to take their lives. But God does
not do that. Jesus, the center and heart of the gospel, changes people. He can
change our most fundamental urges from self-centeredness and selfishness to
loving concern for others, so that our behavior is altered. In the gospel God
makes divine power available to us. God has promised to us and provided for us
an ultimate destiny that is beyond our wildest dreams. And yet, amazingly, many
people resist it and stubbornly hold out against it.
So
far in Romans Paul has described the obviously wicked man (who defies God) and
the self-righteously moral man (who deludes himself). Now we come to the last
two types of people who resist the truth. The first is the unenlightened pagan.
Here we will deal with the question of what to do about people who have not
heard the gospel. What about those who live where the Bible is unknown, or
those who belong to a different religion ignorant of the facts surrounding the life,
death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ? In this passage Paul will show their
problem is that they defile their consciences. The last type is the religious
devotee who seeks deliverance from the judgment of God by religious practices,
rituals, performances, and knowledge of the truth. His problem is that though
he knows the truth, in his actions he denies that truth.
By Their
Own Standards
These
two types of people are introduced by a statement of the universal lostness of
mankind:
All who sin apart from
the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will
be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in
God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous
(2:12-13).
This
is probably the strongest statement Paul makes, and it answers the question
non-Christians ask Christians more often than any other--"What about the
people who have never heard of Jesus Christ?" Usually they are thinking of
naked savages in jungles. They seldom think of the savages in the concrete
jungles of our cities, but both are in the same condition. Paul's answer is
that they will be judged by their own standards. God judges men, not according
to what they do not know, but according to what they do know.
So
far in Romans, Paul has made three great statements about the basis of
judgment. In Romans 2:2 he says that God's judgment is according to truth--it
is realistic. He deals only with what is actually there. God does not falsely
accuse anyone, but he judges according to the truth. Then in Romans 2:6 he says
God judges according to works. Now that is interesting, because it shows God is
patient. God--who does see what is going on in our inner lives and who could
judge immediately on that basis--nevertheless waits patiently until our inner
attitude begins to work itself out in some deed, speech, or attitude.
Therefore, God allows men to be their own judge, to see for themselves that
what is coming out reveals what is inside.
In
Romans 2:12-13 Paul says the judgment of God is according to light. God is not
going to summon all mankind and declare that they are going to be judged on the
basis of the Ten Commandments. Rather, he will say to each one, "What did
you think was right and wrong?" And then, "Did you do the right, and
not the wrong?" By that standard, of course, everyone fails. Paul makes
that clear. He says, "All who sin apart from the law will also perish
apart from the law." The fact that such people never heard the Ten Commandments
(or anything else in the Bible) does not mean God will accept them. They will
perish, not because they did not hear, but because they did not do what they
knew was right.
Now
Paul goes on to take up the case of the unenlightened pagan:
(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law,
do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even
though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the
law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their
thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) This will take place on the
day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel
declares (2:14-16).
Verses
14 and 15 are in parentheses so as not to distract too much from the main flow
of Paul's argument, which is that a day is coming when God will judge the
secrets of men everywhere and all that is hidden will be revealed. Jesus
himself spoke of that day: "What you have said in the dark will be heard
in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will
be proclaimed from the housetops" (Luke 12:3). There were some in Paul's
day who said that because the Jews had the law and knew God's truth, they would
not be condemned in that final judgment. But Paul is saying, "Look, if
your knowledge of truth is what saves you, then everyone will be saved, even
the savages and the pagans, for they show they have a law, too. They know a
great deal about the law; it is written on their hearts, and their consciences
act as judges within them, just as they do within those of us in the more
civilized world." On that basis, you see, everyone would be saved. But God
does not judge that way.
Written on
Hearts
Now
here we get a glimpse of what goes on in the primitive world. Men and women who
have never heard anything about the Bible or Jesus Christ or Moses or the Ten
Commandments are nevertheless judged because they have truth written in their
hearts. They know what is right and wrong--they show it in their lives.
An
amazing book called Peace Child tells the remarkable story of missionaries who
went to New Guinea to live among an isolated people so degraded, so sunken in
immorality, that they actually admired treachery They highly regarded any man
who could win someone's love and trust, and then betray and murder him. Such a
man was held up as an admirable person to follow. When the missionaries first
came to these people they despaired of ever reaching them, for there seemed to
be no ground of appeal to a people who had so reversed the moral standards of
life.
As
they lived among them and became better acquainted with their culture, however,
the missionaries discovered that this moral reversal was not quite universal.
In one particular practice---the exchange of a "peace child"--the
people observed a high moral standard. If a tribe handed over one of its
children to another tribe, the tribe receiving the child was then bound to
honor its agreements and treaties with the first tribe. If they did not, they
would lose face and be regarded as despicable. At this point the missionaries
were able to introduce the gospel: They pointed out that God has given us a
peace child in Jesus Christ, and therefore all tribes are bound to honor God.
It is a remarkable story, showing clearly how God prepared the way for the
gospel's entrance into this culture.
The
Romans of Paul's day were living according to conscience; and yet the
conscience, as Paul points out here, never brings a settled peace. People say,
"Let your conscience be your guide," but that is a recipe for
unhappiness. If your conscience is all you have, you are certain to alternate
between fleeting peace and fear.
An
interesting article in Christianity Today by Rachel Saint, sister of one of the five
men cruelly murdered by the Auca Indians in Ecuador in 1956, describes the way
the Aucas lived before the gospel came:
The Aucas have been thoroughly acquainted with
demons and devil worship for many generations. The result of this is a religion
of terror. The witch doctor is the central authority, and he controls the
tribe. Any death is supposed to be caused by the witch doctor. Then that death
has to be avenged and the feuding starts. They are afraid that they might be
speared at night in their own houses. Everyone is a potential enemy. If a
father loses a son, he feels he must kill his daughter. If the group loses a
marriageable girl, a grandmother is killed. Why should a worthless old woman
live if a marriageable girl has died? This kind of thinking permeates their
culture.
Thoughts
like this appear not only in the jungles of South America, but wherever people
are governed only by the law of conscience. Yet even under their own law they
will perish, just as certainly as do those who are judged by God's law; for
they do not obey their own consciences.
Religious
Braggarts
Paul
goes on to take up the case of the religious devotee of his day, the Jew. Today
we need only substitute the title "church member" to apply it to
ourselves. We American church members are in the same condition as the Jew of
Paul's day. We have a great body of truth in which we delight, and we feel
proud of our knowledge and our understanding of it. But unfortunately we often
think our knowledge in itself will deliver us in the sight of God.
This
is how Paul handles such thinking:
Now you, if you call
yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God;
if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed
by the law; if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light
for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of
infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and
truth--you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach
against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit
adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You
who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? As it is
written: "God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you"
(2:17-24).
Paul
lists here the five great advantages which the Jews of his day had and on which
they relied for their position before God. First, they rejoiced in having the
law. Many people in our churches today rely greatly on the fact that the Bible
is available to them. Many take pride in owning a specific version: "I'm a
King James Christian," or "We're liberated! We have the NIV."
Such bragging is exactly what the Jews were doing in Paul's day. They gloried
in having the Torah.
Second,
they boasted about their relationship to God. The Jew made it clear he had an
inside track with the Almighty. You hear people talking the same way today:
"God and I were talking the other day..." We make it clear we have a
special standing with the "Good Lord," and brag about it.
Third,
the Jews knew the will of God. They had the Scriptures, they had the Ten
Commandments and the knowledge of what God wanted. Many today boast about their
knowledge of the Word of God, and they rest upon that fact.
Fourth,
these Jews approved of what was superior--they rejected certain attitudes and
actions and chose only what was regarded as morally preferable. Many, many
church members do this. They take pride in saying they do not do certain
things. I am amazed at how many people think God is going to be impressed by
the things they do not do. "We don't dance, we don't drink, we don't go to
the movies, we don't play cards, we don't drink coffee," and on and on.
Finally,
the Jews were instructed in the law. Many could quote great passages of
Scripture, and they took pride in that.
Now,
there is nothing wrong with any of these advantages except that the Jews--and
many of us today--depend on them for righteousness. We think we have a special
standing with God because of them; and so did the Jews. In fact, Paul goes on
to list four privileges which the Jews considered theirs because of these
advantages.
First,
they felt they were guides to the blind. Today we have people who are always
ready to correct those around them, to set straight those unfortunates who have
not yet learned anything.
Second,
the Jews thought they were a light to those in the dark. Every now and then we
run into people who are quite ready to dazzle us with their knowledge of the
Scriptures. They know all about the antichrist, they know when Christ is coming
again, they know all the elective decrees of God, they are thoroughly
acquainted with the supralapsarian position of Adam before the fall, and so on.
They take great pride in this knowledge.
Third,
the Jews felt they were instructors of the foolish. A lady once came up to me
after a service and told me a long, painful story of how she had injured her
wrist in an auto accident. The doctor who took care of her in the emergency
room happened to let a couple of curse words slip while working on her. She
lectured him at great length about how she was a Christian, how she wouldn't
listen to this kind of language, and how terrible it was that he took the name
of God in vain. This attitude is typical of many who feel they are instructors
of the foolish because they know the Scriptures.
The
fourth privilege of the Jews was that they were teachers of children. I am
amazed at how many want to teach Sunday School classes for the wrong reason.
Now there is a right reason, but many want to teach simply to satisfy their own
egos.
Paul's
judgment of such people is, "You are guilty yourself." Paul finds in
the Jew what he had condemned earlier in the moral Gentile. "You are
outwardly righteous and correct, but inwardly you are doing the wrong
thing." They were envious, proud, covetous, lustful, bitter, dangerous
people.
Jews
were notorious in the Roman Empire for being over-sharp in business deals. That
is why Paul says, "You who preach against stealing, do you steal?"
They were not above a little hanky-panky with the slave girls they had to deal
with. Paul says, "You who say that people should not commit adultery, do
you commit adultery?" They were ready to profit from trade with pagan
temples. He says, "You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?" They
bragged about the law, but Paul says, "God's name is blasphemed among the
Gentiles because of you."
This
was the ultimate judgment upon the Jews. Blasphemy was to them the worst of
sins. Yet Paul says, "Though you claim to have so much and be so
knowledgeable, yet what you have done is to blaspheme God. People have been
turned away from God because of you." I do not think I have to detail how
true that is of American Christianity. Not only in this country, but around the
world, Christians have caused people to turn from God because of our attitudes
and the way we approach people. Yet the people who keep close records of how
many they win to Christ never seem to keep records of how many they drive away!
Resting on
a Symbol
Now
Paul singles out and seizes upon the supreme symbol of Jewish
separatism--circumcision.
Circumcision has value
if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you
had not been circumcised, If those who are not circumcised keep the law's
requirements, will they not he regarded as though they were circumcised? The
one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you
who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker
(2:25-27).
The
Jews, of course, prided themselves (and still do today) on the rite of
circumcision, the symbol that they were God's people. You only need to
substitute baptism, confirmation, or church membership to apply that to
twentieth-century Protestant and Catholic Americans. So many Americans rest
upon these things as the sign that they belong to God. Paul says this is
useless and worthless unless something has happened in the heart.
Paul's
conclusion about the religious man comes in verses 28 and 29.
A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly,
nor circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one
inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by
the written code, Such a man's practice is not from men, but from God.
This
last phrase is a play on words. The Hebrew word for praise is like the word Judah, from which we get the
word Jew.
Paul says the true Jew isn't praised by men but by God; and clarifies what
constitutes a true Jew in God's sight.
Now
this is one of the most hotly debated questions in Israel today. The Israelis
are constantly trying to decide what is the basis of Jewry. What makes a Jew?
Is it religion? Is it observing the Old Testament law? Keeping a kosher
kitchen? Many Jews are atheists and have no use for the Old Testament. Yet they
claim to be Jews because their ancestors, as far back as they know, were Jews.
Is that the basis on which to claim Jewishness? There are black Jews who
petitioned for a long time to belong to Israel, and some have recently been
admitted. But other Jews say you have to be white to be a Jew. What makes a
Jew?
Paul
says nothing outward makes you a Jew. One becomes a true Jew when his heart is
changed. As with Abraham and Jacob, you become a Jew when you believe in Y'shua
Hamaschiach, Jesus the Messiah, The Jews for Jesus organization tells people
this today. What makes you a Jew is not the culture from which you come, the
ritual through which you have gone, the circumstances of your life or ancestry or
history--but the fact that you have come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. This
makes you a Jew. Paul wrote in Galatians 3:29, "If you belong to Christ,
then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."
Paul's
conclusion to Romans 2 is that man without Christ is hopelessly lost. He defies
God, deludes himself, defiles his conscience, and denies what he himself
teaches; thus he is absolutely, hopelessly lost until he comes to know the Lord
Jesus and lives on the basis of that relationship. This is what makes a
Christian. It isn't a question of whether you are baptized, galvanized,
sanforized, or pasteurized. The question is, Do you have faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ? And have you received the gift of righteousness which God gives
to those who do not deserve it and cannot earn it, but receive it by his love
and grace? We will see what additional problems this raises with the Jews in
the next section of Romans.
6 TOTAL
SHORTFALL
(Romans 3:1-20)
As
we go through Romans, notice how logically and powerfully the apostle Paul
develops his subject. Evidently he possessed a vivid imagination which he used
skillfully to illustrate and illuminate what he wanted to say. I never fail to
be delighted at how the mind of the apostle Paul works as he sets this truth
out for us.
The
first twenty verses of chapter 3 divide easily into two parts. The first eight
verses are an imaginary dialogue the apostle holds with the Jews. The second
part, verses 9 to 20, is his powerful description of mankind's condition before
God. The dialogue with the Jews grows out of the closing verses of chapter 2,
in which Paul says the only thing that makes a man a Jew is faith in the
Messiah. At this point Paulās vivid imagination comes into play; he sees an
imaginary rabbi standing up and arguing with him. Perhaps this actually
happened many times in the course of Paul's travels throughout the Roman
Empire, speaking as he did in many synagogues and encountering many a
knowledgeable rabbi.
Paul
imagines three arguments from this Jewish objector. In our own culture, you can
place any religionist in this Jew's place Mormon, a Christian Scientist, a
Hindu, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Baptist, a Presbyterian, a Catholic. Anyone who
counts on religion will offer the same kind of argument.
The Supreme
Advantage
Paul
first imagines the rabbi saying, "Now, hold it! Wait a minute! These
things that you say don't count are the very things God himself has given to
us. Circumcision came from God and he required it of the Jews. God gave the law
to the Jews, and called them his chosen people. So Paul, you're setting aside
what God has established. If these things don't count, what advantage is there
in being a Jew?" This question and Paulās answer are phrased in the first
two verses of chapter 3.
What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew,
or what value is there in circumcision? Much in every way! First of all, they
have been entrusted with the very words of God.
When
Paul says "first of all" he does not mean first in a long list of
advantages, though he did see many advantages in being a Jew. What Paul means
by "first" is supremely, chiefly. The great glory in being a Jew in
Paul's day was that the Jews had the law. They possessed the written Word of
God. Paul says this is a tremendous advantage. Already he has shown that
everyone is under law; nobody is without a moral standard. The conscience lays
hold of the law written in people's hearts to tell them whether they are doing
right or wrong. Light is given to everyone. No one lives in darkness.
But
though everyone has light, the Jews had an additional degree. They were given
the written Word on stone, permanently preserved. Thus they had knowledge of
God's mind and will and character that other people didn't have. They had a
greater opportunity to know and obey God than anyone else in that day. But they
failed to make use of this tremendous advantage, and it did them no good at
all. They were no better off than if they had never known the law because they
did not put it to its intended use.
To Hunt for
Needles
Imagine
an island in darkness, filled with people. There is only one way to escape the
island--a narrow bridge over a deep chasm--but the darkness is so great that
only a few find their way across. Everyone on the island has been given a
little penlight, but it dimly illuminates only a small space around them,
barely enough to reveal even the most obvious obstacles in their path.
One
group of islanders, however, is given a powerful searchlight that can shine
thousands of yards into the darkness. They can use it not only to find their
own way across the bridge, but also to show everyone else the way. Yet instead
they spend their time using this powerful searchlight to look for needles in a
haystack.
This,
in essence, was what the Jews were doing. The rabbis were arguing constantly
over infinitesimal theological differences. Jesus called this "straining
at a gnat, but swallowing a camel." They argued over how many steps
constituted a violation of the Sabbath and whether spitting on a rock is
permissible on the Sabbath, or whether spitting on mud is a violation. One
would be right, and the other wrong. This is what they used the law for. Though
the Jews had a tremendous advantage in having the law, Paul says they failed to
use it properly.
Now
the imaginary rabbi comes back with a second objection:
What if some did not have faith? Will their lack
of faith nullify God's faithfulness? Not at all! Let God be true, and every man
a liar. As it is written: "So that you may be proved right in your words,
and prevail in your judging" (3:3-4).
The
rabbi asks, "Paul, are you suggesting that if some Jews did not
believe"--the rabbi is ready to admit this possibility--"then God
would forget his promises to all the Jews? Are you saying that just because
some of us don't measure up to what God required in the law, everyone in Israel
has lost the promise God gave them? You seem to suggest that God isn't
interested in the very rituals he himself instituted. Are you saying that all
these things mean nothing to God? Are you saying God is so upset by the
disbelief of just a few Jews that he has canceled all Israel's
prerogatives?"
Paul's
answer--"Not at all!"--uses the strongest negative words in the Greek
language: literally, "May it never be!" or as translated in some
versions, "God forbid!" To say otherwise would suggest God has
failed, that he gave a promise and then did not keep it just because a few
people failed to measure up. So God would be at fault. We always tend to blame
God for what goes wrong in our lives, for our inability to fulfill what God
demands, but Paul says, "Never let this be! Let God be true, and every man
a liar." God keeps his Word no matter how men fail.
Let God Be
True
Paul
then quotes from Psalm 51, the second half of verse 4. When David repented of
the twin sins of murder and adultery, he wrote this beautiful psalm, in which
he confesses his sins to God:
Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done
that which is evil in thy sight, so that thou art justified in thy sentence and
blameless in thy judgment (Psalm 51:4 RSV).
David
had tried to hide his sins, refusing to admit them to God or to anyone else. He
went on acting as though he were righteous, letting people think he was still
the godly king of Israel. Then God sent Nathan the prophet, who speared him
with his long, bony finger, and said, "Thou art the man!" David's
sins were exposed; he admitted and confessed them to God. He said, "It is
not you who are to blame, God; I did it." So Paul says, "Let God be
true and every man a liar" --even if all Jews fail in their belief, God
will still fulfill his promise.
How
can God do this? God has said that some will believe. But if everyone fails to
believe, how can he keep his word? Paul says, "That's your problem, not
God's." When the Pharisees boasted to John the Baptist that they were
children of Abraham, John said, "Don't you understand that God can raise
up children of Abraham from these stones?" (see Luke 3:8). If men fail,
God has unlimited resources to fulfill his promise. So there is no objection at
this point. God will still fulfill his promises to the Jews (and all
religionists) despite the failure of some; but that promise is based on faith,
not ritual.
A
third objection from the rabbi is raised in verse 5, and Paul responds in verse
6.
But if our unrighteousness brings out God's
righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing
his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.) Certainly not! If that were so,
how could God judge the world?
As
Paul says, this is a common argument. You still hear it today. People say,
"If what we're doing makes God look good because it gives him a chance to
show his love and forgiveness, how can he condemn us? We've made him look good.
We've given him a chance to reveal himself, and that's what he wants. So he
can't condemn us for our sins. In fact, let's sin more and make him look all
the better!" They say, "If God is glorified by human sin and failure,
as the Scriptures say, then let's sin all the more."
Locked into
Evil
Paul's
answer is to carry this argument to its logical conclusion. If everyone lived
on this basis, no one could be judged and God would be removed as judge of all
the world. It would demean God. God would be no better than the worst of men.
He could not act as a judge if he actually arranged things so that sin would
glorify himself. If God cannot judge, he is demeaned; if he does not judge, the
entire world is locked into perpetual evil. There would be no way of arresting
the awful force of human evil in this world. This is, therefore, a ridiculous
argument.
The
fact is, sin never
glorifies God. Sin always has evil results; it does not produce good. As the
Scriptures say, "The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that
nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the
Spirit will reap eternal life" (Galatians 6:8). This is an ordained law of
God which no one can break.
Paul
strengthens his argument with a personal illustration in verses 7 and 8.
Someone might argue, "If my falsehood
enhances God's truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still
condemned as a sinner?" Why not say--as we are being slanderously reported
as saying and as some claim that we say--"Let us do evil that good may
result"? Their condemnation is deserved.
The
NIV text adds the words, "Someone might argue," but they do not
belong here. Paul is saying that he includes himself in the circle of
condemnation. He speaks of "my falsehood." If you look back in Romans you
can see how he has narrowed this circle. In chapter 1 he talks about what
"they" are like--"They are without excuse." Chapter 2 comes
down to "You, O man, who judge another, you are without excuse." Then
in chapter 3 it is "our unrighteousness," and finally, "my
falsehood." I love this because it means that Paul does not consider
himself, even as a believer, beyond the possibility of sin. He is just as
capable of falsehood as anyone else. And his falsehood is subject to the
condemnation of God just as anyone else's is. Paul does not hold himself up as
better than others.
Paul
continues, "Let's go on to say the logical thing: Let's do evil that good
may come." What a ridiculous argument, he concludes. Why, that removes all
difference between good and evil. This is what people are saying today.
"There's no such thing as good or evil. Whatever you like is good;
whatever you don't like, that's evil. The difference between good and evil is
only in your mind." You see how up-to-date this argument is? Paul says it
is ridiculous. The logical conclusion to such thinking is moral chaos and
anarchy. No one could judge anything. We would simply plunge into an abyss of
immorality in which anyone could do anything, and none would dare raise a hand
in opposition. This would produce moral chaos. So, Paul says, condemning this
kind of reasoning is well deserved.
In
verses 9 through 20, Paul introduces and answers another question:
What shall we conclude then? Are we any better?
Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are
all under sin (3:9).
I
think it would be better to change the phrase "Are we any better?" to
"Do we have any standing at all?" For this is what Paul is really
saying. He has looked over all mankind and says, "Is there any ground by
which a man or woman can please God apart from faith in Christ? Is there any
way you can try to be good and make it?" His answer: None at all. No one
can make it on those terms.
Already
he has demonstrated the universal condition of both Jews and Gentiles. He has shown
that blatantly wicked people end up defying God; therefore they cannot make it.
The morally self-righteous, who pride themselves on their good conduct and
clean living, simply delude themselves. So they cannot make it. Unenlightened
pagans in all the jungles of the world defile their own consciences, and they
don't make it because they don't live up to their own standards. The religious
zealots deny in deeds what they teach in words, and so they cannot make it.
They are all deficient.
Scripture
Summary
Now
comes the final touch in which Paul gathers up what the Scriptures say on this
subject. We are living in a day when what men say is considered the final word.
The Scriptures may be looked at, bur are not taken as authoritative. The
apostles, however, never created Scripture this way. They listened to what men
said, but when it came to final authority, they said, "What Scripture says
is it!"
Paul
compiles Scriptures from the Psalms, the Proverbs, and Isaiah to show that what
he has described, God had already said. The content of the Scriptures he uses
divides into three clear parts: first, the character of man as God sees it;
then the conduct of man in both speech and action; and finally, the cause of
all this.
Here
is man's true character:
As it is written:
"There is no one righteous, not even one..." (3:10).
Isn't
that astounding? Surely the total depravity of the human heart is revealed by
this Statement. Think of all the nice people you know. They may not be
Christians, but they are nice people--good neighbors, gracious people who speak
lovingly and do kind things. Looking at them, God says: "There's not one
among them who is righteous, not even one." (We mentally add, "Except
me." Right?)
Éthere is no one who understandsÉ
Think
of all the people today who search to understand the mystery of life. All over
the world--in temples, in universities, in nature--people are asking, Why are
we like we are? And in all that vast array of searchers, God says there is not
one who understands, not even one.
Éno one who seeks God(3:11).
What
a claim that is! Here are all these religious people flocking to temples and
churches and places of worship around the world, going through various motions
and rituals. What are they looking for? We would say they are looking for God,
but God disagrees. He says no one searches for God. They are looking for a god,
not the God--the God of truth and justice who created all things.
All have turned away
they have together become worthless;
There is no one who does good,
not even one (3:12).
This
could hardly be clearer. No one--not one single person--does good. Do you find
that hard to accept? Then imagine someone invented a camera that records
thoughts. Imagine that at a Sunday morning service the camera would be scanning,
picking up everything on your mind: what you thought when you sat down, what
you thought when the person next to you sat down, what you were thinking during
the hymn, and what you were thinking during the prayer. At the same time, the
camera would be recording the thoughts of everyone else around you. Then you
heat an announcement that next Sunday, instead of the regular service, a
screening of the film from that camera would be presented. I wonder how many
would show up? But this is the stark revelation from Scripture of what God sees
when he looks at the human race. There is no one who does good, not even one.
Then
he details why. First, our speech:
Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit.
The poison of vipers is on their lips.
Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness
(3:13-14).
This
passage covers the whole realm of human speech. It begins down in the throat,
it comes to the tongue, then the lips, and then the whole mouth. From the
inward to the outward parts it moves. Deep down, Paul says, God sees an open
grave with a stinking, rotten corpse and a horrible stench. Coming up from
there it reveals itself, ultimately, in vulgarity and bitterness.
Do
you ever wonder why children love toilet talk? Or why adults like words with
double meanings? You hear them on television all the time. What is down in the
heart comes out in the speech--not only vulgarity, but hypocrisy. "Their
tongues practice deceit." Those little white lies, the way we erect
facades, the way we claim to feel one way when we actually feel another--we
think all this deceit is harmless and unnoticed. But God sees it. "The
poison of vipers is on their lips." This is a picture of the tongue used
to slander, to plant poison in another persons heart: the putdown, the sharp,
caustic words, the sarcasm that depersonalizes and cuts off another human
being. This is what is inside, and God sees it with the realism of his holy
eyes.
"Their
mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." If you do not believe that,
just step out on the street and hit the first fellow who comes by right on the
mouth and see what comes out. It will be cursing and bitterness! Cursing is
blaming God; that is profanity. Bitterness is reproaching God because of the
way he has run your life. This is what we hear all the time, even from
Christians. We hear complaints about their circumstances, where God has placed
them, and what he is doing with their life--cursing and bitterness.
Look
now at the deeds that follow.
Their feet are swift to shed blood;
ruin and misery mark their waysÉ
Wherever
man goes, ruin follows. Do we need documentation of that today? Why do cities
develop ghettos and slums? Why do our beautiful mountains and streams become
polluted? It is because of the heart of man.
Éruin and misery mark their ways,
and the way of peace they do not know (3:15-17).
I
have often thought this would be an appropriate slogan for the United Nations!
"The way of peace they do not know." The United Nations is helpless
to stop the cruel wars that continue to flare up all over the world because
"the way of peace they do not know."
The
cause of this follows, in just one sentence:
There is no fear of God before their eyes
(3:18).
That
brings us right back to chapter I, verse 18: "The wrath of God is being
revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men."
When men reject God, they lose everything.
In
these verses we have a clear vision of why God gave the law. But since the Jews
were so convinced that their possession of the law gave them special privileges
in God's sight, Paul now returns to that subject.
Now we know that whatever the law says, it says
to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the
whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared
righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become
conscious of sin (3:19-20).
When
we read this terrible description of the human race as God sees it, it is
almost impossible for us to believe that God does not say, "Enough! Wipe
them out!" If all he sees is wretchedness, evil, deceit, hypocrisy,
vulgarity, profanity, slander--in every heart, every one without exception--our
natural instinct is to conclude that God doesn't want us. But the amazing thing
is that across this kind of verse he also writes, "God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten Son." God did not send the law to destroy
us (and this is very important); he sent the law to keep us from false hope.
The Wrong
Road
Nothing
is worse than going down a road to an important destination thinking you are on
the right track, only to discover the road leads to nothingness. You find you
have been on the wrong track and it is too late to go back. That was what was
happening to man. So God, in his loving-kindness, has given us the law to keep
us from taking a false path. Though the law condemns us, it is that very
condemnation that makes us willing to listen so that we find the right path.
Paul
says the law does three things to us. First, it stops our mouth. We have
nothing to say. You can always tell someone is close to becoming a Christian
when he shuts up and stops arguing. Self-righteous people are always arguing,
"But I ...yes, but... I do thisÉand I do that." Yet when they see the
true meaning of the law, their mouth is shut.
A
friend of mine was given a traffic ticket one day. She was guilty of doing what
she was charged with, but she felt there was some justification for it. She
thought she would go to court and argue it before the judge. She imagined how
she would come in and the judge would ask her if she was guilty. She would say,
"Yes, but I want to explain why." She would then proceed to convince
the judge and all the court that what she did could hardly be avoided and that
she was justified in doing it. Her argument was ready.
But
that isn't what happened. "When I came into that court," she said,
"and stood up there all alone, and the judge was there on the bench,
dressed in his robe, and he looked over his glasses at me and said, 'Guilty or
not guilty?', all my arguments died. I just said, 'Guilty.'" Her mouth was
stopped. This is the first thing the law does: It silences you, and you do not
argue with God anymore.
Second,
Paul says, "The whole world is held accountable to God." This makes
us realize that death will not suddenly dissolve all things into everlasting
darkness, forever forgotten. The whole world has to stand before God. Hebrews
9:27 puts it so starkly: "Man is destined to die once, and after that to
face judgment."
Finally,
the law clearly reveals what sin is. What does the law want of us? Jesus said
all the law is summed up in one word: love. All the law asks us to do is to act
in love. All these things stated in the law are simply loving ways of acting.
When we face ourselves before the law we have to confess that many, many times
we fail to love. We do not love. That is what the law wants us to see. Only
then, when all else fails, are we ready to listen to what follows.
Now
we are ready for verse 21: "But now a righteousness from God . . . has
been made known." This is what Paul wants us to hear. Now we can learn to
love--not by the law, but by the provision of the Son of God.
7 BUT NOW
(Romans 3:21-31)
In
the opening words of Romans 3:21 you can almost hear a sigh of relief. Now,
after God's appraisal of man's efforts to achieve some standing before him,
come God's words of relief, God's total answer to man's total failure:
But now a righteousness
from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the
Prophets testify (3:21).
This
is God's great "nevertheless" in the face of man's failure. In the
subsequent paragraphs, the apostle develops this in his usual reasoned and
logical style. For a little guide to this section, here is the way it breaks
down: In verse 21 we have God's answer to man's failure; in verses 22-24 he
tells us how this gift of righteousness is obtained; verses 25 and 26 tell us
how and why it works; and in verses 27-31 he gives the results that follow.
Let
us look again at the beginning of this passage that is one of the greatest
declarations of the gospel:
But now a righteousness from God, apart from
law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.
This
is what Paul elsewhere calls "the glorious gospel of the blessed
God," the good news of a gift God gives us--the righteousness of God
himself. We have already seen that this word righteousness is greatly
misunderstood. Often it is associated with behavior. If people behave in a
right way, we say they are behaving righteously. But in this part of Romans,
righteousness does not directly touch on behavior. It does not refer to what
you do, but to what you are. The gift Paul is talking about, the gift from God,
is that of a righteous standing before him.
The
real meaning underlying this word is found in the word worth. People everywhere
are looking for a sense of worth. Psychologists tell us this sense of worth is
the most essential element in human activity, and that without it you cannot
function. Therefore, whether we know it or describe it in these terms, we are
all looking for a sense of worth. But the gospel announces that it is given to
us. What people strive all their lives to achieve is handed to us right at the
beginning when we believe in Jesus Christ. According to the gospel, we can
receive it but we cannot earn it. That is the good news. What a wonderful thing
it is!
In
reading an article on some of the movements of our day, I came across these
words by Dr. Lewis Smedes, a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary:
Anyone who can see the needs of people today
must recognize that the malaise of our time is an epidemic of self-doubt and
self-depreciation. Those whose job it is to heal people's spiritual problems
know that the overwhelming majority of people who seek help are people who are
sick from abhorring themselves. A prevailing sense of being without worth is
the pervasive sickness of our age. (from the 1973 article "God's Noble Lad"
in The Reformed Journal)
These
words come from a man who spends a great deal of time with people seeking help
for emotional problems and personality difficulties. Millions of people openly
acknowledge they need such help, and come looking for it. Others never ask, but
behind their smiles and confident airs are insecure hearts and a consciousness
of deep self-doubt. This is the basic problem of mankind.
The
gospel, therefore, deals with something tremendously significant. It does not
have to do only with what happens when you die. This is one of the reasons why
hundreds of churches today are half-empty; so many people do not know that
self-worth is what the gospel is all about. Young people today are looking for
a ground of worth. They want to be loved. All of us do.
But
far, far deeper than the need to feel that some human being loves us is our
need to know that God loves us, and that we are acceptable in his sight, that
we have standing, value, and worth to him. Something about us--that bit of
eternity planted in our hearts by God himself--bears witness that this is the ultimate
issue. Somehow life can never be satisfying if this issue is not settled.
Therefore this good news comes with powerful relevance today. What God is
offering is a gift of righteousness--his own perfect righteousness that cannot
be improved upon, a perfect value. By faith in Jesus Christ he gives us a sense
of worth and acceptance. There could be no better news than that.
Paul
adds two points to make this clear. First, this righteousness is apart from the
law. That is, it is not something you earn through obedience; it is a gift. You
cannot gain it by doing your best to please God, and anyone who approaches God
on such terms has already failed. There is no way anyone can measure up to
God's standards. The sweetest, dearest little old lady you know cannot make it
on her own, because God knows her heart.
Known from
of Old
Second,
Paul says, this righteousness is witnessed by "the Law and the
Prophets." This gift is not something entirely new in history, something
only Jesus Christ brought to light. He did make it known, so that we understand
it far more clearly, but it is found in the Old Testament as well as in the
New. The saints who lived before the cross knew and experienced the wonder of
this gift just as much as we do today, although they came to it by a different
process.
The
law bore testimony to this righteous gift of God by providing a series of
sacrifices. The Jews knew in their hearts that they did not measure up to God's
standards. The law itself provided a system of offerings and sacrifices that
could be brought and offered on the altar. This system pictured the death of
Jesus; the whole sacrificial system of the Old Testament is a witness that One
is coming, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. They bear
witness to this righteous gift.
The
Old Testament prophets also--such well known men as Abraham, Moses, David,
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and others--not only talked about this gift, but experienced
it themselves. In Psalm 32 David says, "Blessed is he whose transgressions
are forgiven, whose sins are covered . . . whose sin the Lord does not count
against him." David understood that God found a way to give the gift of
worth to men, even before the cross occurred in history. This gift is not new,
Paul says; nevertheless, it is clearly explained and made fully available to us
in the cross of Jesus.
In
the next division Paul tells us how to obtain this gift. Perhaps you are
looking for this sense of worth, this sense of value, of being loved and wanted
by God. How do you get it? Here is Paul's answer.
This righteousness from God comes through faith
in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace
through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus (3:22-24).
There
is one way--expressed here in four different aspects, but only one way--through
faith in Jesus Christ. Notice first how Paul's answer centers immediately on
the person of the Savior; not only on his work or his teaching, but on his
person. It is by faith in Christ himself that you come into this standing. He
is the Savior; it is not what he taught, not even what he gives, but it is he
who saves us. Therefore the gift involves a relationship to a living person.
This
is why John's Gospel does not say, "Believe in what Jesus did," but
rather, "As many as received him, to them he gave power to become the sons
of God." That means there must come a time when you open your life to
Christ, when you ask him to be what he offers to be: your Lord.
Later
in this epistle Paul will say, "If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is
Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be
saved [another term for this gift of righteousness]. For it is with your heart
that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess
and are saved" (10:9-10). In the Book of Revelation Jesus himself says,
"Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and
opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me"
(Revelation 3:20). There is no other way. In all the religions of earth, we
find no way to bring men into a sense of value and standing in God's sight, and
of worth and love before him, except this way--by faith in Jesus Christ.
The Hand
That Takes the Gift
Second,
Paul stresses here that it is "all who believe" who are saved;
righteousness is not automatically and universally applied. Many today teach
that the death of Christ was so effective that whether people hear about it or
not, they are already saved. They do not even need to know about it, for they
are saved by the death of Jesus. But Paul is careful to explain that this is
not true. You are saved when you personally believe. Faith, therefore, is the
hand that takes this gift God offers. What good is a gift if you do not take
it? Only then does it become your property.
The
third element that describes how we obtain this gift is in the phrase,
"Justified freely by his grace." Do you see what that says? It is God
who does this. If you try to say there is anything man must do to be justified,
you will destroy the gift, because it is all of God. We are justified, made
righteous, declared of worth in God's sight, by his grace. If you add baptism
to that, or church membership, or anything else, then you destroy the grace of
God. It is God who freely and completely and wholly saves us. We do not
contribute a thing. Have you ever sung the hymn, "Nothing in my hand I
bring; simply to Thy cross I cling"? That is one beautiful way of expressing
it.
The
last word in this section is this: The gift comes "through the redemption
that came by Christ Jesus." That is, Christ is the one who accomplished
the work of redemption. Here we are brought face-to-face with the cross, with
the death of Jesus. Many churches are given over to following the teachings of
Jesus but hardly ever refer to his cross. If you find a
"Christianity" that does not emphasize the cross, you are listening
to "another gospel" which is not the true gospel. The real gospel is
based only upon the redemption which Jesus accomplished in his cross.
Paul
now gives a brief explanation of how and why this redemption works.
"How" is found in the opening words of verse 25, and "why"
in the verses that follow.
God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement,
through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in
his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished--he did it
to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one
who justifies the man who has faith in Jesus (3:25-26).
This
is the heart of the gospel, and the ground of assurance. Many people, even
though they become Christians, struggle with assurance. They do not rest upon
the fact that these words are true, so they often struggle with doubts and
uncertainty. They have a sneaking suspicion, deep inside, that perhaps, despite
all these wonderful words, God is still not quite satisfied; if something
should happen to them, they might be lost. Pay careful attention to Paul's
argument here. He gives a full answer to that struggle.
First,
he says that God has accomplished a propitiatory sacrifice. God presented Jesus
as a "sacrifice of atonement" through faith in his blood.
"Sacrifice of atonement" is translated "expiation" in some
versions and "propitiation" in others. I know those words are
theological terms, and may not make much sense; but it is important for us to
understand their meaning, for herein lies the heart of the gospel.
To Release
Love
Expiation
satisfies justice; propitiation releases love. Both of these terms are involved
in the death of Jesus, but expiation does not go quite as far as propitiation.
Propitiation carries us clear through to the releasing of God's love toward us.
That is why I think "propitiatory sacrifice" is a better translation
than "expiation." Let me illustrate the difference.
In
these days we often read of industrial accidents. Let us say that someone has
been injured in the course of his work and has been partially paralyzed. His
company is at fault, having neglected to provide safety equipment, thus
creating the conditions that put this man in danger. So the company is held
accountable for the man's injury and subsequent paralysis. Therefore the court
awards this man a tremendous sum of money, to be paid by the company.
When
the money is paid, the company has expiated its wrongdoings; it has satisfied
the demands of justice. No longer does it have any responsibility toward this
man; it has paid its costly debt. This is what expiation means.
But
how does the man feel toward the company? He may yet be filled with resentment,
bitterness, even hatred. He may spend the rest of his life abhorring that
company's name, even though it has given him all the money he could possibly
use. The debt has been expiated, but he has not been propitiated.
What
Paul is saying here is that human sin has injured God, just as the employee was
injured by the negligence of the company. Our sin has hurt and injured God, and
justice demands that we be punished for that sin. In the death of Jesus this
punishment was accomplished so that God's justice was satisfied. If you read
this as expiation, that is all the cross means. In a way, it means that God was
paid off, so that he no longer holds us to blame. But that is not all Paul is
saying here. The word means also that God's love has been awakened toward us;
he reaches out to love us, and grants us the feeling of worth, acceptance, and
value in his sight. This is what propitiation means, and it is what the death
of Jesus does. It satisfied God's justice, but it went further; it released his
love, and now he is ready to pour out love upon us.
Paul
shows us why this had to happen, beginning in the middle of verse 25: "He
did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the
sins committed beforehand unpunished." What is he talking about? He is
referring to all the centuries when God apparently had done nothing about the
wrongdoings of men. People are still questioning this today. They say,
"Where is the God of justice? How is it that a just God lets tyrants rise
up and murder millions of people? How can he let people live in poverty and
squalor and filth? He never seems to do anything about oppressors. Where is the
justice of God?" These questions have been raised for centuries; we even
find them in the Psalms.
The
last time in history that mankind got a clear idea of God's holy justice was in
the Flood. Responding to the wickedness of men toward other men, God wiped out
the whole human race except for eight people. The Flood was a testimony to
God's sense of justice, but there has never been a demonstration of it to that
degree since. So these thoughts arise: "God doesn't really care. It
doesn't matter whether you do wrong or not, God will let you get away with it.
God won't do anything to you." David writes, "Why do the wicked
flourish, and the righteous suffer? Where is the God of justice?" God has
been patiently restraining his hand in order that the human race may continue,
but people do not see that. Therefore the justice of God seems compromised by
his self-restraint.
No
Compromise
But
the cross settles that. The cross says that God remains just. All the stored-up
punishment we amply deserve is now poured out without restraint upon the head
of Jesus on the cross. God did not spare his Son one iota of the wrath that we
deserve. Though Jesus was his beloved Son he did not lessen the punishment a
single degree. All of it was poured out on him. That explains the cry of
abandonment that comes from the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me?"
In
the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus faced the possibility of being shut away from
all love, all beauty, all truth, all warmth, all acceptance, the possibility of
being forever denied all that makes life beautiful. There he faced an eternity
of emptiness in the judgment of God, and this is what he experienced on the
cross; it was all poured out on him.
Paul's
argument is that God did this to demonstrate his justice--so as to be just, and
yet free to extend love to us who deserve only his justice. This is the glory
of the gospel. God's love has been freed to act toward us, and his justice
satisfied, so that he is not compromised when he forgives sinners.
In
the closing paragraph, Paul gives us the results of this forgiveness:
Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On
what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. For we
maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law. Is God
the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too,
since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the
uncircumcised through that same faith. Do we, then, nullify the law by this
faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law (3:27-31 ).
Paul
raises and answers three simple questions to show the natural results of the
acceptance God gives us in Jesus Christ. First, who can boast? No one,
absolutely no one. How can we boast when everyone receives the gift of grace
undeservedly? All ground for self-righteousness is wiped out. This is why the
ugliest sin among Christians is self-righteousness. When we look down on people
who are involved in homosexuality, or greed, or gambling, or whatever--when we
begin to think we are better than they are--then we have denied what God has
done for us. All boasting is excluded. There are no grounds for anyone to say,
"Well, at least I didn't do this, or this, or that." The only ground
of acceptance is the gift of grace.
Second,
no one is excluded from grace, Jew or Gentile. No special privilege or favor
counts in God's sight. He has no "most-favored nation"; all are alike
before him. Paul argues, "Is God the God of Jews only? Then there must be
two Gods--one for the Jews and one for the Gentiles. But that cannot be; there
is only one God; God is one." Therefore he is equally the God of the
Gentiles and the God of the Jews, because both must come on exactly the same
ground. This is the wonderful thing about the gospel. All mankind is leveled;
no one can stand on any other basis than the work of Jesus Christ on his
behalf.
Paul's
third question is, "Does this cancel out the law or set it aside? Do we no
longer need the law?" His answer is no; the gospel fulfills the law. The
righteousness which the law demands is the very righteousness given to us in
Christ. So if we have it as a gift we no longer need to fear the law--because
the demands of the law are met. But it is not something we can take any credit
for; indeed, whenever we act in unrighteousness after this, the law comes in
again to do its work of showing us what is wrong. This is all the law is good
for: It shows us what is wrong, and immediately all the hurt and injury
accomplished by our sin must be relieved by the grace and forgiveness of God.
God's
forgiveness is not something we receive only once, but again and again. It is
the basis on which we live, constantly taking fresh forgiveness from the hand
of God. John's letter puts it this way: "If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all
unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9 RSV). This is God's gift, and we need always
to take it afresh from the hand of God.
When
we find ourselves slipping into self-righteousness, when we find ourselves looking
down our noses, when we find ourselves filled with pride and acting in
arrogance, being critical, callused, caustic, and sarcastic toward one another,
or feeling bitter and resentful--and we are still capable of all these
things--our relationship to a holy God demands that we immediately acknowledge
our sin. We can come back, and God's love is still there. He still accepts us
and highly values us. We are his dearly loved children, and his love never
changes.
This
is what God's gift of righteousness means. It is wonderful news indeed, that we
never need fear the condemnation of God. The God of ultimate holiness, the God
who lives in holy light, whom we cannot begin to approach, has accepted us in
the Beloved, and we stand on the same ground of worth that he himself does, We
can remind ourselves, as I seek to do every day, of three things:
1.
I am made in God's image; therefore I am able to act beyond the capacity of any
animal on earth. I am not an animal; I am a man made in God's image,
2.
I am possessed of God's Spirit. I am forgiven, I am freed, and I am filled.
3.
I am part of God's plan. I am part of the working out of his purposes in the
world today, and God will make everything I do fit into his plan.
Because
these things are true, I can go on with purpose, with confidence, and with
love. I can go on without guilt or fear or any sense of inadequacy. I have
perfect freedom to concern myself with the problems around me, and not be
consumed by the ones inside, which are all taken care of. That is truly
wonderful freedom!
8
THE FATHER OF FAITH
(Romans 4:1-12)
In
chapter 4 of Romans, Paul uses Abraham to illustrate a man who found the
fantastic gift of righteousness, this gift of worth and acceptance and
significance before God. Abraham is one of the great names of history. Few
names are as well-known and honored throughout the world as Abraham's, which is
revered by three faiths--Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. Here is a man who,
by any reckoning, stands head and shoulders above most of humanity. Paul uses
Abraham as an example especially for the Jewish readers of his letter.
In
the first twelve verses of chapter 4 Paul discusses three important questions
about Abraham: How was Abraham made righteous? When was Abraham made righteous?
And why was Abraham made righteous? Paul introduces the first question in
verses 1- 3:
What then shall we say that Abraham, our
forefather, discovered in this matter (that is, in regard to being acceptable
before God)? If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to
boast about--but not before God. What does the Scripture say? "Abraham
believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness" (4:1-3).
Paul
says Abraham discovered two ways to gain a sense of worth. One, Paul suggests,
is by works. Abraham was a man of good works. When God appeared to him and
spoke to him, Abraham believed God, responded to his call, and set out on a
march without a map. He trusted God to lead him to a land he had never seen, to
take care of his family, and to lead them into a place that would fulfill the
promises of God. So Abraham appears in Scripture as a man of great works.
Something
to Boast About
But
Paul says, "If in fact Abraham was justified (that is, made righteous) by
works, he had something to boast about." Abraham discovered early in his
life one way of gaining a sense of significance, importance, or self-respect:
performance. If you can perform well you will be highly regarded and
appreciated. You will have a feeling of self-respect, and you will be able to
function on that basis. If Abraham was righteous because of works, he had
something to boast about. If we can look at the record and show people what we
have done and why we ought to be appreciated--it helps! We may not boast
openly, but we all have subtle ways and clever tricks of getting it out into
the open so people can see what we have done. We drop a hint, hoping that
people will ask more about it. Somehow we manage things so that people will
know we are significant. This is the way the world is today, and the way it was
in Abraham's day.
"But,"
says Paul, "it doesn't work that way in God's eyes." God is never
impressed by outward performance. God sees the heart. He knows the selfishness,
the greed, the grasping, the self-centeredness, the ruthlessness behind our
actions. He sees all the maneuvering and manipulating, the clever arranging
that goes on in our lives and in our hearts.
For
the purposes of God, then, that outwardly beautiful performance is utterly
invalid, worthless. This is why the sense of righteousness resulting from our
performance before men never lasts. It is but a temporary shot in the arm that
we need to recover again and again, almost as though we were addicts. But it
always lets us down in the hour of crisis. Only the righteousness that comes
from God is lasting and will work--not only in time, but for eternity. This is
what Abraham discovered: righteousness which comes from performance is
worthless.
How
did he discover this? Paul says, "What does the Scripture say?" He
refers to the fifteenth chapter of Genesis, where God appeared to Abraham. He
took him out one night and showed him the stars in the heavens. "Abraham,
look up!" Abraham looked up into the stillness of that oriental night,
with the stars blazing in all their glory. God said to him, "Even if you
can number those stars, you cannot number your descendants. Their number will
be far more than all the stars of heaven (see Genesis 15:5). And, Paul says,
"Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness"--self
worth, standing before God, acceptance, a sense of love and value in the sight
of God was his, by faith!
Fill in the
Blanks
When
Scripture says "Abraham believed God," we have to be careful. These
Old Testament accounts are highly condensed. They do not give us the details;
we have to fill them in from elsewhere in Scripture, and often we need to use a
bit of sanctified imagination, guided by what the passage gives us. From other
passages we know that God did not just say, "Abraham, see the stars? So
shall your seed be." But we learn that God explained to Abraham what he
meant by "seed."
In
the letter to the Galatians Paul tells us that God made it clear to Abraham
that when God said, "so shall your seed be," he was talking about
Jesus Christ, who would be the seed of Abraham. God evidently explained to
Abraham that there was One coming who would fulfill all the promises and that
Abraham would have a heavenly seed as well as the earthly seed of his physical
descendants. With regard to his spiritual descendants God said his seed would
be Jesus. It is through Jesus that all Abraham's heavenly seed would come.
When
the Pharisees once said to Jesus, "Abraham is our father," he said to
them, "Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day: he
saw it and was glad" (John 8:39,56). God evidently explained to
Abraham--and Abraham understood by faith--that the seed of righteousness, Jesus
the Lord, was coming. He would die on the cross to remove the penalty and guilt
of man's sin and to settle the question of the justice of God. He would rise
again from the dead as the living Lord to give his life to men and women
everywhere, fulfilling the promise to Abraham. And Abraham believed God. He
believed God's promise about the seed, and so he was justified, made righteous,
given the gift of worth.
Interestingly
enough, when James quotes this passage from Genesis 15 he says (in James 2:23),
"Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,"
then he adds, "and he was called God's friend." That is acceptance,
isn't it? Abraham became God's friend--not because he behaved so well, or
because he was a godly man and obeyed God--but because he believed God's
promise about the seed. Abraham is a beautiful example of what Paul is talking about
here in Romans. Paul illustrates this in verses 4 and 5:
Now when a man works, his wages are not credited
to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work
but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited {or reckoned} as
righteousness (4:4-5).
Here
is an illustration taken from common life, and it is very up-to-date. There is
a tantalizing regulation in the income tax law that awakens my cupidity every
year. The rule says that if money is given to you as a gift, it is not taxable.
I keep looking for ways that will make it appear to the IRS that all the money
I receive from my various functions as a pastor is really a gift. But the IRS
will never buy it. They insist that if you work then what you are given isn't a
gift, but wages, and must be reported.
This
is exactly the argument Paul uses. If you work for something, then what you get
is never a gift, it is what you have earned. You have it as a result of your
labor; it is an obligation that must be paid. Therefore you can take credit for
having earned it. But then Paul draws a conclusion in verse 5: "However,
to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith
is credited as righteousness." He is reckoned righteous--not because he
earned it, but as a gift. Who is Paul talking about? From the context it is
clearly Abraham. This could read: "However, to this man Abraham, who does
not work, but trusts God who justifies the wicked (the ungodly), his faith is
credited to him as righteousness--worth, acceptance, standing, and love from
God."
This
is an amazing declaration of the gospel! It is startling to think of Abraham as
a wicked man, but he was. Anyone who tries to earn acceptance, to earn God's
love, to earn respect and standing before God by trying hard to do things for
him, is a wicked person. That is what the Scriptures say. He is trying to gain
something by his own merit that can never be gained that way. Therefore it is
the height of wickedness.
Many,
many Christians fall into this trap. Having once accepted Christ and believed
on him for their eternal destiny, they spend the rest of their lives trying to
gain a sense of God's approval and love through hard, exhausting, committed,
dedicated labor. But you can never win God's love that way. You can never do
enough. You cannot earn the gift of love--but it is yours if you take it by
faith in Christ, fresh every morning. That is what Abraham did.
In the
Midst of Evil
Paul
now brings in another illustration from the Old Testament to confirm this. He
says David expressed the same idea when he spoke of the blessedness of the man
to whom God credited righteousness apart from works. Paul says David is another
who gained this wonderful gift of righteousness--not by his performance, but by
his faith. In verses 7 and 8 Paul quotes David's words in Psalm 32: 1-2.
"Blessed are they
whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the man
whose sin the Lord will never
count against him."
The
remarkable thing is that David found this gift of self-worth before God when he
was tortured by a guilty conscience. His hands were red with the blood of Uriah
the Hittite and he was troubled with a wrong spirit that had plunged him into
deep evil as the king of Israel.
Paul
thus points outs that Abraham failed to find righteousness by being devout and
moral; he found it when he believed in Jesus, the seed. He was called the
friend of God, not because he was such an obedient servant, but because he
believed in what God said. And the bloody-handed, lustful king, David, failed
to find righteousness by being the king of Israel. In the midst of his evil he
found it in Christ when he believed God; he believed that God did not require
the sacrifice of animals, but a broken spirit that trusted in what God had to
say about the great sacrifice that was yet to come. Thus David is called
"a man after God's own heart."
Now,
would you like to be a friend of God, a man or a woman after God's own heart?
There is a way--not by your performance, but by your trust in Jesus' life and
death and what that means for you every day.
The
apostle moves on to take up when this happens:
Is this blessedness only
for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that
Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances
was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after,
but before! And he received the sign of circumcision a seal of the
righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised(4:9-11a).
Many
today are embarrassed by the Bible's emphasis upon circumcision (which removes
the foreskin around the male organ). Their upbringing has taught these people
that sex is dirty, and that our sexual organs are never to be discussed or
mentioned. They apparently think bodies end at the waist! That, of course,
represents a twisted view of human sexuality. God frequently discusses
circumcision. He chose it as the symbol of this marvelous truth we are talking
about, and he gave it to the Jews for a specific purpose. God is not in the
least embarrassed by it, and I donāt think we should be either. If we will
think through this whole matter of circumcision we will gain some powerful
insights into human life.
No Saving
Value
Paul
makes two points here. First, Abraham was circumcised fourteen years after he
was pronounced righteous by faith, fourteen years after he was called "the
friend of God. " Therefore the ritual of circumcision cannot have any
saving value whatsoever. Abraham was already God's friend fourteen years before
he was circumcised. You can see how effectively that wipes out the arguments of
the Jews from Paul's day on, who claim that circumcision is what makes you
acceptable. This, of course, also cancels out the modern equivalent of
circumcision, baptism. People are justified--made righteous, accepted in God's
sight--not by being baptized, but by faith in the Lord Jesus, in his work and
in his death.
I
will never forget a young man who came into my study one day, Bible in hand,
and announced that he had been reading the book of Genesis. He didn't know a
lot about it, but he startled me by asking, "Would you circumcise
me?" I blinked three or four times, then asked, "Why?" He said,
"I've been reading in this Bible that if you want to know God you have to
be circumcised. I want to know God, so I want to be circumcised." I
patiently explained to him what circumcision meant, that it was simply a sign
of something that was already true by faith. That boy became a Christian and is
still growing in the Lord. As Paul made clear, it is not circumcision which
saves, but faith in Christ.
The
second point Paul makes is that not only does ritual have no value in saving
anyone, but that the real purpose of circumcision was twofold: It is a sign and
a seal. I do not want to offend anyone, but I want to point out how important
God thinks this is. God personally chose the place on a man's body where this
sign, this rite of circumcision, would be placed. God chose to put it on the
male sex organ, and a little thought will tell us why. God wants men to
remember what this ritual stands for. The most important thing you will ever
know is where love, self-acceptance, standing, and significance before God is
to be found. So God placed this sign--out of all the parts of the body he could
have chosen--on this organ, because a man must handle it several times a day.
It is a sign, therefore, impossible to overlook.
Furthermore,
Paul says, it is not only a sign, but a seal. A seal is a guarantee of
permanence. Once again, the rite of circumcision is an unchangeable act. Once
it is done it cannot be undone. Therefore it is a guarantee of the continuity
of this great truth. It is God's way of saying with visible force, "This
is the ground of your life, the secret of your functioning as a human being,
this great truth of acceptance before me. It will never change." Of course
we no longer observe the physical sign of circumcision today (except for health
reasons) but now it is "the circumcision of the heart" which applies
to both male and female.
To Make Him
Father
In
verse 11 and 12 Paul explains why Abraham was made righteous. Beyond the
personal salvation of Abraham himself, God had another reason.
So then, he is the father of all who believe but
have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to
them. And he is also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised
but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had
before he was circumcised (4:11b-12).
The
opening words in this passage should really be, "It was to make him a
father of all who believe." Paul isn't saying that circumcision made
Abraham a father; he is talking about what circumcision stands for, the gift of
being made acceptable before God, being loved by God, a gift of worth from God.
This was given to Abraham, not only for his own personal salvation, but to make
him a father of many more yet to come. Remember the stars in the heavens? That
promise was yet to be fulfilled.
Perhaps
you are not a physical descendant of Abraham. I happen to be. I learned several
years ago from the genealogist of the Stedman tribe that the Stedmans go back
to Abraham--through Ishmael!
That
makes me a physical descendant--but I am not boasting of that. We all are
spiritual sons and daughters of Abraham when we have received worth and
self-respect by believing, as Abraham did, that God meant what he said. He
gives us this gift in Jesus Christ, quite apart from any merit of ours. Thus we
become sons of Abraham, by faith, and he is thus the father of all who believe.
Jesus
illustrated this use of the word father when he said to the Pharisees of his day,
"You belong to your father, the devil" (John 8:44). Now, Jesus did
not mean that in some way the devil had been involved in their conception. What
he meant is that they were following the philosophy of the devil. They were
agreeing with and controlled by the philosophy of the devil; so they were sons
and daughters of the devil.
Likewise,
we think and act like Abraham when we trust that God accepts us because of what
Jesus is and has done for us, and not because of anything we do. In this way
Abraham is Our father and we are his spiritual descendants. Paul says this is
true for those who are uncircumcised, and yet who keep on believing in Jesus;
and it is true of the circumcised (the Jews) who also walk in the footsteps of
the faith of Abraham. So Jews are not saved by being circumcised; they are
saved by trusting God.
This
is the great secret of life. What a change this makes in our motivation if we
know that we do not have to earn God's love, God's favor, God's forgiveness. It
is already ours!
We do not have to earn it, it is ours every day. Nothing I know will set us
more free than that. We do not need to take our sense of worth from other
people. We do not need to maneuver and manipulate and cleverly show ourselves
as people of some significance. We are set free from that. We already have the
only standing that ever counts--our standing before God. So we can relax and
love people without demanding anything back. That is what Christianity is all
about.
9 THE FAITH
OF OUR FATHER
(Romans 4:13-25)
Faith
is a simple thing, but sometimes it's hard to comprehend. Many are confused on
the subject. Some think faith is nothing but mental assent to a truth that if
you believe a thing is true, then you are exercising faith. But faith is more
than simply believing something is true.
Others
believe faith is a feeling, a feeling of confidence. If you have confidence,
you have much faith; if you do not have confidence, then you have little or no
faith. Your faith depends upon how much feeling you can muster. But this is not
true faith, and such a definition deceives many people.
Some
think faith is actually a type of self-deception. Mark Twain said that faith is
believing what you know to be untrue. There are people who actually try to
believe something they know is false. And they talk themselves into believing
it and call that faith.
If
you really want to know what faith is, you have to see it in action. That is
why Paul, in Romans 4, brings in Abraham, the man of faith. Abraham is by no
means the only man who has faith, but he is preeminently qualified as a man of
faith. By looking at Abraham you can learn what faith is. In the first part of
the chapter we looked at the righteousness of Abraham. Now we are going to look at the
faith
of Abraham.
The
apostle points out four things about the faith of Abraham. First, we will look
at the opposite of faith what faith is not. Sometimes the best way to learn
what a thing is, is to learn what it is not. Second, we will look at the
effects of faith--what faith does, what it accomplishes. Then we will look at
what faith actually is--the nature of faith. Last, we will consider the beneficiaries
of faith, or those whom faith helps.
The
Worthless Promise
Let
us begin with what faith is not.
It was not through law that Abraham and his
offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through
the righteousness that comes by faith. For if those who live by law are heirs,
faith has no value and the promise is worthless, because law brings wrath. And
where there is no law there is no transgression (4:13-15).
Here
Paul tells us that faith is not trying to obey and fulfill some kind of law. It
is not doing our best to try to live up to some standard. That is the law, and
no matter what the law is or where it came from, trying our best to live up to
it is not faith. In that case, Paul points out, we are not living by faith, we
are living by works. It is not faith to expect God to accept and love us simply
because we have tried our best to obey some standard. In fact, if we live on
those terms, we will find that we cannot receive what God wants to give us.
Abraham is proof that this method will never bring the gift of righteousness.
If we think God is going to accept, love, and forgive us because we have tried
hard to do what we think is right, we are on the wrong track. It will never
work, and Paul tells us why.
First,
notice that Abraham received the gift, the promise of righteousness, long
before the law was given. "It was not through the law," Paul says,
"that Abraham and his offspring received the promise." In fact, if we
look at Galatians 3:17-18, we find that Abraham received the gift of
righteousness 430 years before the law was given. So righteousness did not come
by the law. That is clear.
Second,
the law renders the promise worthless. "For if those who live by the law
are heirs [of the promise], faith has no value and the promise is
worthless." It is important to understand that. Suppose someone says to
you, "If you will get up off that chair and start flying around the room,
I will give you a thousand dollars." You would have to say, "Forget
it! No one can fly by their natural abilities. You are asking of me something
that I cannot do."
What
does the law require of man? Basically, it requires something we cannot do. It
asks us to love. This is all the law asks us: to love God with all our heart,
strength, and mind, and our neighbor as ourselves. This is all the Ten
Commandments ask, that I act in love all the time, without fail. Simple, isn't
it? Jesus said love is the fulfillment of the law. When I love people, I do
what the law demands. Don't say that by not being angry with them or not
hurting them I am loving them. Love is a positive thing. Love is reaching out,
and the law requires that I reach out in love.
If
I cannot do this, the promise that comes with the law is useless. The promise
is: "Do this and live." If I obey the law, God will accept me as
righteous. Worth, value, and approval will be given to me because I earned them
by doing what the law demanded. But if I cannot, then the promise is worthless.
We cannot love everybody, and we do not. We cannot love God as we ought. It is
not only that we will not, but we cannot. Therefore the law is worthless in
obtaining the promise.
But
Paul does not stop there. He gives another reason why you will never be able to
gain righteousness by trying to meet the requirements of the law: The law
brings wrath. It actually punishes you if you do not measure up. This is what
we find in experience; the law brings wrath. Wrath, as we saw in Romans 1, is
God's removal of all divine protection and restraints so that we are free to do
what we want and have our own way. C. S. Lewis wisely said that the whole world
consists of just two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be
done" and those to whom God is saying, "Thy will be done."
When
God removes the restraints we begin to fall apart. Wrath always results in the
disintegration of the human personality. Emptiness, meaninglessness,
loneliness, and worthlessness possess us because we feel abandoned and lost. We
do not know where to turn, and despair and depression press down on us heavily.
This always happens when wrath comes in. The law brings wrath. Thus, when we
seek to live by law we suffer human disorientation (wrath) as a result.
Paul
amplifies this by saying, "Where there is no law, there is no
transgression." Where there is no law, people do not deliberately disobey
God; they disobey in ignorance. They still die, they simply don't know why.
There are many people today who fall into this category. I find young people
who are living in immorality, living together without marriage, in all
innocence of any transgression. I believe that many of them actually have no
idea there is anything damaging or destructive or wrong about this. Some really
think their action is not hurting them or anyone else.
This
attitude is widespread in our day. What these people lack is light. They have
not yet learned that what they are doing only disintegrates their personality.
They do not see that it destroys them in many subtle and certain ways, and that
ultimately it will lead them into death and hell. What Paul means when he says,
"Where there is no law, there is no transgression," is that death and
hell are taking their toll whether they know it or not. He will expand this
idea in chapter 5, for there he says that sin reigned from Adam to Moses, even
over those who had not yet transgressed (according to Adam's transgression). By
this he means they were acting in ignorance, and yet they were falling apart.
When
the law comes in, it makes me aware of what is wrong. In one sense, that only makes
it worse, because then I may deliberately begin to disobey what God says, and
that will bring more wrath. But the law also brings hope, because when things
get bad enough we are ready to turn to what can deliver: faith in the work of
Jesus Christ. This is why the law will never bring us righteousness. Sincere,
dedicated attempts to obey the law are not faith. Abraham is proof of that.
Fulfilled
by Faith
Next,
let us look at verses 16 and 17, which tell us what faith does:
Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that
it may be by grace and may he guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring--not only
to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham.
He is the father of us all. As it is written: "I have made you a father of
many nations" (4:16-17 ).
Here
is faith in action. If law cannot achieve righteousness, what does faith do?
First, the promise comes by faith. We actually obtain what we desire, this
sense of being approved and loved and wanted and accepted before God himself.
We are a part of his family and we are forgiven of all the past. All this is
achieved by faith, not by seeking to earn it. The promise comes by faith. What
works could not do, faith does.
The
promise includes not only personal self-worth before God, which Abraham
achieved, but it also makes one the heir of all the world. The apostle says,
"All things are yours . . . and you are of Christ, and Christ is of
God" (1 Corinthians 3:21,23). The promise also says you will be indwelt,
as Abraham was, with the Holy Spirit of God. Galatians 3 makes clear that
Abraham received this promise by faith; we receive it the same way Abraham did.
So faith obtains the promise.
The
second thing faith does is to introduce the principle of grace. Law and grace
ate opposed to one another in certain ways. They do not cancel each other out;
they simply do two different things. We need both; we need law and we need
grace. Do not ever say, "I am under grace, therefore I have no need for
law." The Bible never takes that position. It is law that helps me come to
grace, and without it I never would come. But law and grace do not have the
same functions. It is grace that guarantees the promise.
Now
what is grace? There are many ways to define it. I love this one:
God's Riches At Christ's Expense
It
is enrichment we don't deserve. It is all the richness of life--love, joy,
peace, and the fulfillment of the heart's longing--given to us as a gift. There
is an old hymn that puts it well:
"Do this and live!" the law demands,
But
gives me neither feet nor hands.
A better word his grace doth bring.
It bids me fly, but gives me wings.
The
law condemns; grace enables. If you and I had to earn our standing before
God--not only at the beginning of our Christian life, but every day throughout we
would certainly fail somewhere along the line. If it depended upon us,
somewhere we would blow it and lose the whole thing. But if it comes by grace,
if it is purely a gift, and does not depend upon us at all but upon God alone,
then it is guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring. So faith brings in the
principle of grace which guarantees the promise to all who believe.
Now
we come to the heart of the passage in verses 17 through 20. We are ready to
consider what faith actually is.
He {Abraham} is our father in the sight of God, in
whom he believed--the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are
not as though they were. Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so
became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, "So shall
your offspring be." Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that
his body was as good as dead--since he was about a hundred years old--and that
Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the
promise of God. . . (4:17-20).
Paul
gives us three things that tell us what faith is. The key, he says, is the
object of faith. Next, he shows us the obstacles to faith. And then he tells us
the objectives of faith--where faith will bring us.
The Quality
of Our Faith
Abraham,
Paul says, believed God. God was the object of his faith. The quality of our
faith depends upon the object in which we have trusted. The amount of faith I
have has nothing to do with it. This is why Jesus told us that even if we have
only a little faith, like a grain of mustard seed, it will work. The object of
our faith is the important thing.
I
may leave for work tomorrow and go out to the driveway with the utmost faith
that when I get into my car and drive into the street my car will work just as it
was working today. But it may be that while it was parked someone took off the
hubcaps and removed the lug bolts from the front wheels and then put the
hubcaps back on so I cannot see any difference. That may have happened. And
though I have the utmost confidence that my car is going to work properly, when
I get onto the street and turn the corner, sooner or later the front wheels are
going to fall off. I might end up dead--killed by faith!
On
the other hand, I may have become worried a bit by what I have just said, and
perhaps I go out to my car and take off the hubcaps and examine the lug bolts
to make sure they are there. And even then I may not be too confident; I may
start my car and drive it rather timidly down the driveway, still thinking that
something might go wrong. But if no one has tampered with it I am perfectly
safe--even though I have little faith--because the object of my faith is
strong. This is why we should not talk about our faith; we should talk instead
about the God in whom our faith is fixed. This is what Abraham looked at. It is
not a question of how little or how big our faith is; it is a question of how
big our God is! What kind of a God is he?
Two
things about this God helped Abraham tremendously. First, he is the God who
gives life to the dead--the God who makes dead things live, the God who brings
to life again things that once were alive, vibrant, full of life, but which
have died and become hopeless. Second, he is the God who "calls things
that are not, as though they were." He calls into existence things that do
not exist. He is a creative God. The book of Genesis records how God said,
"Let there be ..." and there was. Over and over, for a week, God
said, "Let there be ..." and there was. After six days he rested.
This is the kind of God Abraham had--the God who gave life to the dead and who
called into existence things that did not exist. In this God he fixed his
faith. Abraham's faith worked because the object of his faith was capable of
doing whatever he said.
Obstacles
Now
let us look at the obstacles to faith. Whenever we are called to exercise
faith, there will be obstacles. Abraham teaches us this. There are horrendous
obstacles, and Abraham faced two of them. First, there were hopeless
circumstances. "Against all hope, Abraham in hope believedÉ" It also
says in verse 20, "Yet he did not waver [or stagger] through unbelief
regarding the promise of GodÉ" That is, the promise itself was the second
obstacle to faith because it had such staggering possibilities. It was too good
to be true! That God would make him heir of all the world and give him a
standing before God that he did not deserve was beyond belief. It was too good
to be true, so that was an obstacle to faith. Isn't that interesting? There are
two obstacles to faith: hopeless circumstances and staggering possibilities.
Let us see what Abraham did with them.
What
were the hopeless circumstances Abraham faced? Paul tells us there were two:
Abraham's body and Sarah's womb. Abraham's body was a hundred years old and was
sexually dead. The promise of God hung on the fact that there must be a child
born to Abraham and Sarah. Through that child all the nations of the world
would be blessed by Abraham. And, more important yet, through that child would
come the Seed, Jesus Christ, whom Abraham saw and rejoiced in and who would
make possible the gift of righteousness. Everything hung on the birth of a
baby. Abraham looked at the circumstances and saw his hundred-year-old body and
the barrenness of Sarah's womb. She was ninety years old and had never had a
baby. They had been trying for years and years and no baby had come. These were
the hopeless circumstances.
Now,
here is the beauty of Abraham's faith: He faced the facts. I love that. Paul
says, "Without weakening in his faith, he faced the factÉ" Many of us
think faith is evading the facts--escapism, some kind of dreamy idealism that
never looks at facts, a kind of unrealistic adventuring in which you hope
everything is going to work out. It is never that! Abraham looked at the
facts--his dead body and the barrenness of Sarah's womb--and he faced them
head-on. He sat and thought about it, and he saw how hopeless the situation
was. There was no chance at all! His body was a hundred years old and Sarah's
womb was ninety years old and had never borne children. She was far past the
age of childbearing. It was hopeless.
There
was no hope, yet Abraham believed in hope. How? When he looked at his dead body
he remembered he had a God who raises the dead. And when he thought about Sarah's
barren womb, he remembered he had a God who calls into existence the things
that do not exist. That would take care of everything, wouldn't it? And so,
against all hope, he believed in hope, because of the God in whom his faith was
fixed.
Then
he did one other thing. It is not mentioned here, but this has always intrigued
me. He told Sarah what God had said. I have often wished I could go back in
history and observe certain times, and this is one of them. I would love to
have been a bug on the tent wall when Abraham came in to tell Sarah this news!
As he comes in, she says, "Well, dear, your eggs are ready. What have you
been doing?"
"Oh,
I've been having devotions, and what a wonderful time I had! God told me
something."
"Well,
what was it?"
"Well,
I don't really know how to put this; you'd better sit down. God told me
something very startling that is going to happen to us."
"That's
interesting," she says. "What is it?"
Just
like a man, Abraham blurts it out: "Youāre going to have a baby!"
"What?"
"That's
what God said. You're going to have a baby."
"What,
me?"
"Yes,
you."
"Abraham,
did you stop at the wine shop on your way home this morning?"
And
Sarah laughed. It says so in Genesis. Sarah laughed, "Ha! God said I'm
going to have a baby!" But then Sarah did something else. God had said
something to Abraham that also applied to Sarah, and Abraham must have told
her. I am convinced Sarah must have made a little plaque and put it over the
kitchen sink and meditated on what God said: "Is there anything too hard
for God?" When God says he will do something, is there anything too hard
for him? And you know, when Sarah began to feel pregnant, her faith laid hold
of this promise again. When the baby came, Sarah was a woman of faith, because
she had been thinking of the God for whom nothing is too hard. There is the
faith of Abraham. That is how he handled the hopeless circumstances.
How
did he deal with the staggering possibilities? It is unbelievable that all
nations should be blessed through him. He would be heir of the world, he would
be called the friend of God. Could it be? But Abraham remembered that he had a
God who gives life to the dead and a God who calls into existence things that
do not exist. And so he believed. Staggering as the possibilities were, they
did not stagger Abraham because of the God in whom he believed.
Faith Grows
In
verses 20 through 22 we find the objective of faith. The first is in verse 20:
...but (he) was strengthened in his faith and
gave glory to God.
His
faith was made strong. Faith grows, just as Jesus said it would. If you have
faith like a tiny grain of mustard seed, but the object of your faith is
trustworthy and has promised to do something, then exercise your faith and it
will grow. Obey! Abraham did; and as he believed and obeyed, he was
strengthened in his faith and he gave glory to God. Faith never glorifies man;
it glorifies God. It is God who acts, not man. What is accomplished is not
something we do on behalf of God; it is God who does it by us and through us,
on his own behalf. God, therefore, is thanked; and God is glorified. So faith
grows, and faith glorifies.
In
verse 21 Paul says Abraham also was
Éfully persuaded that God had power to do what
he had promised. This is why "it was credited to him as
righteousness."
Faith
grounds us on the truth, as it did Abraham. He was fully persuaded. This is the
faith that was credited to him as righteousness. Faith grasps the promise.
Faith lays hold of what God has offered. As Abraham's faith grew, he grasped
the promise and found himself loved and accepted by God, a friend of God.
Finally,
verses 23 through 25 deal with the beneficiaries of faith:
The words "it was credited to him"
were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness--for
us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered
over to death for our sin and was raised to life for our justification
(4:23-25).
This
happened two thousand years before Paul, but Paul says God did not write those
words for Abraham alone. For whom were they written then? For us today. We look
at the faith of Abraham and say, "That was extraordinary faith." Paul
says it wasn't; it was ordinary faith. Anyone can exercise such faith if they
want to.
I
can have righteousness, too. I can be a friend of God, accepted before him,
with worth and value in his sight not just once as I begin my Christian life,
but every day, taking it fresh from his hand. I am forgiven of my sins,
restored, every day afresh and anew--a thousand times a day if I need it. All
that Abraham had--the promises of being heir of the world, the indwelling of
the Spirit--are ours as well. This verse says the gift of righteousness is for
those "who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead."
He is still the God of resurrection, the God who can raise from the dead.
"He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for
our justification." So we live by his death and by his life.
Now
if we believe in the God who raised Jesus from the dead and we are ready to
live on the basis of his death and his life for us, we, like Abraham, are heirs
of all the world. All these things are ours, Paul says. The indwelling of the
Spirit is granted to us moment by moment, and day by day, all our life long.
And we, like Abraham, are the friends of God.
If
I have a God who can raise from the dead and who can call into existence the
things that do not exist, I am going to be a very exciting person to live with.
I will never know when a thing that is dead and dull and lifeless may be
touched by the grace of God and brought to life again. When something that I
cannot possibly hope for--something which does not now exist, but which will be
called into existence by the God who calls into existence the things that do
not exist--when such a thing is promised by a God like this, life is an
adventure. Do we have that kind of faith?
10
REJOICING IN HOPE
(Romans 5:1-2)
In
Romans 5 the apostle Paul traces the results of having been justified by faith.
We can see this from the opening word of the chapter "ThereforeÉ" As
a result of what he has already said, Paul comes to certain conclusions.
Therefore, since we have been justified through
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we
have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we
rejoice in the hope of the glory of God (5:1-2).
That
little word "rejoice" is the key to this whole fifth chapter. We find
it again in verse 3: "Not only so, but we also rejoice in out
sufferingsÉ" Have we gone this far yet? This is a higher stage of
Christian growth and development. Finally, in verse 11 we find that the
apostle, with his very logical mind, says, "Not only is this so, but we
also rejoice in God. . . ." This is the third level of Christian growth.
There
is the outline of the whole chapter learning to rejoice at these various
stages--rejoicing in the hope of glory, rejoicing in present sufferings, and
rejoicing in God. As a Christian, if I really understand my theology, I will be
rejoicing, even in the midst of suffering.
As
I look around at Christians, sometimes I wonder if we ever grasp this idea.
Some of us look like we have been marinated in embalming fluid. We never seem
to rejoice. But Christian teaching and doctrine is designed to produce a spirit
that cannot help but rejoice. It isn't something artificial--screwing on a
smile and pretending that I am happy when I am not. When we really understand
Christianity, it will produce a truly rejoicing spirit. If I am a glum bum, I
should study the fifth chapter of Romans and it will turn me into a glad lad!
First,
we learn to rejoice in our spiritual position; then, to rejoice in our present
troubles; and finally, we rejoice in God himself, our powerful Friend. For the
moment, we will look at the first two verses only.
Therefore, since we have been justified through
faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we
have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we
rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
The
first thing we learn as a Christian is that we are justified by faith. To help
us understand what that actually means, the apostle brought in the example of
Abraham, who was justified by faith Those two terms, "justified" and
"faith," are explained to us and demonstrated for us in the life of
Abraham. To be "justified" means that Abraham was declared to be the
righteous friend of God. What we need to understand is that Abraham didn't earn
that. He was given that at the beginning of his relationship with God, when he
believed God about the coming of a promised seed.
The War is
Over
Then,
Paul says, there are three ways by which you can rest whether you really do
believe God's promise and have been justified by faith. Since we have been
justified by faith, the first result is that we have peace with God. As we
think about our lives and our relationship with God, if we really have believed
that God justifies the ungodly, we will have peace with God. I am a Christian.
That means I am in the family, I belong to the family of God. The war is over.
All the conflict between me and God is ended; I am at peace with him.
I
was in Honolulu when World War II ended. We had gone through the excitement and
joy of V-E day some months before, when the war had ended in Europe, but that
was a long way from the South Pacific. Though we were glad that the fighting in
Europe had ended, we still had a war to fight. Out in the South Pacific there
were many bloody battles yet to come. But I will never forget the day it was
announced that peace with Japan had been signed in Tokyo Bay. All over the
world, World War II was at an end. In Honolulu the people simply poured out
into the streets. All over the city lights that hadn't burned for years went
on. There was dancing and shouting and music and laughter, with thousands of
people jamming the beaches and streets of the city, rejoicing because they were
at peace.
That
is something of what happens in the heart when we understand that we have been
justified by faith. The war is over, we are at peace with God. All conflict has
ceased. I think there are at least four things that are immediately true when
we are at peace with God.
Lost Fears
The
first is that we lose our fear of God. There is something in all of us that
instinctively fears God. I remember how awesome God seemed to me as a boy. I
thought of God as a heavenly policeman, always watching me, a stern and
forbidding judge, ready to correct me and straighten me out. I will never
forget the joy that came into my heart when I realized that God was no longer
my judge--he was my Father. When one has been justified by faith, he no longer
fears God as a judge. According to this book and the promises of Scripture, God
no longer must function as a judge in relationship to us. He is now a loving,
tenderhearted, compassionate father. As a father, of course, he does
discipline. That is what love does. But God is no longer a judge. That
beautiful picture our Lord gave us in the story of the prodigal son is the
picture of God as we learn to see him. Having been justified by faith, we
immediately lose our anxious fear of God.
Second,
we lose our fear of death. If we have been justified by faith, we are no longer
afraid to die. When I was young I lived for a while in the Red River Valley of
North Dakota in the little Scottish settlement named after Ayr, Scotland--Ayr,
North Dakota. It was a Presbyterian settlement and held to the old custom of
ringing the bell of the church when someone died. I can still remember lying in
my bed, listening to the tolling of the bell, knowing that someone had died and
feeling the cold clutch of fear in my heart as I faced the possibility of my
own death. Someday I would die. It could even happen while I was a boy. I knew
it could happen to me, and I felt the fear of death.
Certain
psychologists and psychiatrists are now admitting that the basic fear behind
all other human fears is the fear of death. The conflict with which we
constantly live is this shadow of the end that hangs over us all, this
awareness that some day this life is going to end. Hebrews speaks of that. It
says, Jesus came "so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the
power of death--that is, the devil--and free those who all their lives were
held in slavery by their fear of death" (Hebrews 2:14-15). So when I come
to understand that I have been justified, given a righteous acceptance by a
loving father, I immediately lose that fear of death. I am no longer afraid of
what lies beyond. I know it is not judgment, but glory
Third,
when I have peace with God, I have the answer to the attacks of doubt and fear
the devil is still able to bring into my life. Surely this is one of the things
that troubles many young Christians. They start out their Christian life with a
sense of rejoicing and an experience of peace. But after a while there will
come a time when all they have been believing and resting on and rejoicing in
seems to turn dull and cold and unbelievable. They don't know what has happened.
They think they have just been kidding themselves about Christianity, and now
they have awakened to the cold reality of life. They do not understand that the
devil, through his angels, has access to us through our thoughts. He can insert
these troubling doubts and fears into our minds without our being aware of
it--even against our will, at times.
I
know there are some who think that after one has been a Christian awhile he
should reach a point when he never again has any doubts. But we never reach that
point. Some people think that pastors never have any doubts about their
salvation or their relationship with God. On my own experience that is not
true.
When
I was a young pastor, a dear ninety-year-old Presbyterian pastor, Dr. Francis
Russell, was a tremendous help to me. Just a couple of years before Dr. Russell
died I received a call from him, asking me to come and see him. I found him in
deep distress over his personal salvation. He told me, "I feel like God is
angry with me. If I were summoned into his presence now there is nothing I
could offer to him" I had to help that dear, godly old man, and remind him
again that he had been justified by faith in the work of Christ. I reminded him
that his salvation has nothing to do with what he was like, but with Jesus, and
what he had done. This is how we can deal with these doubts and fears if we
have believed in our justification by faith.
If
you do not have that sense of peace, the way to get it back is not by working
on your feelings, but by reviewing your justification. Go over the facts again,
remind yourself of what God has declared, and what kind of a God he
is--Abraham's God, who can raise the dead to life and call into existence
things that do not exist. He is able to perform what he has promised. Then your
faith will be restored and you can handle these doubts and fears.
Fourth,
if we have peace with God, we have an answer to the accusation of our own
consciences when we sin. I know that many young Christians, in that glory and
first flush of love in their relationship with the Lord, really think they are
not going to sin again. Sin seems to them an impossible thing. Their hearts are
so caught up with the love God has shown to them, that they can not imagine
themselves going back and doing some of the things they once did. But sooner or
later they will be back doing some of those things. Old habits will reassert
themselves; old ways of thinking will return. Perhaps they will not go back to
all that they did formerly, bur they will go back to some. They will sin again.
Or it may be that after years of Christian life and service, they will fall
into some terrible sin they thought they never would or could do again.
What
do you say then to your accusing conscience when it asks, "Are you a
Christian? Could you possibly be a Christian and act like this?" That is
where justification by faith comes in. You remind yourself at that time
"My standing and my acceptance by God does not depend upon me. Even my sin
does not cancel it out. The whole essence of the gospel is that God has found a
way to put aside my sin, in the work of his beloved Son on my behalf" That
is why you read, at the close of chapter four, "He was delivered over to
death for our sin and was raised to life for our justification."
These
are the ways you can rest whether you really have believed it: Do you have
peace with God? Are you freed from the fear of God and the fear of death? Do
you have an answer to the doubts and fears and attacks that come from the
enemy, those "flaming arrows of the evil one" that Paul speaks of in
Ephesians 6? Do you have an answer to the accusations of your own guilty
conscience when you fall, or sin? Here is where the answer lies: You have been
justified by faith.
Notice
that Paul is careful to remind us again that our justification is through the
Lord Jesus Christ. It is never through ourselves. We have no merit before God
ourselves. We never deserve this, we never earn this, and no matter how long we
have served God as a Christian and have lived a clean and moral life, we can
only stand on the ground of the work of the Lord Jesus on our behalf. That is
why Paul insists on saying this again and again. He knows our prideful flesh.
He knows that after we have cleaned up some of the bad areas of our lives we
will begin to take credit for it and think that we have deserved something from
God. So he faithfully reminds us that we are not deserving in this matter at
all. The first mark of our justification by faith, then, is that we have peace
with God
Access to
the King
The
second mark is found in the next verse:
Éthrough whom we have gained access by faith
into this grace in which we now stand (5:2).
We
have access to continued grace, enabling us to stand in the midst of pressures,
problems, trials, and difficulties. This is a constant supply, because we have
instant access to God himself, the God of all grace That is the second way we
know we are justified by faith--we see that we have this instant access to the
grace of God--to the throne of grace, as the writer of Hebrews puts it.
A
beautiful picture in the book of Esther illustrates this. Esther, a lovely
Jewish maiden, was a captive in the land of Persia. The king, seeking a bride,
found her and made her his queen. After Esther ascended to the throne as queen,
a plot was hatched against the Jews. Unwittingly, the king signed a decree that
meant death for all Jews in Persia Esther's godly uncle, Mordecai, said it
would be necessary for her to go to the king and tell him what he had done.
Esther knew that was a dangerous thing, because the law said no one could come
before the king without first being summoned. There were no exceptions--even
for a queen--for this was the law of the Medes and the Persians which could not
be changed. Unless the king extended his golden scepter to that person, he must
die. Yet Esther knew she must dare to take her life in her hands and go before
the king.
The
story says she fasted for three days and three nights before she went. I am
sure that was to prepare her heart and her courage. It does not say what else
she did during that time. With a wife, four daughters, and a mother-in-law in
my home, I have observed women getting themselves ready for some years now, and
I'm sure that one of the things Esther was doing was fixing her hair. It probably
took three days and three nights to get it ready! Then we are told that she
dressed herself in robes of beauty and glory, and stepped into the audience
hall of the king, appearing all alone before him. The king was so smitten with
her beauty that his heart went out to her. He stretched forth his scepter and
accepted her. She had abundant access to the king.
This
pictures what Paul is telling us. Who would dare stand before the God of all
the earth, the God of majesty and power and greatness and glory, unless he had
been given access to the King? The wonder of this promise is that by being
justified by faith, we have access to his presence. Esther received from the
kings hand all that she needed to handle this problem which threatened her
life. That is what this portrays for us. Dressed in robes of beauty and glory
that do not belong to us--for they are the garments of Jesus--we have access to
the King, to receive from him all that we need to handle any threat that comes
into our lives. We have continual acceptance before him. Our strength does not
come from our circumstances; we get it from our continual access to the power
and presence of God in the midst of danger or difficulty, trouble or pressure.
The writer of Hebrews puts it this way:
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to
enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, let us draw near to God with a
sincere heart in full assurance of faith (Hebrews 10:19, 22)
Something
Beyond
Now
look at the third thing that comes as a result of being justified by faith:
And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God
(5:2).
That
means that as we look at life ahead, even though life comes to an end--and it
will--that is not the end of the story. We confidently anticipate that
something lies beyond. We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
Hope here is not a word that
means a mere possibility, a good chance. Hope, as it is used in the Scriptures
in this way, is a ringing certainty, based upon the words of Jesus himself.:
"If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be
with me that you also may be where I amÉ Because
I live, you also will live" (John 14:3,19). That is the certain hope of
everyone who has been justified by faith. If you really have been justified by
faith you know that you have the promise of God that he will do this, and that
he is able to do what he has promised.
That
promise is given to us regardless of our conditions on earth. It may be tough
here. For some people it is tough. There are some Christians in other parts of
the world who know nothing of the freedom and the joy of relationships that we
have in this country. They are persecuted, they are in danger, they wake up
every morning with the dreary expectation of living one more day under some
watchful, hostile eye. Life may be cold and hard, it may be filled with pain
and sorrow, but the minimum promise to all who are justified by faith is that
there is a glory beyond death that is certain.
I
have a friend who lives in the Midwest. He lives in the country, and one stormy
morning, in the dead of winter, he looked out his window and saw the mailman
drive up and leave something in his mailbox. Wanting to see what it was, he
dressed warmly and went out into the bitter cold. With the snow swirling about
him, he walked about a quarter of a mile down the lane to where the mailboxes
were located. He opened the mailbox and, to his disappointment, saw that all
that was there was a seed catalog. But he opened it and began to thumb through
it.
You
know, there is nothing like a seed catalog to capture the beauty and brilliance
of flowers and vegetables. As he stood there in the snow, suddenly he felt as
though spring had come. He could taste the crunch of a cucumber and smell the
fragrance of those red roses and feel the juice of a red-ripe tomato running
down his chin. It seemed as though winter faded for the moment and he was
caught up into the beauty of spring and summer. Surely that is something of the
experience that we get at times when we read the Scriptures. Here in the midst
of "the winter of our discontent," something of the glory that is
waiting beyond, the hope of the glory of God, breaks through.
I
will never forget reading, as a young Christian, the words of Samuel
Rutherford, that dear old seventeenth-century Scottish Covenanter who lived at
a time when the English church was persecuting believers in Scotland. He was a
dear and godly man who had come to know and love the Lord Jesus and to
understand these great truths in the Scriptures about the inner strengthening
that comes through faith. As he was lying on his deathbed, he received a
summons from the king of England to come to London and appear on trial for his
life. He knew he was dying, and he sent back this word by the messenger of the
king: "Go and tell your master I have a summons from a Higher Court; and
ere this message reaches him, I'll be where few kings and great folk ever
come." That was the spirit of the man. He wrote many letters that reflect
the glory of his faith and expectations. Anne Ross Cousin has gathered them for
us. Some of them are arranged as hymns. One of her hymns was D. L. Moody's
favorite, and it is mine also:
The sands of time are sinking,
The dawn of heaven breaks;
The summer morn I've sighed for--
The fair, sweet morn awakes.
Dark, dark hath been the midnight,
But dayspring is at hand,
And glory, glory dwelleth
In Immanuel's land.
O Christ, He is the fountain,
The deep, sweet well of love;
The streams on earth I've tasted,
More deep I'll drink above
There to an ocean fullness
His mercy doth expand,
And glory, glory dwelleth
In Immanuel's land.
The bride eyes not her garment
But her dear Bridegroom's face;
I will not gaze at glory
But on my King of grace,
Not at the crown he giveth
But on His Pierced hand;
The Lamb is all the glory
Of Immanuel's land.
That
is the first stage of the Christian life--just the beginning. That is what we
get, without fail, when we are justified by faith. But it is just the start.
Then we go on to handle life and its suffering, and finally, we end up
rejoicing in God. But everyone who has put faith in what Jesus Christ has done
on his behalf--not in what he himself has done--has come to a place of complete
assurance, continual acceptance, and confident anticipation When we know we have
been justified by faith we will have these in our life.
11
REJOICING IN SUFFERING
(Romans 5:3-10)
We
have just seen the first stage, or level, of Christian growth--the rejoicing in
hope that comes by being justified by faith. That rejoicing comes immediately.
We rejoice because we will be with the Lord. We have a hope for the future, a
hope beyond death. But Paul goes on:
Not only so, but we also rejoice in our
sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance,
character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God
has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given
us (5:3-5).
It
is clear from this that Christians are expected to suffer. We may not like it,
but it is a fact. In his letter to the Philippians, the apostle puts it very
plainly, "For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to
believe on him, but also to suffer for him" (Philippians 1:29).
Those
who think that becoming a Christian will exempt them from suffering have been
seriously misled, for the Scriptures themselves reach that we should expect
suffering. The Greek word for "suffering" basically means
tribulation, something that causes distress. It can range from minor, daily
annoyances to major disasters that sweep down out of the blue, leaving us
stricken and shaken.
According
to Romans 5, the proper Christian response is to rejoice: "Not only so,
but we also rejoice in our sufferings." Here is where many people balk.
They say, "I can't buy that! Do you mean to say that God is telling me
that when I am hurting and in pain, going through mental and physical torment,
I am expected to be glad and happy and rejoice in that? What kind of a nut is
this Paul, anyway? It's not human, not natural!"
There
are many who feel this way. I think we can easily identify with the attitude of
the lady whose pastor went to see her when she was going through trouble. She
kept complaining and grousing and griping. He stopped her and said, "I
don't think you should talk that way. Christians are not to do that." She
was very upset. "Why, I don't understand, Pastor. When God sends us
tribulation, he surely expects us to tribulate a little bit!"
Unanimous
Testimony
Most
of us would feel the same way. We feel like tribulatingÉand we do. But it is
not only Paul who tells us to rejoice; this is the unanimous testimony of every
writer of the New Testament. All tell us to rejoice in suffering. First Peter
4:12 says, "Do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as
though something strange were happening to you. But rejoiceÉ" Suffering is
normal, and our normal response is to be rejoicing. James 1:2 says,
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many
kinds." There it is again joy, rejoicing. Even the Lord Jesus told us, in
the Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed are you when people insult you,
persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of
me." What does he say to do? "Rejoice and be glad, because great is
your reward in heaven" (Matthew 5:11-12). God's call to rejoice in
suffering is found everywhere in Scripture.
Let
us take a closer look at what this really means. There are certain things it
does not mean. First, it is clear from Scripture that rejoicing in suffering is
not a form of stoicism. It is not simply a "grin-and-bear it"
attitude, or "tough it out and see how much you can take," or
"just hang in there until it's over and don't let anything get you
down," or "keep a stiff upper lip." Many feel that if they do that,
they are fulfilling the Word and "rejoicing in suffering." But that
is not it. Non-Christians can do that. Many pride themselves on how much they
can take. Sometimes people who are not Christians will put us to shame by the
things they beat without complaining. Rejoicing in suffering is not merely
being stoical.
Furthermore,
we are not expected to enjoy the pain. Some think "rejoicing in
suffering" means that you must enjoy your pain and hurt, that somehow
Christians ought to be glad when terrible tragedy occurs and their hearts are
hurting. But that isn't what Paul is saying. Those who feel that way are called
masochists. They like to torture themselves. You may have met people like that,
folks who are not happy unless they are miserable. If you take their misery
away from them, they are really wretched, because it is their misery that gives
them a sense of contentment. That is a twisted, distorted view of life, and it
is certainly not what Paul is saying.
Nor
is he saying that we are to pretend we are happy. Some think this passage says
that when you are in public, you should put on an artificial smile and act
happy, even if your heart is hurting like crazy. But Christianity is never
phony. Phoniness of any kind is a false Christianity. Neither the apostles nor
the Scriptures ever ask us to be unreal. Scripture clearly tells us to have a
genuine sense of rejoicing.
Still,
you may not be able to rejoice right at the moment of trial. Hebrews 12 helps
us there. It says, "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.
Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those
who have been trained by it" (Hebrews 12:11). At the moment of hurt you
will not feel like rejoicing, but it should soon follow that you do rejoice in
your suffering.
I
heard a man some years ago put this very well. He had gone through great
physical trouble, and one of his legs had been amputated. That did not arrest
the course of his disease, and he ultimately died because of it. Just a few
days before his death I visited him in the hospital. He said something I never
forgot because it so perfectly expresses what Christian rejoicing in suffering
means. He said, "I never would have chosen one of the trials that I've
gone through, but I wouldn't have missed any of them for the world!" Now
that is saying it. He realized his suffering had done something of supreme
value; therefore, even though he wouldn't have chosen it, he wouldn't have
missed it, either. He is not alone; would you or I have chosen it? 1 doubt it!
But that attitude is rejoicing in suffering.
Inside
Information
How
do you get to the place where you can rejoice in suffering? The apostle's
answer is, "We rejoice in suffering because we knowÉ" We can rejoice
because we know something. It is not just because it is such a great feeling to
be hurt--it is because of something our faith enables us to know, a kind of
inside information that others do not share. Worldlings lack it totally.
Something that we know will cause us to rejoice in out suffering. What do we
know? Paul tells us, "Knowing that suffering producesÉ" Suffering
does something, accomplishes something. It is productive. It is of value. We
know it works, and that is what makes us rejoice.
Watch
a woman in labor; watch the expression on her face. If you have any empathy in
you, you cannot help but feel deeply hurt with her because she is going through
such pain. And yet, there is usually joy also because she knows that childbirth
produces children. It is the child that makes it all worthwhile. Thus suffering
produces something worthwhile.
What
does suffering produce? The apostle says it produces four things. First,
suffering produces perseverance. In some versions the word is patience. The
Greek word literally means "to abide under, to stay under the
pressure." Pressure is something we want to get out from under, but
suffering teaches us to stay under, to stick in there and hang with it. We use
some of these expressions today, and I think they are appropriate. Perseverance
is the opposite of panic, of bailing out. The best translation I can think of
is the word "steadiness." Suffering produces steadiness.
When
I was a boy in Montana, I helped a man break horses. I worked in a corral with
three-year-old horses that had never had saddles on their backs. I was always
interested in watching the horses when they first felt a saddle thrown on their
back. That must be frightening to an animal. They don't know what in the world
is happening to them. Some horses will react angrily, rearing back and trying
to get away--even striking out with their forefeet at their trainer. Their
nostrils flare, their eyeballs roll, and they panic! Others will just stand
there trembling, shaking like a leaf. They won't move, they're so afraid. They
don' know what is happening to them.
I
think Christians respond that way, too. Do you remember when you became a
Christian and first went through a trial? How easily you panicked and cried out
to the Lord, "What's gone wrong?" You were in a panic over what was
happening, fearful that it would wreck everything and destroy your hopes and
dreams. You were just like the disciples in the boat on the Sea of Galilee when
the storm raged. They panicked. They came to the Lord and shook him and said,
"Wake up! Donāt you know we're about to perish?" And the Lord did as
he does with some of us. He stood up and said, "Don't panic." Then he
said to the storm, "Peace, be still." And quiet came.
That
is what suffering does. It steadies us. We go through a time like that and
we're anxious and afraid; then the Lord stills the storm and we think,
"Thank God that's all over. I'll never have to go through that again! I've
learned my lesson!" And two weeks later there is another storm. But this
time we've been through it once, so we steady up a bit. We do not get quite so
fearful.
We
learn something--we learn about ourselves, first. We learn we are not as strong
as we thought we were. We learn we don't have the stick-with-it we thought we
had. We wanted to bail out much sooner than we thought we would.
Then
we learn something about the Lord--we learn how gracious he is. We learn he can
handle events in ways we could not dream of nor anticipate. We see him work
things out in ways we never could have guessed. So the third and fourth times a
trial comes, we are steadier. We don't panic; we don't bail out. We stay under
and let it work itself out. That is what Paul says here. Suffering produces
steadiness. If we did not suffer, we would never learn that quality.
Proven
Reliability
Second,
not only does suffering produce steadiness, but steadiness produces character. The Greek word for
"character" carries with it the idea of being put to the test and
approved. It is the idea of being shown to be reliable. Steadiness produces
reliability. We finally learn that we will not be destroyed, that things will
work out. Steady up, and people start counting on us. They see strength in us,
and we become more reliable people.
We
have all seen tire advertisements on television in which a car equipped with
four tires is put through horrendous tests--driven through desert sands, bogs,
swamps and marshes, driven over rough, hard, cobblestone roads, over roads with
holes and chuckholes, over boards studded with nails. The tire is twisted and
pulled and stretched in every direction, and we are amazed at what it can take.
After the test they hold up the tire, and it looks as if it had never been out
of its wrapping! Then the ad comes: "Buy Sock'em Tires! They're tested,
proven!" Now that is what this word "character" means God is
strengthening us so he can hold us up and say, "He's approved, he's
tested."
God
is in the process of making veterans. A veteran has been through something and
has been rested and proven. Here is a passage by Paul that I have always loved
from the Living Bible:
I think you ought to know, dear brothers, about
the hard time we went through in Asia. We were really crushed and overwhelmed,
and feared we would never live through it. We felt we were doomed to die and
saw how powerless we were to help ourselves; but that was good, for then we put
everything into the hands of God, who alone could save us, for he can even
raise the dead. And he did help us, and saved us from a terrible death; yes,
and we expect him to do it again and again (2 Corinthians 1:8-10).
Now,
that is a veteran speaking He has been through some tough things, but he knows
God can take him through anything, and he will. He is not saying, "It's
all over." No, he is saying, "There's more coming, but God will take
me through." That is a veteran.
Years
ago I asked a nine-year-old boy, "What do you want to be when you grow
up?" I'll never forget his answer. He said, "I want to be a returned
missionary." He did not want to be just a missionary, but a returned
one--one that has been through it with it all behind him. Here Paul tells us
God is in the process of building returned missionaries.
Third,
we find that reliability also produces something. Suffering produces
steadiness, steadiness produces reliability, and reliability produces hope. So
now we are back to hope. In verse 2, Paul spoke of "rejoicing in
hope," the hope of sharing the glory of God, a hope for the future beyond
death. But here is hope that we will share the glory of God--which is God's
character--right now. We have the hope that God is producing the image of
Christ in us right now. That is a great thing. This hope is certainty, not just
possibility.
We
are being changed; we see ourselves changing. As we grow more like Jesus, we
become more thoughtful, more compassionate, more loving. We are being mellowed.
We are becoming like Christ--stronger, wiser, purer, more patient. To our
amazement, a certainty grows in our hearts that God is doing his work just as
he promised. He is transforming us into the image of his Son.
Confidence
from Hope
That
brings us to the fourth step Paul mentions, that hope does not disappoint us. I
like the King James translation better. It says, "Hope maketh not
ashamed." That is a figure of speech called "litotes," which is
the use of a negative to express a positive idea. Paul does this in Romans 116
when he says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ" What
does he mean? He means he is proud; he is confident and bold. I think that is
the term we ought to use here. Hope makes us confident. Hope, or certainty,
produces confidence and boldness.
I
once met a man who had been shot by his own son. He survived this awful and
traumatic time, and then began to stand up before groups of men to explain how
God used that situation to get his attention. He began to study and to grow.
Hearing him, I could understand that a man who previously had been ashamed to
speak of Christ was now confident and bold. What the Lord had shown him, and
how the Lord supported and sustained him through this terrible, tragic time,
meant so much to this man that he did not care what anyone thought about it. He
shared openly what God had brought him through. We lose our fear of ridicule
and shame and we speak up out of the reality of our experience of what God has
brought us through.
Paul
goes on to explain why hope does not disappoint us. He says it is "because
God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has
given us." Now, to my mind, this is one of the most important verses in
Romans. It is a significant verse because it adds a thought we have not seen in
this book up to now. It is the explanation, above all else, of how to rejoice
in suffering. This is the first mention in Romans of the love of God. Up to now
Paul has not said anything about the love of God; but now it is "God has
poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given
us."
We
must be careful to see how Paul presents this concept because the love of God
is the subject he develops in verses 6 through 10. That connection is
important. These last verses have been extracted from their context and used
for evangelistic preaching so many times that we have forgotten what they
originally meant. Paul uses them here in connection with suffering.
God has poured out his love into our hearts by
the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. You see, at just the right time, when we
were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die
for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much
more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! For if, when we were God's
enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more,
having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! (5:5-10).
The
argument here is extremely important. It will explain how to rejoice in
suffering. I know Christians who are suffering but are not being made steady
and reliable and confident. Instead, they are becoming bitter and resentful and
angry, even to the point of denying their faith. Suffering, you see, does not
produce these qualities automatically. We can go through suffering as a
Christian and be filled with anger and rage and resentment against God. What
makes the difference?
Evidence of
Love
As
Paul explains here, the difference lies in seeing our suffering as evidence of
God's love, and not his wrath. Then we will experience that love even in
suffering. The Holy Spirit will lavish on us a love of God so rich and radiant
and glorious that we will not be able to do anything but rejoice in our
suffering. But if we see our suffering as evidence of God's wrath, we will be
frustrated, angry, and miserable. That is why Paul brings in this description
of God's love for us.
Anyone
who has gone through any degree of suffering knows that in the moment of pain
and hurt it is easy to feel that God does not love you. It is easy to feel
rejected, unloved. We are so used to thinking that love is something which
blesses and warms and takes care of us, it is almost impossible for us to think
we are being loved when we are hurting. It is hard for us to believe that the
one who is bringing the hurt is doing it out of genuine love. We feel broken,
worthless, and forgotten. That is why we need to understand the argument in
verses 6 through 10.
Paul
says there is a place where every Christian knows that God loves him, even
though he himself feels worthless, useless, and forgotten. What is that place?
It is the cross. In the cross of Jesus Christ we always see two things. First,
we see ourselves. We see that, as Paul puts it here, we are helpless. If there
were any other way to get to God, then there never would have been a cross. But
the cross is God's testimony that there is no other way. That is why the verse
says, "At the right time, in due time, Christ died." At that time in
history God amply demonstrated to all the world that man could not save
himself.
The
great Hebrew prophets had spoken, and that did not help Greek philosophers had
taught, and that did not help. The Romans had come in with their military might
and imposed law and order over the course of the whole world of that day, and
that did not help. But at the right time, Christ died on the cross so that men
could see how helpless and powerless they were to save themselves.
As
we look at the cross we see how ungodly we are. We are not like God, we do not
act like God. We have the capacity to do so, but we do not. We even want to at
times, but we do not. We see in the cross just how unlike God we are. We see
that we are sinners, destroying ourselves and others. We find ourselves lawless
and selfish, and we know it was man's sin--our sin, yours and mine--that nailed
Jesus to that cross. It was not his own sin, but yours and mine. There we learn
that we are enemies of God, enemies sabotaging God's plan to help us, wrecking
everything he tries to do to reach us. For years we fight back and resist God's
efforts to love us and to draw us to himself.
We
are the enemies of God. And yet we know, if we are Christians, that in the
place where man's inadequacy is so fully demonstrated, we also have the
clearest testimony that God loves us. "God so loved the world that he gave
his only begotten Son." Jesus came to break through all our despair,
weakness, shame, sorrow, and sin, all man's ruin and disaster. He came to
demonstrate a God who loved mankind and would not let it perish.
Now
we come to the force of Paul's argument. If I clearly knew God's love when I
became a Christian--when I was an enemy and helpless and powerless--how much
more can I count on God's love now that I am his child? Even though I am
suffering, even though I do not feel loved right now, even though it seems as
though God is against me, how much more can I count on God's love for me right
now!
Paul
is arguing from the greater to the lesser. If God could love me when it was so
plain that I did not deserve it, how much more must I count on his love now
that I know I am dear to him and loved by him. Therefore, this suffering is not
coming into my life because God is angry with me; it comes because God loves
me. It comes from the heart of a Father who is putting me through something I
desperately need to enable me to grow into the kind of a person I desperately
want to be. And he loves me enough that he will not let me off, but will take
me through it. Therefore it is not his anger I experience, but his love.
That
is what Hebrews 12 argues, isn't it? If we have been disciplined by the fathers
of our flesh--and we know they love us--why can't we believe that God loves us
when he puts us through times of testing, pressure, and suffering? When I see
this, then can rejoice because I know suffering will produce the things that
make me what I want to be There is a hymn that expresses this idea beautifully
It goes like this:
When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed ere the day is half
done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources,
Our Father's full giving is only begun.
His love has no limit, His grace has no measure,
His power no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again!
--Annie Johnson Flint ("He Giveth More
Grace,"
copyright 1941, 1969 by Lillenas Publishing Co)
12
REJOICING IN GOD
(Romans 5:11-21)
The
one clear mark of a true Christian is that he always rejoices. Three times in
Romans 5 believers are given reasons for rejoicing. First, we rejoice in our
spiritual position. "Having been justified by faith, we have peace with
God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have access by faith into this grace
wherein we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God." That is our
spiritual position. The moment we believe in the Lord Jesus, we can rejoice in
the hope of sharing the glory of God.
Then
we are to rejoice in our growing conformity to the character of Christ. This is
produced by suffering. Suffering helps us become like Jesus. As we suffer,
knowing we are undergirded, protected, and covered over by the love of God shed
abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, we learn to rejoice in our sufferings.
In
verses 11-21, we learn to rejoice in our great and glorious God. Verse 11 tells
us:
Not only is this so {Paul has said that twice
before in this chapter}, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus
Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
In
my book Authentic Christianity, I call this rejoicing "an unquenchable
optimism" Christians always have grounds for rejoicing. No matter what
happens, we have a ground for rejoicing. The three kinds of rejoicing described
in Romans 5 represent three levels of maturity. They are not necessarily
chronological levels, but they are levels of understanding and responding to
truth that reflect a continually growing and deepening maturity. The third
level is rejoicing in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have
now received the reconciliation.
Notice
again how Paul, as he so frequently does, reminds us that everything comes to
us comes "through our Lord Jesus Christ." Christ is the way to God.
He himself said so: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes
to the Father but by me." Therefore, when we see the greatness of Christ,
we have seen the greatness of God. It is he who reveals the Father. Remember
how John begins his Gospel?
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was GodÉThe Word became flesh and lived for a while
among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came
from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:1,14).
That
is the way we see God. When we see the greatness of Jesus, we see the greatness
of God. When we see and know the love of Jesus, we know the heart of God.
Therefore, we are to rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Record of
Achievements
How
do you do that? How do you see the greatness of Christ? Paul says it is by
understanding the reconciliation. If you want to know how great a person is,
you look at the record of his achievements. What has he done? From verse 12 of
Romans 5 to the end of the chapter is a record of the greatness of Christ, his
achievement of what Paul calls "the reconciliation."
This
passage is one of the most theologically important in all of the Bible. In this
passage is the clearest statement in the Bible on what is called "original
sin," that is, the blight that has been passed on to our whole race as the
result of the sin of our father Adam. Here too is the complete answer to those
who doubt the historicity of Adam and Eve. There are some who claim that the
first chapters of Genesis are merely legend, or myth, that Adam and Eve were
not real people. But this chapter shows that is false. All through the passage,
Adam, as a real person, is contrasted to and compared with the Lord Jesus. This
section also lays the groundwork for all that Paul will say in chapters 6, 7,
and 8. So it is tremendously important.
I
have found that if we get involved in the details of the passage---and it is
easy to do--we invariably get lost in the argument and lose the main point,
which is the greatness and the glory of the Lord Jesus, the reason we can
rejoice in God through him. So instead of dwelling on the details of the
argument, I want to summarize it for you.
There
are four movements in this section. First, in verses 12-14 Paul begins with us
"in Adam," which is where we start as a race. Then verses 15-17
contrast this with what we are if we are "in Christ." Verses 18 and
19 summarize these thoughts, and the chapter closes with a brief explanation of
how the law fits in (verses 20 and 21).
Verse
12, then, shows us where we begin, "in Adam."
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through
one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because
all sinned--
Paul
is making a comparison here, which the Greek text makes clear. He is saying,
"Just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin,
even so through one man death came to all men, because all sinned." That's
the Stedmaniac version of this verse,
Two Evils
Paul's
argument begins with two undeniable, indisputable facts the universality of sin
and the universality of death. We cannot deny these. Everywhere we look there
is evidence that what he says is true, that we are victims of the twin evils of
sin and death.
There
are some who may not accept the idea of sin. There are people today who do not
like this word sin. Call it anything we like, the fact remains there is clear
evidence wherever we look that something has gone wrong with humanity. Call it
karma, destiny, fate, evolutionary darkness, or whatever--but it is certain
that something is wrong G. K. Chesterton said, "Whatever else may be said
of man, this one thing is clear. He is not what he is capable of being."
I
think any line of evidence will substantiate that. Some kind of twist has come
in, something that we cannot explain--a taint, a moral poison that makes us act
in irrational ways--so that even when we know something is wrong or hurtful, we
want to do it anyway.
I
needn't go any further than my own heart to find evidence of that I know some
things would destroy me and my family, and yet at times I catch myself wanting
badly to do them. And so do you, so don't feel so pious! That is what is called
"original sin." Adults aren't the only ones who suffer from it; the
striking and remarkable thing is that it is found in babies. Sin is there at
the beginning of life; babies are born with it, which is conclusive proof of
what Paul is saying here. It has gripped the race.
My
grandson comes over to our house frequently and tears up the place. It takes us
two days to get it back in shape after a visit from him. His mother tells us
that if she says to him, "Now, eat your food," that's the one thing
he doesn't want to do. So she has learned how to make him eat his food. She
says, "Now, don't eat your carrots," and he gobbles them up. Anything
prohibited, that is what he wants to do. No one had to teach him that. We never
sent him to school to learn how to disobey. Even when he was only two years
old, he knew how to resist instruction and command; he wanted to do what he
ought not to do.
Perhaps
this universal tendency to evil has been stated most clearly by a secular
agency. The clearest statement on original sin I have ever read comes from a
report of the Minnesota Crime Commission. In studying humanity the commission
came to this frightening and factual conclusion:
Every baby starts life
as a little savage. He is completely selfish and self-centered. He wants what
he wants when he wants it--his bottle, his mother's attention, his playmate's
toy, his uncle's watch. Deny him these wants, and he seethes with rage and
aggressiveness, which would be murderous, were he not so helpless. He is dirty.
He has no morals, no knowledge, no skills. This means that all children, not
just certain children, are born delinquent. If permitted to continue in the
self-centered world of his infancy, given free reign to his impulsive actions
to satisfy his wants, every child would grow up a criminal, a thief, a killer,
a rapist.
This
is a clear statement on the universality of sin and of the fact, as Paul says
here, that by one man, sin entered the world, and along with sin came death.
Everyone acknowledges the universal presence of death. We look at a newborn
child and say, "Here is someone starting to live." But it is equally
true to say of that child, "Here is someone who is starting to die."
Death is at work in that child from the moment of birth. We are born to die.
This is the story of our race. We do not need to argue it; it is inescapable.
Later on in this passage Paul says, "Death reigned." Still later on,
he says, "Sin reigns." So in these two forces introduced into humanity,
we have a pair of royal tyrants who rule over men. King Sin and his evil and
cruel consort, Queen Death, hold in their remorseless hands every human being,
without exception.
Through One
Man
How
did sin and death get control of our race? The apostle answers through one man.
That's the key to this whole section. Again and again Paul reiterates that
phrase: through one man, by one man Paul is contrasting two men, Adam and
Jesus. But in either case, what comes to us comes from one man, either Adam or
Jesus.
Through
Adam sin and death gripped our race. We sin because we are sons and daughters
of Adam, and we die because we are sons and daughters of Adam. We don't die for
our own sins. Normally, we would die for our own sins; but, as Paul goes on to
argue, there are even some--babies, for instance--who haven't deliberately
sinned at all, and yet they still die. Therefore, Paul traces the reign of sin
and death back to Adam. This is the argument of verses 13 and 14.
For before the Law was given, sin was in the
world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. Nevertheless,
death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who
did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to
come (5:13-14).
Paul's
argument is simply this. Death is the punishment for breaking a command. In the
Garden of Eden, God said to Adam, "Do not eat of the fruit of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil. In the day that you eat thereof, you shall
surely die" Adam broke that specific, clear-cut command; he ate of the
fruit. That was not merely a little incident, a peccadillo; Adam actually was
choosing to be an independent creature and denying his dependence upon the God
who made him. It was an act of rebellion; it was an act of idolatry. He
enthroned himself as a god, in the place of God. Adam broke the command and, as
a result, death and sin passed upon all his descendants.
So
Paul says death is the result of breaking a command--and you need a law to be
able to break a command. Perhaps we have driven down our street for years and
never had to stop at a certain intersection because there was nothing that
required it. Then one day a stop sign is erected. Now the law has come in. From
that time on, failing to stop at that intersection is to break a command. If we
don't stop, we are subject to a penalty, even though we have been driving
through that intersection without stopping for years. But when the law comes in
we break a command if we fail to stop.
In
order to have death, Paul says, there had to be a command to break. But people
were dying long before the law was ever given. People died from the time of
Adam to Moses, even people who never had a command to break. How could that be,
if death is the result of breaking a command? Paul's conclusion is: The whole
race actually sinned when Adam sinned. We broke the command in Adam. Adam broke
a direct command and we were present in him; therefore we die as he died
because of a broken command.
At
this point many people say, "Well, that isn't fair! God is punishing us
for Adam's sin!" But this misunderstands the nature of our humanity. We
are not individuals quite separate from others, but we are tied in together,
all a part of one great bundle of life; we share life together. We recognize
this when we speak of "the brotherhood of man" and when we say,
"No man is an island." But at other times we choose to think we have
a right to stand alone, as though no one else exists. Whether we understand it
or not, this passage declares that when Adam sinned, he plunged the whole race
into disaster. We are all born with sin at work in us and, as a result, death
is taking its toll. We sinned in Adam, and we die because of him.
Pattern and
Contrast
The
most important phrase in this paragraph is the last one: Adam was a pattern of
the one to come. The apostle will now show us how Adam is a kind of picture of
Christ; and yet there is a great contrast between them. The verses that follow
draw both a comparison and a contrast. First, verse 15:
But the gift is not like the trespass
The
gift every human being is always looking for is righteousness, a sense of
worth, which comes only as a gift from the Lord Jesus. The trespass is Adam's
disobedient act in the Garden of Eden. But the gift, Paul says, is not like the
trespass.
For if the many died by the trespass of the one
man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the
one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!
Adam
brought a single experience of death to all people. We only die once, don't we?
Adam brought that death to us. But Christ brought a repeated and ever-growing
experience of life to all who are in him. That is the contrast. We can take
life from Jesus a thousand times a day. We can take the gift of worth over and
over again. Whenever our spirit feels put down, crushed, insignificant,
inadequate, or insecure, we can be renewed, we can take again the gift of life
and righteousness from him. Jesus Christ is greater than Adam; for though the
trespass of Adam brought death once, the sacrifice and the death of Jesus
brings life a thousand times. Verse 16:
Again, the gift of God is not like the result of
the one man's sin. The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but
the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.
Adam's
single trespass brought death. Adam trespassed once and brought death to all
who were in him. Christ died once and, despite thousands of trespasses, brought
justification to all who are in him. That is the contrast. Adam trespassed once
and brought death to all. Jesus died once and brought life--despite thousands
of trespasses. One trespass brought death; the death of Jesus brought
forgiveness for thousands of trespasses. All my life, as many times as I sin, I
cannot out-sin the grace of God. No matter how many trespasses are involved in
my record, there is freedom in Christ and forgiveness for all of them.
Now
lets look at verse 17
For if: by the trespass of the one man, death
reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's
abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life
through the one man, Jesus Christ.
Adam's
transgression permitted death to reign over the whole race. This is talking
about more than just the funeral at the end of my life. True, that funeral
happens because of Adam's trespass, but there is more to it than that. Not only
does death come to us finally because of Adam, but it reigns throughout our
lives because of Adam. Paul is talking about forms of death other than the mere
cessation of life.
What
is life? Life is love, joy, and excitement. It is vitality, enrichment, power;
it is fulfillment in every direction, in every possibility of our being. Death
is the absence of life. Death is emptiness, loneliness, misery, depression,
boredom, and restlessness. How much of your life is made up of death? Most of
it, perhaps? Some people never seem to have anything but death in their lives.
Death reigns because of Adam's transgression.
Paul
says that Christ's death provides such abundant grace and loving acceptance,
available again and again and again, that all who are in him can reign in
lifeÉnow! I can have life in the midst of the pressures and circumstances and
suffering and troubles. My spirit can be alive and joyful--gaining fulfillment
and delight. Life in the midst of death! We are to reign in life now. Love,
joy, peace, glory, and gladness fill our hearts even in the midst of the
heartaches and pressures.
Paul
draws this parallel so that we might see how much more we have in Jesus than we
ever had in Adam. What we lost in Adam, we regain in Jesus plus much more. Just
as a climber on a mountaintop can dislodge a pebble which rolls on and
accumulates others until it begins an avalanche that will move the whole side
of a mountain, so Adam's sin in the Garden of Eden dislodged a pebble that has
built into an avalanche of sin and death which has swept through our entire
race. But, Paul tells us, Jesus has launched another avalanche of grace, and he
can amply counteract all that Adam has brought.
Verses
18 and 19 give a summary First, verse 18:
Consequently, just as the result of one trespass
was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness
was justification that brings life for all men.
Death--judgment
or condemnation--comes to us not because of our own sins, but because of
Adam's. It is a gift from Adam. What a terrible gift it is! And thus the
acceptance and worth that we need to have, the love that we desperately crave
and must have in order to function, is also a gift, a gift from the Lord Jesus
Christ. We can have all that we want, anytime we need it. Verse 19:
For just as through the disobedience of the one
man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man
the many will be made righteous.
Some
claim we are righteous because God declares us righteous. But here it is stated
that we are made righteous in Jesus Christ. Paul is saying that when we were in
Adam, sin and guilt were not an option--we had no way of choosing. We sin
because that is part of our nature. And so, when we are in Christ, having worth
and love is not something that we have to earn--it is a gift from the Lord
Jesus. It is part of our new, true nature.
The Law Was
Added
In
verses 20 and 21, the apostle briefly deals with the place of the law:
The law was added so that the trespass might
increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just
as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to
bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Someone
might raise the question, "Why then did the Ten Commandments have to be
given?" Paul's answer is, "The Ten Commandments never were given to
make men do right" That is what we think they were given for, but they
were actually given to show us how wrong we already are, and to make us sin
more, to increase the trespass. Isn't that strange? As in the example of my
grandson, the law makes you want to do wrong even more. It increases the
trespass.
But
a strange thing happens at that point. Paul tells us that the worse we get--the
more we fling ourselves into the rebellion, sin, and evil that we know to be
wrong--the closer we are to being broken, to coming to the end of ourselves and
discovering the grace of restoration, cleansing, and forgiveness in Jesus
Christ.
I
listened recently to a tape by Charles Colson in which he told of his
experience in prison after the Watergate crisis. In that dark and lonely place,
crammed in with forty other men, he found a brother in Christ. The two of them
met and began to pray for others in that prison. They didn't know what God
could do--they almost despaired that anything could happen--but as they began
to pray, God began to work. They found that the Spirit of God swept through
that prison in a remarkable way. Men were broken. Hardened, violent, brutal
men--who had spent their lives in resistance to right, truth, and good, and had
given themselves over completely to hardness, cynicism, and brutality--began to
break and to find forgiveness.
Do
you know there is a spiritual awakening going on in our prisons today? I read
that in one year, in the Los Angeles County jails, 256 prisoners received the
Lord Prisoners are open to Christ because the law has driven them into trespass
to such a degree that they are ready to hear the gospel. Sometimes this happens
without outward rebellion. Sometimes men become frustrated, hard, and cynical.
When that happens we learn the grace of God will abound more and more, for the
increase of sin only increases the grace of our Lord Jesus.
The
point of all this is that the one who breaks through is Jesus. Adam ruins us
all. Only Christ can set us free. Sin and death will never loosen their filthy
hold on us except at the command of Jesus Christ. Therefore, the One to whom we
look is the Lord Jesus, the One who broke the terrible death grip on us and set
us free--Jesus, the head of a new race, the beginning of a new humanity. Jesus
is Lord.
As
we see him thus, we discover what the Scriptures say: that the blessed Lord,
who broke through death and sin, has come to live within us, to give himself to
us, and to infuse us with his strength and purity, his wisdom and power. All
that he is, is available to us. Thus we rejoice in god through our Lord Jesus
Christ, who has made for us the reconciliation.
13 CAN WE
GO ON SINNING?
(Romans 6:1-2)
Let
me ask you a question. Now that you are a Christian--now that you understand
that the grace of God forgives your sins, past, present, and future, that the
sacrifice of Jesus Christ on your behalf settles the debt for sin, no matter
when sins occur--do you then have the right to go on sinning, living as you
were, knowing that the grace of God will cover those sins?
That
is a highly relevant question; many people today are asking it, and many are
saying that we can go on sinning. Many claim that they have the right to go on
living in a blatantly sinful way because, they say, their sins are forgiven. A
man in our congregation admitted to me that he was a homosexual but claimed
that he did not need to make any change in his life because, as a Christian,
his sins were forgiven. This is not an out-of-date question, but one we all
wrestle with and must resolve. The apostle Paul faces this question in the sixth
chapter of Romans.
In
chapters 6 and 7 he interrupts his argument temporarily to deal with two very
practical questions. In chapter 6 Paul responds to those who ask, "What
about the sins of believers?" In chapter 7 he takes up the demands of the
Ten Commandments. Then, in chapter 8, he again picks up his argument and begins
to carry on by describing the tremendous results of being in Jesus Christ (as
opposed to Adam).
We
will study only two verses of chapter 6 in this chapter. As we have seen
before. Paul always states the truth first in a kind of nutshell, in a pithy
statement of what he wants to say. Then he takes up his argument, step by
logical step, and explains and expounds it until it is perfectly clear. That is
what he does here. The whole truth that answers the question, "Can we go
on sinning?" is dealt with in the first two verses of chapter 6 Paul says,
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning
so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it
any longer? (6:1-2)
This
is the whole argument, right there. We died to sin; how can we live in it any
longer?
An
Appropriate Question
Let
us observe three things about this brief statement. First, notice the question
is logical. Shall we go on sinning that grace may increase? That is a good
question to ask. If my teaching or preaching does not arouse this question in
someone's mind, there is probably something wrong with my teaching, for it is
the kind of question that ought to be asked at this point. There is something
about the grace of God and the glory of the good news that immediately raises
this issue. If sin is so completely taken care of by the forgiveness of Christ,
then we don't really need to worry about sins, do we? They are not going to
separate us from Christ, so why not keep on doing them? It is a perfectly
logical question. It was raised everywhere Paul went, and it is a question that
must be faced.
But
second, notice that it is not only logical; it is also natural. That is because
sin, basically, is fun. Isn't it? Oh, come on--admit it! Sin is fun. We like to
do it. Otherwise we wouldn't keep on doing it; we wouldn't even get involved in
it. We know sins are bad for us. Our minds tell us, our logic tells us, our
experience tells us. Sin is bad for us. Nevertheless, we like to sin. Otherwise
we would not. Therefore, any suggestion that we can escape the penalty for our
sin and still enjoy the action arouses a considerable degree of interest. It
does in me, anyway.
We
must understand that the apostle is talking about a lifestyle of sin, not just
a single failure or two. He is talking about Christians who go on absolutely
unchanged in their lifestyle from what they were before they were Christians.
The word for "go on sinning" is in the present, continuous tense. It
means the action keeps on happening. The question is, "Can we go on
sinning?" Verses 15 and following deal with the effects of a single act of
sin in a believer's life and what happens when we fail even once. We will come
to that in due course. But here Paul is talking about habitual practice, or
something that frequently occurs in a believers experience, something that was
there before he became a Christian. Can we go on living this way?
Finally,
notice that this question is put in such a way as to sound right and even
pious. Shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase? This suggests that
our motivation for sinning is not just our own satisfaction--we are doing it
for the glory of God, so that grace may increase God loves to show his grace.
Therefore, if we go on sinning, he will have all the more opportunity. What a
chance for God to show his grace! It is clear that this question is not asked
by a complete pagan or by a worldling, but by someone who seems intent on the
glory of God.
Having
said that, we come now to the answer, the positive answer of Paul.
What shalt we say then? Shall we go on sinning
so that grace may increase? By no means!
Paul
immediately reacts with a very positive statement, bluntly put: "By no
means!" Or, as it is literally in the Greek, "May it never be!"
Absolutely not! It is interesting to me to see how other versions translate
this phrase The King James Version sounds horrified "God forbid!"
Phillips seems to catch this same note of horror "What a ghastly thought!"
The New English Bible puts it very simply, "No, no" So here is a
no-no in the Christian experience. Can we sin? No-no. I gather from all this
that the apostle Paul simply does not agree with this philosophy that we can go
on sinning and be forgiven. Why? In his inescapable logic, Paul answers in just
four little words: "We died to sin."
We died to sin. How can we live in it any
longer?
Here
is the whole truth. The rest of the chapter is but an exposition of what Paul
means. We will take that exposition step by step because there is tremendous
understanding involved in it. But Paul does not make any logical advance on his
original statement. When we get to the end of the chapter, he has simply made
clear what he means by "We died to sin." There is the whole argument,
and if we understand what he means, we will see why he asks, "How can we
go on living in it any longer?"
What It
Doesn't Mean
Now
lets look at this phrase, "We died to sin." First, it does not mean
that sin is dead in me. It does not mean that, as a Christian, I have reached
the place where I cannot sin.
Some
years ago I was living in the city of Pasadena. One day I went to get a
haircut. I soon found the barber was a Christian. As we began to talk, he
started to tell me about his Christianity. He told me that seventeen years
earlier he had been "sanctified," as he put it, and he was no longer
able to sin. For seventeen years he had lived without sin. He made it very
clear that he had done no sin at all.
As
I began to discuss this with him I brought in certain other passages, and we
got into an argument. The longer we went, the hotter he got--all the while he
was cutting my hair. He worked himself up into such a lather that I finally
said to him, "Look, if you can get so upset and angry when you have no sin
in you, what would you be like if you were a sinner like the rest of us?"
It was two weeks before I dared to appear in public after that haircut! Surely
such a claim to total sinlessness carries its own rebuttal.
So
this passage does not mean that sin is dead in us; nor does it mean, as some
have supposed, that we should die to sin. There are movements and churches
based upon this idea. They say Paul is teaching us that we ought to die to sin.
One can attend meetings, conferences, and camp meetings where he will be
exhorted to die to sin. We are told this is the way to come to a victorious
life. We are told we ought to begin to crucify ourselves and die to sin. Now I
submit that Paul is not saying we ought to do this; he is telling us it has
been done. We died to sin. It has already happened!
Third,
neither does Paul mean that we are dying to sin. Some take it that way. They
say this means the Christian is gradually changing and growing. The more he
does so, the more he dies to sin, there will come a time when he will outgrow
all his evil. But it does not mean that at all. Once again, we must face the
flat statement the apostle makes. We died to sin. It is past tense. It has
already happened.
If
we go back to chapter 5, we have that great contrast with what we were in Adam
and what we are now in Christ "In Adam," he says, "we will sin.
There is no way we can escape it; Adam has passed on the taint of sin and death
as his heritage." Therefore, in Adam, we will sin. We all do. But then he says,
"If we are in Christ (and the implication is clear that we are), we will
not go on sinning." Look at verse 21 of chapter 5:
Éso that, just as sin reigned in death, so also
grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ
our Lord.
Now
whatever else those words mean, it is certain that what happens in Christ
cancels out what happened in Adam. If death and sin come to us from Adam, then
life and deliverance come from Christ.
You
can see already one reason why Paul would add, "If this is true, how can
we go on sinning?" We need to understand his line of argument. When you
become a Christian, if you have by grace received the gift of God--which is
Jesus himself--and the gift of righteousness which he brings, then you are no
longer in Adam, but in Christ.
And
yet, having said that, we have to face the fact that Christians--who are no
longer in Adam but are now in Christ--do sin, and they do die. Chapter 5 told
us that sin and death are the results of Adam's transgression. That, I think,
brings us to what we need to understand--the nature of our humanity.
The
first thing the Scriptures tell us about ourselves is that the most important
part of us is our spirit. We are spirit; we have bodies and souls, but we
are spirit. That may sound a bit spooky. After all, we can see our bodies and
at least feel our souls. But how do we detect our spirit? We have been
brainwashed by the world to believe that only those things which can be seen
and felt are real--and who can see or feel a spirit? So we have a struggle. But
the Scriptures tell us that basically, down deep, the very nature of our being
is spirit, even as God is Spirit. You can't see your spirit, nor can you feel
it; but that is who you are.
Made to
Hold Something
The
Scriptures help us to understand the nature of that spirit by a beautiful
symbol. Since we cannot see our spirit, we have to view it through a symbol, a
visual aid. The most common visual aid in Scripture to describe our human
spirit is that of a vessel. You can think of your spirit as a little cup inside
of you, made to hold something.
The
Scriptures tell us that in the beginning this cup was made to hold none other
than God himself. All the greatness and glory of God could be pouted into that
tiny human cup. That is what Adam was, as he came fresh from the hand of God, a
cup filled with God himself. But in the Fall that cup was emptied, and filled
again with a kind of poison. A satanic twist began to poison all our humanity.
We find that when the poison Adam brought in fills our spirit, it spreads into
the soul. Now the soul is the realm of our experience. It is the functioning of
the mind (the reason), the will (the power to choose), and emotion (the power
to feel). Scripture tells us that this poison has touched us in all those
areas, so that we do not think rightly, we do not feel rightly, we do not
choose rightly. That is why things go wrong wherever human beings are involved.
What
the spirit and the soul feel will be expressed finally in the bodyās action.
That is the way we are made. What the body does always reflects what the spirit
and soul are doing. That is, if we have fear (one form of evil and death within
us), it will express itself in several ways. Shyness or timidity may be one
way; anxiety and worry, another; bluster and boasting, still another. All these
reflect the fear inside.
If
we feel angry and hostile, it comes out in sharp words or even violent actions.
We poke someone in the jaw, or we yell at the top of our voice, or storm out of
the house and slam a door. All this reveals what is inside, what is filling the
cup of the spirit. If it is self-love that is there, as it certainly is, it
comes out in greed, possessiveness, and selfishness, or through sexual
promiscuity, satisfying self, exploiting another person. Or it may be ambition,
power hunger, whatever. All of this comes out from within. This is saying
nothing more than what Jesus himself told us in Mark 7.
What comes out of a man is what makes him
'unclean.' For from within out of menās hearts {that is a word for
spirit}, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adulteryÉ{Ho, you say, you haven't
got me yet! Well, hang on!} malice, deceit lewdness, envy, slander,
arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean'
(Mark 7:20-23).
Paul
says the same thing Jesus said. It all depends on what fills the cup of the
spirit. If it is Adam's life, then that is what will come out. There is nothing
we can do to stop it. All we can do is try to pretend it is something else; and
we are all adept at doing that.
But
what happens when that spirit fully and truly turns to Christ, when it receives
the gift of God's grace, the gift of worth? Then, according to this argument in
Romans 5, the tie with Adam is broken. The spirit is emptied of its satanic
content--sin--and it is filled again with the Holy Spirit, who releases to it
the life of Jesus. That is what the Holy Spirit has come to do. Our human
spirit, our essential nature, is no longer in Adam, in any sense at all. It is
now in Christ. We are tied to Christ. That is the teaching of Scripture from
beginning to end, from Genesis to Revelation.
But
the problem comes because our souls and bodies, which have functioned for years
under the control of sin, are still going on in the same old way, living
according to those patterns built up under the reign of sin. Our habits,
thoughts, and actions are already established along wrong lines. That is where
the evil and sin in a believers life come from. His spirit is freed from sin;
his soul and body are yet under its control.
Righteousness
Is Inevitable
It
is a struggle to reeducate the soul and the body, and we fail many times until
we allow the Holy Spirit to bring them under the control of Jesus Christ
dwelling in the cup of our spirit. But it will happen, and it must happen, Paul
argues. If Christ is in the cup of the spirit, then just as we could not evade
sin because we were in Adam, so in Christ we cannot evade righteousness.
The
life of Jesus is more powerful, more persistent, more insistent than the life
of Adam ever was. That is the meaning of all the "much mores" in this
section. If we had to sin in Adam, then for the very same reason we must begin
to practice righteousness in Christ. It is not something we can help; it will
just happen. That is why Paul asked the question, "Having died to sin, how
can we live in it any longer?" Why, it is impossible. It is not a question
of should we; it is a question of can we. His answer is, "No, it can never
be."
Right
next door to us is a home built a number of years ago which has been inhabited
now by two different families. The first was a rather difficult family, the
kind of people who would never keep a yard or house in order. Soon after they
moved in, the brand new home began to show the effects of their style of life.
The yard was littered with trash and garbage. The lawn died for lack of care.
When it was replanted, it withered again. To enter their house was to enter a
shambles. It was never clean or in order.
But
then these neighbors moved out and new ones moved in. It wasn't long until it
became obvious that a different kind of people lived there. They cleaned up the
house and painted it. The yard was cleaned up, the lawn was dug up and
replanted, and it has been cared for adequately ever since. Things are
completely different. What happened? It is impossible there would not be a
change, because there was a change in those who dwelt inside. This is what Paul
is telling us here. There has to be a change because Christ has entered our
spirit.
Self-
Deceived
Now
someone asks, "What if a Christian does go on sinning, living in sin,
claiming forgiveness, but goes on without any change in his life
whatever?" What about that? There are people who do this. The answer, in light
of this Scripture, is simple. These people simply reveal that they have never
truly been justified by faith. They are not Christians. Let's put it as bluntly
as the apostle himself put it. They are deceiving themselves and others. Though
they may do so with good intent, and with utter sincerity as far as they
know--nevertheless the case is clear.
It
is impossible for your lifestyle to continue unchanged when you become a
Christian. It is simply impossible, because a change has occurred deep in the
human spirit. Those who protest and say they can go on living in sin reveal
that there has been no change in their spirit; there has been no break with
Adam. They are still in the same condition.
The
apostle makes that plain in a couple of places. The first is in Ephesians:
For of this you can he sure. No immoral, impure
or greedy person--such a man is an idolater--has any inheritance in the kingdom
of Christ and of God. {He is not a Christian yet. He is claiming to be, but he is
not. And lest we be fooled by his claims, the apostle goes on to say,} Let
no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God's wrath
comes on those who are disobedient (Ephesians 5:5-7).
In
very much the same terms, Paul puts it again in 1 Corinthians.
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit
the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral nor
idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor
thieves nor the greedy nor drunkard, nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit
the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were {They were; they are no
longer. Some of them are still struggling, and some of them do occasionally
fail and go back to some of these things. But there's a vast difference. They
no longer are that way at heart; there has been a break, a change in their
lifestyle.} But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God (1 Corinthians
6:9-11).
I
think Paul is clear and fully answers the question, doesn't he? He says there
is great hope for those caught up in any of these things. There is a way of
deliverance. It is not a way that permits going on with the same style of life.
Jesus Christ came to free us from sin, not to allow us to continue in it.
The
question we must face about ourselves is, Have we really begun to hate sin deep
inside our own sin, the things we do wrong and, for the moment, choose to do?
Have you begun to hate it? Do you want to be free from it, to be delivered,
want its power broken in your life? You can only want that because there has
come into your heart a new Spirit; into the cup of your human spirit has come
the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And from that vantage point, he is
beginning to assert control of his purity throughout your whole life. You
cannot settle for sin any longer.
In
the rest of the chapter Paul helps us to understand more about how this works,
but here he makes the principle itself unquestionably clear. Can we go on
sinning? May it never be!
14 THE TRUE
BAPTISM OF THE SPIRIT
(Romans 6:1-14)
When
a person becomes a Christian, when he really, truly receives Jesus Christ as
Lord, something happens that makes it impossible for him to go on living a
lifestyle of evil, because he died to sin. The apostle now uses two marvelous
visual aids to help us understand this. One of them is baptism, and the other
is grafting (as a plant or a branch is grafted into a tree). Here is what he
says about baptism:
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning
so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it
any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ
Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through
baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead
through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life (6:1-4).
When
I was a boy in Montana I had a horse that could smell water from farther away
than any animal I ever saw. You could be riding across the dry, parched plains,
when suddenly he would prick up his ears, lift his head, and quicken his pace,
and you knew he smelled water somewhere and was heading for it. Some people are
like that. Whenever they read these passages and see the word
"baptism," they smell water. You can just see them prick up their
ears, lift their heads, and head for it. But there is no water here. This is a
dry passage.
More Potent
Than Water
This
passage deals with how we died to sin, how we became separated from Adam and
were joined in Christ. No water can do that. That requires something far more
potent than water. It is, therefore, a description of the baptism of the Holy
Spirit (as it is called elsewhere in the Scriptures.) John the Baptist, who
made his reputation because he baptized in water, said, "I indeed baptize
you with water, but there comes One after me, greater than I, who will baptize
you with the Holy Spirit." That is what Paul is talking about here--the
baptism of the Holy Spirit, which places us into Christ.
In
1 Corinthians 12:13, Paul says exactly the same thing "For we were all
baptized by one Spirit into one body--whether Jews or Greeks, slave or
free--and we were all given the one Spirit to drink." Notice how he
emphasizes that all believers were baptized into one body. We were placed into
Christ. You are not a Christian if that is not true of you. Therefore, people
today who say you need to undergo the baptism of the Holy Spirit after you become a believer do
not understand the Scriptures. There is no way to become a believer without
being baptized with the Holy Spirit.
The
baptism of the Spirit happened first, historically, on the day of Pentecost,
when the Holy Spirit came upon 120 people who were gathered in the temple
courts. It fused them into one body, joining them to the head, which is Jesus.
Thus the church was formed, one body in Christ, all members one of the other
and members of the Lord Jesus himself. That is the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
It is not something felt; it is not something we can know through our senses when it
takes place; it is something the Spirit does to our human spirit. Yet this
baptism is essential to becoming a Christian. It is part of the process by
which we share the life of Jesus Christ.
Notice
some things that Paul says about the baptism of the Spirit. First, he says that
we are expected to know about it: "Don't you know that we were all baptized
into Christ, into his death?" He expects these Roman Christians, who had
never met him or been taught personally by him, to know this. It is something
new Christians ought to know.
Shadow on
the Sand
Now,
how would they know this? Here is where water baptism comes in. Water baptism
reaches, by symbol, the meaning of the baptism of the Spirit. The one is the shadow,
or figure, of the other. The people to whom Paul was writing had been baptized
in water after their conversion and regeneration, and Paul supposes that their
water baptism had helped them to understand the reality of what the Spirit had
already done to them.
Some
time ago, my fellow pastor, Ron Ritchie, told me of an experience he had one
Easter Sunday during a baptism service in the ocean near his home. You really
have to love Christ to be baptized in the frigid waters of the Pacific. A woman
came up to him and asked him to baptize her nine-year-old daughter. Ron was
reluctant to do so without finding out whether the girl really understood what
was happening, so he began to question her and to teach her about the reality
behind water baptism. He was gesturing as he talked to her, and noticed the
shadow of his hand as it fell on the sand. So he said to the little girl,
"Do you see the shadow of my hand on the sand? Now that is just the
shadow; the hand is the real thing. And when you came to Jesus, when you
believed in Jesus, that was the real baptism. You were joined to him, and what
happened to him happened to you Jesus was alive; then he died, was buried, and
then he arose from the dead. And that is what happened to you w!
hen
you believed in him."
He
pointed to the shadow on the sand and said, "When you go down in the water
and are raised up again, that is a picture of what has already happened"
The girl immediately caught on and said, "Yes, that is what I want to do
because Jesus has come into my life" So water baptism is a shadow, a
picture, a symbol worked out for us to teach what happened to us when we
believed in the Lord Jesus.
Notice
also that the apostle explains how we died to sin. The Spirit took us and
identified us with all that Jesus did. Now, I do not understand that, because
that means the cross is a timeless event. The Spirit of God is able to ignore
the two thousand years since the crucifixion and resurrection and somehow
identify us, who live in this twentieth century--as he has all believers of
past centuries--with that moment when Jesus died, was buried, and rose again
from the dead. We participate in those events. That is clear.
But
I do not think we need to struggle with this, because something similar has
already been referred to in chapter 5. There we were told that by being born
into this human race we became part of what Adam did. Way back at the dawn of
history, Adam sinned, and we sinned in Adam. I do not fully know how that is
true, but I certainly believe it. Every evidence of history demonstrates it to
be true. This is not theological fiction; it is fact Adam sinned, and so we sin
Adam died, and men ever since have died.
The
apostle is now saying that what was true in Adam has now been ended; now we are
in Christ, by faith in Jesus Christ. Once Adam's actions affected us; but now
Christ's actions become ours as well. Christ died, and we died; Christ was
buried, and we were buried with him; Christ rose again, and we rose with him.
So what is true of Jesus is true of us.
Here
Paul is dealing with what is probably the most remarkable and certainly the
most magnificent truth recorded in the pages of Scripture. It is the central
truth God wants us to learn. We died with Christ, were buried, and rose again
with him. That union with Christ is the truth from which everything else in
Scripture flows. If we understand and accept this fact, then everything in our
lives will be different. That is why the apostle labors so to help us
understand.
Notice
one other thing about this paragraph--the purpose for which all this happened.
Paul says, "We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in
order that,
just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too
may live a new life." Remember, Paul is answering the question, "Can
a believer go on sinning?" His answer is, "Absolutely not." We
cannot because we have died, have been buried, and have risen again with Jesus;
and therefore we too may live a new life.
Nectarines
and Peaches
Verses
5 through 10 introduce a new figure and reveal a deeper revelation of what has
happened to us. Paul now uses the figure of grafting.
If we have been united with him in his death, we
will certainly also be united with him. In his resurrection (6:5).
In
other words, you cannot pick and choose. You can not die with Christ and not be
risen with him. If you died with him, you must be risen with him as well. Paul
uses a word from botany here. The word "united" means "to graft
a branch into another." If you have fruit trees, you may have done
grafting. Perhaps you have taken a branch from a nectarine tree and grafted it
into a peach tree. The branch is tied into the tree in such a way that the life
from the trunk of the tree flows into the branch and they grow together until
finally you can't tell the difference between the graft and the natural branch.
The life is fully shared. This is the figure Paul is using here to describe our
tie with the Lord Jesus. His life becomes our life. We are no longer in Adam,
in any sense. The tie is totally broken. We are now in Christ, and he is our
life from now on.
This
is important for us to understand. To help us further, Paul now gives us both
sides to this parallel--death and resurrection. Verses 6 and 7 explain what it
means to die in Christ; verses 8-10 explain what it means to be risen with him.
Verses 6 and 7:
For we know that our old self was crucified with
him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless that we should no
longer be slaves to sin--because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
In
this parallel, Jesus was crucified and we were crucified too. Our old self, the
old man, the man who was in Adam, is dead, and the tie has been broken. All
that we were as a natural-born human being ended when we believed in Jesus.
Paul
refers to the essential "you," the spirit within. Biblical psychology
tells us that basically we are spirits, as I have already discussed, dwelling
in human bodies. Your body is not you. Even your soul, which is produced by the
union of the body and the spirit, is not wholly you. You are your spirit.
Until the
Cross
Next,
Paul explains that Jesus was crucified in order that the sin which was in his
body on the cross should come to an end, that this body be rendered powerless
with respect to sin. You say, "Now, wait a minute. There's something wrong
here. There was no sin in Jesus." That is true. Scripture is careful to
teach us that in Jesus there was no sin. He did not sin; there was no sin in
him until the cross. But this tells us an amazing thing about our Lord when he
was on the cross. There, Paul says, he was "made sin" for us. Sin, in
the believer, is located in the body (I will expand upon that in a moment.)
Therefore, it was described in Jesus in terms of the body. His body became possessed
and controlled by sin. That is why his body died. And by his death his body was
thus rendered powerless with regard to sin.
Why
do we bury a corpse? We bury it because it is useless, inert, inactive. There
is nothing it can do any longer, and so we bury it. That is why Jesus was
buried--to prove that the sin in his body was ended. The body was useless,
unresponsive. Paul says that is what happens to us. When our spirit has died in
Christ, then the body of sin will be rendered powerless.
What
does Paul mean by this term "body of sin"? He means the physical body
dominated and controlled by sin. In Adam, sin filled the whole of man--his
spirit, his soul, and his body. Therefore, his descendants had to sin. That is
why, before I became a Christian, even when I tried to be good, I couldn't.
Something always went wrong and I ended by fouling up in some way. I was a
slave to sin, and no matter how much I wanted to be different, I couldn't be.
But
now that bond has been broken. In Christ my spirit is freed. It has been united
with Jesus; it has risen with him, and it is free from sin. This explains that
rather interesting passage in 1 John 3:9, which says, "No one who is born
of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he can not go
on sinning, because he has been born of God." John is talking about the
spirit, the essential me. In that sense, it is proper to say of believers,
"We can not sin."
What
Paul makes clear in Romans 6 is that sin remains as an alien power trying to
dominate and control our bodies and our souls. It is the presence of the spirit
in the body that produces the soul, just as electricity in a light bulb
produces light. The soul is our conscious experience and is produced moment by
moment as we live, as light comes from a light bulb moment by moment. Paul
makes it clear that in Christ our spirits were freed from sin. They do not sin,
and can not sin, because they are linked with Christ so that we may be able to
control the sin which is in the body.
From
here on, we do not have to sin. If we do, it is because we allow it to happen.
But we are no longer slaves to sin. Throughout the rest of this account Paul
deals with this theme. The body is the means by which we are tempted to sin.
There is nothing inherently sinful about our bodies--they are perfectly all
right--but somehow an alien power remains in them, and that is where we are
tempted all our life long. The body is the seat of sin.
Sin in the
Body
I
think I can illustrate this for you. When you sit at the table to eat, you are
satisfying a normal appetite that God gave to your body. It needs food; it
needs to replenish its energy. There is nothing wrong with eating. But when we
get to the table and find plenty of food on it, each one of us has something
within us that makes us want to eat too much. We often eat more than we should.
We say that we have a weight problem. What we really have is a sin problem. Sin
within us wants to take a natural function of the body and push it beyond what
it ought to do--and thus it becomes sin. That is why, when we sit at the table,
many of us are going to sin by becoming gluttons and gourmands. A gourmand is
someone who eats greedily, who delights in luxurious food, who lives for the
taste of food. We are all tempted this way because sin, as a principle, is
still in control of the functions of the body. But our spirit opposes it, and
we do not have to give in. That is the point.
From
time to time the body requires rest. The body of Jesus grew weary and needed
rest. But there is in us a principle that wants to overindulge, and we become
lazy, slothful, apathetic. We want other people to work and to serve us while
we rest. This is so natural that it is even hard to know when we go over the
line.
Consider
the tongue, that member of the body that is so little, James says, yet can be
set on fire by hell. With our tongues, designed to be that by which we bless
God, we curse him instead. The tongue is like the rudder of a ship. It turns
the whole life in a wrong direction because of our words.
Consider
the glands and hormones. Physiologists tell us that they are linked somehow
with our actions. Just as the brain is linked with the mind, so the glands are
linked with our emotions. They are often responsible for the way we feel. They
pour out hormones into the bloodstream and affect the body. Some hormones make
us overreact. Instead of experiencing normal fears designed to protect us from
evil, we become paranoid, worried, filled with anxiety. Or we become lustful
and indulge in wrong attitudes. We become angry, so that we hate and feel
jealousy. We indulge in what the Bible calls "inordinate affections."
Even our loves become twisted. That is sin in the body--no longer in the
spirit, but in the body. I do not have to describe this in terms of our sexual
appetites. These are normal, legitimate, valid appetites, made by God to be
satisfied; but something within us wants to satisfy them too soon, or with the
wrong person, or sometimes in the wrong way.
That
is where evil comes from--the body, not the spirit. I hope this is clear,
because it is a very important picture, and one that governs the rest of the
book of Romans (as well as all the New Testament). The regenerated spirit
cannot sin. It is born of God and it cannot sin. It has been set free from sin
in order that we may begin to exercise control over the body of sin, so that it
may be rendered inactive; we no longer need to be slaves to sin.
Not
only have we been set free to refuse sin, but a new power to resist sin has
been given to us:
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we
will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the
dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he
died, he died once and for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God
(6:8-10).
Once
we have reckoned ourselves dead to sin with Christ, there is nothing left but
to go on to life. Jesus does not go back into sin; he does not go back into
death. Sin and death are over, as far as we are concerned, because that is what
is true of Jesus. He lives now, and he lives under the will and by the power of
God. Therefore, Paul says, the same thing is true in our lives. Not only do we
need to recognize that we died to sin with Christ, but also that his life is in
us now. His power is available to us. When we decide not to sin, we have the
power to carry it out, because Christ is living in us.
The
Two-Step
It
all comes down to the two simple steps described in verse 11. This is the first
time in the book of Romans that we are asked to do anything; this is the first
exhortation in all of Romans. Up to now, everything Paul has written has been
about what God has done for us. Now in verse 11 we are asked to do something.
What is it?
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but
alive to God in Christ Jesus.
When
you are tempted, there are two things to do. First, remember that you do not
have to obey sin. You are free to refuse it, free to say, "No, you don't
have the right to use that part of my body for a sinful purpose" And
second, remember his power in you to enable you to offer that same part of your
body to God, to be used for his purposes. Now that may mean a struggle, because
sin is very strong. When we start to turn away from evil in our bodies, the
habits of our lives are so deeply ingrained that often it is very difficult,
and we struggle. But we have the power not to sin because we have God himself
within us, the living God.
A
group of ex-homosexuals living in San Rafael, California, has a great ministry
with those still involved in homosexuality. I was struck by this paragraph from
one of their papers. The writer is describing how tough it is to turn from
these evil practices and be different once you have been deeply involved in
them. He says:
This very weekend one of our brothers said to
me, "How can I last through even one more year of this?" I said in
response, "How can I last one more week?" But I will last and so will
he. For we have each other, and the sharing and fellowship and raring are God's
ingredients to healing--long-lasting healing--that will impart strength beyond
endurance, as God does it in his time, and in his way.
That
says exactly what Paul says in Romans 6. There will be a struggle; it is not
always easy, but we have the strength to do it and we have the right to do it.
We have the freedom not to sin and the desire not to sin. That is what God has
brought to us in Christ.
Now
you will see how the rest of this fits in Paul is describing the two steps we
are to repeat over and over in dealing with evil in our lives. First, in verses
12-13a, Paul explains how to count yourself dead to Sin:
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal
body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to
sin, as instruments of wickednessÉ
Step
number one is to reckon yourself dead to sin, to recognize it no longer has
power over you Step number two is found in verse 13b Offer yourself to God
Ébut rather offer yourselves to God, as those
who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to
him {your
tongue, your mind, your stomach, your hands, your feet, your sex organs--offer
them to God} as instruments of righteousness.
That
is the way to win over temptation. Then Paul closes with this fantastic
statement in verse 14. This, to me, is one of the greatest verses in all
Scripture:
For sin shall not be your master, because you
are not under law, but under grace.
Why
does Paul bring in the law? He brings it in because he is dealing with one of
the most basic problems of the Christian struggle, the thing that often
depresses and discourages us more than anything else--the sense of condemnation
we feel when we momentarily yield to sin. The law produces condemnation. The
law says that unless I live up to this standard, God will not have anything to
do with me. We have been so influenced by this idea that when we sin, even as
believers, we think God is angry and does not care about us. We also think that
way about ourselves, and become discouraged, defeated, and depressed. We want
to give up. What's the use?" we ask.
But
Paul says that is not true. We are not under law. God does not feel that way
about us. We are under grace, and God understands our struggle. He is not
disgusted with us; he is not angry with us. He understands our failure. He
knows there will be a struggle and there will be failures. He also knows he has
made full provision for us to recover immediately, to pick ourselves up and go
right on climbing the mountain. Therefore we donāt need to be discouraged, and
we shouldn't be. Sin will not be our master because we are not under the law
and condemnation, but under grace. And even though we struggle, if every time
we fail we come back to God and ask his forgiveness, and take it from him, and
remember how he loves us, and that he is not angry or upset with us, and go on
from there, we will win.
I
will never forget how, as a young man in the service during World War II, I was
on a watch one night, reading the Book of Romans. This verse leaped out of the
pages at me. I remember how the Spirit made it come alive, and I saw the great
promise that all the things I was struggling with as a young man would
ultimately be mastered--not because I was so smart, but because God was
teaching me and leading me into victory. I remember walking the floor, my heart
boiling over with praise and thanksgiving to God. I walked in a cloud of glory,
rejoicing in this great promise: "Sin shall not have dominion over you,
for you are not under law, but under grace."
Looking
back across these more than forty years since that night, I can see how God has
broken the grip of things that mastered me then. Other problems have come in,
with which I still struggle. But the promise remains "Sin shall not have
dominion over you. You are not under law, but under grace."
15 WHOSE
SLAVE ARE YOU?
(Romans 6:15-23)
Surely
believers ought not to sin, but unfortunately, they do. In verses 1-14 of
chapter 6, we looked at the answer to the question, "Can I go on living as
I once did! Can I continue a lifestyle of sin, just as though nothing had
really happened to me, except that I will go to heaven when I die?"
Paul's
answer is: "Absolutely not! You cannot do that; if you do, it is proof
that you never really participated in the death and resurrection of
Jesus." In other words, you are really not a Christian. Anyone who goes on
in an unchanged life after having professed that he has come to Christ is
simply giving testimony to everyone that he really has not been changed in his
heart at all. Paul has just declared, "For sin shall not be your master,
because you are not under law, but under grace."
In
verse 15, he raises the question again, but in a slightly different way:
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under
law but under grace?
Now
the question is not "can we" but "shall we?" Paul is asking
whether a Christian should choose to sin occasionally because of the momentary
pleasure involved.
Every
one of us faces that situation from time to time. Sometimes we run up against
some especially delicious temptations. At times, we are all confronted with the
suggestion, "Why not give in? After all, I'm not going to hell because of
this. My salvation rests on Christ and not on me. And actually, God is not
going to reject me because of this, for the law does not condemn me any longer.
I am not under law. It is love that will discipline me; law will not condemn me
I can be forgiven; I can be restored--so why not sin?" I have heard many
Christians talk that way, and I have felt the full force of this confrontation
in my own life. Since we are not under law, but under grace, why not give in
and enjoy a sin? Do you see the thrust of the apostle's question?
In
the verses that follow, Paul answers that question, beginning with an emphatic
"No. By no means!" If I, as a Christian, go on and sin deliberately,
even if it is only occasionally, I must face what sin will do to me. We
believers must face the full results of what will happen when we choose to do
what we know is wrong, even though we have been set free in Christ and need not
do these things.
Paul's
answer is threefold. Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?
By no means! First, sin makes one a slave (verses 16 through 19). Second, sin
will make one ashamed (verses 20 and 21). Finally, sin will spread death
throughout our whole existence (verses 22 and 23).
Made to Be
Mastered
Let's
look at the first part of Paul's answer. In verses 16 through 19 he tells us
that sin will make slaves out of us:
Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to
someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey--whether
you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to
righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin,
you whole heartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.
You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. I put
this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves just as you
used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to
ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness
leading to holiness (6:16-19).
Paul
goes into the common experience of the world of his day to give us a picture of
what humanity is like. He uses the word "slaves" to describe us. In
doing so, he is dealing with a profound psychological fact: Human beings are
made to be mastered. Someone has to master us.
Several
years ago in Los Angeles I saw a man walking down the street with a sign hung
over his shoulders. The front of it said "I'M A SLAVE FOR CHRIST." On
the back it read, "WHOSE SLAVE ARE YOU?" It is a good question. All
of us are slaves to one or the other of these two masters--sin or
righteousness. We have no other choices. By the very nature of our humanity, we
are made to serve and to be controlled by forces beyond our power.
We
think we are creatures of sovereign choice, but we are not. Our choices are
narrow and limited. The great question is: Who controls the choices in that
narrow band? What forces are at work to limit us to such a narrow range
throughout our lives? The answer is that something beyond us controls these
choices. God is at work; Satan is at work. We are given a limited ability to
choose.
Paul
then speaks of these two kinds of slavery. He says that we Christians have been
set free from slavery to sin. Once we had to sin. Before we came to Christ, there was
no choice; no matter whether we chose what we thought was good or chose what we
thought was wrong, we ended up making a choice that led to evil. There was no
other way. Even the right things we tried to do were tainted with evil, with
selfishness.
Well
then, what happens when we sin as believers? Now we are free, and yet we go
back and choose to do something wrong. We
are confronted with this temptation to give way for the moment and indulge
ourselves in some sin. Most of us try to kid ourselves into believing it is not
very serious "It won't hurt us anyway," we reason, so we make the
choice.
Paul
says, "Let's look at what happens. First of all, don't you know that you
have set in operation a basic principle of life?" The principle is this:
If you yield yourself to sin, you become sin's slave. Jesus stated this in John
8:34--"Verily, verily, I say unto you [that is a little formula that means
he is stating basic, fundamental, absolutely foundational truth], whosoever
committeth sin is the servant of sin" (KJV).
No Ultimate
Control
Now,
what does this mean in practice? A slave, of course, is someone who is not in
ultimate control of his own actions, someone who is at the disposal of another
person, someone who has to do what that other person says. When we choose to
tell a lie, we give one of the clearest evidences of this principle in our
lives. Have you ever noticed what happens when you tell a lie?
A
man said to me one day, "I told what I thought was a little white lie. I
thought that would handle the matter But you know, I found out that I had to
tell 42 other lies--l counted them--before I finally woke up to what I was doing
and admitted the whole thing and got out from under." We can't tell just
one lie. We are not in control of the events. If we choose to tell one lie,
before we know it, we have to tell another.
The
same is true with anger I decide I am going to put a little sharpness in my
voice when I answer someone. I want to cut him down just a little. I don't want
it to go too far--after all, I do like him--I just want to hurt him slightly.
So I do. What happens? He answers back in kind. So I cut a little deeper, and
before I know it, I am embroiled in an argument and a battle that I did not
want. It happened because I became a slave to sin. Sin pushed me further than I
wanted to go. There was no way I could escape.
Second,
sin not only takes me further than I desire to go, but it also infects others
with the same attitude. Notice how it works. I wake up in the morning feeling
surly and grouchy, and I snap at someone. Then the other person snaps back, and
soon the whole household reflects my attitude. I choose to do something a
little shady in my business, and soon others begin to do the same thing. So sin
begins to spread, like an infection. Years ago I heard a little rhyme:
I said a very naughty word, only the other day.
It was a truly naughty word I had not meant to say. But then, it was not really
lost, when from my lips it flew; My little brother picked it up, and now he
says it too.
That
is the way sin begins to spread. Part of the slavery is that when I yield
myself to something (and do so two or three times, so that it gets out of
control and goes beyond what I wanted before I wake up to what is going on), it
becomes difficult to change. Something resists every opportunity I rake to
change, because a habit has begun. Someone said to me the or her day, "It's
easy to quit smoking; I've done it dozens of times!" What a testimony to
the power these things have to grip and control us! Paul is right: We become
slaves of that which we obey.
In
verse 20 and 21 Paul continues:
When you were slaves to sin, you were free from
the control of righteousness. What benefit (or what fruit) did you reap at that time
from the things you are now ashamed of?
Each
of us can look back in our lives at something we are ashamed of. It leaves a
stain in our minds when we think about it. Shame is the awareness of unworthy
actions and irreparable damage that we do to others, and our painful feeling
about them. We have all felt shame. Sin--no matter what it is or how small it
seems--always leads to shame, a shame that stains and blots our memories. We
all know what it is like--those shameful deeds that we would like to forget,
but canāt; hurtful words that we wish we had never said; strained relationships
that go on for years, so that whenever we meet certain people we feel
uncomfortable.
This
is the inevitable fruit of sin, something of which Paul reminds us many times.
In Galatians he says, "Do not be deceived [don't kid yourself]: God cannot
be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful
nature, from that nature will reap destructionÉ" I canāt drop the seed of
evil info my heart without reaping from it the harvest, the fruit of
corruption. But "the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit
will reap eternal life" (Galatians 6:7-8). That is exactly what we see
here in Romans 6.
The End of
Light
The
third reason we should not give way to sin is found in verses 21 to 23:
Those things result in death! But now that you
have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap
leads to holiness and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is
death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (6:21-23).
Life
and death are the two results. When Paul talks about death here, he is talking
about something that you experience right now while you live. Death is both
physical and moral; the one is a picture of the other. Physical death always
involves darkness, the end of light and life. It involves limitation, for a
corpse is helpless--what can it do for itself? And it involves, ultimately,
corruption--the corpse begins to decay and stink; rottenness sets in.
When
we sin as believers, these same elements are present. There is, first of all,
darkness I can look back in my own life and see how, as a young Christian, there
were times when I struggled and struggled to understand passages of Scripture.
I could not seem to grasp them; they were closed to me. Others understood them
and seemed to be rejoicing in them, but I could not--until God, in his mercy,
began to deal with me about things that I was doing that I knew were wrong.
Finally, God led me to the place where I could be free. I would repent and turn
from these things and come into the freedom that God had given me in Christ.
Then I would discover that the Scriptures began to open up, and light came into
my darkness.
I
meet Christians all the time who do not seem to understand the Word of God. I
do not know if this is always the explanation, but in many cases it is because
they are deliberately allowing things in their lives that they know are wrong.
They do not realize that these things spread death. Darkness sets in, and they
cannot see the light. Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 4:4, "The god of
this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the
light of the gospel of the glory of Christ."
Besides
this darkness, sin produces other limitations too. Remember the account in the
Old Testament about Moses in the wilderness? He became angry one day when the
people tested him and frustrated him. God told him to speak to the rock and it
would give water. Instead, in his anger, Moses struck the rock with a rod. That
was just a little thing, a momentary blowup. For a few seconds, he lost his
temper. But God said, "Moses, because you have done this, you will not be
able to enter the Promised Land. When the people enter the land, you must stay
behind because you have done this thing."
I
am not suggesting there are things we do that forever limit the opportunities
God gives us. But I know that as long as we cling to things that we know are
wrong, justifying them and refusing to enter into the freedom that God gives
us, there is loss of opportunity. That is why many Christians never seem to
discover the adventure of serving God. They sit with folded arms, watching
other people having fun and excitement, while nothing opens for them. Often it
is because of this very thing--the choices of sin that they make. Death means a
lessening of our freedom and delight in the things of God and an increase in
boredom and banality. Sometimes our lives become utterly nauseating to us. Have
you ever felt that way? Sometimes your whole Christian experience almost stinks
in your own nostrils That is a sign of the death brought in by sin.
Now
throughout this account, Paul stresses over and over again the words "set
free." "You have been set free," he says. "You no longer
are the slaves of sin. When you came to the Lord Jesus, a change occurred; you
have been freed. You are no longer a slave to evil, but a slave to righteousness."
Paul says, "Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to
impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to
righteousness and holiness."
Now
that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, all this
business of being limited, of experiencing death and shame, is totally
unnecessary. That is the tragedy of sin in a believer's life. We do not have to
experience death in our lives; we have it only because we choose it, although
we were free to choose otherwise.
Useless
Unless Used
Years
ago a member of our family was learning to ride a bicycle. She learned how to
balance herself and pedal down the street. And she did very well at it. But the
only way she could stop herself was by running into something, and I was
constantly picking her up out of the bushes and off the sidewalk.
One
day, while I was helping her, I said, "You don't have to run into things
to stop; there is another way to do it. A provision has been made so that you
can stop this bicycle without having to run into things." I showed her
that all she had to do was to reverse the pedals and the coaster brake would
bring her to a stop. But I had shown her that before, so that this time she
replied with just a bit of sarcasm, "Well, I am sure relieved to know
that!"
I
realized she didn't need me to tell her there was another way to stop. What she
did need was to actually use it when it was time. What good is it to have a
provision for stopping if you never use it? You might just as well not have it.
The
question the apostle raises in this passage is this: "What good is it to
be set free from sin by Jesus Christ and have every opportunity and every
possibility of walking in holiness (wholeness) and in righteousness (a sense of
worth, a sense of security and assurance that you are loved by God and are
valuable to him), if, at the moment of choice, we ignore these things and go
right on as though we were slaves to sin?"
As
I travel across America, I often notice how our cities are filled with
churches. And those churches are often filled with Christians. This country
would appear to have a fantastic opportunity to witness a new quality of
life--a quality of life so uniquely different from that of the world that
people ought to be stopping us on the street to ask, "What goes with you?
How can you have such peace in your eyes? How can you have such love in your
heart? Why are you so different?" Instead, with our cities filled with
churches and our churches filled with people, all the world sees is the same
old tired reactions which are so familiar to them.
The
challenge of Romans 6 is this Christ has made us free, free to be kings, free
to have a sense of worth, free to be secure in our own personhood, knowing who
we are before God. He set us free to be whole people, untorn by conflicting
interests. With a single eye we can live to the glory of God, free from the
control or the blame or the censure--or the praise--of men. We are free at last
to respond to the greatest calling a man or woman can have--the call to know
God.
This
is what the closing verse means. "The wages of sin is death, but the gift
of God is eternal life." Jesus described that eternal life in John
l7:3--"Now this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God,
and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." Here we are, called to this kind of
living, called to this quality of existenceÉand yet, because of the foolishness
of our hearts and the weakness of our faith, we choose to give way to momentary
indulgences that lock us into slavery, shame, and death.
May
God help us set sin aside and live as the free men and women God has made us to
be! As Paul said in Galatians 5:1, "It is for freedom that Christ has set
us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a
yoke of slavery." We have been freed from the slave market; now we are to
walk as new men.
16 FREE TO
WIN OR LOSE
(Romans 7:1-6)
Romans
tells us that God's solution to man's problem is to begin a whole new race. He
does not use halfway measures, or try to patch up the old; he does not try to
improve what is there until it becomes good enough to live with. He cuts man
right off at the root and begins a new race.
But
the wonder and the glory of it is that he starts the new race within the shell
of the old. Outwardly, we remain unchanged. Our bodies are still subject to
decrepitude, decay, and death. Yet within, a new man has begun if we have
exercised faith in Jesus Christ. God's solution is to end the curse of Adam and
to release within us the power of a new life, the life of Jesus himself. When
we put our faith in our Lord and what he has done, we enter into an
identification with his death and his resurrection. The death of Jesus cuts us
off from the old Adam with whom we all began life. The resurrection of Jesus,
Paul says, introduces us to a whole new power--the life of Jesus, available to
us.
This
radical transformation will change our attitude, outlook, and value system, and
therefore it will change our lifestyle. But we can still sin as believers, if
we choose to. If we do, however, we cannot escape the enslavement that sin will
bring. It will involve us more deeply than we would like; it will spread
darkness and corruption throughout our lives; it will lead us to do things of
which we will be terribly ashamed. Though we can choose to sin, we will not
escape its consequences. We will not be condemned to hell but we will be
chastised unto repentance.
Chapter
7 deals with still another question before the apostle Paul more fully develops
this wonderful, glorious gospel. The question is this: Does the law help us, as
believers, to handle the problem of sin? The answer is both yes and no. Yes,
the law does help us--but only up to a point. It will help us to define the
problem. But no, the law is no help at all when it comes to delivering us. In
fact, it will only make things worse.
Paul
deals with the last part of this question first. In verses I through 6 he shows
the necessity of being freed from the law in order to handle the problem of sin.
We cannot handle our sins with the law hanging over our heads; we must be freed
from that. This is a pertinent problem today. Every Christian rejoices in what
he reads in the Scriptures about our identification with Christ and in these
tremendous terms--"freed from sin," "dead to sin," and
"alive to God," "alive to righteousness," wholeness, power.
Yet our experience tells us that we do not often achieve this. We are aware
that we all have a problem with sin. We still like it, and we still do it. We
experience what Paul says we will experience (enslavement, death, darkness,
unhappiness, and shame) as a result of our sin. This is true for every believer
in Christ today. Churches everywhere are filled with Christians who are
struggling with this.
What
is wrong? Basically, it is the problem that Paul describes in Romans 7. We
still have not learned how to handle the law. We still want regulations and
detailed instructions to follow so we can be freed from our problems. Yet, when
we try, even with the best of intentions, it still doesn't work. That is what
Paul deals with in this chapter. Now, let's see what he has to say in verses
1-3:
Do you not know, brothers--for I am speaking to
men who know the law--that the law has authority over a man only as long as he
lives? For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as
he is alive but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage.
So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is
called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law
and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man.
This
is a simple illustration taken right out of life. This situation occurred again
and again in Paul's day, and it occurs frequently in ours. It is intended to
clarify our relationship to the law. But before we get into the illustration
and its application, let's first notice that Paul carefully underlines for us
to whom this passage is addressed. In the first verse, he says, "Do you not
know, brothers--for I am speaking to men who know the lawÉ" In other
words, if we are to understand this paragraph, we must know something about the
law--its function, its purpose, and its effect. If we don't we will end up
confused.
What Do You
Know?
We
must take a moment to ask ourselves if we understand the law. First, do we
realize that "the law" refers to a standard of conduct, or behavior,
which is expected of men? There are other uses of the word "law."
Sometimes it is used in reference to a principle that governs our lives, such
as the law of gravity. But here Paul is talking about a standard of conduct
that we are expected to live up to.
The
most obvious and perfect expression of that standard is the Ten Commandments,
which tell us,
You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself a graven image.
. . .
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God
in vain. . . .
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. . . .
Honor your father and your mother. . . .
You shall not kill.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your
neighbor.
You shall nut covet.
(Exodus 20:3-17 RSV).
That
is a standard of conduct. That is the law Paul talks about here--the law that
was given to Israel.
But
Paul has already explained in chapter 2 that in a wider sense, the law is
relevant to men everywhere. Have you ever heard people talking about their
experiences and relationships with others? Listen for a while, and you will
hear a phrase like this: "I don't think that is fair." What do these
people mean? What is it that determines whether a thing is fair or not? It is
obviously some unspoken standard of conduct or behavior that both the speaker
and the listener have in mind which is universally understood.
Some
put it this way: "I think this is the right thing to do." There again
is an unspoken standard of behavior. Someone says, "I'm going to get
even." How do you know when you are "even"? There is clearly a
measure, a standard in mind. So, as Paul points out in chapter 2, the law
really is everywhere; it is embedded in the heart. There is an undescribed,
unspoken standard of conduct to which we all refer. Every man everywhere thinks
in these terms, no matter what his background. Now, that is the law. It is the
unspoken agreement we all understand and to which we must measure up. This is
what Paul calls "the law."
Letās
see what more we can know about the law. The purpose of the law is to condemn
failure. It never pats us on the back when we do right. It takes for granted
that we ought to do right anyway, and it never says "thank you" for
doing right. But if we do wrong, the law condemns us. In one way or another, it
points out and punishes wrongdoing. It does this in the laws of our land, in
traffic laws, and even in our so-called "moral" laws. Evil and
wrongdoing always take their toll. Therefore, the nature of law is to condemn
failure.
Why
does the law discourage people? If law condemns--and no one likes to feel put
down and condemned--then the effect of the law, invariably, is to discourage,
to produce a sense of defeat, and ultimately, a sense of despair. That is what
the law does. That is why, in our land and in all the nations of the earth, law
produces a sense of despair. That is a major problem with which people wrestle
today.
People
under Law
No
one likes to despair, so we react in various ways. There are certain invariable
signs that reveal how people are still under the law. Paul wrote to those
believers in Christ still under the law. In their minds, at least, they thought
they had to live under the law, and there are certain signs of people who live
like that.
One
of the first signs is that they are always proud of their record. You say,
"Wait a minute! I thought you said the law's effect was to make you
discouraged and defeated. Someone who is proud of his record is not discouraged
and defeated." Well, that is a diversion. The law is making them
discouraged, and they don't like it. In certain areas of their lives they see
defeat, so they attempt to get people's attention off this area and onto areas
where they feel they have succeeded. That is why they are always pointing out
the areas of their success and boasting about how well they are doing. They
want to keep us from looking at that other area where they are failing. The law
reveals failure. Therefore, none of the first marks of a person who is living
under the law is that he is always pointing out how well he is doing. Isn't
that strange?
Another
mark of people living under the law is that they are critical of others. This
is another diversionary tactic. Why are people critical of others? Well, if I
succeed in getting my friends' eyes fastened on other people, they won't look
at me. And I feel justified because I think the faults I point out in others
aren't the same faults of which I am guilty. God plays some amazing tricks with
us. He so blinds our eyes, or allows Satan to do so, that invariably the things
for which we criticize others are the very things of which we are guilty. But
we don't know it! The law produces a sense of failure and defeat, and we
constantly adjust to it and compensate for it by criticizing others.
Another
mark of those under the law is that they are always reluctant to admit any
error or fault, I was interested in Chuck Colson's characterization of former
President Richard Nixon. One of Nixon's problems was that he could never admit
he was wrong. In fact, in Born Again Colson said that even when Nixon obviously had a
cold-nose running, face red, sneezing, all the symptoms of a cold--he would
never admit it, That is the mentality of those who are under the law. They feel
very heavily the standard of conduct they are expected to have, so they pretend
they are living up to it, even though they aren't. They hate to admit defeat
because that means they must change.
Another
symptom of those under the law is that they suffer times of inner boredom and
depression, and often show symptoms of depression, discouragement, and defeat.
The law is doing its work of condemning, and that sense of condemnation
produces depression. Did you know this? Remember, you can't understand this
passage unless you know what the law does. If you know this, you can see it is
a major problem in the church. This is what has gone wrong with so much of the
American church today.
Her Tie to
the Law
Let's
go back now to the illustration Paul uses. You and I are the woman in his
little story. She has two husbands, one following the other. Now, the point of
this story is not that the woman has two husbands. Although that is important,
it is not the major point. What Paul is getting at here is what the death of
the first husband does to the womanās relationship to the law--not what it does
directly to the woman herself, but what it does to her tie to the law. Notice
that verse 2 tells us the place of the law in this story:
For example, by law a married woman is bound to
her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released
from the law of marriage [or, the law of her husband].
Notice
three factors here the law, the woman, and the husband. It is the law that
binds the woman and her husband together. The law is outside their
relationship, saying, "You two must stay together because you are
married." The law is not the husband, as it is often interpreted to be.
If
the first husband dies, Paul says, the woman is released from the law. Not only
is she released from her husband, but she also is released from the law. If her
husband dies, the law can say nothing to her as to where she can go and what
she can do and who she can be with. She is released from the law. The death of
the husband makes the woman free from the law.
Now,
who is this first husband? According to the context, it is quite clear. We have
been looking at it all along The first husband is Adam, the old life into which
we were all born. We were linked to it, married to it, and couldn't get away
from it. Like a woman married to an old, cruel husband, there is not much we
can do about it. While she is married she is tied to that husband. The law says
so. In verse 3, Paul says:
So then, if she marries another man while her
husband is still alive she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies,
she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries
another man.
Now,
that is plain, isn't it? The woman cannot have two husbands at once. She cannot
have a second husband while she is married to the first. She is stuck with
number one and she has to share his lifestyle. As we have already seen, that
lifestyle is one of bondage, corruption, shame, and death. That is why we who
were born into Adam have to share in the lifestyle of fallen Adam. It fits
perfectly, doesn't it?
Now,
if this woman, while she is married to her first husband, tries to live with
another--for her husbands lifestyle is sickening to her--she will be called an
adulteress. Who calls her that? The law does. The law says, "You are a
hypocrite." That, you see, is the spiritual counterpart of the physical
term "adulteress." The law condemns her; it points out her failure;
it calls her an adulteress. It is only when the first husband dies that she is
free from that condemnation of the law and thus can marry again. When she does,
the law is absolutely silent; it has nothing to say to her at all.
You Also
Died
Now
look at verse 4:
So, my brothers, you also died to the law
through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was
raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.
What
a fantastic verse! Here is the great and marvelous declaration of the gospel of
our Lord Jesus. Notice how Paul draws the parallel "SoÉyou also." We
fit right into this. The key thought here is "you died to the law through
the body of Christ." The body of Christ refers to the death of the Lord
Jesus on the cross. He died in a body. He came to take a body upon himself, so
that he might die.
Paul
refers to what the Scriptures say in many places--that on the cross the Lord
Jesus was made sin for us. He took our place, as sinful humanity, on the cross.
I don't know how, but he did. In other words, he became that first husband. It
is extremely important to grasp this. On the cross, he became that first
husband, that Adamic nature to which we were married.
And when he became that, he died. And when he
died, we were freed from the law, just as the woman was released from the law
of marriage when her first husband died.
So
the law has nothing to say to us anymore. We are free to be married to another.
Who is this? It is Christ risen. Our first husband is Christ crucified; our
second husband is Christ risen from the dead. We now share his name, we share
his power, we share his experiences, we share his position, his glory, his
hopes, his dreams--all that he is, we now share. We are married to Christ,
risen from the dead. The law therefore has nothing to say to you, isn't that
clear?
Paul
then goes on:
For when we were controlled by the sinful
nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work. In our bodies, so
that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have
been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and
not in the old way of the written code (7:5-6).
While
we were married to sin (the old Adamic life), we often tried to act as though
we were married to someone else. We tried to act righteous and loving and kind.
Many of us did. We really tried to behave ourselves, but we found we couldn't.
The law refused to go along with us. The law judged us. It said, "You are
really not that way, you are just acting like that. You are pretending."
The law called us hypocrites, and it was right. That is what we were. We were
religious hypocrites, attempting to give the impression that we were okay,
right, loving, moral, kind, and good, when we weren't at all. Inside, our
attitudes were selfish and hostile and loveless. We were pretending. And the
law saw through it and named us what we were: hypocrites!
No Longer
Hypocrites
But,
according to this, we died to the law through the death of our first husband.
When Jesus was crucified, that first husband died. And now we are free from the
condemnation of the law. We are married to another--Christ risen from the dead.
So now, when we seek to be righteous and to do righteous things, to be loving
and kind, we are no longer hypocrites. This is the point Paul wants to make. We
can be what we really are. We are tied to Jesus. His life is now ours, and we
are acting according to our true nature.
We
are married to a new husband. And because we share his life and power, we not
only are able to be what he is, but we are also free from any condemnation or
failure in our struggle along the way. We don't always act right, but the law
doesn't condemn us. The law's purpose was to condemn, and we canāt be condemned
anymore because we are not hypocrites. We are doing what we were designed to
do. We have a new identity. No longer bound to our failures, we can admit them
and forget them. We don't have to have them clinging to us; we no longer have
to believe that God is unhappy with us because we don't always live exactly
right. He has made provision for this. It is not a fraud when we go back to God
again and again, and accept forgiveness from his hand.
Therefore,
it is not law that straightens us out, it is love. We no longer need the law to
straighten us out, for we have love to do so. We are free to fail and still be
loved. But we are also free to win in the new power given to us. The next
question Paul asks is, "Is the law worthless, then, and contemptible?"
His answer, of course, is no. Some Christians talk that way about the law, but
Paul never does. There is a place for it, and it is valuable in a certain way,
but it can do nothing to deliver us from evil. Only our relationship to love
can do that.
17 THE
CONTINUING STRUGGLE
(Romans 7:7-25)
The
gospel of Jesus Christ is able to set men free. This is its central
declaration: Christ has come, he has died, he has risen again, and he has
entered our hearts through the Holy Spirit so that we who believe might be
free.
This
is what the gospel is all about--freedom! Freedom from self-centeredness,
freedom from hostility and bitterness, freedom from anxiety and all kinds of
fears, freedom from bondage to evil habits of any type. This is the freedom Christ
has come to give us. He has come to release us, to free us to be the men and
women God has designed us to be, living in the midst of (as Paul describes it)
"a generation of crooks and perverts," yet being lights shining in
the darkness. As we have seen all the way through this book and especially in
Romans 5 and 6, this kind of life is totally possible in Jesus Christ. Yet
there are at least two ways we can miss it, even though we are Christians.
Paul
has dealt with one of these in Romans 6. In the last half of Romans 6 he
pointed out that, even though one is a Christian, he can give himself over to
the bondage and slavery of sin. He can continue to give way to sin. He may
think it is not worthwhile to fight or he may enjoy the pleasure sin gives him,
so he keeps on doing wrong things. This is what theologians call
"antinomianism," which means, simply, "against the law."
Antinomianism reflects an attitude that unfortunately is common among us--the
idea that God, in his grace, will forgive us, so why not indulge in sin?
"Let's go ahead and sin because we know God will forgive."
The
answer to this attitude is found in Romans 6:15-22. The Scripture says that if
you live on that basis, sin will enslave you, it will shame you, it will limit
you, it will defile you, it will spread corruption and death in your life. And
though you may be a Christian, you will have a miserable Christian life because
you cannot give way to sin without being enslaved by it.
The
second way we can miss God's freedom is exactly the opposite handling this
problem of sin by trying our best to do what God wants. By discipline and
dedication of heart, and the exercise of determined will power, we try our best
to do what God asks, to live according to the law, and to fulfill the requirements
of the law.
This
attempt takes many forms. Sometimes it means taking certain steps to overcome
certain problems. Such a program may sound good, because it is an appeal to do
that which is right, but it is what the Scriptures call legalism, the exact opposite
of antinomianism. It is a wholehearted attempt to do what God wants--with the
end result that we become defensive, self-righteous, critical of others, proud
of our own record. Furthermore, we become unaccountably bored, discouraged,
depressed, and even frequently despairing. That, basically, is the story of
Romans 7.
We
have already seen in Romans 7:1-6 that there is no need to be like this.
Legalism is not the answer; we are not under the law, but under grace. Romans 7
is a commentary on Paul's great declaration of Romans 6:14: "Sin shall not
be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace." Not only
are we freed from sin, but from the law as well. The law condemns us, but we
are no longer under law if we are resting in Christ. Therefore, the law does
not serve any useful purpose in delivering us from sin.
To Drive Us
to Christ
That
raises the question: "What, then, is the purpose of the law in a
Christians life? Is the law really contemptible and worthless? Ought we to just
dispense with it?" There are many Christians who say, "I'm a
Christian, saved by grace. The law has no meaning to me at all. The law was
given to Moses for the Israelites, but it doesn't apply to a Christian. Let's
dispense with it." But Paul never speaks this way, and neither does Jesus.
In fact, Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount that if anyone disparages
the law, changes it, or waters it down in any degree whatsoever, he is under
the curse of God. The law abides forever.
We
must clearly understand what Paul is reaching here about the function and
purpose of the law. We must know (1) that the law simply cannot deliver us from
sin; but (2) it can always do one thing well--even with Christians: It can
expose sin in us and drive us back to Christ. This is what the law is for, and
this is the story of Romans 7:7-25.
This
section divides into two parts. In verses 7-13, Paul discusses how the law
exposes sin and "kills" the believer. That is the term he uses: The
law kills us. Then, in verses 14-25, he takes up exactly the same theme--how
the law exposes sin and kills us--but this time it is not explained, it is
experienced. In the first section Paul tells us how it works; in the second
section he tells us how it feels. Ours is a feeling generation; this passage
therefore ought to strike a responsive chord in many hearts, for Paul describes
exactly how it feels to be under the law as a Christian.
In
verses 7 through 11, the apostle begins to describe his own experience in
relationship to the law:
What shall we say, then? Is the law sin?
Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the
law. For I would not have known what it was to covet if the law had not said,
"Do not covet." But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the
commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law,
sin is dead. Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came,
sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was
intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity
afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to
death (7:7-11).
This
is Paul's experience. It is clear he is describing something he himself went
through. But also note that Paul employs the past tense throughout this
passage, which suggests he is describing his experience before he became a
Christian. This probably happened not long before he became a Christian, and
many commonly experience it today. Paul, as we know, was raised in a godly
home. He was a Jew, raised in the city of Tarsus. As a typical Jewish son, he
was taught the law from birth. So when he says he lived "apart from the
law," he does not mean he didn't know what it was. He simply means a time
had to come when the law came home to him. "The commandment came," he
says.
We
have all had that experience. We have read much Scripture that was just words
to us--beautiful words, perhaps, but we didn't understand them. Then, years
after, something we went through made those words come alive. This is what Paul
is talking about here. He knew the law from birth, but he did not understand
what it was saying until he went through a certain experience. Here he
describes that experience, one he had before he became a Christian.
Protected
from Temptation
Like
many today, Paul was protected and sheltered in his home, kept from exposure to
serious temptations. He was reared in the Jewish culture, which also sheltered
those around him. He grew up relatively untroubled with problems of blatant
sin. There are many people like that in our churches today. They have grown up
in a home where they have been protected and sheltered. They have run with a
crowd of friends who, likewise, have been kept from exposure to various
temptations. They have not fallen into evil.
Many
young people, like Saul of Tarsus, think they have handled the problem of sin.
What about keeping the law? It's not hard! Hardly any severe temptations come
under these circumstances. These people donāt struggle along this line. They
have the world by the tail--they can handle it, they think. As Paul describes
it, "They are alive apart from the law."
But
then comes a time when they are exposed to blatant sin. They are thrust into a
different lifestyle, a different crowd of people. They move out on their own
and suddenly find themselves removed from the shelter, protection, love, and
cultural defenses that have been theirs from childhood. Perhaps the new
crowd--as a way of life--does things that these sheltered young people have
been taught are wrong. Now, for the first time, they feel the force of the laws
prohibition. The law says, "Thou shalt not covet, commit adultery, murder,
steal" or whatever it may be. And yet the crowd around them says,
"Let's do it--its fun!" For the first time, they begin to feel the
prohibition of the law. Then a strange phenomenon happens. Something about that
situation arouses within them a strong desire to do the prohibited things.
Maybe they are able to resist for awhile, but eventually they find themselves
pressured, pushed by something within that wants very badly to do these things.
This
is what Paul discovered. It was the tenth commandment, "Thou shalt not
covet," that got to him. He thought he had been keeping all the law
because he had not done some of the external things prohibited in the other
commandments. But this one commandment talks about how you feel inside, your
desires, your imagination, your ambitions. It says, "Thou shalt not desire
what another has." Paul found himself awakened to this commandment and
discovered that he was coveting, no matter where he turned. When the law came,
he found himself aroused by it, brought under its power. It precipitated an
orgy of desire. Many of us have felt this same way.
Power at a
Touch
Not
long ago I had an opportunity to go up into the Colorado Rockies for a
conference. As I came out of my hotel, the man who was to drive me there was
waiting in his powerful, shiny new Lincoln Continental. I got into the car, and
to my amazement he started driving without turning on the engine--or at least
that's how it seemed to me. I suddenly realized that the engine had been
running all the time. It was so quiet I hadn't heard it. As we moved up into
the Rockies, the power of that engine became obvious. We traveled up the steep
grades in those great mountains with ease because of the power released by his
touch on the accelerator.
That
is something like what Paul is describing here. Sin lies silent within us. We
do not even know it is there. We think we have hold of life and can handle it
without difficulty. We are self-confident, but only because we have never
really been exposed to a situation that puts pressure upon us--we have never
had to make a decision against the pressure of the commandment, "Thou shalt
notÉ"
But
when it happens, we suddenly find ourselves filled with attitudes that almost
shock us--unloving, bitter, resentful thoughts, murderous attitudes--we would
like to get hold of someone and kill him, if we could. Lustful feelings surface
that we never dreamed were there, and we find we would love to indulge them if
only we had the opportunity. We find ourselves awakened to these desires. As
the great engine surges to life at the touch of the accelerator, so this
powerful, idling beast within called sin springs to life as the law comes home
to us.
Now,
is this the law's fault? No, Paul says, it isn't; he goes on in verses 12 and
13,
So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is
holy, righteous and good. Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By
no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death
in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become
utterly sinful.
This
is what the law is for to expose the evil force in every one of us, a force
waiting only for the right circumstance to spring into action, overpower our
will, and carry us into things we never dreamed we would do.
According
to this passage, sin's great power is that it deceives us. We think we have
life under control, but we are fooled. Sin is simply waiting for the right
occasion when--like a powerful, idling, engine--it roars into life and takes
over at the touch of the accelerator of the jaw and we find ourselves
helplessly under its control.
The
law is designed to expose that sin so we begin to understand this evil force we
have inherited. The law shows up sin for what it is, something exceedingly
powerful and dangerous, something stronger than our will power that causes us
to do things we resolved not to do.
Present
Tense Experience
In
verses 14-25, the same experience is described again, but this time in terms of
how we feel when it happens. There is only one major difference between this
section and the previous one. Here Paul switches to the present tense. This is
significant because it means he is now describing his experience at the time he
wrote this letter. This, then, is a description of the law as it touches the
Christian's life. It does exactly the same thing as it did before we became a
Christian, only now we have it from the point of view of the believer who is
deceived by the sin still within.
We know that the law is spiritual; but I am
unspiritual {that
is, carnal, fleshly; and Paul gives us now an excellent definition of
carnality}, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what
I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do (7:14-15).
Some
have been convinced, from this verse alone, that Paul was a golfer! If you have
ever tried golf, you know that this is the very thing that happens. What you
want to do, you do not do. What you do not want to do, that is the very thing
you do. Of course, Paul has a much greater problem than playing golf. The key
to this whole passage is verse 14: "The law is spiritual," Paul says.
"It deals with my spirit. It gets right at the very heart of my
being." Fundamentally, as we have seen, human beings are spirits. The law
is spiritual, and it touches us in that area. "But I am carnal," Paul
says. "I cant respond to it I am sold as a slave to sin."
Now,
this always raises a problem. Compare this with chapter 6, verse 17, where Paul
speaks of slavery and says, "But thanks be to God that, though you used to
be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you
were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to
righteousness." If he could write that to the Romans, surely it was true
of him as well. Yet how could he write that he had become in Christ a slave to
righteousness, and just a few paragraphs later write, "I am carnal, sold
under sin, a slave to sin"? It is in his human spirit that he is made a
slave to righteousness, while in his soul the struggle with sin goes on.
In
spite of what many have said, Paul is not confused here. He is simply
describing what happens when a Christian tries to live under the law. When a
Christian, by his dedication, will power, and determination, tries to do what
is right in order to please God, he is living under the law. And Paul is
telling us what to expect when we live like that--for we all try to live that
way from time to time. Sin, you see, deceives us. It deceived Paul as an
apostle, and he needed this treatment of the law. It deceives us, and we need
it too.
Paul
then tells us what happens. There are two problems, which he gives us in verse
15: "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not
doÉ" That is problem number one. I want to do right--there are things I
would love to do, but I cannot do them. The second problem is "Ébut what I
hate I do." There are some things I don't want to do--yet I find myself
doing those very things.
In
the verses that follow, Paul takes the second problem first, and shows us what
happens.
And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree
that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is
sin living in me! (7:16-17).
That
phrase, "it is no longer I who do it," is extremely important. Paul
makes the statement twice in this paragraph, and it explains how we can be
delivered from this condition.
I
know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature (or my flesh).
For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I
do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep
on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it,
but it is sin living in me that does it (7:18-20).
Let's
examine this carefully Paul says that as a Christian, redeemed by the grace of
God, he now has something within him that wants to do good, that agrees with
the law, that says the law is right. Something within says that what the law
tells him to do is right, and he wants to do it. But also, he says, there is
something else in him that rises up and says, "No!" Even though he
determines not to do what is bad, he suddenly finds himself in such
circumstances that his determination melts away, his resolve is gone, and he
ends up doing what he had sworn he would not do. Have you ever felt that way?
The
"I" and the "Me"
So,
what has gone wrong? Paul's explanation is, "It is no longer I who do it;
it is sin living in me." Isn't that strange? This indicates a division
within our humanity. There is the "I" that wants to do what God
wants, and there is the sin which dwells in "me," which is different
than the "I." We must understand what this is.
As
we have seen, human beings are complicated creatures. We have a spirit, a soul,
and a body. These are distinct, one from the other. What Paul suggests here is
that the redeemed spirit never wants to do what God has prohibited. It agrees
with the law that it is good. And yet there is an alien power, a force that he
calls sin, a great beast lying dormant within his soul and body. When it is
touched by the commandment of the law, it springs to life, and so Paul does what
he does not want to do.
Jesus
himself agrees with this. On one occasion he said, "If your right hand
offends you, cut it off." He did not mean that one should actually chop
off his right hand, because that would be a violation of other texts that indicate
that God made the body and made it right, and it is morally neutral. What he
means is that we should take drastic action because we are up against a serious
problem. He indicates there is a "me" within us that runs our
members, that gives orders to our hands, our feet, our eyes, our tongue, our
brain, our sexual organs, and controls them. That "me" is giving an
order to do something wrong; but there is another "I" in us who is
offended. That "I" does not like it, does not want it. And so Jesus
says, "Cut it off."
In
a moment we are going to see how this happens, what it is that cuts off the
"me" and thus enables us to handle the problem. Man is made in such a
way that his will power is never enough; sin will win, and we will do the evil
we swore not to do.
Now,
in verses 21-23, look at the other side of this problem
So I find this law at work. When I want to do
good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's
law; but I see another law {another principle} at work in the members of my body,
waging war against the law {or principle} of my mind {my agreement with the law of God} and
making me a prisoner of the law {principle} of sin at work within my members.
Here
is the same problem exactly. I know what is right and want to do right, and
determine and swear to do it--only to find that under certain circumstances all
that determination melts away and I fail I do exactly what I did not want to
do. So I come away angry with myself. "What's the matter with me? Why
canāt I do what is right? Why do I give way when I get into this situation? Why
am I so weak?" This is right where we live, isn't it? This is what we all
struggle with.
The
hearts cry at that moment is,
What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me
from this body of death? (7:24)
What
is this? Right here we arrive at the place where the Lord Jesus began the
Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven." Blessed is the man who comes to the end of himself.
Blessed is the man who has arrived at spiritual bankruptcy, who cries,
"What a wretched man I am!" Why? Because this is the point--the only
point--where God's help is given.
This
is what we need to learn. If we think we have something in ourselves that can
work out our problems, if we think our wills are strong enough, our desires
motivated enough, that we can control evil in our lives by simply determining
to do so, then we have not yet come to the end of ourselves. And the Spirit of
God simply folds his arms and lets us go ahead and try it on that basis. We
fail, and fail miserably--until, at last, out of our failures, we cry, "O
wretched man that I am!" Sin has deceived us; and the law, as our friend,
has come in and exposed sin for what it is. When we see how wretched it makes
us, then we are ready for the answer, which comes immediately.
Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!
(7:25)
Who
will deliver me from this body of death? The Lord Jesus has already done it.
When the law has brought us to feelings of wretchedness and discouragement and
failure, we are to respond by reminding ourselves immediately of the facts
about ourselves in Jesus Christ. Our feelings must be answered by facts.
Free Sons
of God
We
are no longer under the law. That is a fact. We have arrived at a different
situation; we are married to Christ, Christ risen from the dead. This means we
must no longer think, "I am a poor, struggling, bewildered disciple, left
alone to wrestle against these powerful urges." We must now begin to
think, "No, I am a free son of God, living a normal human life. I am dead
to sin, and dead to the law, because I am married to Christ. His power is mine,
right at this moment. And though I may not feel it, I have the power to say
'No' and walk away and be free, in Jesus Christ."
I
recently met a Canadian pastor with a burden on his heart to get the Word of
God into the Soviet Union. He joined an organization (among several that exist
today) which transports Bibles there. His first experience crossing the border
with a load of Bibles in the trunk of his car was thrilling. He wasn't going to
try to smuggle them in; he was just counting on God to somehow get him through.
He
and a friend loaded the boxes of Bibles into the car, and as they drove to the
border, all his resolve and courage began to drain away. Within a mile or so of
the border his friend asked, "How do you feel?" He replied, "I
feel scared." So they stopped alongside the road and simply told the Lord
how they felt. "Lord, we are scared. We didn't get into this situation
because we want to be here. It isn't we who want to get this Word into Russia;
it is you. This is your project, and this is your situation. We are willing to
take whatever risks you ask, but you have got to see it through. We are scared
and we donāt know what to do. We donāt have any wisdom, we don't know how to
handle this situation when we get to the border, but we expect you to do
something."
As
they prayed this way, totally bankrupt, wanting to do good, unable to do it but
committing the matter to the Lord Jesus, they felt the inward sense of the
Spirit of God witnessing to them that God would act. They didn't know how or
what he would do, but they felt a sense of peace.
They
drove on to the border. When the guard asked for their papers, they gave them
to him. He examined them, then said, "What do you have in the trunk?"
"Some
boxes."
"Let
me see them."
So
they opened the trunk, and there were the boxes. They expected surely that his
next question would be, "What's in them?" But he didn't ask it. He
simply said, "Okay," shut the door, gave them their papers, and on
they went.
This
is what this passage describes for us. This is the way we are to live, the way
we are to face every challenge, large or small. "Thanks be to God, it is
through Jesus our Lord."
Some
teachers say this passage in Romans 7 is something a Christian goes through
just once. He then gets out of it and moves into Romans 8, never to return to
Romans 7 again. Nothing could be further from the truth! Even as mighty a man
as Paul went through it again and again. This describes what every believer
will go through many times, because sin has the power to deceive us and to
cause us to trust in ourselves, even when we are not aware we are doing so. The
law will expose that evil force and drive us to this place of wretchedness that
we might then, in poverty of spirit, cry out, "Lord Jesus, it is your
problem; you take it" And he will.
The
chapter ought to end with the exclamation in verse 25: "Thanks be to
God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!" The next sentence is the summarizing
verse that introduces Paul's explanation in chapter 8. Here, then, is the way
of deliverance for Christians. We do need the law. Every time sin deceives us
into self-trust we need it. But the law will not deliver us from sin; the law
will only bring us, again and again, to the mighty Deliverer. His life and
power within us sets us free, without condemnation.
18 NO
CONDEMNATION
(Romans 8:1-4)
The
eighth chapter of Romans is the favorite of many--and not without reason. This
is one of the most significant chapters in the Scriptures. Someone has called
it "the brightest jewel in the treasure chest of the Word of God." I
like to think of it as a great mountain rising above all the surrounding hills
and capturing all attention. Yet Paul does not introduce any new thoughts here
until verse 17. In the chapters opening words he simply gathers up what he has
been saying and brings it into focus.
To
understand this chapter we must ignore the division between chapters 7 and 8. I
believe the text of the Scriptures is inspired by God, "breathed out"
by him--but I wonder if the chapter divisions were put in by the devil! Many
times they come right at a place where they actually obscure truth. Sometimes
these divisions break the continuity of a thought and take it out of the
context, so that we are likely to miss something tremendously important. That
is certainly true here. The first two verses of chapter 8 ought to be linked
with the closing verse of chapter 7. They are really all one sentence. When you
read them that way, it will help explain the struggle and darkness in Romans 7.
It is a struggle that does not have to go on, and Paul resolves it with this
one, great, flashing word of relief:
Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!
(7:25)
Then
the rest of verse 25 belongs with the opening verses of chapter 8. It explains
what he means when he says, "Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our
Lord!"
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's
law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
That
summarizes all that he has been talking about in chapter 7. But don't stop
there, for there should be no break between that and verse 1 of chapter 8 . . .
(But} there is now no condemnation for those who
are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life
set me free from the law of sin and death.
Chapter
8 ought to open with the word "But." It introduces a contrast that
shows the way out of the struggle of chapter 7.
Linked by
the Body
What
is Paul saying in this passage when it is all taken together? First, he makes
clear there is a struggle in the Christian life, a struggle between what he
calls "the sinful nature" and the Spirit. I am not sure I like that
term "sinful nature" too well, however. The Greek word is
"flesh," and, as the word is used in the Scriptures, it not only
means the body, but it also means the sin that finds its seat in our bodies. It
is by the body that we are linked to our father, Adam. God made a body for Adam
that is like ours--with two eyes, two ears, a nose, and so on, and we have
these characteristics because Adam had them. But we also have inherited from
Adam the principle of sin.
This
principle is hard to define. In some way, it describes the access the devil has
to our humanity. It is the means by which Satan is able to implant in our minds
his "fiery darts," as Paul calls them in Ephesians. These might be
obscene and lustful thoughts, selfish attitudes, or hostile, bitter feelings toward
others--and they come info our minds suddenly, unbidden, when we least expect
them. They come from this root of sin in our bodies, the flesh.
Every
Christian must expect to be caught up in a struggle between the flesh and the
Spirit. Paul describes this struggle in Galatians 5:17.
For the sinful nature {or flesh} desires what
is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature
{the
flesh}. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you
want.
This
really is a verse of hope. Paul says the Spirit struggles against the flesh, so
that we cannot do the things that we would. This is what Paul is describing in
Romans 7:25--"I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law." That is,
as he said earlier, "I want to do good, I believe in it. I delight in
God's law in my inner being. I am changed; I agree that the law is good. But I
find I can't do it."
In
his mind he is awakened to the value and the righteousness of God's law, that
this has come about through the Spirit in his life. How else can we ever come
to the place of agreeing that God is good and holy, his Word is right and the
law is good, except by the Spirit of God in us? It is only when a man is filled
with the Holy Spirit that he can talk like that. Therefore, it is the Holy
Spirit, within Paul's human spirit, agreeing with God's law. But set against
that is this sin in his flesh that takes hold of him and makes him a slave to
the law of sin, even though he does not want to be.
How
does he break this hold? He breaks it, as he says, by relying upon a new view
of himself that is true because he is in Jesus Christ. This is what Romans 8
declares. The life of Jesus in him, released to him by the Holy Spirit, sets
him free from the law of sin and death.
But
there is a struggle to believe that great fact. If you have ever watched an
alcoholic, or perhaps have struggled with alcoholism yourself, you know the
struggle is intense. An alcoholic can come to the place where he can see
everything evil happening to him because of alcohol. He wants to quit; he
determines to quit. He knows he is going to lose his wife, his children, his
reputation, and everything if he doesn't quit. I have seen these people resolve
never to drink again. Yet, in a moment of temptation, the very struggle of
Romans 7 comes in, and suddenly they find themselves overpowered by sin. They
give in, and they hate themselves for doing it.
Those
who struggle with homosexuality feel the same way. Habits have settled in and
they find it very difficult to say no, even though they want to. Born again,
they want to be delivered--but they find their new identity in Christ hard to
believe.
And
it is not only sins like these that can grip us. A hot temper or a habit of
overeating can do the same thing. Perhaps right now you are saying, "For
dinner I am going to have just a very light meal." And someone will spread
out a beautiful roast and apple pie and, before you know it, your resolve is
gone--and so is the food.
This
is a problem of the will, isn't it? Our wills are weak, and we know it. This is
what Paul is describing here. This is the struggle of the Christian life. It
comes again and again, but it does not have to continue. Some Christians resent the
fact that the struggle is there at all. They have a false idea of Christianity.
They think Christianity means God takes away all temptation so they never have
to struggle again. Unfortunately, that is not true; and many people have been
hurt and have become angry with God because he does not do that. I have seen
young Christians become extremely upset because they thought they were free
from struggle and then found they weren't.
The
text tells us this struggle can cease only when we reckon on who we really are
in Christ. What we need is a new self-image; this is what will deliver us. When
we see who we really are, we can say "no" to the flesh and
"yes" to the Spirit--and discover a whole new way of life.
No
Condemnation
The
second major thing the apostle says is that not only is there a struggle, but
(and this is very important) the struggle is without condemnation. Though we
may struggle at times, Paul says there is no condemnation to those who are in
Christ Jesus. The reason there is no condemnation is given in one little
phrase: "in Christ." That goes right back to our justification by
faith. We came out of Adam, we are in Christ, and God will never condemn those
who are in Christ.
Now,
we have to understand what "no condemnation" means. What is Paul
talking about? Certainly the most basic element here is that there is no
rejection by God. God does not turn aside, he does not kick us out of his
family. If we are born into the family of God by faith in Jesus Christ, the
Holy Spirit has come to dwell within us and he will never, never leave us. No
matter what we do, he will never leave us. God will never cut us out of his
family or treat us as anything less than sons and daughters.
One
of the most beautiful stories of the Scriptures is that of the prodigal son who
left home, got into deep trouble, wasted his life in riotous living, and ended
up in the pigpen. On this subject Dr. Vernon McGee asks, "Do you know the
difference between the son in that pigpen and the pig? The difference is that
no pig has ever said to himself, 'I will arise and go to my father.'" He
is right; only sons say that. Thus there will be no condemnation, no rejection,
by God. He will always treat me as his child, not as his enemy.
The
second thing "no condemnation" means is that God is not angry with us
when struggle comes into our lives. We want to be good; we want to stop doing
bad. But when the moment of temptation comes, we find ourselves overpowered and
weak, and we give way. Then we hate ourselves. We go away frustrated, feeling,
as Paul described, "What a wretched man I am? What's the matter with me?
Why can't I do this thing? Why can't I act like I want to?" But though we
may condemn ourselves, God does not. He is not angry with us about that. He
sees us, as the Scriptures show us, as a child in his family, learning to walk.
No
father ever gets angry with his little son because he doesn't get right up and
start running the first time he tries to walk. If the child falls and stumbles
and falters, the father helps him; he doesn't spank him. He lifts him up,
encourages him, and shows him how to do it right. And if the child has a
problem with his feet--maybe one foot is twisted or deformed--the father finds
a way to relieve that condition and help him learn to walk. This is what God
does. He is not angry when we struggle. He knows it takes a while--quite a
while, at times. And even the best of saints will, at times, fall. This was
true of Paul, it was true of all the apostles, and it was true of all the
prophets of the Old Testament. Sin is deceitful and it will sometimes trip us.
But God is not angry with us when it does.
Now,
a word of caution. When we deliberately decide to sin, and like it, then he
will punish us. This is the discipline of a father described in the closing
part of chapter 6. When we deliberately give ourselves back into sin once we
have been set free from it, then, as a loving disciplinarian, God will correct
us and punish us until we begin to see what has happened. He does this out of
love, just as an earthly father would. But that is a different condition than
the one we are facing here. Here Paul is describing those times when we want to
do good, and we are trying to do good. But we are weak, and in a moment of
temptation we fail. And we fail again and again. Still there is "no
condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." Even when we are being
punished as disobedient sons, we still are not rejected. This remains true no
matter what happens to us.
Why
are we not condemned? The answer Paul gives in verse 2 is beautiful:
. . . because through Christ Jesus the law of
the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.
Paul
was not left with a continuing, constant struggle; God came in and did
something about it. God reminded him of what he knew to be true, and he began
to believe it. When he began to think of himself as God thought of him he found
he had power to say no to sin.
In
summary, Paul actually brings out three reasons in this whole passage why there
is no condemnation. First, look back at verse 18 of chapter 7: "I know
that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the
desire to do what is good." His heart is right, that is clear. Then again,
in verse 22, "For in my inner being I delight in God's law." Paul
really wants to do right, his heart is right; therefore there is no condemnation.
The basic desire is to be good--and God will not and does not condemn that.
Second,
and obviously connected with this, Paul explains that sin has deceived and
overpowered him. It is also too much for us. We canāt handle this wild beast
raging within us when it is awakened by the demands and prohibitions of the
law. God does not condemn us for that; he knows it is more than we can handle.
He lets us discover that fact by our own experience, but he does not condemn us
when we do.
Third
(and this is the most important), God has already made provision in Christ for
our failure. He knows that our very struggle is driving us back to Christ. When
I have come to the place of saying, "What a wretched man I am!" the
only thing left, if I want any escape at all, is to ask, "Why am I
thinking of myself in this way? God says I am different." Reckoning on the
difference that has come to me in Christ, I can rise up to act differently.
This is the way out. God knows my failures are driving me to this moment; and
as a loving father he is patiently waiting for it to come. Therefore God will
not condemn me.
The Spirit
of New Life
We
have seen two clear declarations so far. One, there is struggle in the
Christian life; two, the struggle is "without condemnation." The third
major thing Paul says is that provision has been made for victory. The law of
the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set us free from the law of sin and
death. This is why Paul cries, "Thanks be to God--through our Lord Jesus
Christ." This law of the Spirit of life is what God has already said he
has done for us in Christ. He has cut us off, made us different creatures,
brought us into Christ, and married us to him. We are no longer the same as we
were. When we believe that, we release the Spirit of life within us.
When
we fail and are angry with ourselves, our natural way of thinking goes
something like this "I'm a mess, a hopeless, helpless mess! Why can't I
stop this thing that is hurting me so, and hurting others too?" We are all
wrapped up in our own feelings and think we deserve to be whipped and punished,
and cast into hell.
At
that point God says to us, "Your view of yourself is wrong! Your
wretchedness is only a temporary condition to which you are giving in. The
truth is, you have been set free. You are married to Christ. Your human spirit
has been indwelt by the Holy Spirit and it cannot sin. It has not sinned and
does not sin. You have been deceived by the sin in your flesh, and it has taken
over and led you into this mess.
But
that is not who you fundamentally are. Don't believe that about yourself
anymore. There is fresh forgiveness from God and the righteousness of Christ
waiting for you. You are in Christ; this is who you are."
Take
his forgiveness, believe it, thank God for it, and go on, knowing your struggle
will end.
Of
course this does not mean God has ended all temptation in our lives. The law of
sin and death, like the law of gravity, goes on working all the time. But the
moment you believe what Jesus Christ says about you and what he has done for
you, a new law comes into effect. This new law is stronger than the law of sin
and death; it even uses that law to accomplish its end.
When
I was a boy, I discovered there was a law at work that affected my eyesight. It
is what I later learned to call the law of myopia, which is nearsightedness. It
was in my members, right in my eyes, so that I could not see what other people
could see. Finally, I went to a doctor about it, and he told me what was
wrong--and he prescribed glasses for me to correct the problem.
Later
I discovered a new law, the law of contact lenses--two little pieces of plastic
which I could put in my eyes every morning and which would keep working all day
long. All I had to do was put them in. They did not eliminate the law of
myopia--they actually used it. But the result was that I saw perfectly, with
20/20 vision. Now, if I got self-confident and decided I didn't need those
contact lenses anymore ("I can handle this situation without them!")
and took them out, immediately the law of myopia would take over and I would
have the same old problem again. But if I put the lenses in, the law of contact
lenses would cancel out--overcome--the law of myopia, and I could see
perfectly.
This
is what Paul is telling us here. God has given us a new image of ourselves. We
are not what we feel we are. When we believe this, we can be set free at any
time--any time when by faith we reckon that what God says is true. This is our
provision for victory.
Basis for
Victory
The
fourth major point Paul makes in this brief paragraph is given in verses 3 and
4. He reviews the basis for victory:
For what the law was powerless to do in that it
was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in likeness
of sinful man {flesh}
to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man {the flesh}, in order
that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not
live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit (8:3-4).
This
is a beautiful description of the good news in Jesus Christ. There is nothing
new here; we have had it all before.
Paul
says the law is powerless to produce righteousness. It cannot do it. It cannot
make us good in any way. It can demand and demand and demand, but it cannot
enable and it never will. This, by the way, is why nagging a person never
helps. Did you know that? Nagging is a form of law, and God will not let the
law nag us because it doesn't help. It only makes it worse. If you try to nag
your husband or wife or child, you will find the same thing happens there.
Nagging only makes a person worse. Why? The reason, Paul says, is that the law
stirs up the power of sin. It releases this force, this beast within us, this
powerful engine that takes over and carries us where we don't want to go.
So
nagging, or any form of the law, will never work. This is not because there is
anything wrong with what is being said; it cannot work because of the weakness
of the flesh. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:56, "The sting of death is
sin, and the power of sin is the law." The law keeps sin going; it stirs
it up.
To
break through this vicious circle God sent his own Son. There is a beautiful
tenderness about this. He sent "his own Son." He did not send an
angel, he did not send a mere man--he sent his own Son as a man, in the
likeness of sinful flesh. Notice that! He did not send him in the likeness of flesh (a mirage), but in the
likeness of sinful flesh (in the flesh but without sin). Jesus had a real body, a body
like yours and mine. Since sin began in the body, it has to be judged and
broken in the body. Therefore, Jesus had a body. But it was not a body of sinful flesh, it was
the likeness
of sinful flesh. It was like our sinful bodies, in that it was subject to
infirmities (Jesus grew weak and tired, hungry and weary), but there was no sin
in him. Paul preserves that distinction very carefully here.
In
that body of flesh, without sin, he became sin. As we read here, he was sent
"as an offering for sin." In the mystery of the cross, (which we can
never, never understand, no matter how long we live) the Lord Jesus, during the
hours of darkness, gathered up all the sins of the world--the terrible, evil,
foul, awful injustices, crimes, and misery that we have seen throughout
history, from every person--gathered it into himself, and brought it to an end
by dying. The good news is that by faith in him, we are involved in that death.
In
Romans 6:6, Paul says,
For we know that our old self was crucified with
him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no
longer be slaves to sin.
This
is the way the Lord did it. As described in chapter 7, he (Christ-made-sin) was
the first husband to whom we were married; and he died. When the first husband
died we were free to be married to the second husband, who is
Christ-risen-from-the-dead. Thus he has tied us to himself as a risen, ascended
Lord, and we are his from now on.
This
is true not only for a few Christians who have gone beyond all the rest and
have some special experience; all Christians are one with Christ. If you are a
Christian at all, this is who you are. It is always who you are. To let
yourself believe anything else is to delude yourself. To believe your feelings
about yourself at any moment of evil or sin is to fool yourself. This is who
you really are. By the gift of God, without earning it or without ever
deserving it, you are righteous in his sight, just like Jesus; you are
righteous with the righteousness of God. The very righteousness which the law
demands is fulfilled in us the minute we believe what God has done about our
evil. That righteousness becomes ours continually, as a gift.
Believe the
Change
The
last thing the apostle says is that this becomes real to us when we choose to
live according to the Spirit and not according to our sinful nature. When we
believe what God says about us and see ourselves in a new way, then we will
change the way we act. This is always God's way of deliverance. We think we
have to change the way we act in order to be different; God says, "No, I
have made you different, and when you believe it, you will automatically change
the way you act." Do you see the difference?
I
once heard a beautiful story about the daughter of one of the royal families of
Europe. She had a big, bulbous nose that destroyed her beauty in the eyes of
others--and especially in her own eyes. She grew up with a terrible image of
herself as an ugly person. So her family hired a plastic surgeon to change the
contour of her nose. He did the work, and there came the moment when they took
off the bandages and the girl could see the results.
When
the doctor removed the bandages, he saw that the operation had been a total
success. All the ugly contours were gone. Her nose was different. When the
incisions healed and the redness disappeared, she would be a beautiful girl. He
held a mirror up for the girl to see. But so deeply embedded was this girl's
ugly image of herself that when she saw herself in the mirror, she couldn't see
any change. She broke into tears and cried out, "Oh, I knew it wouldn't
work!" The doctor labored with that girl for six months before she would
finally accept the fact that she was indeed different. And the moment she
accepted that fact, her whole behavior began to change.
We,
too, act from what we know we are. If the evil in us deceives us into thinking
we are not what God says we are, then we are going to keep on acting evilly.
The way to break the power of the most vicious and evil habit is to see
yourself as God sees you. Then you begin to act that way. You can't help it. As
this verse makes clear, you are one with Jesus and you share his life; and he
himself, with all the beauty of his character, is one with you. He is married
to you and you to him, and there is no distinction. If you can see this when
you have temporarily believed something false about yourself and are
struggling, then you will be set free.
Many
of us can testify that this works. God sets us free in this way. This is what
Paul has been saying all along. Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you
are not under the law, with its nagging demand that you be different before you
can be accepted. You are under grace, with its affirmation that God has already
made you different.
Now
believe it!
19 WHY NOT
LIVE?
(Romans 8:3-13)
In
Romans the phrase gift of righteousness is used in two ways. We have already seen
righteousness as the worth instantly imparted to us when we believe in Jesus,
and continually available to use by faith. We can turn to it any time we feel
pressure or insecurity or need. Up to this point, this is the only way the word
righteousness has been used in Romans.
Now
a new form of righteousness comes before us. It is what we might call
"righteousness displayed." It is righteousness which has worked its
way out to visibility. That is, it is righteousness actually visible in
actions, deeds, words, and thoughts. We begin acting like Christ. As well as
being like him in the spirit, we now begin to act like him.
This
is the righteousness referred to in Romans 8:3-4.
For what the law was powerless to do {that is, produce
righteousness} in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by
sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering And so
he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the
law {the
right behavior which the law insisted on} might be fully met in us, who do
not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.
This
is what the Bible calls "sanctification," that is, righteousness
displayed. This is our new behavior. And it is ours, the apostle says, when
live not according to our sinful nature, but according to the Spirit.
Verses
5 through 13 explain that just being a Christian does not mean you
automatically look, act, talk, think, and react like Jesus Christ. You do not
become Christ like simply by becoming a Christian. Your human spirit becomes
like Christ, for it is linked with him; but you may not act that way for quite
some time. It depends on whether you are walking (behaving) "according to
the flesh" or "according to the Spirit." These two choices are
made clear in the passage before us.
Two
Possibilities
Are
we going to live according to the Spirit, or according to the flesh? Verse 5
describes these alternatives so that we can identify them and recognize them in
our lives:
Those who live according to the sinful nature
have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in
accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires
(8:5).
There
is the difference. Whether we display the righteousness demanded by the law
depends on whether we walk according to the Spirit or according to the flesh.
Notice that the difference lies in what we set our minds on. What are we
thinking about all through the day? What is important to us? How do we view
life? Do we have the viewpoint of the flesh, which governs the thinking of the
world? Or do we have the Spirit's viewpoint--God's viewpoint?
What
is the mindset of the person who lives according to the flesh, or (as the NIV
puts it), those who have "their minds set on what that sinful nature
desires"? We need only look around to see what it is. Listen to the
television or radio, or read the newspapers, or observe people--even ourselves--and
we will see what this is. It is the natural viewpoint on life.
What
do people want in life? They want to make money, because money pays for the
comforts and conveniences they would like to have. People also want to have
fun--the pursuit of pleasure. There is also a passion in the human heart to be
known and recognized. We're always manipulating people and circumstances to
acquire some degree of fame, to be seen and known. People will give anything to
gain influence, standing, prestige, and following. Finally, I think people
desire to fulfill themselves. They want to use every capability within them.
They want, somehow, to feel useful and needed. These are what the world lives
for, aren't they? And the world wants them all now, not later. This is the natural
point of view.
You
ask, "Well, what's wrong with that?" There is really nothing wrong
with it--unless it is all you want. And if it is all you want, then it is
terribly wrong. This is what the Scriptures help us see--that there is another
point of view on life, one that is according to the Spirit.
"Ah,"
you say, "I know what that means!" That means you have to forget
about making money, having fun, and fulfilling yourself. All you do is go
around memorizing Scripture and thinking about God all day long. Whenever
anyone asks you to do something, you're too busy thinking about God and too
involved in spiritual things to get your hands dirty. So you become a religious
recluse. You go about reciting Scripture verses and telling people what is
wrong with their lives--and that is being spiritual!
Unfortunately,
many think this is what we are talking about when we say we are to set our
minds on the things of the Spirit. But, of course, as many who try it discover,
this kind of life does not produce the results this passage requires. It is
really nothing but another way of being run by the flesh--it is a religious
form of it, but it is actually the same thing.
What
does it mean, then, to have your mind set on the Spirit? It means that in the
midst of making money, having fun, gaining fame, and fulfilling yourself, you
are primarily concerned with showing love, helping others, speaking truth, and,
above all, loving God and seeking his glory. The only trouble with the world is
that it is content with just making money, having fun, and fulfilling
itself--that is all it wants. The end is man. But the mind set on the Spirit
desires that God be glorified in all these things.
When
your mind is set on the Spirit you look at the events of life from Gods point
of view, not from the world's. Your value system is changed and it touches
everything you do. You no longer believe the most important thing is to make a
lot of money. The important thing is that, in seeking to fulfill your needs,
God is glorified. It is to live on the basis of a new identity and a new power.
This is what makes the difference. This is the mind set on the Spirit. It does
not remove you from life--it puts you right back into it. But it does so with a
different point of view.
Existential
Death
In
verse 6 the apostle describes the results you can expect from either of the two
courses outlined in verse 5. He says,
The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind
controlled by the Spirit is life and peaceÉ
We
could also translate this verse, "The thinking of the flesh is death, but
the thinking of the Spirit is life and peace."
What
happens when you, as a Christian, let yourself live as the world does and never
bring the perspective of God into what you do? Then you are living according to
the flesh. And the thinking of the flesh is death, while that of the Spirit is
life and peace. This describes the results that come right now. Death, in our present
experience, always consists of four basic things fear, guilt, hostility, and
emptiness. These are the forms of death which come when you have your mind set
on those things--and only those things--that the flesh desires making money,
having fun, fulfilling yourself, and gaining fame. If that is all you want out
of life, then you will also have with it fear, guilt, hostility, and emptiness,
in all their various forms.
Fear
can appear as worry, anxiety, dread, or timidity. Guilt can show up as shame,
self-hatred, self-righteousness, or perfectionism. Hostility will manifest
itself as hate, resentment, bitterness, revenge, or cruelty. Emptiness can show
up as loneliness, depression, discouragement, despair, meaninglessness. They
are all symptoms of death.
As
if that were not enough, these symptoms of death not only have an immediate
effect on our feelings, but they actually go on to settle into the body and
affect our health. We can develop nervous twitches, tics, rashes, eczema,
ulcers, stuttering, heart attacks, cancer, and many other diseases. This,
literally, is death. We are killing ourselves if, as Christians, we continue to
live, think, and act as the world lives, thinks and acts.
What,
then, is living with the mind set on the Spirit? It is facing all these
things--making money, enjoying pleasure, fulfilling yourself, even achieving a
degree of fame--but at the same time realizing that God is at work in you. He
supplies the power to do these things. Expect him to be at work and to be
glorified in all these things, and the result will be life and peace.
What,
then, is life? To summarize all that the Scriptures say on this, life includes
four basic things that are opposites of death. If death is fear, then life is
trust, hope, and confidence. If death is guilt, then life is a feeling of
acceptance, security, and assurance. If death is hostility, then life is love,
friendliness, kindness, and reaching out to others. If death is emptiness, then
life is a sense of well-being, fulfillment, excitement, vitality, and fullness.
With life comes peace, which, of course, is an inner calm, a quiet spirit, a
remarkable sense of being able to cope with and to handle life. This is what
comes when the mind is set on the Spirit.
But
the apostle does not stop with this; he tells why this is true. In verse 7 he
explains why the mind set on the flesh produces death:
. . . the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does
not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.
The
mind set on the flesh brings death because it is hostile to God and cannot obey
the law of God. It actually opposes it. Anyone who thinks life consists only of
gaining money, pleasure, enjoyment, and a degree of notoriety, is hostile to
God. That thinking is against God. James 4:6 says, "God opposes the proud,
but gives grace to the humble." It scares me to think that whenever I am
trying to further my own advancement, God is lined up against me; he resists
this kind of thinking. That is why James 3:16 can say, "Where you have
envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil
practice." God resists the proud who live for themselves and gives grace
to the humble.
Though
not stated here, the implication is clear. The mind set on the Spirit pleases
God. This is what God wants, and he gives grace to that end; he advances it and
helps it. He works on behalf of one whose outlook on life is not proud
self-confidence, but humble trust in the living God--the God who is ready to
work with him and through him to do whatever needs to be done. This is the
difference between life and death, between heaven and hell.
Who Belongs
to Christ?
A
parenthesis appears in verses 8 and 9 which the apostle uses to show us the
difference between a Christian who lives "according to the flesh" and
a non-Christian, who is "in the flesh." These terms are entirely
different and need to be carefully recognized as such.
Those controlled by the sinful nature (literally, "those who
are in the flesh") cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not
by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And
if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ
(8:8-9).
This
is as plain as you can make it. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ,
he does not belong to Christ. Such a person is said to be "in the
flesh" as contrasted with a Christian who, though he is not "in the
flesh," may be living "according to the flesh." You cannot tell
if a person is a Christian by what he does at any given moment. He may act
exactly as a non-Christian. Both of them may be cruel, vindictive, hateful,
lustful, and sinful in every way. At that moment, you cannot see any difference
between them. But there is a difference, Paul says. One has the Spirit of
Christ within him--the Holy Spirit and eventually the Spirit will make a
fantastic difference in his behavior. The other does not, and he will continue
in sin and even become worse.
In
fact, the apostle suggests that a non-Christian's actions may sometimes be much
better than those of a Christian. There are non-Christians who are kinder, more
thoughtful, and more gracious than many Christians. People say, "Look at
them! If their lives are so nice and pleasant, surely they must be
Christians." But it is not necessarily so. He who does not have the Spirit
of Christ does not belong to Christ. The difference will show up in the
ultimate tests of life. When the crunch comes, one will collapse and fall, and
the other will rise and eventually conquer.
Verses
10 and 11 are the apostle's conclusion in this matter. This is what he is
aiming at:
But if Christ is in you, your body is dead
because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the
Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised
Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his
Spirit, who lives in you.
This
is a great statement. Notice first of all the helpful reaching about the Spirit
here. He is called the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ. Then it is made
clear that the Spirit actually is the means by which Jesus Christ himself is in
us. All this refers to the work of the Holy Spirit. These terms refer to the
same thing. Through the Spirit, Christ is in you. And if Christ is in you, your
body is dead because of sin. You may not realize it, but it is true.
The
problem is, our bodies are yet unredeemed. As a consequence, they are the source
of the sin that troubles us so. And the sin that is in us--still there in our
bodies--affects the body. That is why the body lusts, the body loves comfort,
and the body seeks after pleasure; that is why our minds and attitudes react
with hate, bitterness, resentment, hostility. Sin finds its seat in the body.
Our bodies keep growing old. They are dying because of sin.
I
have been watching some of my friends through the years. Although I haven't
noticed much change in myself, I have noticed they seem to be deteriorating.
They are growing older and getting weaker. Their hair is turning gray (if they
still have some); they groan and creak where once they leaped and ran. Their
bodies are dying because of sin.
For
one who is not a Christian, that is the whole story. The body is dead, and so
is the spirit. It is falling apart, and will continue to do so. But that is not
the final answer for the Christian. The human spirit of the Christian is alive
because of the gift of righteousness. Christ has come in and we are linked with
him. As Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 4:16--"Though outwardly we are
wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day." This is the
joy of being a Christian. Though the body, with the sin that is within it, is
giving us trouble and difficulty, tempting us, confounding us at times,
nevertheless, the spirit is alive because of righteousness.
Sin
has its seat in the actual physical body, and it rises up (as Paul describes in
Romans 7) like a powerful beast. Stimulated by the law, it can rise up and
attack us, overwhelm us, and conquer us. But we have an answer, an answer put
so clearly in 1 John 4:4--"The one who is in you is greater than the one
who is in the world." In other words, the Spirit of God within us is stronger
than the sin that is in our bodies. We have strength to control the body. That
is what Paul is saying in verse 11: "And if the Spirit of him who raised
Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Jesus from the dead will
also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in
you."
Strength to
Say No
Unfortunately,
many commentators say this verse refers to the promise of resurrection at the
end of life, when God is going to make our bodies alive. But that is not what
Paul is saying. He is talking about the Spirit in us, giving life to our mortal
bodies.
Now, a mortal body is not yet dead. A mortal body is one that is subject to
death. It is dying, but it is not yet dead. Therefore, this does not refer to
the resurrection. Later Paul will come to that, but in this chapter he is
talking about what the Spirit does in us now.
He
says that though sin in our mortal bodies is going to tempt us severely, and at
times rise up with great power (we have all felt the power of temptation in our
livesÉthis urgent, almost irresistible desire to do something that we know is
wrong), we must never forget that because our human spirit has been made alive
in Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of God himself dwells in us, we have the
strength to say no to that expression of evil.
We
cannot reverse the processes of physical death--no one can. Our bodies are
going to die. But we can refuse to let the members of our bodies become the
instruments of sin. By the power of the Spirit within, we can refuse to give in
or to let our members be used for evil purpose. We don't have to let our eyes
look at wrong things. Nor do we have to let our tongues say evil, hurtful,
sarcastic, and vicious things; we donāt have to let them lie. We don't have to
let our ears hear things that are hurtful or let our minds give way to thinking
about things in a wrong and vicious fashion. Nor do we have to let our hands be
used for wrong purposes. We don't have to let our legs and feet lead us into
places where we ought not to be, nor do we have to let our sexual organs be
used for wrong purposes. We don't have to let the members of our bodies be used
wrongly. This is what Paul said back in 6:12-13.
Therefore do not let sin
reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the
parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer
yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer
the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.
This
is as plain as can be. We don't have to sin. By resurrection power, by the
power of the one who raised Jesus from the dead, and who lives in us, we can
say no
to these temptations and desires for evil. This is why, in chapter 12 of this
letter, Paul says, "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's
mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to
God--which is your spiritual worship." And we can do that.
In
8:12-13, Paul gives his conclusion. He tells us we have only one obligation.
Therefore, brothers, we
have an obligation--but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to
it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die {death becomes your
experience in your present existence}; but if by the Spirit you put to death
the misdeeds of the body, you will live.
You
will live, with all that true life means in terms of security, trust,
fulfillment, vitality, joy, and peace. Notice that Paul stresses this must be
done by the Spirit, that is, simply by believing what the Spirit of God has
said. This is the way you act by the Spirit--by faith. When you
believe God has said these sins of your body do not need to be yielded to--they
can be controlled, they have been crucified with Christ, they are worthless,
they cannot help you, nothing worthwhile can come from them--then you can say
no to sin and you can live by the Spirit. Then you can serve others, make
money, enjoy work and pleasure, gain fame, and fulfill yourself. And through it
all, God will be glorified. You will display, in your present experience, love,
joy, peace, and the grace of Jesus Christ. The very righteousness which the law
demands is fulfilled in those who walk not after the flesh but after the
Spirit. All this is beautiful, isn't it?
I
vividly recall seeing a series of illustrations published in a magazine at the
close of World War II. The first showed a huge army tank bearing down on the
tiny figure of a soldier, about to crush him. How frightened he was, as this
massive tank was about to overwhelm him! The picture made clear the odds
involved when a foot soldier with only a rifle faced a tank. The second
illustration showed the same soldier, but this time with a bazooka in his
hands. The third picture showed the tank again, but this time shrunken in size
until it was no bigger than the soldier.
This
is what Paul is saying to us. Without the power of God released in our lives,
we are like an infantry soldier facing a tank. We cannot do a thing. It is too
much for us. But by trust in the power of the living God, we can rise up in the
face of temptation and, armed with the bazooka of the Spirit, we can say no and
make it stick. We can turn and begin to live as God intended us to live.
The
question this raises, then, is this: Why not live? Why spend most of your
Christian life in weakness, constantly feeling guilt, fear, loneliness,
depression, and discouragement? Why not live?
Jesus
said, "I am come that they might have life and that they might have it
more abundantly." Paul is simply describing how we might, indeed, find
that life.
20 THE SONS
OF GOD AMONG MEN
(Romans 8:14-17)
In
the second half of Romans 8, Paul explains further what being in Christ and in
the Spirit actually means. The apostle has been leading us step by step to
understand more fully. Our new identity in Jesus Christ. The more we understand
that identity, and the more we believe it, the more quickly we will begin to
experience life in Christ. In verses 14 and 15, Paul uses a term he has never
used before in this letter. He says,
Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons
of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear,
but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba,
Father."
For
the first time in this letter Paul uses the phrase "the sons of God."
Now, I want to make something clear. This is a generic term that includes both
sexes. All believers in Christ who have received the gift of righteousness by
faith are Sons of God--regardless of whether they are male or female. There is
no need for any differentiation of the sexes here. This is why the Scriptures
speak freely of us--all of us--as the sons of the living God. This speaks of
something that is true of our spirit, and the spirit is sexless. Spirit is not
male or female, so what is true of the human spirit is quite apart from what is
true of the body.
Offspring
and Sons
It
is important to recognize right away that not everyone is a son of God.
According to Galatians 5, we are sons of God by faith in Jesus Christ. Faith--and nothing
else--makes you a Son of God. It is true that we are all creatures of God by
natural birth. When Paul preached in Athens, that great intellectual center, he
mentioned that even the Athenians' own poets recognized that men owed their
existence to God. We are the offspring of God, and in him "we live and
move and have our being," he said. This is true of all human beings
everywhere in the world at all times. They are all creatures of God. They are
the offspring of God.
But
Paul is careful to use a quite different term in Romans: "sons of
God." We are in the family of God, and this is a distinctive term. I want
to underscore how important this is, because God wants us to return to it when
we are in trouble. If you are having trouble handling your behavior--whether you
are not doing what you want to do, or doing what you don't want to do--the way
to handle it is to remind yourself of what God has made you to be. This
terminology helps tremendously.
In
your struggle with sin within you, you are not a slave, helplessly struggling against
a cruel and powerful master; you are a son, a son of the living God, with power
to overcome the evil--even though it is a struggle. And though you may be
temporarily overcome, you are never ultimately defeated. You cannot be, because
you are already children of God. This is why Paul could say in Romans 6,
"Sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law but under
grace." In this gracious relationship we are made and constituted sons of
the living God. No matter what happens to us, that is what we are. Nothing can
change it. This is the place from which we start.
It
is important also for us to see how we become sons of God. Paul says, "You did
not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear." When the
Spirit of God came into your heart, he did not make you a slave to fear.
Remember how Paul puts this in 2 Timothy 1:7--"For God did not give us a
spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of
self-discipline." This is the nature of the Holy Spirit. What did the
Spirit do? Paul says, "You received the Spirit of sonship," or,
literally, "the Spirit of adoption, who adopted you as sons." How did
you become a son of God? Well, the Spirit of God found you, and he found me,
and he adopted us into Gods family.
One
night I was with a family where there were two adopted or "chosen"
children and two children born to the parents I watched all evening to see if I
could tell the difference between them. I finally had to ask the parents
because I could not tell any difference--even from their looks. Two were
adopted into the family and two were born into it, but they were all treated so
beautifully and so naturally that I could not tell the difference.
Some
of you may be saying at this point, "Look, you are confusing me. What do
you mean when you say we are adopted into the family of God? I have been taught
from the Scriptures that I was born into the family of God. I have been born
again." That is the term much bandied about these days. Even politicians
are boasting, I've been born again." Thank God, some of them are. So you
say, "I thought we were born, not adopted. What do you mean by
'adopted'?"
Aspects of
Belonging
I
am glad you asked. You see, both of these are true. We are both adopted and
born into the family of God. As Jesus said on another occasion, "With men
it is impossible, but with God, all things are possible." We can't be both
adopted and born into a human family, but we can in God's family. God uses both
these terms because he wants to highlight two different aspects of our
belonging to the family of God.
We
are said to be adopted because God wants us to remember always that we are not
naturally part of the family of God. We have been seeing all along in this
letter that we are born into Adam's family, and we are all children of Adam by
natural birth. We belong to the human family, and we inherit Adam's nature. All
his defects, all his problems, all the evil that came into his life by his act
of disobedience--all these were passed along to us by natural birth. So by nature
we are not part of God's family. In the same way, some people were born into
one family, and then, by a legal process, were taken out of that family and
were adopted into another family. From then on they became part of the family
that adopted them.
This
is what has happened to us. God has taken us out of our natural state in Adam,
and by the process of the Spirit has made us legally sons of God. We are now
part of his family. But he reminds us that we are in his family by adoption so
that we might never take it for granted, or forget that if we were left in our
natural state we would not have a part in the family of God. It is only by the
grace of God that we come into his family.
But
it is also true that we are born into God's family. Once we have been adopted,
it is also true that, because God is God, he not only makes us legally his
sons, but he makes us actually share his nature. It is astonishing! This tie
with Jesus is so real that we are actually one with him, and as Peter puts it,
"We have been made partakers of the divine nature." So we are as much
a part of God's family as if we had originally been born into it, and we are
born into it by the grace of God.
So
both these statements are true. There is nothing more wonderful than to remind
yourself, morning by morning and day by day, of this great fact. If you are a
Christian, you are a son of the living God, adopted and born into his family.
Because you are his son, God loves you, God protects you, God provides for you,
God plans for you, God hears you, God claims you and openly acknowledges you.
He chastens and corrects you, and he honors you. All of this is true because
you are his son.
We
know how we treat our natural children. There is a difference between them and
the neighbors' children. Our children are considerably superior, of course. We
may love the neighbors' children--they may be delightful, but they are not our
children. We have a special relationship with our own children. We care for
them, hurt for them, love and protect them, plan for them, and watch out for
them. There are special ties with them. In this same way, God has a special
relationship to us. We are the sons of God turned loose among the sons of men.
It
would be helpful, I know, if God would put a little mark on us that would
indicate we are his sons. If we had a little red star on out foreheads, then we
could recognize all the other sons of God. Or, perhaps if we had a special glow
that never dimmed in the slightest.
But
there is no such mark. Outwardly, there is no distinction; but inwardly, there
is a tremendous distinction, and we need to understand this. We can't tell by
looking at anyone whether he or she is a child of God, though often there is an
underlying sensitivity that allows brothers and sisters in Christ to identify
one another. But there is a vast difference within, and because of this
difference, God has a special relationship with us.
Now,
the great question in all this is, "If everything depends on my being a
son of God, how can I be sure that I am a son?" Paul has been leading up
to this question all through his letter. Whether or not you are a son of God
will make the essential difference in your life--not only now, in the way you
behave, but for all eternity. So the greatest question in life is, "Am I or
am I not a son of God?" You can't ask a more important question than that.
Your whole behavior, your happiness as an individual, your ultimate destiny,
your whole relationship to the greatness and the glory of God, all depends on
the answer to this question.
So
the apostle in this passage gives us three very practical tests--three levels
of assurance--by which we can know whether we are God's sons.
Proof by
Observation
First,
Paul says, we are sons of God if we are led by the Spirit of God. Now, to be led
by the Spirit means that one is controlled by someone other than himself. This,
therefore, is a proof which arises from our circumstances, from our
experiences, from the events and reactions that happen to us, over which we
have no deliberate control. Paul is saying that we can learn the answer to this
question by observing. This is proof addressed to the mind. We can reason it;
we can observe it. We can look around in our lives and see if we are being led
by the Spirit of God. If there is proof that we are, then we are sons of God.
What
are some of these signs? The Scriptures tells us the Spirit of God will do
certain things when he comes into our lives. If he has done them, and we can
see that he has, we have immediate assurance that we are sons of God.
"Those who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God." So
let's look at the signs of being led by the Spirit.
The
most evident and important sign to me--and one that obviously doesn't come from
a human source--is that when I read the Scriptures I am taught by the Spirit.
He opens my mind to understand the Word of God. He is called the Spirit of
truth. So when he comes into my life, the first thing he will do is to make the
Bible a living Word to me. I will see it as truth, and know it as truth. My
eyes are opened to understand that here at least is reality. This understanding
is the work of the Spirit of God.
Have
you ever been reading a passage of Scripture when suddenly something leaped out
at you? The passage takes on a new, fresh, and glowing meaning. If this has
happened, you are being led by the Spirit of God. He is doing his work of
opening the truth to your mind and heart. This, of course, is what Paul refers
to in verse 13: "If by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body,
you will live." He is talking about our understanding of what the Spirit
of God has already done with the flesh within us, how it was crucified with
Christ, and how, therefore, we can be freed from it. We can rise up and refuse
to obey that flesh because its connection with us has been broken. If you
understand this, you are being led by the Spirit of God, and therefore you are
a son of God.
Some
years ago when I was in a city some distance from home, I was feeling
discouraged. I opened the Scriptures and read one of Paul's letters, and was so
impressed by these words: "Remember that you are chosen of God, and
precious in his sight." Suddenly the realization came home to me that this
applied to me.
I was chosen of God and precious in his sight! This kind of experience is given
by the Spirit of God within us, teaching us the truth.
The
Spirit also arouses us to pray. Have you ever felt you just had to pray, that
you had to get away somewhere and have a few quiet moments in God's presence?
You may not have prayed for several days, but suddenly you are compelled to.
You have to open up and talk to your Father. Now this is being led of the
Spirit of God. It is he who arouses in us the desire to pray. Those who have
had these experiences can know by them that we are children of God.
Another
thing the Spirit does is awaken a love for the brethren. When you meet someone
and learn he is a Christian, do you ever feel a special bond with him right
away? Have you ever longed to be with Christians? Do you sometimes get tired of
even the closest of friends who are not Christians? Do you long to be with
brothers and sisters in the family? The Spirit awakens within us a love for the
brethren. John says in his first letter that if you have a love for the
brethren it is a sign that you are in Christ.
Another
sign is that the Spirit makes the world empty, and he makes God real. The
Spirit directs us and checks us. Do you ever feel this? These are signs that we
are being led by the Spirit of God.
Of
course, ultimately, the Spirit produces the fruit of the Spirit in us. If we
have evidence at all that we are truly loving--especially when it is hard to be
loving--if we feel love, joy, peace, gentleness, compassion, goodness, and
faith, then we know these have all been awakened by the Spirit of God.
"Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God." This is one
test by which we can know if we are sons of God.
An
Emotional Response
There
is another level of assurance of our sonship mentioned in the closing part of
verse 15: "And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father.'" Abba is the Aramaic word for
father. Of course, the Greek word is translated "father" here, also.
So, by means of the Spirit, we are given an emotional response to God in which
we are aware of his fatherhood, and our soul cries our within us, "Abba,
Father." "Abba" is a baby's word.
I
remember years ago hearing a story about Dr. Alan McRae, the great Bible
student and Hebrew scholar. Some time after the McRaes' baby boy was born, Dr.
McRae had to go away for three or four weeks. When he came back, his wife was
showing him how the baby had learned to say a few words. When this eminent
Hebrew scholar came in, his little son stretched out his arms and said,
"Ab-Abba, abba!" Dr. McRae said, "Look, he's speaking Aramaic
already!" The closest and most intimate relationship you can have is the
awareness that you belong to a father, with a father's arms around you, a
father's heart concerned for you, a father's wisdom planning for you, and a
fatherās love protecting and guarding you. If you have ever sensed the
fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of Jesus, it is because God's Spirit has
awakened your heart to sense that you belong to the family of God.
I
have seen tears come to people's eyes when something from the Scriptures reminds
them of their relationship to God the Father. It can happen when you are
driving your car, or sitting with your family, or going through a time of
sorrow. Suddenly and unexpectedly, that wonderful sense that you belong to the
Father comes, and you cherish that relationship. Your soul cries, "Abba,
my Father!" This, by the way, is the word Jesus himself used in the agony
of Gethsemane. As he knelt to pray in his hour of anguish, he cried out,
"Oh Abba--my Father!" Even in his anguish he was aware of this
relationship.
Verse
16 tells us of still another level of assurance that the Spirit is in us:
The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit
that we are God's children.
This
is the deepest level of assurance beyond the emotions, beyond the feelings, is
a deep conviction born of the Spirit of God himself, an underlying awareness
that we cannot deny we are part of God's family. We are the children of God. I
think this is the basic thing to which our emotions respond with the cry,
"Abba, Father." That is our love to him, but this is his love to us.
It is what Paul refers to in Romans 5 when he says, "God has poured out
his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."
As
I look back on my own life, I can understand how this is true. I think I became
a Christian when I was about eleven years old, in a Methodist brush arbor
meeting. I responded to the invitation and, with tears, came and knelt in front
and received the Lord. I had a wonderful time of fellowship with the Lord that
summer and the next winter, and there were occasions when I would be
overwhelmed with the sense of nearness and dearness of God. I used to sing
hymns until tears would flow as the meaning of those old words reflected on the
relationship that I had with God. I used to preach to the cows as I brought
them home. Those cows were a very good audience, too, by the way; they never
went to sleep on me.
Seven-Year
Prodigal
But
the next fall we moved to a town that did not even have a church. Gradually,
because of that lack of Christian fellowship, I drifted away from a warm
relationship with God into many ugly and shameful things--habits and thought
patterns that I am now ashamed of. I developed some liberal attitudes toward
the Scriptures. I did not believe in the inspiration of the Bible. I argued
against it, and during high school and college I was known as a skeptic.
But
all through those years there was a relationship with God I could not deny.
Somehow I knew, deep down inside, that I still belonged to him; and there were things
I could not do, even though I was tempted. I could not do them because I felt I
had a tie with God. This is the witness of the Spirit--Calvin called it
"the testimonium"--which we cannot deny and which is especially
discernible in times of gross sin and despair. In 1 John 3:19-20 we read,
This then is how we know
that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence
whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he
knows everything.
God
knows everything. There is a witness born of the Spirit which you can not
shake, which is there with the ultimate testimony that we belong with the
children of God.
This
is where to begin when you get into trouble. Go back to this relationship.
Remind yourself of who you are. You can see it in your life as you look around.
You are led by the Spirit of God. You can feel it in your heart. There are
times when your emotions are stirred by the Spirit, and you sense at the level
of your spirit that you belong to God.
In
verse 17 the apostle mentions an even greater and deeper relationship. This
verse introduces the next section in the passage, but I want to set it before
you now:
Now if we are children, then we are heirs--heirs
of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order
that we may also share in his glory.
This
introduces the very climax of this epistle. We learn of the glory that awaits
us and its tie with the sufferings that we go through now. We started in Adam;
we are now, by faith, in Christ, and in the Spirit; if we are in the Spirit, we
can walk according to the Spirit; if we walk according to the Spirit, we are
therefore led by the Spirit; if we are led by the Spirit, we are the sons of
God; and if we are the sons of God, we are heirs of God. All that God owns is
to be committed to us.
These
are staggering, mind-stretching things; but they are what the apostle writes,
and they run all throughout the Scriptures. The thread is found from Genesis
right through Revelation. In variously subtle and open ways the Old Testament
constantly hints that something fantastic is coming. What God has in mind for
this beguiled and driven race of men who are now redeemed by faith in Christ is
beyond description! This is what Paul is going to bring before us now, as we
consider the heritage waiting for us in Jesus Christ.
And
all this is for us to remember when we get into trouble. This is not just hope
for the future; it is deliverance for the present. If we remember who we are,
by an absolute psychological certainty we will start acting like who we are.
When we do, we will find there is power available to say no to the flesh, to
say yes to the Spirit, and to walk in a way that glorifies God.
21 THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY
(Romans 8:17-28)
The
apostle John writes, "Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what
we will be has not yet been made known" (1 John 3:2). This is the theme
Paul brings into focus as we continue in Romans 8. He actually deals with two
themes: the sufferings of believers, and their ultimate glorification.
As
a pastor I have always found comfort in 1 John 3:2. Sometimes when I am beset
by saints who come to me and criticize various things that are going on, I have
a difficult time relating to them. Then I remind myself, "Well, they are
still children of God even though it does not yet appear what they shall
be." I also see the increasing decrepitude in many deteriorating bodies as
they grow older. I have to say again, "It does not yet appear what we shall
be." Things are moving toward a great day, but it is not here yet; and
until that day, we have to put up with the difficulties, the hardships, and the
sufferings to which our current situations bring us. These are the themes Paul
links together in this great section of Romans 8.
Earlier
he stated this plainly in verse 17:
Now if we are children then we are heirs--heirs
of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order
that we may also share in his glory.
This
verse links two things that we would probably not put together sufferings and
glory--hurts and hallelujahs. They belong together, and you find them together
in almost every passage of Scripture that deals with the suffering of the
Christian. In fact, in 2 Corinthians 4:17 the apostle links them directly:
"For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal
glory that outweighs them all." So, our sufferings as believers--physical,
emotional, whatever they may be--are directly linked with the glory that is
coming. The important thing we need to see is that both the sufferings and the
glory are privileges given to us.
It
is easy for Christians reading these passages to get the idea that we earn our
glory by the sufferings we go through. Those who go through the greatest suffering
will earn the greatest glory. But it is wrong to see it that way. We never earn
glory. As this passage makes clear, glory is given to us as part of our
inheritance in Christ. And suffering, too, is our inheritance in Christ.
Suffering is a privilege committed to us. Paul says this plainly in Philippians
1:29--
For it has been granted to you on behalf of
Christ {or,
for his name's sake} not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him.
The
early part of Acts records that the first Christians actually rejoiced in their
sufferings. They rejoiced because they were counted worthy to suffer for the
sake of the Lord. And though they were beaten and mistreated, they went away
rejoicing because God had counted them worthy to bear suffering for his name's
sake. This is the transforming view that makes it possible for us to endure
suffering and, more than that, to actually rise above it with triumphant
rejoicing. We can do this when we see that our sufferings are privileges
committed to us. Our Lord Jesus said this himself: "Blessed are you when
people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you
because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for
in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you" (Matthew
5:11-12).
Nothing
will help us more to endure suffering than a clear view of the glory linked to
it. This is the theme we begin to encounter in Romans 8:18.
I consider that our present sufferings are not
worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
The
theme of this verse and the next nine is that incomparable glory lies
ahead--glory beyond description, greater than anything you can compare it with
on earth. A magnificent and fantastic prospect awaits us. All through the
Scriptures there has been a rumor of hope running through the Old Testament,
through the prophetic writings, and into the New Testament. This rumor speaks
of a day when all the hurt, heartache, injustice, weakness, and suffering of
today will be explained and justified, and will result in a time of incredible
blessing upon the earth. The whisper of this in the Old Testament increases in
intensity as it approaches the New Testament, where you come to proclamations
like this that speak of the incomparable glory ahead.
We
tend to make careful note of our suffering. I once received a mimeographed
letter from a man who had written our in extreme detail (even though rather
humorously) a report of his recent operation. He said he'd had to listen to all
the reports of other people's operations for years, and now it was his turn! We
make detailed reports of what we go through in our sufferings. But here the
apostle says, "Don't even mention them! They are not worthy to be
mentioned in comparison with the glory that is to follow."
This
statement would be just so much hot air if it did not come from a man like
Paul. Here is a man who suffered intensely. None of us has gone through even a
fraction of the suffering Paul endured. He was beaten, stoned (with rocks!),
chained, imprisoned, shipwrecked, starved, often hungry, naked, and cold. He
himself tells us this. And yet he takes pen in hand and says, "Our present
sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in
us." The glory that is coming is incomparable.
Our
sufferings hurt us, I know. I am not trying to make light of them or diminish
the terrible physical and emotional pain that suffering can bring. It can be
awful, almost unendurable. Its intensity can increase to such a degree that we
scream with terror and pain. We think we can no longer endure. But the apostle
says that the intensity of our suffering is not even a drop in the bucket
compared with the intensity of coming glory. Paul strains language in trying to
describe this fantastic thing about to happen.
United with
Beauty
This
glory is not only incomparable in its intensity, but incomparable in its
locality. It is not going to be revealed to us, but in us. The word literally
means "into us." This glory is not going to be like a spectator
sport, where we will sit up in some cosmic grandstand and watch an amusing or
beautiful performance in which we actually have no part. We are to be on stage.
We are going to be involved in it. It is a glory that will be "revealed
into us," and we are part of it.
The
incomparable C. S. Lewis has explained this more accurately than anyone else, I
think, in The Weight of Glory:
We are to shine as the sun. We are to be given
the morning star. I think I begin to see what it means. In one way. of course,
God has given us the morning star already. You can go and enjoy the gift on
many fine mornings, if you get up early enough. "What more," you may
ask, "do we want?" Ah, but we want so much more. Something the books
on aesthetics take little notice of. But the poets and mythologies know all
about it. We do not want merely to see beauty, though God knows even that is
bounty enough--we want something else which can hardly be put into words--to be
united with the beauty we see to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to
bathe in it, to become part of it. That is why the poets tell us such lovely
falsehoods. They talk as if the west wind could really sweep into a human soul.
But it can't. They tell us that beauty, born of murmuring sound, will pass into
a human face. But it won't--or not yet, at least.
Lewis
sums it up in this way:
The door on which we have been knocking all our
lives will open at last.
This
is what Paul says is about to happen. This is the incredible glory God has
prepared for those who love him, for us--not because we have been faithful, not
because we earn it, but because we are heirs of God, and co-heirs with Christ.
Thus
we are called and entrusted with the privilege of suffering. All Christians
suffer. There are no exceptions. If you are a true and genuine believer in
Jesus Christ, you will suffer. But we are not only given the privilege of
suffering with him now, but also sharing in his glory yet to come. We can
endure the suffering, and even triumph in it, because we see the glory that
will follow.
In
the next paragraph the apostle shows us two proofs that confirm this hope of
glory, bearing witness of this day to come. The first is from nature, and the
second from our own experience.
Verses
19 through 22 explain the testimony found in nature. First, nature is waiting
for something
The creation waits in eager expectation for the
sons of God to be revealed (8:19).
The
Greek word translated here as "eager expectation" is an interesting
picture of a man standing and waiting for something to happen, craning his
neck, visibly displaying anticipation for what is coming. J. B. Phillips
correctly captures the sense: "The whole creation is standing on tiptoe,
eagerly awaiting the revelation of the sons of God." This is what Paul
says the world of nature is doing. It is eagerly awaiting this remarkable event
toward which the world is hastening, and has been hastening since the beginning
of time.
Paul
goes on to explain why he makes such a statement:
For the creation was subjected to frustration,
not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope
that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and
brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God (8:20-21).
Creation
not only is waiting for something, but it is doing so because it is linked with
man. Creation fell with man, the apostle declares. Not only did our whole race
fall into the bondage of sin and death, but the entire physical universe fell
as well. It was man's sin that put thorns on roses. It was man's sin that made
the animals hate and fear each other and brought predators and carnivores into
being. With the fall of man came the spread of fear, hostility, and hatred in
the animal world, and the whole of nature testifies to it. It is, as Paul
describes it here, subjected to frustration.
Futility
Prevails
Sometimes
we hear about plants that are sensitive to people, that they even understand
something of our words and attitudes. Can you imagine how frustrated a plant
can get when it wants to produce and grow, and yet it is treated so that it
cannot? Some of us have to live with these frustrated plants in our home! Think
of the beauty of nature--and yet every area is spoiled by thorns and thistles
and other marks of decay. Futility prevails in the natural world.
The
phrase "bondage to decay" is an accurate description of what
scientists call the second law of thermodynamics. This is the law of increasing
entropy. Everything is decaying; everything, without exception, is running down.
Though for a while something may seem to grow, eventually it dies. Even human
life dies, and so does all that is with it. All of this is because of the fall
of man.
I
sometimes spend a few days in the beautiful High Sierra where the great sequoia
trees grow. As I walk about, I am saddened to see how the crush of man is
spoiling what is left of the beauty of creation. There once had been a great
forest--the world's greatest forest of sequoia trees, those majestic redwoods.
But man came in, and in less than a decade there was nothing but thousands of
blackened stumps and rotting logs. It is ironic that although the forest was
razed in the name of profit, no one made a dime on the whole operation. At
least half of the felled timber was never removed and was left to rot. This is
how man despoils creation wherever he goes. He pollutes the air and ruins the
environment. This is all a part of the bondage to decay that we see all around
us.
But
if this is true, the apostle argues, it is also true that when man is delivered
from this decay, nature will be delivered too. When the hour strikes and the
sons of God are revealed as they truly are, when what we have become in our
spirits--sons of the living God--shall become obvious to all; in that hour,
nature will be freed from its bondage. It will burst into a glorious,
unimaginable bloom. The desert will blossom like the rose, the prophet says,
and the lions will lie down with the lambs. None shall hurt and destroy in all
of God's holy mountain. Rivers will run free, clear, and sweet again.
All
that God intended in nature will come to pass in that day. Nature will be
delivered into "the glorious freedom of the children of
God"--literally, "the freedom and the glory," meaning that the
glory has a great deal of freedom about it. We will step into such liberty as
we have never dreamed, such as has never come into our imaginations. It is
incomparable glory.
Now,
in anticipation of that day, nature groans, though it groans in hope:
We know that the whole creation has been
groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time (8:22).
As
Paul has said earlier, nature groans in the hope that the creation itself will
be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of
the children of God. Someone has pointed out that all the sounds of nature are
in a minor key. Listen to the sighing of the wind. Listen to the roaring of the
tide. Even most bird sounds are in a minor key. All nature is singing, but it
is singing a song of bondage. Yet it sings in hope, looking forward to the day
when it will step into the freedom of the children of God.
The Groan
and the Glory
Not
only does nature testify to this bondage, bearing witness to the hope that is
waiting, but we ourselves have this testimony. Our present experience confirms
that glory is coming. Paul sets this before us in verse 23:
Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the
first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption
as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
In
some ways, this is the most remarkable statement in this whole remarkable
paragraph. Paul says that though we are redeemed in spirit, our bodies are not
yet redeemed; therefore we, too, are groaning. All through this paragraph there
is a constant contrast between the groan and the glory; yet there is a link
between the two. Nature groans; we groan. And yet the groan produces the glory.
I remind you again of what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:17--
For our light and momentary troubles are
achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
Have
you ever thought of afflictions in that way? Our afflictions are working for
us. Every time we groan, it is a reminder to us of the promise of glory. I do
not think anything will transform our sufferings more than remembering that.
Our
lives consist of groans. We groan because of the ravages of sin in our lives
and in the lives of those we love. We groan in disappointment because we see
possibilities that are not captured and employed, and gifted people whose lives
are being wasted. We groan in bereavement and sorrow, just as Jesus groaned
when he drew near the tomb of Lazarus, burdened by the ravages sin had made in
a believing family.
But
the apostle immediately adds that this groaning is in hope:
For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is
seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for
what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently (8:24-25).
As
nature groans in hope, so do we. For in this hope we were saved, in the
anticipation that God has a plan for our bodies.
Among
the Greeks it was taught that the body was evil, that the best thing was to get
our of it, to escape into whatever glory awaited the human spirit. The body was
seen as a prison. I am afraid this pagan concept is more prevalent among
Christians than we like to think. Many Christians have an ejection-seat
mentality. As soon as they get into difficulty, they want to pull the cord and
zip off into glory. They want to get away from it all. We are all tempted to
feel this way, but it is not the true Christian point of view.
The
Christian viewpoint is that, though the body is in pain and suffering and is
limited now, it is an important aspect of our lives. It is part of the whole
program and plan of God, part of the privilege committed to us as Christians.
We suffer with Christ. As he suffered, so do we, that we might be glorified as
he is. Therefore, what is happening to us now is never meaningless. It holds
great meaning. Boredom--seeing nothing meaningful in what you're going through
now as you wait for something better--is the most unchristian attitude we can
have.
We
are saved in hope, Paul says, and by that hope we live. It is true that hope,
by its very nature, is something yet in the future ("Hope that is seen is
no hope at all. But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it
patiently"). What makes it possible to wait is that we already have the
first fruits of the Spirit. We know that the Spirit of God is able to give joy
in the midst of heartache. He is able to make us feel at peace even when there
is turmoil all around. This happens to even the weakest and newest among us.
This is what Paul calls the firstfruits of the Spirit--the power of God to make
a heart calm and restful and peaceful in the midst of turbulent, trying, and
difficult circumstances. Because we have these firstfruits we can wait
patiently for the hour when, at last, even our bodies will be set free, and we
will step into an incomparable glory, such as we have never imagined. No one,
in all the wildest dreams of science fiction, has ever imagined or conceived of
something as vast and magnificent as the glory God has waiting for us.
More Groans
But
there is more involved in this program of patient waiting, as the apostle goes
on to explain in verse 26 and 27:
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our
weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray, but the Spirit himself
intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches
our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the
saints in accordance with God's will.
Now
it is the Spirit groaning. There are three groans in this passage. Nature is
groaning, we are groaning, and now the Spirit is groaning, with words which cannot
be uttered. This passage helps us to understand prayer. The apostle says that
we do not know what to pray for. We lack wisdom. I want to point out
immediately that this is not an encouragement to cease praying. Some people
think this means that if we don't know how to pray as we ought, and if the
Spirit is going to pray for us anyway, then we don't need to pray. But that
would contradict many other Scripture passages, especially James 4:2, which
says, "You have not because you ask not." God does want us to pray,
and we are constantly encouraged to pray Jesus taught us to pray. In
Philippians 4:6, Paul tells us that we are never to be troubled or anxious, but
in everything, with prayer and supplication, we are to let our requests be made
known to God.
Many
times we know something is wrong, but do not know how to analyze it, or how to
explain it, or how to ask God to do something about it. We are without wisdom.
In those times, the apostle tells us, the Spirit of God voices, without words,
his requests to the Father.
I
have always been amazed at those who emphasize the gift of tongues and who take
this verse as proof that the Spirit prays in tongues through us. This verse
could not mean that Paul tells us that this praying of the Spirit is done with
groans which words cannot express. Now, tongues are words, words of other
languages. If this referred to the gift of tongues, it would merely be putting
into other languages the feelings of our heart. But this passage has nothing to
do with that. This describes the groans of the Spirit within, so deep and so
impossible to verbalize that we cannot say anything at all. We just feel
deeply. The apostle says that when that happens, it is the Spirit of God who is
praying. The Spirit is putting our prayer into a form which God the Father, who
searches the heart, understands. The Spirit is asking for something concerning
the situation that we are trying to pray about.
What
is the Spirit asking for? That is explained in verse 28:
And we know that in all things God works for the
good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Never
separate this verse from the previous two. The apostle says that what the
Spirit prays for is what happens. The Spirit prays according to the mind of
God, and the Father answers by bringing into our lives whatever we need. He
sends into our lives the experiences that we need, no matter what they may be.
This
means that even the trials and tragedies that happen to us are an answer from
the Father to the praying of the Spirit. What we need to understand is that
these things do not happen by accident. They happen because the Spirit who is
in you prayed and asked that the Father allow them to happen--because you or
someone close to you needs it. These are the results of praying in the Spirit.
The
joys, the unexpected blessings, and the unusual things that happen to you are
also the result of the Spirit's praying. The Spirit is praying these things
will happen, he is voicing the deep concern of God himself for your needs and
mine. Out of this grows the assurance that no matter what happens, it will work
together for good. This verse does not tell us that everything that happens to
us is good. It does say that whether the situation is bad or good, it will work
together for good if you are loved and called by God. What a difference that
makes as we wait for the coming of the glory! God is working our his purposes
within us.
Paul
tells us here that we can wait with patience because nature testifies to his
glorious coming. Our own experience confirms it. We are being prepared for
something--we canāt really tell what it is, specifically, but we are getting
ready for something. And one of these days, at the end of our lives, if not
before, we will step out of time into an incredible experience of glory,
something that surpasses description--a glory that Christ himself shares, and
that we will all share with him.
That
is what God is preparing us for. No wonder the apostle closes this passage with
one of the greatest paeans of praise in the Scriptures. As we face our
sufferings, what a blessing, and what a help it is to remember the glory
granted to us. We have been counted worthy to suffer for his name, that we may
also share in the glory that is to come.
22 IF GOD
BE FOR US
(Romans
8:28-39)
The
glory of Christianity is that, whether our hearts are aching or rejoicing,
there is no incident or circumstance--no matter how trivial--that is without
purpose or meaning God has declared that "in all things God works for the
good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose"
(8:28).
That
great statement introduces to us the crowning concept of Romans. We are called
"according to his purpose." God has a purpose for us. There is
purpose in life. What seems to be a meaningless jumble of events in history is
not meaningless at all; there is a purpose to every event. Everything is moving
to accomplish a desired end, and that end is the subject of this whole letter
Godās purpose, in effect, is to have many sons, all of whom will love him with
all their hearts, just as Jesus said: "You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul and all your strength.
This is the first and greatest commandment."
To
accomplish this, God called the world into being, set up the whole universe,
populated the earth with a race of men, permitted them to fall, sent into this
sin-ridden world his own beloved Son, accomplished his people's redemption
through the Cross and the Resurrection, and now--as Paul so clearly
says--"works for the good of those who love him, who have been called
according to that great purpose."
In
this we have a tremendous statement of what life is all about. We see that God
wills to have a race of people, his own children, who will love him. Love is
the end and aim of life. Now Paul looks back through his letter and sums up in
five brief steps the process God follows to accomplish that end:
For those God foreknew he also predestined to be
conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many
brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also
justified; those he justified, he also glorified (8:29-30).
These
are the five steps God takes, stretching from eternity to eternity--far beyond
the scope of any of our lives. I want to make clear that in this passage Paul
is not explaining why some people believe and some do not. That is the problem
of election. All that man is told about that subject is stated in the ninth
chapter. But Paul does not face the mystery of election here. He is simply
describing what has already happened when, as Christians, we look back to see
how God brought us to belief.
A Question
of Existence
The
first step is that God foreknew us. Many people imagine this means God foreknew
what we were going to do, he foreknew that we would believe in Christ. There is
a certain line of teaching that says God looked down the corridor of time and
saw that we would believe in Christ, and therefore he chose us to be part of
his elect because of what we were going to do. But this verse, as I have
already suggested, is not dealing with that question. This verse says, "those
whom he
foreknew," not "that which he foreknew." It is concerned, therefore,
with the question of existence. It tells us that from among the tremendous
number of people who have been born on this earth since the creation of man,
God foreknew that you and I would be there--as well as all the believers who
have preceded us or who will follow us in the course of history.
This
is a remarkable statement, when you consider the infinitesimal chances of
knowing at the moment of human conception all the future characteristics of
that person. Because of the abundance of sperm to one ovum, doctors tell us
that the possibility that any one particular person could be foretold and
foreknown is fantastic--the odds are in the range of one in two hundred million
for every single birth. So when you consider that out of all those
possibilities God has foreknown us--and not only us, but all believers of all
time--you begin to get some faint understanding of the mind and wisdom of God.
We
are impressed by great computers that amass huge numbers of facts and put
together amounts of information that none of us, alone, could ever handle. But
these computers are nothing! They are children's toys compared with the
greatness of the mind of God, who saw all the fantastic possibilities and knew
that we would be there. Not only that, but he knew it long before the world was
ever called into being! That is the amazing statement of the Scriptures. Before
the foundation of the earth, God foreknew that we would be here I cannot go any
further than this. It baffles and bewilders me; nevertheless, it is fact. This
is where Paul begins.
The
next step is that God predestined "Ah," you say, "I know what
that means! That means God looked over the whole group and said, 'Now these
will go to hell, and those will go to heaven.'" But predestination has
absolutely nothing to do with going to hell. In the Word of God, predestination
is never related to that. To think of predestination in those terms is
completely unbiblical. Predestination has to do only with believers. It simply
tells us that God has selected beforehand the goal toward which he is going to
move everyone of us who believes in Christ. That goal is conformity to the
character of Christ. Everything that happens to us focuses on that one supreme
purpose.
If
we understand that, it will help to explain some of the conundrums of our
lives. We think that Godās primary objective is our happiness, but the
Scriptures never say that. God is interested in our happiness, and eventually
our happiness is involved in all that. God does, but that is not his primary
concern. His primary concern is for our character. God knows we can never
develop the character he wants without times of difficulty and trial and
suffering. That is why suffering is an inevitable part of the picture. It helps
us to remember that Godās primary objective is not that we be happy all the
time. He is not that kind of father. Rather, his primary objective is that we
be holy, which means "whole," "complete," all that we were
intended to be, functioning as God intended us to function, like Jesus.
We
have all noticed that God forms a lot of characters! In fact, he is going to
end up with a heaven full of them. But one distinctive thing about those
characters is that they are all like Jesus. They all have different
personalities, but they will all have the same basic, fundamental character: loving,
gracious, gentle, wholesome, helpful, compassionate--all the things that marked
the magnificent life of Jesus interpreted in a thousand and one different ways.
That is the wonder and the glory of God. That is what he has predestined. There
shall be many brethren, and Jesus is the firstborn among many just like him.
The Holy
Spirit Gets into the Act
The
third step is that God called us. "Those whom God foreknew he also
predestined; and those he predestined, he also called." This is where we
get into the act. Up to this point, the passage has been concerned with God's
mind and purpose, but now we suddenly become involved. Those whom God foreknew
and predestined, he now calls. I could not begin to describe the mystery and
wonder involved in this. This means the Holy Spirit somehow begins to work in
our lives. We may be far removed from God, we may have grown up in a
non-Christian family, we may be from a Christian home. It does not make any
difference. God begins to work and he draws us to himself.
Jesus
said, "All that my Father has given me shall come unto me" Not one
shall be lost. The Holy Spirit begins to draw us and woo us and open our minds
and create interest in our hearts. We think we are getting religious, but we
are only responding to the drawing of the Spirit of God. We are not aware of
this--we think it is our choice. In a sense, we do have to make a choice, and
in chapter 9 Paul explains more fully this mystery of our free will and God's
sovereign choice. Nevertheless, we are being drawn in ways we do not
understand.
The
apostle Paul was converted on the Damascus road when he saw the glory of the
Lord shining about him with a brilliance greater than the sun. He heard a voice
that said to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Is it not hard for
you to kick against the goad?" By that last phrase the Lord Jesus declared
Paul was fighting, struggling, kicking, trying to hold on to his
independence--but he was being goaded relentlessly to a fate he could not
escape. This is what happens to all of us. We do not understand it, but it is
true.
Dr.
Harry Ironside used to tell about a man who gave his testimony, telling how God
had sought and found him, how God had loved him, called him, saved him,
delivered him, cleansed him, and healed him--a tremendous testimony to the
glory of God. After the meeting, one rather legalistic brother took him aside
and said, "You know, I appreciate all that you said about what God did for
you, but you didn't mention anything about your part in it. Salvation is really
part us and part God, and you should have mentioned something about your
part." "Oh," the man said, "I apologize, I'm sorry; I
really should have mentioned that. My part was running away, and his part was
running after me until he found me." That is what Paul is saying here. God
called us. Those whom he predestined, he also called .
Fourth,
those God called, he justified. All along in this letter we have been looking
at what justification means. It is God's gift of worth. Those who are justified
are rendered valuable in his sight. They are forgiven, cleansed, loved,
accepted, and wanted. This is justification--being given the gift of worth
without any merit at all on your part. By the cross God was freed to give the
gift of righteousness. Had he given it apart from the cross he could have been
properly accused of condoning sin--but the cross freed him. It established his
righteous justice on other grounds, so that he is now free to give to us the
gift of worth without any merit on out part.
Then,
finally, those God justified, he also glorified. Paul writes as though this had
already happened--and it is true that it has already begun. Glorification is
what Paul calls "the revelation of the sons of God." It is the
exciting day which the whole creation anticipates, when God is suddenly going
to pull back the curtains on what he has been doing with the human race.
Suddenly, the sons of God will stand out in glory.
But
in a sense, this has already begun. It is what we call sanctification. Sanctification is the
process by which the inner worth which God imparts to our human spirit by faith
in Christ begins to work itself out into our conduct. We actually begin to
change. We begin to be like what we actually are. Our attitudes change, and out
actions change. As out habits begin to change, we stop certain things and begin
others. Our whole demeanor is different; we become much more gracious, happy,
and wholesome. This is called sanctification and glorification; it has already
started. It is the process Paul says is inevitable. God has started it, he is
continuing it, and he is going to complete it. So Paul writes here as though it
were already done: "Those whom God justified, he also glorified."
None
are lost in the process. Those whom he foreknew, before the foundation of the
world, he also predestined to conform to the likeness of his Son. The same
number of people he also called; and the ones he called, he also justified. The
very ones he justified, he also glorified. No one is lost, because God is
responsible for the entire process. It will involve pain and toil, death and
tears, disappointment, bereavement, sorrow, sin, stumbling, failure, falling,
forgiveness--all these things. But it is going to happen, because what God sets
out to do, he does--no matter what it takes.
At
this point Paul asks the final question:
What, then, shall we say in response to this?
(8:31).
What
can you say? All you can say is, "Thank you. How great thou art!" The
response of the heart is, "Father, I love you." And that is what God is
after. He is after the love of men--the uncoerced, unforced love of men,
despite their pressures, their problems, their heartaches, whatever they go
through. The rest of this chapter is a beautiful description of how to love
God. The process of loving God is outlined for us in three questions which the
apostle asks in this last section. The first one is found in verses 31 and 32:
If God is for us, who can be against us? He who
did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along
with him, graciously give us all things?
If
you have understood all that God has done for you, your first response of love
is to say to yourself, "If God is for me, who can be against me?" You
love God when you reflect on the implications of his saving commitment to you.
The moment you think this through and say to yourself, "If God has done
this, and God is for me, then this and this and this must be true." As you
rejoice in that truth, you are loving God. You are responding as he intended
you to respond to his love for you.
In the
Shadow of Mike
Now,
what is the effect of this? It is clear from this passage that it is the
removal of fear. If God is for us, who can be against us? All fear of
successful opposition is removed. It is not that there is no opposition. The
devil is still there, his legions are still there, the communists are still
there-- there is still going to be opposition. But Paul is saying, "If God
is for us, what difference does it make?" If God is for us, who can be against
us?
One
of our elders told us of the plight of his grandson, a thirteen-year-old who
strongly resembled his Chicano father. In his school in Missouri, the boy ran
into a nest of white racists who gave him torment and persecution. He came home
weeping one day after having been beaten. His mother, not knowing what to do,
wrote to us and asked us to pray for him, and we did.
A
week or so later we received another letter from her. She described how one
night the biggest kid in school appeared at their door and said he was a
Christian, and that he had told the other kids in school that if they ever did
anything to that boy again they would answer to him. I don't know what that big
boy's name was, but let's call him Mike. I can imagine the grandson going back
to school, walking in Mike's shadow as all his tormentors looked on, and saying
to himself, "If Mike is for me, who can be against me?"
This
is what Paul is saying here, and what David said in the twenty-seventh Psalm:
The Lord is my light and my salvation--
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life--
of whom shall I be afraid?
This
is what we ought to be saying when trouble strikes, when difficulty comes, when
opposition appears. We ought to think it through and say, "If God is for
me, who can be against me?" This is the way we love God.
Not
only does our belief in God's love for us remove our fear of opposition, but,
as verse 32 indicates, it also removes our fear of want:
He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him
up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all
things?
He
who has already given us the best, the greatest, the dearest, the most precious
thing he has, and who did so while we were sinners--while we were enemies,
while we were helpless--will he not also give us some of these trivial,
piddling little things that we need? That is Paul's next argument.
If
someone thinks enough of you to give you a costly, brilliant, beautiful,
flawless diamond, do you think he will object when you ask him for the box that
goes with it? If a mother will give up a baby, do you think she will object if
they ask to take his clothes, too? And if God has given us his own Son already,
do you really think he will withhold anything else that we need? Paul's
argument is unanswerable. Of course he won't. We can say with David in the
twenty-third Psalm, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." The
first sign that we love God, then, is that all fear is removed. We begin to
face our lack, to face our enemies, and to say, "If God is for us, who can
be against us?"
The
second question Paul asks of those who know God's love is found in verses 33
and 34:
Who will bring any charge against those whom God
has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who
died--more than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of God and
is also interceding for us (8:33-34).
This
is a reminder of the work God has done. We love God when we trust in the full
effect of his work on our behalf Paul is looking back over the letter, and sees
two great works that God has done. The first is justification. "Who will
bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?" Who can? It is God
who justifies.
Justification
means that nothing and no one anywhere can successfully accuse us before God.
Now, the devil is the accuser of the brethren. He will constantly accuse us.
This verse tells us we must not listen to his voice. We must not listen to
these thoughts that condemn us, that put us down, that make us feel there is no
hope for us. These thoughts will come--they cannot be stopped--but we do not
have to listen to them, just as we know God is not listening to them. So who
can condemn us when God justifies us?
Therefore
we refuse to be condemned. We do this not by ignoring our sin or trying to
cover it up, but by admitting that although we fully deserve to be condemned,
God, through Christ, has already borne out guilt. This is the only way out.
This is why Christians should not hesitate to admit their failure and their
sin. We will never be justified until we admit our need of it. But when we
admit it, then we also can face the full glory of the fact that God justifies
the ungodly, and therefore there is no condemnation.
In Touch
with a Living Person
Then
Paul raises the question, "Who is he that condemns?" Who is going to
do this? The only one who has the right is Jesus--and Jesus died for us. More
than that, he was raised to life for us, he is now at the right hand of God in
power for us, and he is also interceding for us. So there is no chance that he
is going to condemn us. This refers to the power we have to take hold afresh of
the life of Jesus. Not only is our guilt set aside, but power is imparted to
us--his life in us, his risen life made available to us now. So we can rise up
and say no to the temptations that surround us and the habits that drag us
down; we can be a victor over them. This is not a mere dogma; we are in touch
with a living person. That is the glory of Christianity. The unique distinction
of Christians is that we have Jesus.
I
know that every cult, every new faith, every false faith around, old and new,
offers some kind of experience--perhaps a mystical experience, or some sense of
peace or freedom. We must not discount these, for they can deliver some of these
things. But the difference is they have no grounding in history. There is no
assurance that these experiences are real. But we Christians have a grounding
in the history of Jesus. He came, he died, he rose again. These are
unmistakable facts. Therefore, when we come to Jesus, we come to someone we
know exists. We know he is there. Our experience is real. Dr. A. W. Tozer, that
grand old prophet, states this truth in Man, the Dwelling Place of God:
The teaching of the New Testament is that now,
at this very moment, there is a Man in heaven appearing in the presence of God
for us. He is as certainly a man as was Adam or Moses or Paul; he is a man
glorified, but his glorification did not dehumanize him. Today he is a real
man, of the race of mankind, bearing our lineaments and dimensions, a visible
and audible man, whom any other man would recognize instantly as one of us. But
more than this, he is the heir of all things, Lord of all lords, head of the
church, firstborn of the new creation. He is the way to God, the life of the
believer, the hope of Israel, and the high priest of every true worshiper. He
holds the keys of death and hell, and stands as advocate and surety for
everyone who believes on him in truth. Salvation comes not by accepting the
finished work, or deciding for Christ; it comes by believing on the Lord Jesus
Christ, the whole, living, victorious Lord who, as God and man, fought our
fight and won it, accepted our debt as his own and paid it, took our sin and
died under them, and rose again to let us free. This is the true Christ;
nothing less will do.
Our
whole relationship rests upon that magnificent person. We are freed from the
condemnation of guilt because of him.
That
brings us to the third and last question relating to how we love God. We love
him by reminding ourselves of the implications of his continual, unchanging
commitment to us. We love him by remembering and trusting the full effect of
his work for us. And finally, we love God by answering this question:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
(8:35)
Is
there any force, anywhere, that can come between you and Jesus? Here the
apostle faces a question many people ask. Is there any way to lose your
salvation? Who can remove us from Christ, once we fully come to him? Paul's
answer is, "Let's take a look at the possibilities." First, can all
the troubles and dangers of life separate us from his love?
Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or
famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: "For your sake
we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered"
(8:35-36).
This
is life at its worst. Will that do it?
No, in all these things we are more than
conquerors through him who loved us (8:37).
"Trouble"
means catastrophe and disasters. "Hardship" refers to the tight,
narrow places we sometimes have to go through. Will persecution do it? That is
hurt deliberately inflicted on us because we are Christians. Will famine--will
lack of food and money do it? Will nakedness, or lack of clothes? Will danger,
or threat to our lives? Will the sword (war, riot, uprising) do it?
"No,"
Paul says. In these we are super conquerors. Why? Because rather than dividing
us from Christ, they draw us closer to him. They make us cling harder. They
scare us and make us run to him. When we are independent and think we can make
it on our own, these things strike, and we start whimpering and running for
home, and we cling all the closer. We can never be defeated then, so we are
more than conquerors.
What
about supernatural forces? What about people and powers and demons and strange
beings?
For I am convinced that neither death nor life,
neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,
neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation (literally, anything even
in a different creation), will be able to separate us from the love of God
that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (8:38-39).
Nothing
is left out of that list, is there? Everything is there--demons and dark
powers, black magic and angels, truth and error, death and life--whether in
this creation or any other creation. Paul takes in everything and says that
nothing, no being or force, is capable of separating us from the love of Jesus
Christ our Lord.
So
we love God when we say, "If God be for us, who can be against us?"
We love God because of what he himself has done on our behalf, and the nature
of that commitment is that he loves us. Nothing can separate us from that.
This
is the highest point of the letter. Obviously, Paul cannot go beyond this, and
neither can we. What can you say? What can you do but love when you are
confronted by a God like this?
I
want to bring this study to an end by giving you a modern paraphrase of these
final verses of Romans 8, expressed in personal terms by Ruth Harms Calkin:
God, I may fall flat on my face; I may fail
until I feel old and beaten and done in. Yet Your love for me is changeless.
All the music may go out of my life, my private world may shatter to dust. Even
so, You will hold me in the palm of Your steady hand. No turn in the affairs of
my fractured life can baffle You. Satan with all his braggadocio cannot
distract You. Nothing can separate me from Your measureless love--pain can't,
disappointment can't, anguish can't. Yesterday, today, tomorrow can't. The loss
of my dearest love can't. Death can't. Life can't. Riots, war, insanity,
unidentity, hunger, neurosis, disease--none of these nor all of them heaped
together can budge the fact that I am dearly loved, completely forgiven, and
forever free through Jesus Christ Your beloved Son.
How
can you add anything to that? The only thing you can do is--believe it!