This 108 part expository study of Romans was preached at Flagstaff Christian Fellowship in 2010-2013. Audio and manuscripts are available for each lesson.
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I’ve been a pastor for 33 years now, but I’ve shied away from preaching through Romans. To be honest, it has always intimidated me. Whenever I teach God’s Word, I am painfully aware of Paul’s rhetorical question (2 Cor. 2:16), “And who is adequate for these things?” But I am especially aware of my inadequacy when it comes to preaching through Romans! It contains some of the deepest theological truths in all of God’s Word. If we get even a glimmer of their majesty, we will join Paul on our faces, exclaiming (Rom. 11:33), “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!”
So the daunting task before me is to teach God’s unsearchable judgments and unfathomable ways in such a way that we all will bow in wonder and worship before Him. And yet, I am painfully aware that I still don’t understand many portions of Romans! But I decided that if I wait to understand it all adequately, I’ll never teach through the book. So with fear and trembling, we begin.
The influence of Romans: God has used this powerful letter in some remarkable ways. In A.D. 386, Aurelius Augustinus, whom we know as Augustine, a North African man, was a professor of rhetoric at Milan, Italy (this and the stories of Luther and Wesley are in F. F. Bruce, Romans [IVP/Eerdmans], pp. 56-58). He was a follower of a false cult called Manichaeism. Under conviction about his sins, but not yet resolved to follow Christ, he sat weeping in the garden of his friend Alypius. Suddenly, he heard a child on the other side of the fence singing, “Tolle, lege!” (“Take up and read!”) He had never heard this song before, so he took it as a word from God. He picked up a scroll of the Bible and his eyes fell at random on Romans 13:13-14, “Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.”
Augustine later wrote, “Instantly, at the end of this sentence, a clear light flooded my heart and all the darkness of doubt vanished away.” He was saved from his life of sexual immorality. He went on to become the most influential man in church history from the time of Paul to the Reformation, over 1,000 years after Augustine.
Unlike Augustine, Martin Luther, whom God used to spawn that Reformation, was not an immoral man. He was a scrupulous monk, striving through fasting, prayer, and severe treatment of his body to find peace with God. He felt condemned because of the sins that he knew lurked in his heart. As he pored over Scripture, looking for an answer, he wrestled with Romans 1:17, “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith.’” Instead of loving God, as he knew he should, Luther found himself hating God in his heart because of this apparently impossible standard of God’s Law that requires us to be perfectly righteous.
As Luther wrestled with this text, God finally opened his eyes to see that God’s righteousness is that which He freely imputes to the guilty sinner who has faith in Jesus. Luther wrote that then he felt reborn and that he had entered into Paradise. Scripture took on a new meaning and the concept of God’s righteousness, rather than filling him with hate, now became inexpressibly sweet in greater love. He called Romans “the chief part of the New Testament and the very purest gospel.”
Two hundred years later, John Wesley had formed a “Holy Club” at Oxford, striving to live in a manner pleasing to God. He had served as a missionary in Georgia, but had failed miserably. Then, on May 24, 1738, in great agitation of soul he went to a meeting at Aldersgate Street in London, where someone was reading from the preface of Luther’s commentary on Romans. Wesley wrote in his journal, “At about a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for my salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken my sins away, even mine; and saved me from the law of sin and death.” That conversion was the spark that lit the great 18th century revival that changed the history of England.
Romans also profoundly affected the life of the church father, Chrysostom, who had it read to him twice each week. God used it in John Bunyan’s conversion. The English poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, said that Romans is “the profoundest piece of writing in existence” (these examples from Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans: The Gospel of God [Zondervan], pp. 5-7). So God has greatly used the Book of Romans at some key moments in church history. The Swiss commentator, Frederic Godet, wrote (Commentary on Romans [Kregel], p. 1) that “every great spiritual revival in the church will be connected as effect and cause with a deeper understanding of this book.”
The theme: Godet sums up the theme of Romans (ibid., italics his): “For what is the Epistle to the Romans? The offer of the righteousness of God to the man who finds himself stripped by the law of his own righteousness (1:17).” John Calvin puts it (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], xxix-xxx, italics in this edition), “… that man’s only righteousness is through the mercy of God in Christ, which being offered by the Gospel is apprehended by faith.”
In a nutshell, the theme is the gospel: the good news that God declares sinners to be righteous when they trust in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on their behalf. It involves both the imputed righteousness of justification (Romans 3-5) and the imparted righteousness of sanctification, worked out progressively through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit (Romans 6-8). Other sub-themes, such as “flesh versus Spirit,” and “law versus grace,” relate to this overall theme. We will grapple with these as we work through the book.
The author, date, recipients, and purpose: Romans is one of the rare New Testament books where liberal scholars have not challenged the authorship. Almost all agree that Paul wrote Romans, although he used a secretary named Tertius (16:22). He wrote it from Corinth (Acts 20:2-3), probably sometime around A.D. 56-58, just as he was about to go to Jerusalem with the gift for the poor that he had collected from the Gentile churches in Macedonia and Achaia (15:25-26). Phoebe (16:1-2), who was from a port city near Corinth, probably carried the letter to Rome. After his ministry in Jerusalem, Paul hoped to pass through Rome, minister there briefly, and then be helped on his way to do further missionary work in Spain (15:24, 28).
We don’t know how the church in Rome began. It is almost certain that, contrary to Roman Catholic tradition, Peter did not start it, at least by being there. If he had been there, surely Paul would have included him in his long greeting list (16:1-15). Probably the church began when some Jews who were present on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:10) got saved and returned home. By the time Paul wrote this letter, the church contained Jews, but was predominately Gentile (1:13; 11:13, 17-31; 15:14-16).
While it is obvious that Romans is Paul’s theological masterpiece, the difficult underlying question is, “Why did he write these truths in this book to this church?” The bottom line is, nobody knows for certain. One reason Paul wrote was to prepare for his intended visit there on his way to Spain. He wanted to secure a western base for that venture.
Perhaps, also, he anticipated that the Judaizers, who plagued his ministry at every step, would try to inflict their errors on the Roman church. To head off that possibility and to defend the gospel of grace that he preached everywhere, Paul felt it necessary to write out a longer treatise, expanding on many of the themes that he had earlier written in Galatians.
He also wrote to help resolve any conflict between the Jewish and Gentile believers in Rome over various food and Sabbath laws (14:1-15:13). Thomas Schreiner sums up Paul’s purposes (Romans [Baker], p. 28), “From the inception of the letter Paul wants to persuade the Romans that his gospel is orthodox and worth supporting. His goal is to unify the Roman church and rally them around his gospel so that they will help him to bring the gospel to Spain.”
Outline and flow of thought: There is a more detailed outline in the bulletin, but we can trace six main sections:
After introducing the letter, Paul sums up his theme (1:16-17), “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith.’”
Then (1:18-3:20), he shows how God in His righteousness is opposed to all sin and all people have sinned. The “good” pagans who did not have the Law of Moses have sinned apart from that Law and will perish because of their sin. The religious Jews, who received the Law, have sinned and will perish because of their sin. Thus no one can hope to be justified in God’s sight because of his own goodness or obedience to the Law.
Since this is the case, salvation must be by God’s grace alone (3:21-5:21). Jesus Christ offered Himself as the only sacrifice for our sins, satisfying God’s justice. By faith alone we can lay hold of the benefits of His sacrifice, just as Abraham and David did. This faith in Christ reconciles us to God and brings us peace, joy, and hope, even in the midst of our trials. By God’s grace, our old identity in Adam is replaced by our new identity in Christ.
But (6:1-8:39), God’s grace does not mean that we are free to go on living in sin. Rather, by being identified with Jesus in His death and resurrection, we too have died to the old life and live to the new. The power of sin is broken, because we are no longer under the Law, but under grace. Although, due to indwelling sin that still remains in us, we struggle against sin, through the indwelling Holy Spirit we have victory in Christ. The hope of future glory in Him and the assurance of God’s unfailing love sustain us in all our trials.
But there seems to be a problem (9:1-11:36): Why have the Jews for the most part rejected God’s grace in Christ? At first glance, it would seem that God’s promises to Israel have failed. But this is not so. Rather, God has always set His choice on a remnant and passed by others. Even so, God has temporarily set aside the Jews because of their rejection of Christ and poured out His grace on the Gentiles. But finally, He will use the Gentiles to bring salvation again to the Jews, all according to His great wisdom and unto His great glory.
In light of these abundant mercies (12:1-16:33), we must give our entire being to God and serve Him in practical godliness. Our relationships should be marked by loving service. We should be subject to our civil government. We should be careful not to wound our fellow Christians by our liberty in Christ. We should join Paul in working to take the gospel to the Gentiles, according to God’s promises. And, as a practical display of Christian love, Paul warmly greets his friends in Rome, ending with a final warning to be on guard against those who cause dissension and strife.
With that as a brief synopsis of the flow of thought of the entire book, I’d like to focus briefly on Romans 1:1, where we see Paul the man; Paul’s Master; Paul’s mandate; Paul’s mission; and Paul’s message.
The most common formula for letters in that time began by identifying the author, then naming the recipients, followed by a word of greeting. Romans, along with all New Testament letters, except for Hebrews and 1 John, begins that way.
The late New Testament scholar F. F. Bruce says of Romans (ibid., pp. 37-38), “There is more autobiography in this letter than meets the eye—the autobiography of a man who has been justified by faith.” Since most of you know the story of Paul’s amazing conversion, I will just mention it in passing. He was an extremely zealous Jew, bent on persecuting the church. He was responsible for the imprisonment and death of many Christians. But the Lord struck him down on the Damascus Road with a blinding vision of Himself (told in Acts 9:3-21; 22:3-16; & 26:4-18). God commanded this Jewish zealot to become His instrument to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, whom he formerly hated (Acts 26:17). God used Paul to take the gospel into Europe, which is why most of us are now Christians.
While perhaps few of us have had the kind of dramatic conversion that Paul experienced, we all should ask ourselves, “Has my heart been changed by personally experiencing God’s grace in Christ’s death and resurrection on my behalf? Am I, like Paul, a new person through faith in Jesus Christ?”
The word “bond-servant” means “slave.” It emphasizes the “subordinate, obligatory, and responsible nature of his service in his exclusive relation to his Lord.… The slave owes his master exclusive and absolute obedience…. His work earned him neither profit nor thanks; he was only doing what he owed as a bondslave” (R. Tuentes, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, ed. by Colin Brown [Zondervan], 3:596, 595). Jesus Christ had bought Paul with His own blood. Thus Paul was no longer his own, but he belonged exclusively to Christ, to do His will. For Paul, Christ was the center of his life. Note how often he refers to Christ in these opening verses: “Christ Jesus” (1:1); “His Son” (1:3); “His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1:4); “His name’s sake” (1:5); “Jesus Christ” (1:6); and, “the Lord Jesus Christ” (1:7).
The questions we need to ask here are, “Is Jesus my exclusive Master because He bought me with His blood? Do I view my daily life as not my own, but belonging to Jesus to serve Him? Do I seek to obey Him, beginning on the thought level? Is He central to my thoughts, words, and activities?”
Paul didn’t take a vocational aptitude test that indicated that apostle would be a good career track for him. Rather, he was pursuing his chosen religious career, rising in the ranks of Judaism by persecuting the church, when God knocked him to the ground and saved him. He told Paul (Acts 22:10), “Get up and go on into Damascus, and there you will be told all that has been appointed for you to do.” That mandate primarily was to be an apostle (“sent one”) to the Gentiles, whom Paul formerly despised. The assignment included suffering much for the name of Christ.
When applied to the twelve and to Paul, “apostle” carried the special authority to lay the foundation of the church (Eph. 2:20; 1 Cor. 3:10; 2 Cor. 10:8; 13:10). Coupled with the word “called,” “apostle” emphasizes the authority that Paul received from God, given to us in these New Testament epistles. Douglas Moo (the Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 42) observes, “Any reading of this great theological treatise that ignores this claim to authority will fail to come to grips with the ultimate purpose of its writing.”
The application question here is, “Is my heart in submission to what God has revealed here through His called apostle, Paul?” One of the difficult topics that Romans addresses is that of predestination. As I wrestled with this as a college student over 40 years ago, I found myself fighting against what Paul wrote in Romans 9. The breakthrough for me was when I finally realized, “This isn’t just Paul’s word; this is God’s word, and I must submit to it if I am going to be a Christian.”
The word “set apart” is related in Greek to the word “Pharisee,” which was Paul’s former association. The Pharisees proudly viewed themselves as set apart or separate from the common Jews (John 9:34), and especially as separate from the Gentile “dogs.” But ironically, now Paul is set apart to preach the riches of Christ to the very Gentiles whom he formerly hated. In Galatians 1:15, he says that God had set him apart from his mother’s womb and called him by His grace so that he might preach Christ among the Gentiles (see, also Acts 9:15; 13:2).
As we saw recently when we studied 1 Corinthians 9:23, Paul said, “I do all things for the sake of the gospel ….” While few of us are called into a full-time ministry of preaching or evangelism, we should be growing to imitate Paul, so that our lives are focused more and more on the gospel—first, for our own souls, and then, to proclaim it to others. So we should apply Paul’s mission by asking, “Do I increasingly view my life as set apart for the gospel?”
As I understand it, the genitive (“of God”) means that the gospel comes from God. He devised the plan before the foundation of the world (Acts 2:23; 4:27-28). As 1 John 4:10 puts it, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
Also, the gospel is all about God. He is both its source and its object (Schreiner, p. 37). The gospel is about how we as sinners can be rightly related to the holy God through the sacrifice of His Son. It’s about how God can be both “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (3:26). As John Piper puts it, “God is the gospel.” He is the treasure that we receive when we believe the good news that Christ died for our sins.
Leon Morris (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 20) points out,
The thought of God dominates this epistle. The word “God” occurs 153 times in Romans, an average of once every 46 words. This is more than in any other New Testament writing (except the short 1 Peter and 1 John). … And not only does “God” occur in Romans more frequently than in any other writing, it occurs more often than any other theme in that book. Apart from a few prepositions, pronouns, and the like, no word is used in Romans with anything like the frequency of “God.”
He concludes (p. 40), “God is the most important word in this epistle.” He also points out (ibid.) that Paul uses gospel 60 out of its 76 New Testament occurrences, the most being nine times each in Romans and Philippians. He uses it in all of his letters except Titus. The gospel is the ultimate good news, that although we are sinners, God made a way through the sacrifice of His Son to reconcile us to Himself. And although it was costly for Him, it is absolutely free to all who believe in Jesus Christ!
The application questions here are, “Am I growing to know God more deeply? Is my understanding of God shaped more by popular cultural ideas or by the great doctrines of the Bible? And, is the good news from God and about God increasingly good news to me, news that I long to share with others?”
Someone has pointed out that although Romans is Paul’s most theological book, a treatise that has stretched the minds of the most brilliant theologians for centuries, he wrote it to a church made up of common people, many of whom were slaves. The Holy Spirit knew that we all need the message of Romans. We need to be stripped of our own righteousness so that we flee to Christ and His sacrifice as our only righteousness. Then, being justified by faith, we need to grow in righteous conduct and relationships. We need to grow to embrace and embody the gospel of God.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2010, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
The late, great British preacher, Martyn Lloyd-Jones opened a sermon on Paul’s phrase, “the gospel of God,” by stating his fear that we are often so familiar with certain words, such as “gospel,” or so academic in our approach to them, that we are not thrilled and moved to the depths of our being by the wonder of it all (Romans: the Gospel of God [Zondervan], p. 55). The gospel of God is the theme of Romans and Paul describes it here (1:2-4). I hope that God uses these verses to move us to deeper love for Him.
Romans 1:1-7 is one long and difficult to diagram sentence in the Greek text. Paul begins by identifying himself (1:1); then he describes what he calls “the gospel of God” (1:2-4); next he explains how that gospel goes to the nations (Gentiles) through Paul’s apostleship (1:5-6); and, finally (1:7), he greets the saints in Rome. We’ll only be able to cover verses 2-4 in this message.
Last week we saw (1:1) that the gospel comes to us from God. Paul did not make it up. God originated the gospel. And the gospel is all about God. It tells us how we can be rightly related to Him through His eternal Son, whom He sent. To continue, Paul shows:
The gospel of God was promised in the Scriptures and it centers in God’s Son.
Why does Paul begin by stating that the gospel of God was that “which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures”? It’s because he wants to show that he didn’t make up the gospel. It wasn’t Paul’s idea. Rather, it comes to us right out of the Old Testament, which he refers to as the “holy Scriptures.”
God promised the gospel in prototype in Genesis 3:15, right after the fall, when He said that the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent. The gospel was implicit in the Old Testament sacrificial system, revealed most thoroughly to Moses but, I believe, even revealed from the outset to Cain and Abel. The wages of our sin is death, but God graciously would accept the blood sacrifice of an acceptable substitute. We see it again in type when God told Abraham to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac. God intervened, of course, to provide the ram instead of Isaac. But He was showing what He would literally do by sending His own Son as the necessary offering for our sins. As Isaiah 53 makes plain, Jesus is the lamb of God who was wounded for our transgressions.
The record of Paul’s missionary journeys in the Book of Acts shows that when he was speaking to the Jews, he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, trying to show that Jesus is the promised Messiah. For example, in Acts 13, after summarizing Old Testament history down to David (13:16-22), he concludes (Acts 13:23), “From the descendants of this man, according to promise, God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus.” In Acts 17:2-3, we read with reference to Paul’s visit to Thessalonica, “And according to Paul’s custom, he went to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, ‘This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ.’” (See, also, Acts 9:22; 28:23). It is important to see that the apostles did not make up the gospel. It comes to us from God’s promises through His prophets as revealed in all of the Old Testament.
Paul may have used the word “holy” to describe the Scriptures because some of his critics accused him of promoting licentiousness under the banner of grace (3:8; 6:1). They said that Paul set aside the Law of Moses and therefore opened the door for people to live as they pleased. Paul wants us to know that he viewed the Scriptures as holy because they help us lead holy lives. Also, the Scriptures are holy because they come to us from the holy God through His prophets. Paul had the highest regard for the Scriptures. Paul’s message, the gospel of God, was in line with and in fulfillment of the holy Scriptures. Rather than nullifying the Scriptures, he saw Jesus as fulfilling them (Rom. 3:31; 8:4).
Two other thoughts here: First, the word “Scriptures” means, “the writings.” God saw fit to have the prophets write down His revelation for their own and succeeding generations to read. He could have sent angels to every language group in every generation around the world to communicate His truth. Frankly, it would have been a lot easier than sending people who have to struggle to learn those languages and translate the Bible into them. But God chose to reveal Himself through the written Word. Wherever that written Word has gone, cultures have been transformed as people learned to read the Word of God and He opened their minds to its truths.
We tend to take it for granted that we have the entire Bible in our mother tongue. But do we devour it and treasure it as God’s holy Word to us? Do we pore over it, seeking to know the Creator through the means He has revealed Himself to us? If you don’t have a plan for reading through God’s Word regularly, I encourage you to begin now.
Second, God’s promise in the Old Testament to send the Savior is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Although from the human perspective, it took many centuries—400 years from the prophet Malachi to the birth of Jesus—God always keeps His promises in His time. No doubt there were scoffers then, as there are now, who mocked, “Where is the promise of the Savior?” But there were those, like the godly Simeon and Anna (Luke 2:25-38), who were waiting expectantly for God to keep His promise. Although you may be tempted to despair at times, wondering, “Where is the promise of His coming?” (2 Pet. 3:4) persevere in faith. God always keeps His promises. Jesus is coming to judge this evil world and to bring full redemption to His people.
Jesus is the center of the good news. As I emphasized in our recent series on evangelism, one basic principle when you’re sharing the gospel is to keep bringing the discussion back to the person and work of Jesus Christ. Jesus asked the disciples (Matt. 16:15), “But who do you say that I am?” That is the crucial question! If Jesus is who He claimed to be and who the Scriptures present Him to be, then He is Lord of all and we must bow before Him. In succinct form, Paul shows three things about Jesus: He is God’s eternal Son; He was born of the seed of David according to the flesh; and, He is now resurrected from the dead and exalted to the place of power and glory.
Paul writes (1:3), “concerning His Son, who was born ….” In Romans 8:3, Paul says that God sent “His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin.” So Jesus was God’s Son eternally before He was born of the virgin Mary. He shared the glory of the Father before the world existed (John 17:5). Jesus often spoke of the Father sending Him into this world (I counted 34 times in John; see John 4:34; 5:23, 24, 30, 36, 37 38).
So Jesus was not a normal man, who became the Son of God when the Holy Spirit came upon Him. God didn’t adopt Jesus as His Son at His baptism. Rather, He is the eternal Son of God, sent by the Father, who took on human flesh in the incarnation, and who has returned to the right hand of the Father to await the day of His glorious coming. In other words, Jesus is fully God and fully man. Any teaching that denies either Jesus’ full deity or full humanity is heresy. He is God’s unique Son, the eternal second person of the Trinity. So when the New Testament writers refer to Jesus as God’s Son, they are affirming His deity (see John 5:18).
Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ibid., pp. 98-99) makes the point that you can have the teachings of Buddhism without the person of Buddha. He is not essential to that religion. The same can be said of all the world’s religions, except Christianity. Christianity is not just the teachings of Jesus. Rather, Christianity is Jesus Christ! You can’t just take His teachings and set Him aside. To be a Christian is to embrace and believe in the person of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. Any view that demotes Him from being God’s eternal Son, the second person of the Trinity, is not biblical Christianity.
This phrase links back to verse 2, showing that Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promises through His prophets in the holy Scriptures. God promised David that one of his descendants would sit on his throne forever (2 Sam. 7:12-13; see Isa. 11:1; Jer. 23:5-6). Israel’s Messiah and Savior would be of the seed of David. But, David’s line on the throne over Israel ceased to exist at the time of the Babylonian captivity, 600 years before Christ.
But the New Testament writers clearly affirm that Jesus was born of the lineage of David (Matt. 1:1; 20:30-31; 21:9, 15; Luke 1:27, 32, 69; 2:4; 3:23-31; Acts 2:30; 13:22, 23, 32-34; Rom. 15:12; 2 Tim. 2:8; Rev. 5:5; 22:16). (See my sermon, “The Genealogy of Jesus,” on Luke 3:23-38.) Near the very end of Revelation (22:16), Jesus testifies to John, “I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.” Thus Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, the son of David, who fulfills God’s promises to Israel.
This means that Jesus is not only fully God; He also is fully human. He shares in our human nature, except for our sinfulness (Gal. 4:4; Heb. 4:15). Thus Jesus could bear the penalty for our sins, since He had no sins of His own. He could be the perfect high priest, who offered Himself for human sins (Heb. 2:14-18). He can sympathize with our weaknesses, which encourages us to come to Him when we are tried and tempted. While I am not aware of any current serious threat to the Christian faith from those who deny Jesus’ full humanity, this was the battlefront of the early church. Even in the New Testament, the apostle John emphasizes this truth (John 1:14; 1 John 1:1; 4:2-3). Jesus was not an angelic or spirit being who seemed to be a man. He was a real man, born physically to Mary, of the lineage of David, according to the flesh.
This also means that Jesus is coming again to reign in power and glory from David’s throne. The Jews of Jesus’ day and down through history since then rejected Jesus because He did not conquer Israel’s enemies and set up His earthly kingdom. Instead, Caesar’s government crucified Him. How could a crucified Man be the Savior promised to reign on David’s throne?
But Jesus Himself, after His resurrection, told the men from Emmaus (Luke 24:26), “Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” Then Luke reports (24:27), “Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” (Paul uses the same line of argument in Acts 13:23-39.) While the Book of Revelation has much in it that is difficult to understand, the main idea is pretty clear: The risen Lord Jesus Christ is coming again in power and glory to judge the earth and to reign in righteousness. You’d better be on His side before He comes!
Thus by referring to “God’s Son,” Paul speaks of Jesus’ pre-incarnate glory as the eternal Son of God. By referring to Jesus as being “born of a descendant of David according to the flesh,” he looks at His earthly humility, born of the virgin Mary in the humble stable. As a man, He was rejected by Israel and crucified by the proud Jewish leaders. Then Paul goes back to Jesus’ glory:
Verse 4 has some difficult interpretive issues, which I’ll try to explain. First, the word “declared” is not translated that way anywhere else in the New Testament. It means, “appointed” or “determined” or “fixed” (Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], p. 42; Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], pp. 47-48). This does not mean that Jesus became God’s Son through His resurrection or that He was shown to be at the resurrection what He was all along. Rather, He was elevated to a new level of power as the Son of God by virtue of His resurrection, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow (Phil. 2:9-11; see Schreiner, p. 42, and Moo, pp. 48-49). In other words, in view of the resurrection, Jesus went from being the eternal Son as Messiah (v. 3) to the eternal Son as Messiah and powerful, reigning Lord (v. 4; Moo, ibid.).
The other difficult question is what is the meaning of, “according to the Spirit of holiness,” which stands in contrast to “according to the flesh” in verse 3? Some argue that it refers to Jesus’ divine nature, in contrast to His human nature (v. 3). Or, some say that it refers to Jesus’ holy, obedient human spirit as He lived always to do the Father’s will. A third view is that it refers to the Holy Spirit’s role in raising Jesus from the dead. A fourth view is that it refers to the sending of the Holy Spirit after Jesus’ exaltation.
Although good men hold to each view for good reasons, the last view in combination with the third is probably the best. Paul is looking at two phases in the ministry of Jesus. According to the flesh, as the descendant of David, Jesus lived in humility with His glory veiled during His earthly ministry. But by virtue of His resurrection from the dead and exaltation on high, Jesus inaugurated the new age of the Holy Spirit (Schreiner, pp. 43-44; Moo, p. 50; F. F. Bruce, Romans [IVP/ Eerdmans], p. 69). Also, implicit in the phrase, “resurrection from the dead,” is that Jesus’ resurrection guarantees our future resurrection (as Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 15 and Roman 8:11).
It’s interesting that in this opening description of the gospel, Paul does not explicitly mention Christ’s death, although it is implicit in mentioning His resurrection. Paul’s emphasis seems to be on Christ’s exaltation and glory. As Everett Harrison writes (Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. by Frank Gaebelein [Zondervan], 10:15), “It was the infinite worth of the Son that made his saving work possible.”
Thus we’ve seen that the gospel of God centers in the person of His Son, who existed eternally, was born of the seed of David, and was appointed to be the Son of God with power by His resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness. Finally,
This phrase sums up the first three points. “Jesus” refers to His humanity, that He was born of the lineage of David to the virgin Mary. Jesus was His earthly name, which means “Yahweh saves.” The angel told Joseph before Jesus’ birth (Matt. 1:21), “You shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” Jesus did not come primarily to help you have a happy, fulfilled life or to reach your full potential. He came to save you from your sins. If you do not know Jesus as your Savior from sin and judgment, then you do not know Him at all.
“Christ” means “Messiah,” or “Anointed One,” and also points to Jesus as the descendant of David (Ps. 2:7-12; Ps. 110:1-2). He is uniquely God’s promised Anointed One, who will reign on David’s throne over God’s people. As such, He fulfilled all of God’s promises in the Old Testament. Paul uses “Christ” 379 times out of its 529 New Testament occurrences, including 65 times in Romans. It is because of Paul that “Christ” has become something of a name for our Lord (Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans [Apollos/Eerdmans], pp. 37-38).
“Lord” in Greek could be used as a polite term, like “sir.” But it also could be used of God. It is the word used to translate the divine name, “Yahweh,” in the Greek Old Testament. So when the early church adopted the confession, “Jesus is Lord,” they clearly meant, “Jesus is the Lord God.” Paul loved to use the complete phrase, “Jesus Christ our Lord.” He uses it 68 times, compared to only 19 in the rest of the New Testament (Morris, p. 48).
Matthew 22:41-42 records how Jesus asked His enemies whose son the Christ (Messiah) would be. They correctly answered, “The son of David.” Then Jesus said (22:43-45), “Then how does David in the Spirit call Him ‘Lord,’ saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, until I put Your enemies beneath Your feet”’? If David then calls Him ‘Lord,’ how is He his son?” Jesus was showing them that their view of Messiah was inadequate. They merely thought of Him as David’s son, but in Psalm 110, David calls Him “Lord,” which means that He is God.
It is nonsense to think that somehow you can accept Jesus as your Savior, but not as your Lord. He is one being, “our Lord Jesus Christ.” He never gives us the option of saying, “I’d like to try Jesus as my Savior, but I think I’ll wait to make Him my Lord. I’d like to run my own life for a while.”
While at times William Barclay has some strange views, he at least got it right when he said (cited by Alan Ross, from a sermon Barclay gave at the Round Church, Oxford, England, accessed at: http://www.christianleadershipcenter.org/romans1.htm):
It is now plain to see what a man ought to mean when he calls Jesus “Lord,” or when he speaks of the “Lord Jesus” or of the “Lord Jesus Christ.” When I call Jesus “Lord” I ought to mean that He is the absolute and undisputed owner and possessor of my life and that He is the Master whose servant and slave I must be all life long. When I call Jesus “Lord” it ought to mean that I think of Him as the Head of that great family in heaven and earth of which God is the Father and of which I through Him have become a member. When I call Jesus “Lord” it ought to mean that I think of Him as the help of the helpless and the guardian of those who have no other to protect them. When I call Jesus “Lord” it ought to mean that I look on Him as having absolute authority over all my life, all my thoughts, all my actions. When I call Jesus “Lord” it ought to mean that He is the King and Emperor to whom I owe and give my constant homage, allegiance, and loyalty. When I call Jesus “Lord” it ought to mean that for me He is the Divine One whom I must for ever worship and adore.
Is Jesus your Savior and Lord in that sense? The gospel of God is not primarily about you and how Jesus can help you find happiness and peace and fulfillment. Rather, it is from God and about God. It concerns His eternal Son, who humbled Himself to come from heaven and be born as a descendant of David according to the flesh. But after He offered Himself on the cross, God raised Him from the dead and He ascended into heaven. As Peter put it on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:36), “… know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified.”
It ultimately doesn’t come down to, “Can Jesus give me a happy life?” Rather, the crucial question is, “Who is Jesus?” Is He the eternal Son, risen from the dead, exalted as Lord? If so, then make sure that He is your Savior and Lord!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2010, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
There is a familiar story about three men who were working on a stone pile at a construction site. A curious passerby asked the first worker, “What are you doing?” He tersely replied, “Chiseling stone.”
Hoping for a better answer, he asked the second worker, “What are you doing?” “Bringing home a paycheck.”
Still wondering what was going on, he asked the third man, “Sir, what are you doing?” The man dropped his sledge hammer, stood erect, and his face brightened as he waved toward the site and exclaimed, “I’m building a great cathedral!”
All three men were doing the same job, but only the third man had the proper vision to make his job meaningful and to put his heart into it.
If someone asked how you serve the Lord, what would you say? Some might say, “I teach Sunday School.” Or, “I help clean up after church socials.” Or, “I serve as a greeter on Sunday mornings.” Or, “I lead a small group Bible study.”
All of those answers are good as far as they go, but a bigger perspective would be, “God has saved me and is using me to help build His church and to be His channel for taking the gospel to the nations.”
That was the apostle Paul’s perspective, as we see in Romans 1:5-7. God saved Paul from being a persecutor of the church and graciously called him as an apostle to help lay the foundation for the worldwide church, which Christ promised to build. God was using Paul to take the gospel to the Gentiles (or, nations) for His name’s sake. While none of us are called as apostles in the same sense that Paul was, the principles still apply:
God saves us and gives us spiritual gifts so that we will be His channels for the gospel to go to the nations.
You should see whatever you do to serve the Lord as fitting into that greater purpose of seeing His name glorified through the power of the gospel going to every people group. Maybe you’re thinking, “But I’m not cut out to be a missionary.” Maybe not, but as God gives you the greater vision of bringing about “the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name’s sake” (1:5), there are many ways that you can help out in that cause.
Each of us can pray for the various people groups around the world and for the gospel to go to the ends of the earth. We can give from what the Lord has provided to support missions. We can seek to lead boys and girls and men and women to the Savior, and then instill in them a vision for taking the gospel to the nations. Maybe God will raise up a Hudson Taylor or a William Carey from your labors. Even if it’s a mundane job, like cleaning up after a church social or helping maintain our facilities, it’s helping to build the church. As long as the church keeps its focus on discipling the nations, then you’re part of the team effort.
In these verses, which are the tail end of a seven-verse sentence, Paul gives us five principles about salvation and service. The main thing to keep in mind is that God didn’t save you so that you could sit around and be happy or have a happy family. Happiness is a means to an end, namely, that the gospel would go out to the nations. That, in turn, is a means to the ultimate end of glorifying God. So if God has saved you, He wants you in some capacity to be part of His means of channeling the gospel to the nations.
Paul writes, “through whom we have received grace and apostleship….” The plural “we” may refer to Paul, along with the other apostles. But the context does not seem to support that meaning, so probably Paul is using “we” in an editorial sense, to mean, “I” (Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans [Apollos/Eerdmans], p. 48).
Grace is one of Paul’s favorite words. He uses it 100 out of its 155 uses in the New Testament, including 24 times in Romans, the most of any book (Morris, ibid.). Paul received grace, which means, God’s unearned, unmerited favor. If you deserve it, it’s not grace. All you can do with grace is to receive it. The Christian life is not a matter of striving to do enough good deeds to pay for or outweigh your bad deeds, so that God owes you forgiveness. Rather, it’s a matter of coming to God as a guilty sinner, deserving of His wrath, and receiving His undeserved favor through Jesus Christ, who paid the penalty you deserved (see Rom. 4:4-5).
So before I go on, may I ask, “Have you received God’s grace through Jesus Christ?” Have you come to Him as a guilty sinner to receive His grace? It’s vital that you start there. You can’t serve God until you have received His grace.
God not only gives grace for salvation, but also grace for service. God sovereignly bestows various spiritual gifts on His people by His grace (Rom. 12:3-8). Paul did not volunteer to be an apostle, much less an apostle to the Gentiles. Rather, God appointed him to that task (Acts 22:10; Gal. 1:1; 2:7-9). The word apostle means “sent one,” and it is used in the New Testament to refer to the twelve and to Paul in the narrow sense of those who had seen the risen Lord (Acts 1:21-22; 1 Cor. 9:1), who performed confirming miracles (2 Cor. 12:12), and who laid the foundation for the church (Eph. 2:20). As such, they were given special authority over the churches (2 Cor. 10:8; 13:10). When those men died, there were no successors with apostolic authority. Their authority is passed on to us in the New Testament.
The word apostle also is applied to Barnabas (Acts 14:4, 14), James (the Lord’s brother, Gal. 1:19; 2:9), perhaps Silas (1 Thess. 2:6), and to Andronicus and Junias (or, Junia [fem.]; Rom. 16:7; see also, 2 Cor. 8:23, “messengers”). These workers were sent out by the churches for various ministries. In this limited sense, missionaries today are “sent ones.” But the foundational gift of apostle passed off the scene when the twelve and Paul died.
We will look at spiritual gifts more in Romans 12. But for now, let me just say that if God has saved you, He has given you a spiritual gift to use in serving Him. Peter (1 Pet. 4:11) divides them into two broad categories of speaking gifts and serving gifts. While I am not a fan of spiritual gift inventories, I would encourage you to figure out what God has equipped you to do in His service and get involved in serving Him. There are no bench-warmers in the body of Christ!
Paul continues by saying that he has received grace and apostleship “to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles.” There is debate about how to interpret the phrase, “obedience of faith.” Some say that it refers to the obedience that springs from faith in Christ. Others say that it means that obedience consists in faith. That is, God commands you to believe the gospel, so not to believe is to disobey.
I think that Douglas Moo is correct when he says that the two words are mutually interpreting (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], pp. 52-53): “obedience always involves faith, and faith always involves obedience…. Paul called men and women to a faith that was always inseparable from obedience—for the Savior in whom we believe is nothing less than our Lord—and to an obedience that could never be divorced from faith—for we can obey Jesus as Lord only when we have given ourselves to him in faith.” (See, also, Rom. 10:16, where “heed” means, “obey”; 15:18; and 16:26.) Genuine faith is obedient faith. Genuine obedience stems from faith (14:23).
This has two implications for us all, whether we’re gifted as evangelists or not. First, when we present the gospel we must be clear that the call to trust in Christ as Savior is also a call to follow Him as Lord. There is not the option of believing in Christ as your Savior, but having the freedom to continue living in disobedience to His commands (John 3:36).
Second, to be a part of calling others to the obedience of faith requires that we live in obedience to Christ. We must practice what we preach. If you are not living in obedience to Christ, please don’t try to share the gospel with others. Your life will send a confusing message to them. For example, I’ve seen young women who profess to know Christ, but they’re sleeping with their boyfriends. Yet they’re also trying to tell them about Jesus, hoping that they will get saved so that they can have a Christian marriage. It doesn’t work! It sends a mixed message! If the young woman truly knows Christ, she needs to repent of her sin and break off the relationship with her unsaved boyfriend. Our witness for Christ must flow out of a life of obedience to Christ.
When Paul uses the Greek word, ethne (1:5), he probably means Gentiles as opposed to the Jews. This does not mean that he did not preach to the Jews. The Book of Acts shows that his custom was to go first to the Jewish synagogues. When they rejected the gospel, he then preached to the Gentiles (Acts 13:44-48). But it’s significant that this formerly ethnocentric, proud Jewish Pharisee would get saved and then devote his life to preaching to the Gentiles, even though it resulted in great personal persecution.
Paul’s focus was all the Gentiles. He could not rest as long as some of the Gentiles had not heard the good news. Bear in mind that the Gentiles to whom Paul preached were raw pagans. In 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, Paul catalogs some of their former sins: “Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” That is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom. 1:16)!
This means that no matter how pagan your neighbor or co-worker or fellow student may be, no matter how degrading his sin, no matter how enslaving his substance abuse is, God is able to save him from his sin and to make him a new creature in Christ. He does it through the gospel. So your task is to use your testimony, your spiritual gifts, and your verbal witness to share the gospel with the pagans around you. And, as the Lord raises up workers go to foreign cultures and to cross cultural barriers, we at home need to support them with prayer, finances, and in other practical ways, so that the gospel goes to every tongue, tribe, people, and nation.
Thus, God saves us by His grace and gives us gifts to be used in His service. The aim of our service is to bring about the obedience of faith through the gospel among all nations. But, we need to keep the ultimate motive in view:
Paul’s aim in bringing about the obedience of the faith among the Gentiles was, “for His name’s sake.” Name stands for the person and all of his attributes. It is because of who Jesus is—the eternal Son of God, who took on human flesh as a descendant of David, according to God’s promises in the Old Testament, who offered Himself on the cross as our substitute, who was raised from the dead and is now exalted on high—that Paul endured beatings, plots against his life, and many other hardships to take the gospel to the Gentiles. Paul’s ultimate goal was to glorify the name of the Savior who gave Himself to redeem rebellious sinners.
This principle is so important to keep in mind in your service for Jesus Christ. It’s easy to fall into the trap of serving Christ for personal fulfillment. It makes you feel good to help others. It feeds your pride when others tell you how kind or generous or caring you are. But then someone criticizes you because you didn’t meet his expectations or you neglected to do something in the right way. Or you don’t receive the thanks that you thought you deserved. Your feelings get hurt and your pride is deflated. But, also, your motive for serving gets exposed. You weren’t serving for His name’s sake. You were serving for your name’s sake!
After 33 years now as a pastor, I’ll let you in on a secret: If you serve Christ, you will be criticized. Your labors will often go unnoticed. Your motives will be attacked. Your character will be slandered. Why should you keep on serving when people treat you like that? You keep on serving “for His name’s sake.” Finally,
Paul’s emphasis in all of verses 1-7 is not on what we do for God, but rather on what God has done for us. The basis for any service for Christ is that God has effectually called us to belong to Christ, He has set His love on us, and He has set us apart unto Himself, bestowing His grace and peace on us. Note five things:
After mentioning the Gentiles (1:5), Paul continues (1:6), “among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ.” The genitive (“of”) is probably possessive. Throughout Scripture, God the Father is the one who calls us to salvation (Rom. 8:30; 2 Tim. 1:9). For example, in 1 Corinthians 1:9 Paul writes, “God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” Here, He calls us to belong to Jesus Christ.
“Called” in the New Testament epistles always refers to God’s effectual call to salvation. Douglas Moo explains (ibid., p. 54), “What is meant is not an ‘invitation,’ but the powerful and irresistible reaching out of God in grace to bring people into his kingdom.” Paul makes this clear in Romans 8:30, “and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.” The entire chain of salvation is God’s doing, so that no one may boast in himself, but rather, only in the Lord (1 Cor. 1:18-31).
To be a Christian means that God has intervened in your life, calling you out of darkness and into His kingdom of light, where you now belong to Christ and have fellowship with Him. Paul often refers to our new standing as being “in Christ.” We are totally identified with Him. This implies a fundamental break with the world, where we no longer love the world and live for the same things that the world lives for (1 John 2:15-17). We now are those who have been called to belong to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul writes (1:7) “to all who are beloved of God in Rome.” Perhaps you’re thinking, “But doesn’t God love everyone?” Yes, but He has a special love for His chosen bride. I’m commanded to love every Christian woman as my sister in Christ, but I have a special love for just one: my bride and wonderful wife, Marla. Even so, “Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). The foundation for everything that we do for Christ is that He “loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Gal. 2:20).
“Saints” never refers to a special level of believers, who tower above the average. Rather, it refers to all believers. In fact, Paul uses this same phrase, “called as saints,” in his opening greeting to the Corinthian church, with all of its problems (1 Cor. 1:2). The word means, “holy ones,” or “set apart ones.” God calls us to be set apart from this evil world unto Himself.
Robert Haldane points out that there is an order here (cited by James Boice, Romans [Baker], 1:67), “They were saints because they were called, and they were called because they were beloved of God.” In other words, God didn’t call them and set His love on them because of their good deeds. Rather, He called them and loved them and set them apart to Himself for good deeds. The result of God’s calling them as saints is that they live as saints, set apart for God and His service. If you know Christ as your Savior, you are a saint, set apart unto God by His calling you.
Paul writes “to all who are beloved of God in Rome” (1:7). Rome was the capital of the huge empire that stretched from England to Persia. The Roman emperor was worshiped as a god. Rome was the center of commerce, wealth, power, and status. It represented all that is worldly at its apex. That is where these saints lived and where they were to reach their fellow Gentiles. In Revelation 2:13, the Lord addresses the church in Pergamum, saying, “I know where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is; and you hold fast My name ….”
In the same way, we live in the midst of a flagrantly sinful city, where even the “welcome to Flagstaff” signs proclaim our “inclusive community,” a code phrase that means, “your sinful lifestyle is welcome here!” God calls us to live as saints in this city, holding fast to Jesus’ name, and holding forth the word of life (Phil. 2:16).
This phrase is a greeting, but it’s more than a greeting. It stems from the priestly blessing (Num. 6:24-26), “The Lord bless you, and keep you; the Lord make His face shine on you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up His countenance on you, and give you peace.” It also combines the usual Greek greeting, Charein, which in sound, although not in meaning, was close to charis, grace, with the Hebrew shalom, peace. The two words sum up the gospel: “Grace is the cause and Peace is the effect” (W. H. Griffith Thomas, St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 49). Being saved by God’s grace, we now have peace with Him through Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:1; Eph. 2:1-14). Our new standing with God as recipients of His grace and peace is the basis on which we take His good news to the evil city where we live and beyond to the nations.
Several centuries ago in a mountain village in Europe a nobleman wondered what legacy he should leave to his townspeople. He finally decided to build them a church. No one saw the complete plans until the church was finished. When they gathered inside, they marveled at its beauty and craftsmanship. But then someone asked, “Where are the lamps? How will it be lighted?”
The nobleman pointed to some brackets on the walls. Then he gave each family a lamp, which they were to bring with them each time they came to worship. He explained, “Each time you are here the area where you are seated will be lighted. Each time you are absent, that area will be dark. This is to remind you that whenever you fail to come to church, some part of God’s house will be dark.”
God also wants us to carry the light of the gospel out of the church, into the dark world around us (Phil. 2:15-16). He has saved us and given us spiritual gifts so that we will be a part of building His great cathedral, His church, among every tongue, tribe, people, and nation. So whatever you do to serve Christ, do it in view of that greater purpose, for His name’s sake.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2010, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Recently I received an email from David and Denise Moore, who serve with Wycliffe in Malaysia, saying that a fellow Wycliffe missionary’s sister and her family had been in a bad accident near Flagstaff. They asked if I could visit them in the hospital and if we as a church could help with any needs.
Marla and I went as quickly as we could to the hospital. We found out that the family was on vacation, driving west on I-40 near Ash Fork, when a car in the left lane blew a tire and swerved in front of them, forcing their motor home over an embankment, where it rolled many times. Miraculously, everyone survived, even the wife who was thrown from the vehicle, although she and their son were pretty banged up.
They told us how well the body of Christ in Flagstaff had come to their aid. I left them my contact info and asked them to call if they needed anything else, but they said that I was the third pastor to visit them and that the other two churches had already largely provided for their family. They said, “The body of Christ is alive and well in this city!”
The wife also told us about an atheist friend of her husband, whom they had known for a long time. He had seen on other occasions that wherever this family went, they encountered other believers who treated them like family. This atheist couldn’t believe that even though the family didn’t know a soul in Flagstaff, when they had this accident they suddenly had an extended network of people coming to their aid. What this atheist observed is what we see in our text, namely, serving saints.
Paul is still introducing his letter to the Romans, most of whom he has never met. He knew that due to his enemies, he was sometimes portrayed as a radical who was teaching all sorts of dangerous things (Rom. 3:8; Acts 17:6; 21:28). But he longed to visit these fellow believers in Rome and share together in the things of God. So he has the delicate task of explaining to these mostly unknown Christians, some of whom may have heard negative things about him, who he is and why he wants to visit them and preach the gospel there.
So he shares how he has heard of their faith and how frequently he prays for them. He shares his heart about wanting to come and spend time with them, both strengthening their faith and also being encouraged himself by them in the things of the gospel. He lets them know that he has often desired to come, but thus far has been prevented. But now he hopes to come and find opportunities to preach there. So Paul wants to use his gifts to serve these people he does not yet know, and he wants to benefit from them using their gifts to serve him, as together they labor to see the gospel expand in Rome. This little snapshot of Paul and the church at Rome gives us a picture of serving saints. The overall lesson is,
God wants all whom He has saved to be serving saints.
I’m taking the theme from Paul’s words in verse 9, “For God, whom I serve in my spirit ….” But it’s obvious that Paul is not the only one in these verses who is serving. He begins by mentioning how he has heard all over about the faith of the Roman believers. He also says that he expects not only to minister to the Romans, but also to be ministered unto by them (1:12). As we saw in verse 7, the believers in Rome were “called as saints.” Thus all believers are to be serving saints.
There are four lessons here: (1) Serving saints spread the gospel and rejoice to hear of it being spread (1:8). (2) Serving saints serve God sincerely in the gospel as they wait on Him in prayer (1:9-10). (3) Serving saints long to be with other saints for the purpose of effective ministry (1:11-13). (4) Serving saints are debtors to all people to proclaim the gospel to them (1:14-15).
“First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.” Paul says, “First,” but there isn’t any “second.” He probably just means, “to begin with.” “My God” shows that Paul’s relationship with God was personal. Paul knew God as his God. If you do not know God personally through faith in Jesus Christ, then you are only into religion. True Christianity is not primarily a matter of religion, where you go to church, go through various rituals, and keep certain moral standards. True Christianity is a matter of coming to know the living God personally through His Son as you trust in Him to forgive your sins and give you eternal life (Phil. 3:1-10).
Paul thanks God “through Jesus Christ” because Christ mediates all of God’s blessings to us. It is through Christ that we have access to God in prayer. Paul is thankful to God “because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.” Paul didn’t thank the Romans for their faith, as if it came from them. Rather, he thanked God, because He brought these former pagans in that corrupt city of Rome to saving faith in Jesus Christ (John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 52). Salvation is God’s gift.
Paul heard others all over the Roman Empire talking about the faith of the Roman Christians. This shows that they were a witnessing church. They didn’t have or need a marketing strategy or an advertising campaign. Rather, they had vibrant testimonies of how God had changed their lives through the gospel. As people heard of what God was doing in Rome and talked to others, the word spread, so that Paul heard about them, even though he had yet to visit Rome. And so his heart rejoiced.
Faith in Jesus Christ is the essential thing: “Without faith, it is impossible to please Him [God]” (Heb. 11:6). Paul often couples faith with love (Gal. 5:6; Eph. 1:15; 6:23; Col. 1:4; 1 Thess. 1:3; 3:6; 5:8; 1 Tim. 1:5). Love for God and for one another is to be the main fruit of our faith in Jesus Christ. But faith in Him is the foundation, because it is through faith that the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in our hearts and produce His love in us (Gal. 5:22). Bringing it down to a personal level, does your home demonstrate faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and love for God and one another?
It is significant that the Roman church was not the result of Paul’s labors, but that didn’t matter to Paul. He rejoiced to hear of God working, no matter who was responsible for it (Phil. 1:15-18). He wasn’t out to build a name or empire for himself. Even so, if we hear that the gospel is spreading, even if we had nothing to do with it, we should rejoice, thank God, and be encouraged that the gospel is taking root elsewhere. Serving saints spread the gospel and rejoice to hear of it being spread.
“For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of His Son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you, always in my prayers making request, if perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to you.”
The word translated “serve” means, “worshipful service.” It suggests that all of our service should be offered up to the Lord. It should be “for His name’s sake” (1:5). Paul adds that he serves God “in my spirit.” He means that his service comes from the heart or the inner man, which only God sees. This gets down to our motive for serving. Do we serve for the affirmation that we receive from others? Or, do we serve to please God, who knows our hearts?
This also addresses the methods that we use in our service. Do we get them from the business world or from worldly psychology, where they have been proven to yield results? “Just plug in these marketing techniques and your church will grow!” Or, do we use spiritual methods that come from God’s Word? The world often scoffs at such methods, but, as Paul explains (1 Cor. 1:27), “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong.”
The gospel is such a spiritual “method.” Paul says that he serves God in his spirit “in the preaching of the gospel of His Son.” He states (1:16) that the gospel “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” The gospel has repeatedly transformed sinners like Paul, a persecutor of the church, into godly saints who exemplify the fruit of the Spirit.
And yet today, many of the church growth “experts” say that you can’t preach the old-fashioned gospel about sin, God’s righteous judgment, repentance, and salvation through faith in Christ’s blood. That sort of thing will scare off the people you’re trying to reach. So we need to tone it down and share about how Jesus can build your self-esteem and give you a happy family and personal success. But it is the simple message of the gospel that God uses to save sinners.
Prayer is also a spiritual method. Weak people, overwhelmed by problems way beyond their ability to solve, cry out to the living God and He answers them! Again, the modern church is much more into techniques than into prayer. Seminars abound on the latest techniques for church growth. There is a proper place for using wise techniques, but the danger is, we then sing the praises of the techniques for how well they worked. God’s way is (Ps. 50:15), “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me.”
But why does Paul call God as his witness with regard to his unceasing prayers about coming to Rome? First, some of Paul’s enemies may have told the Roman Christians, “Paul doesn’t really care about you. He doesn’t even know you!” So Paul wants them to know that before God, his prayers for them are sincere and frequent. Also, Paul’s immediate plans, as he will share later (15:25), were to go first to Jerusalem with the gift for the poor saints there. If he is delayed there, again his critics could say, “He talks a good line about wanting to come here, but it’s all just talk!” So Paul wants the Romans to know that they are often in his prayers and that he prays often that God would open a way for him to go there.
Paul’s words here reveal several helpful lessons about prayer. First, even Paul had delays and frustrations with regard to the answers to his prayers. He prayed often that he might be able to go to Rome, and even often made plans to go, but thus far his prayers and plans had been frustrated (1:13). Sometimes we think that something must be wrong with our prayer life if we don’t get instant answers. But Paul didn’t get a quick answer and when he finally did get an answer, it wasn’t in the way that he had prayed.
That leads to a second lesson: Often God answers through delays or round-about ways that we don’t envision when we pray. Paul prayed that he could go to Rome. God’s way was not a straight path. First, Paul got arrested in Jerusalem, falsely accused of bringing Gentiles into the Temple. Then, he spent more than two years in custody in Caesarea because the governor was hoping for a bribe and he wanted to please the Jews (Acts 24:26-27). Although he should have been freed, Paul had to appeal to Caesar to save his life (Acts 25:9-12). Then, en route to Rome, he was shipwrecked and spent the winter on Malta. Finally, he got to Rome as a prisoner. It wasn’t exactly, “I prayed and presto, God did just as I asked!”
A third lesson on prayer is that we must always submit our prayers to the will of God (1:10). There is a mystery here that I often do not understand. The sovereign will of God often includes evil things that are against His revealed moral will, although God is not responsible for the evil. But He uses the evil to accomplish His greater purpose. We should pray against evil, and yet be subject to God’s will in things that we do not understand.
In this instance, Paul went to Jerusalem in spite of the Holy Spirit’s warning that he would be arrested. He also rejected the pleas of his friends that he not go there. When he insisted upon going, they said, “The will of the Lord be done!” (See Acts 21:11-14.) Although many would disagree, I think that Paul should have heeded this warning from God. But, he went to Jerusalem, was arrested because of the false accusations of evil men, and spent two years in custody because of the sins of a pagan governor. God worked through all of these things to bring Paul to Rome, thus answering his prayers!
So the lesson for us is to pray, but always be subject to God’s will. If He doesn’t answer exactly as we prayed or in the timing that we expected, we must still be in submission to His will, acknowledging that His ways are not our ways.
James Boice (Romans [Baker], 1:87-89) suggests three reasons why sometimes our perfectly proper prayers go unanswered. First, “Unanswered prayer may be God’s way of teaching that we are not as necessary to the work we are praying for as we think we are.” Paul wanted to go to Rome to minister to these saints, but they were able to do quite well without him in the meanwhile. While perhaps Paul didn’t need to learn this lesson through God’s delay in answering, often we do. We are not indispensible in God’s program!
Second, God may not answer our prayers because “He may have other work for us to do.” Paul’s ministry in Greece, Asia, and even in Caesarea, where he preached the gospel to Felix, Festus, and others, was a part of God’s sovereign plan for Paul. If God has you stalled in a frustrating situation, serve Him there!
Third, Dr. Boice says, “There may be spiritual warfare of which you and I are unaware.” The answer to Daniel’s prayers was delayed because of a conflict between a holy angel and an evil demon (Dan. 10:1-14)! Paul explains that our conflict is against unseen spiritual powers, and that prayer is a chief weapon to use in the battle (Eph. 6:10-20). So we often do not know why our prayers are not answered quickly in the way that we envision. But we must trust in and submit to God’s sovereign will.
Thus, serving saints spread the gospel and rejoice to hear of it being spread (1:8). They serve God sincerely in the gospel as they wait on Him in prayer (1:9-10).
“For I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, that you may be established; that is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other’s faith, both yours and mine. I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you (and have been prevented so far) so that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles.”
Someone has pointed out that it’s good that Paul was hindered from going to Rome sooner, because we now have the Letter to the Romans due to his delay (Griffith Thomas, St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 53). These verses reveal Paul’s heart for these believers and the aim of his intended visit there. I can only touch on five lessons about effective ministry.
First, the atmosphere for effective ministry is warm personal relationships. Paul longed to see these saints. He often expresses his heartfelt desire to be with other believers (1 Thess. 2:8, 11, 17; 3:1, 5, 6, 10). While Paul couldn’t begin to be close with every believer in Rome, his heart of love and concern for them all still comes through.
Second, the aim of effective ministry is to see others established in their faith. As Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, who were new in their faith and going through some intense trials, “for now we really live, if you stand firm in the Lord” (1 Thess. 3:8).
Third, the sphere of effective ministry is spiritual gifts. Paul wanted to go to Rome to impart some spiritual gift to them (1:11). What does he mean? There are several views, but in 1 Corinthians 12:11, Paul says that the Holy Spirit distributes gifts to each person “just as He wills.” So it’s not likely that Paul had the ability to impart various spiritual gifts to others. Rather, he probably means that he wants to impart the gift of his apostolic understanding of the gospel, which we have in the Book of Romans (Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], p. 54; and Martyn Lloyd Jones, Romans: The Gospel of God [Zondervan], p. 226). As Paul exercised his gift of teaching, imparting especially his understanding of justification by faith alone (Romans 3-5), these believers would be more established in their faith.
Fourth, the spirit of effective ministry is mutual encouragement. Paul slightly corrects his comment about imparting some spiritual gift to them by adding (1:12), “that is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other’s faith, both yours and mine.” Even though Paul was such a knowledgeable, gifted man, the ministry would not be all one way, from Paul to them. He quickly acknowledges that he looks forward to being encouraged by their faith as well. Have you ever gone to visit someone in the hospital, to cheer them up, but you’ve come away ministered to by their faith? That’s happened to me many times.
Fifth, the result of effective ministry is to bear fruit. Paul wanted to obtain some fruit among them, as he had among the rest of the Gentiles (1:13). He is mainly referring to new converts, who would come to faith under his preaching in Rome. But the word fruit can refer to any blessing or benefit that comes through God’s working through us. Our aim should always be to glorify God by bearing much fruit (John 15:8).
There is a final lesson on service here:
“I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.”
The literal rendering of “I am under obligation” is, “I am a debtor.” By “Greeks and barbarians,” Paul means “all nations,” since the Greeks viewed every non-Greek as a barbarian. By “wise and foolish,” Paul means “every level of society, from the most educated to the uneducated.” In other words, every human being needs to hear the gospel, because all have sinned and Jesus is the Savior of every sinner who will repent and believe in Him.
Being a debtor has been illustrated as being a person who has been cured of a deadly disease. You can tell others where to find the cure. And in this case, they don’t have to go anywhere or pay any money. The cure is available and free for the taking. When you meet a sinner (that’s everyone!), you owe it to them to tell them about the cure. And telling them should not be a difficult burden. Paul was eager to preach the gospel to those in Rome, because he knew that it is God’s remedy for sin to everyone who believes.
Paul was eager to preach the gospel to the saints in Rome. He was referring not only to evangelism, but also to the application of the gospel to those who have believed. The gospel has much practical application for the saints, as Paul will show in chapters 12-16.
Thus, serving saints spread the gospel and rejoice to hear of it being spread. Serving saints serve God sincerely in the gospel as they wait on Him in prayer. Serving saints long to be with other saints for the purpose of effective ministry. And, serving saints are debtors to all people to proclaim the gospel to them. Has God called you as a saint, one set apart to Him? Then He has called you to serve in these ways for His name’s sake.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2010, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
James Boice wrote that these verses, Romans 1:16-17, “are the most important in the letter and perhaps in all literature. They are the theme of this epistle and the essence of Christianity” (Romans [Baker], 1:103). As you probably know, it was Martin Luther’s wrestling with and finally coming to understand verse 17 that transformed his life and led to the Protestant Reformation. So these verses have had an incalculable effect on world history and they will have a profound effect on your life personally if God opens your eyes to the truths in them.
Before we look at these verses in detail, we need to see the flow of Paul’s reasoning. He begins verse 16 with the word for, which connects it with verse 15. There Paul said, “I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.” Why? “For I am not ashamed of the gospel….” Why? “For it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” How is this gospel the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes? “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.” Is this a new idea that Paul thought up? No, he cites Habakkuk 2:4, “as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith.’”
At the outset, we may wonder why Paul says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel.” It is a figure of speech called litotes, where through understatement the affirmative is expressed by the negative of the contrary. For example, if you say, “he’s not a bad athlete,” you mean, “he’s a pretty good athlete.” So when Paul says that he is not ashamed of the gospel, he means, “I glory in the gospel. I’m proud of the gospel.”
But why does he express it this way? Well, there were many reasons that a first century Roman might feel a bit uncomfortable about this Jewish man coming to a sophisticated city like Rome to preach about a Galilean carpenter-prophet who was executed by the Roman government in the most humiliating manner possible, by being crucified. After all, this was Rome, the capital of the civilized world! Your message had better appeal to the educated or it won’t fly here! Your message needs to offer political solutions to the pressing needs of the empire or it will not gain a hearing here! It had better offer some answers to the massive problems of slavery, greed, lust, and violence, or the people in Rome won’t listen!
But Paul’s main message did not directly address these issues. His main message focused on the main need of every human being, whether the most religious Jew or the most educated, worldly, immoral Greek—the need to be reconciled to the holy God. How can I be right before God? As we’ve seen, Paul’s theme in Romans is God and the good news that comes from God, how sinners can be delivered from His righteous judgment and reconciled to Him. This is called salvation. Here Paul tells us…
Because the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, we must believe it and proclaim it boldly.
To proclaim the gospel boldly or unashamedly, we must believe it. But to believe it, we must understand it. The gospel is all about salvation. So I want to explore five statements about salvation that stem from our text.
This anticipates the point that Paul makes from 1:18 through 3:20, where he shows that all have sinned and thus fall under God’s righteous condemnation. Because all have sinned, whether the religious Jew or the worldly Greek, all are alienated from God, who is absolutely righteous. Thus all are under God’s wrath, as Paul immediately explains (1:18), “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.”
Salvation refers to being rescued from God’s wrath and judgment that we deserve because of our sin. It means being delivered from the penalty of sin, which happens the moment we believe; being delivered from the power of sin, as we grow in godliness; and, being delivered from the very presence of sin when we stand blameless in His presence in glory (Jude 24). John Piper argues that Paul’s main focus here is this future aspect of salvation (see his sermons on this text on desiringgod.org). Salvation also has many positive aspects, such as enjoying a reconciled relationship with God (Rom. Rom. 5:1), and receiving all of the unfathomable riches of Christ (Eph. 1:3; 3:8).
But if we think that we need to “sell” the gospel by glossing over the negative aspects of salvation and focusing only on the positive side of it, we fall into the sin of being ashamed of the gospel. We do not need God’s salvation and Christ did not need to die on the cross if we’re all basically good people who just need a little encouragement to be right with God. We do not need a crucified Savior if our main need is to polish our self-esteem and learn some helpful hints for happy living.
We need a Savior who was crucified for our sins because we all by nature are ungodly rebels who are under God’s righteous wrath. This is offensive to the natural man, but if we pull our punches on this point, we miss the very heart of the gospel. The gospel is only good news to the person who realizes that he needs to be saved or he will eternally perish.
The gospel does not tell people about the power of God. Rather, it is “the power of God for salvation.” This means that salvation is not something that sinners can attain by their own efforts or good works. If that were so, Christ did not need to die on the cross. Salvation is not a joint project, where God has done His part and now you must contribute your part. You may be thinking, “But don’t I need to believe?” Yes, as we will see in a moment, salvation is received and sustained by faith alone from start to finish. But saving faith, which includes repentance, is not something that sinners can produce on their own. It is the gift of God, so that we will not boast (Eph. 2:8-9; Phil. 1:29; 1 Cor. 1:30-31; Acts 11:18; 13:48).
It is crucial to see that salvation does not depend on a human decision, but on the very power of God. It requires that God impart new life to a dead sinner, something that is impossible for men to bring about. When Jesus cried out, “Lazarus, come forth” (John 11:43), the bystanders may have thought, “Is He crazy? He’s speaking to a dead man who has been in the tomb for four days!” But the power of God through the word of Jesus imparted life to a dead man. The gospel is like that.
When the rich young ruler walked away from eternal life, Jesus commented to the disciples (Matt. 19:23, 25, 26), “Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” The disciples were “very astonished and said, ‘Then who can be saved?’” Jesus replied, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” In other words, “Salvation is from the Lord” (Jonah 2:9). It requires the very power of God. The gospel is not helpful advice that a person may decide to try out. It is the very power of God imparting new life and salvation to those who were dead in their sins and under God’s just wrath and condemnation. So, as Thomas Schreiner puts it (Romans [Baker], p. 60), “The preaching of the Word does not merely make salvation possible but effects salvation in those who are called.”
In verse 17, Paul explains why the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes: “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed….” Before we go on, note that the gospel is not the result of the religious genius of Paul or the other apostles. Rather, it is revealed to us by God through His Son. In Galatians 1:15, Paul explains his own conversion by saying, “But when God who had set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me ….” So the gospel comes to us by revelation from God that centers in His Son.
Also, note (as Bishop Moule points out, The Epistle to the Romans [Christian Literature Crusade], p. 32), Paul does not lead off with the love of God in the gospel, but rather with the righteousness of God. Certainly, the gospel displays God’s love for sinners (Rom. 5:8). But the love of God is not a stumbling block or foolishness to sinners (1 Cor. 1:23). They rather like the idea! If God is loving, but not so righteous, then it’s easy to view Him as our good buddy in the sky. But the righteousness of God presents a problem, because we all know that we have sinned. If God is righteous and we are not, then we need a Savior.
But what does Paul mean when he says that in the gospel, “the righteousness of God is revealed”? There are three main options. First, he may mean that God’s attribute of righteousness, the fact that He always does what is right, is revealed to us in the gospel. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Romans: The Gospel of God [Zondervan], p. 298) strongly rejects this meaning here, because he says that then the gospel would not be good news, but rather terrifying news. But with some fear and trembling, I must disagree slightly with Lloyd-Jones. I agree that this is not Paul’s primary meaning here, but if a person has no concept of the absolute righteousness of God, then he does not understand his precarious and frightening position of being under God’s wrath as an unrighteous sinner (Rom. 1:18). So the gospel reveals God’s righteous character, which shows us our desperate need for salvation. It should drive us to the cross.
Second, by “the righteousness of God,” Paul may be referring to God’s saving power in being faithful to His covenant promises. The Old Testament often refers to God’s righteousness as His salvation of His people (Ps. 71:2; 98:2; Isa. 46:13; Schreiner, p. 66, lists many other references).
Third, by “the righteousness of God,” Paul is referring to the righteousness that comes from God, which He gives to those who believe. F. F. Bruce (Romans [IVP/Eerdmans], p. 73) argues that in the Old Testament, which forms the main background of Paul’s thought and language, righteousness is not so much a moral quality as rather a legal status. He says (p. 74), “God himself is righteous, and those men and women are righteous who are ‘in the right’ in relation to God and his law.” He adds,
When, therefore, the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel, it is revealed in a twofold manner. The gospel tells us first how men and women, sinners as they are, can come to be ‘in the right’ with God and second how God’s personal righteousness is vindicated in the very act of declaring sinful men and women ‘righteous’.
This third meaning is Paul’s primary thought in verse 17. The gospel reveals how sinners may be righteous or justified before God by faith. We know that this is his meaning by comparing the parallels between Romans 1:17 and 3:21-26. There we read,
But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
God’s righteousness is revealed in the gospel in that He can grant right standing to sinners because His Son met the righteous requirement of His perfect Law and died to pay the penalty that sinners deserve. Thus sinners are not justified by their own righteousness by keeping the Law (gal. 3:11), but rather by God imputing the righteousness of Christ to them by faith. Paul states this plainly in Philippians 3, where he contrasts his former attempts to be righteous by keeping the Law with his present experience with Christ, where he says (Phil. 3:9), “not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.” Salvation upholds God’s righteousness by applying it to the sinner who believes. That leads to the fourth point about salvation:
Paul mentions believing or faith four times in these two verses: “to everyone who believes”; “from faith to faith”; and, “the righteous man shall live by faith.” If salvation comes through faith plus good works (as the Roman Catholic Church teaches and all of the cults teach), then it is not good news, because you could never know whether you have piled up enough good works to qualify. But if God declares guilty sinners to be righteous or justified the instant they believe, that is good news!
But, we need to be clear on several things here. First, saving faith in Christ is not a general belief that He is the Savior. The demons believe that, but they are not saved. Rather, saving faith has three elements. First, with the mind we must understand the content of the gospel: who Jesus is, what His death on the cross means, and that He was raised from the dead. Second, we must have a heart response to the truth of the gospel, where we agree that it is true and our agreement causes our hearts to be sorrowful about our sin, but also to rejoice in the free offer of God’s grace. Third, saving faith includes commitment to Christ, where we trust in Him and His death on the cross as our only hope of eternal life and we follow Him as Lord. Saving faith is not a work that we do, but rather simply receiving all that God offers to us in Christ. It is the hand that receives the free gift of God.
Second, we need to understand what Paul means by the phrase, “from faith to faith.” Commentators offer many different views, but I think Paul is emphasizing the centrality of faith in receiving the benefits of the gospel (Schreiner, p. 72). The NIV translates, “by faith from first to last.” We receive the gospel by faith and we go on living by faith.
This is supported by the fact that “believes” (1:16) is a present participle, bringing out the fact that saving faith is not a single event, but rather an ongoing, lifelong process. We are justified the instant we believe, but as we go on believing the gospel, God keeps revealing to us the fact that we have right standing before Him on the basis of Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross. Faith applies the imputed righteousness of Christ to us so that we increasingly rejoice in Christ alone as our only hope of eternal life. We never come to a place where we can trust in our good works as sufficient for or even contributing in any way to our salvation.
Third, we need to understand how Paul uses Habakkuk 2:4, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.” He uses it partly to show that his gospel is not a new idea that he thought up. The Old Testament prophet Habakkuk confirms the truth that righteousness can only be attained on the basis of faith.
Scholars debate whether the quote should be translated, “the righteous man shall live by faith,” or, “the one who is righteous by faith shall live.” The first view would emphasize that those who are righteous are characterized by a life of faith, whereas the second view would say that those who by faith are righteous shall live, which means, be saved. While there are impressive scholars on both sides, I think that in light of the context, Paul is using the quote to say, “The one who is righteous (justified) by faith will live, that is, be saved” (see Bruce, p. 76; Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans/Apollos], pp. 71-72; Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], pp. 76-79).
Paul says that the gospel “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” He could have said, “for the Jews [plural] first and also to the Greeks [plural],” but he put it in the singular. Salvation is an individual and personal matter. Being a member of the Jewish race will not get you saved, even though the Jews were God’s chosen people. Being an American or a member of a Christian family will not get you saved. You must personally believe in Christ.
By “the Jew first,” Paul means that the gospel came first in history to the Jews. God chose Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob as the race to which He revealed His salvation. It was through the Jews that the Savior came. Thus, as Jesus said, “Salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22).
But here Paul’s emphasis is on the universal offer of the gospel. It is for everyone who will believe. It is for the religious Jew who will believe and it is for the pagan Greek who will believe. None need be excluded. The good news is for you, whatever your background! Are you a self-righteous, religious, moral person? You must not trust in any of these things, but as a sinner receive the righteousness of Christ by faith. Are you an atheist or an immoral person or a greedy, cheating businessman? You must turn from these sins and cry out to God to be merciful to you, the sinner, and you will go home justified today (Luke 18:9-14). The gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.
I ask, “Have you believed the gospel?” Have you abandoned all of your self-righteousness and all of your good works as the basis for your standing before God and instead trusted only in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Do you believe this good news when you fail and Satan accuses you? On the basis of your right standing before God, do you daily battle against sin, so that your attitudes and behavior are progressively righteous? Is God’s power to save you from the power of sin evident in your relationships in the home?
I could develop an entire message on this point, but I’m out of time. But I ask, “Are you ashamed of the gospel?” Do you dodge warning people about the wrath of God, because that isn’t a popular idea? Do you avoid telling them about the shed blood of Christ as the only remedy for sin, because it sounds kind of primitive? Do you put a positive spin on the gospel, so that it sounds like a positive plan for how to have a happy life here and now? If so, you’re being ashamed of the gospel.
The gospel is the good news that God has revealed to us how we can be rescued from the wrath to come (1 Thess. 1:5-10). It is the very power of God to save everyone who believes, because in it God reveals how His perfect righteousness will be put to the account of the guilty sinner who trusts in Christ. I pray that we will understand the gospel, believe it personally, preach it to ourselves every day, and proclaim it unashamedly to this lost world.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2010, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Probably the most famous sermon ever preached in America was Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” preached at Enfield, Connecticut, July 8th, 1741. I had a college philosophy professor who ridiculed that sermon and the frantic response that many had to it that day. But, clearly, God used that sermon like He has few others!
To say that the concept of God’s wrath is out of sync with our modern world is to state the obvious. Even many who claim to be evangelicals object to and minimize any mention of God’s wrath. They may say that they believe it because it’s in the Bible, but they’re embarrassed by it. I’ve even heard of professing Christians who say, “I believe in a God of love, not a God of wrath.” Sometimes such people ignorantly imply that the God of the Old Testament was a God of wrath, but by the New Testament, He mellowed out to be a nice old guy! I’ve been told that Jesus was always loving and never judgmental. I always want to ask such people, “When was the last time you actually read the New Testament?”
Modern “seeker” churches have drawn huge crowds by never mentioning sin and judgment, and instead focusing on the more positive aspects of the gospel: “God loves you. He offers you an abundant life full of peace, joy, and love. He will help you with your problems. He wants you to be happy. Won’t you invite Him into your heart?”
But there is no mention of a holy God who is justified in His wrath against sinners. We’ve bought into the old liberal message, which theologian Richard Niebuhr once described (The Kingdom of God in America, p. 193, cited by Sydney Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People [Image Books, 1975], 2:249), “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.”
When the apostle Paul begins to expound on the gospel that he proclaimed, he does not lead off with the love of God (as we saw last time), but with the righteousness of God. When he elaborates further, he does not even then mention God’s love, but rather, God’s wrath. Modern critics would say, “Paul, you’re not going to win any converts by that approach! Lighten up! Maybe, much later, you can touch on that subject. But when you’re trying to win people to Christ, don’t mention God’s wrath!”
But Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, leads off with (Rom. 1:18), “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” For links this to verses 16 & 17. If we’re going to understand why we need God’s power in the gospel and why we need His very righteousness imputed to our account, then we need to understand His wrath against our sin. If we’re not such bad folks and if we have enough good deeds to earn points towards heaven, then we don’t need God’s righteousness and Christ did not need to bear God’s wrath on our behalf. But if we are ungodly and unrighteous in God’s sight, if we have suppressed the truth in unrighteousness, and as a result are under His just wrath, then we desperately need God’s saving power through the gospel!
Thus Paul begins a lengthy section (1:18-3:20) in which he sets forth in great detail the sinfulness of the human race. At first, he gives a general indictment, although the sins that he mentions (Thus Paul begins a lengthy section (1:18-3:20) in which he sets forth in great detail the sinfulness of the human race. At first, he gives a general indictment, although the sins that he mentions (1:23-32) may be more prevalent among the Gentiles. He moves on (2:1-16) to indict those who think that they are moral enough to commend themselves to God. Then (2:17-3:8), Paul turns on the Jews who pride themselves on having the Law, showing how they are also guilty before God. Finally (wing that the entire human race is justly guilty before God. Only at that point (3:21-26) does he come back and pick up the theme of 1:17, that the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ is available to sinners through faith alone.
In our text, then, Paul is showing why God is justified to inflict His wrath on the sinful human race, which shows why we need the gospel. We can sum up his message in 1:18-23:
God is just in pouring out His wrath on the human race because we have sinfully rejected His revelation of Himself and have worshiped the creature rather than the Creator.
Paul argues that God has revealed Himself to the human race, both through His wrath (1:18) and through His creation (1:19-20). But we have inexcusably rejected God’s revelation and instead have resorted to inventing gods of our own (1:21-23).
There is an obvious parallel and yet contrast between verses 17 & 18. In verse 17, “the righteousness of God is revealed.” In verse 18, “the wrath of God is revealed.” The phrase, “from heaven” adds weight to the revelation. This isn’t just an idea that popped into Paul’s mind. This is a revelation from heaven, that is, from God Himself.
When we think about God’s wrath, we need to get rid of any human notions of someone with a bad temper who flies off the handle over the slightest provocation. Rather, God’s wrath is a part of His holy nature. It is His settled, determined, active opposition to all sin. If God loves righteousness, He also must hate evil. If God were all love and no wrath, then He would not be God at all, because He would be unrighteous. We know this even on a human plane. If a judge was all love and hugs towards cold-blooded murderers or child molesters, he would not be a righteous judge. Even though our anger easily slips from being righteous to unrighteous, we all know that anger is the proper response to certain sins. In the same way, God would not be holy or good if He did not react to evil with wrath and righteous judgment.
We only have time to look at a few of the biblical references to God’s wrath. Ignoring the many Old Testament references, the New Testament starts off with the ministry of John the Baptist, who tells his audience (Matt. 3:7), “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” In Matthew 23:33, after pronouncing a series of “woes” on the Pharisees, Jesus thunders, “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?”
In John 3:16, we have the marvelous verse, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall have eternal life.” Oops! I left out something: “shall not perish”! Years ago, I conducted a funeral where they had printed up the little cards with John 3:16 as I just erroneously quoted it to you! I didn’t let it go! To perish means to come under God’s eternal wrath. In John 3:36 we read, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
In Ephesians 2:3, Paul says that we all (Jews and Gentiles) were “children of wrath,” a Jewish way of saying that we were characterized by being under God’s wrath. In Ephesians 5:6, he uses the same Jewish expression to say that “the wrath of God comes on the sons of disobedience” (also, Col. 3:6). In 1 Thessalonians 1:10 he says that Jesus “rescues us from the wrath to come.” In 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9, he writes that God will deal “out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction ….” The entire Book of Revelation shows the many forms of wrath that will be poured out on sinners both before and after Jesus returns.
J. I. Packer (Knowing God [IVP], pp. 134-135) said, “One of the most striking things about the Bible is the vigor with which both Testaments emphasize the reality and terror of God’s wrath.” A. W. Pink (The Attributes of God [Baker], p. 82) wrote, “A study of the concordance will show that there are more references in Scripture to the anger, fury, and wrath of God than there are to His love and tenderness.” So we cannot shove God’s wrath into the closet! R. W. Dale observed (cited by R. C. Sproul, The Cross of Christ Study Guide [Ligonier Ministries], p. 35), “It is partly because sin does not provoke our own wrath, that we do not believe that sin provokes the wrath of God.”
Later (2:5), Paul acknowledges that a future day of wrath is coming at the final judgment, but here (1:18) he calls attention to the present revelation of God’s wrath (the verb means, “is being revealed”). What does he mean? If we look around, we can see God’s wrath in all of the effects of the fall, both on creation and on human misery and suffering. We see floods, fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, famine, and disease, which cause untold suffering and death. There are the more direct links between sin and judgment, such as STD’s and the AIDS epidemic on the sexually immoral, and the harmful effects of drugs and alcohol on addicts. We see the terrible effects of drunkenness and drug abuse in the home, on our highways, and in society at large. We see the devastating effects of war and terrorism. The list could go on and on.
Also, a glance through past history, both in the Bible and outside of it, shows the ongoing wrath of God. He destroyed the whole world through the flood. He poured out fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah. He punished both Israel and Judah allowing invading armies to kill many and send others into captivity.
But the greatest example of God pouring out His wrath was when He put His own Son on the cross to bear our sins, so that He cried out in agony (Matt. 27:46), “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Jesus’ terrible death shows that God cannot just brush our sin aside. His righteous judgment must be satisfied. As Paul argued with the philosophers in Athens (Acts 17:31), the resurrection of Jesus from the dead proves that God “has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness….” Woe to all who have not repented of their sins and trusted in Christ before that day! God reveals Himself through His wrath. Don’t miss it!
Paul goes on to show another way that God has revealed Himself, namely, through His creation. Here Paul is referring to God’s general revelation in the created universe, not to His special revelation in His written word. Most commentators understand “His invisible attributes” to be a summary term that is further explained by the next two terms, “His eternal power and divine nature.” Anyone should be able to look at the vastness of the universe (even in days before there were telescopes!) and conclude, “God is amazingly, incomprehensibly, powerful! You don’t have to gaze into outer space—get caught in an exposed area in a thunderstorm and you will appreciate God’s power! Marla and I have had some terrifying experiences with that!
God’s “divine nature” refers to the sum of His attributes (S. Lewis Johnson, “Paul and the Knowledge of God,” Bibliotheca Sacra [Jan.-March, 1972], p. 69). This does not mean that we can learn as much about God through nature as we can through His Word. But, even so, men should be able to look at God’s creation and conclude many things about His attributes, in addition to His power.
John Calvin sums it up well (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], pp. 71-72), “His eternity appears evident, because he is the maker of all things—his power, because he holds all things in his hand and continues their existence—his wisdom, because he has arranged things in such an exquisite order—his goodness, for there is no other cause than himself, why he created all things, and no other reason, why he should be induced to preserve them—his justice, because in his government he punishes the guilty and defends the innocent—his mercy, because he bears with so much forbearance the perversity of men—and his truth, because he is unchangeable.”
It is important to recognize that God’s revelation through creation is not enough to save anyone, in that it does not reveal His plan of salvation through Jesus Christ, apart from which no one can be saved (Acts 4:12). But it is enough to condemn everyone. By looking even at their own bodies or at the marvel of a little gnat that can fly, eat, and reproduce, people should bow in worship before God. But they don’t. They swat the gnat in annoyance and go on without a thought about the intelligence, power, and wisdom that it took to create a gnat, much less all of creation! They ignore the obvious fact that there is an all-powerful God and go full bore in their selfishness and sin, ignoring the obvious revelation of His wrath in the fact that they will soon die!
Two brief comments before I move on: First, in answer to the question that often comes up, “Will God judge the innocent heathen who has never heard about Jesus?” The answer is, there are no innocent heathen. All have sinned against the light that they have received and all will be judged accordingly (Matt. 11:20-24).
Second, I hope that you can see how utterly absurd and yet how widely destructive to people’s eternal destiny the belief in evolution is. It gives sinners a supposed escape from being accountable to God, as some prominent atheists have openly admitted. Although there is more than abundant evidence of an all-powerful Creator, evolutionists cling to the absurd idea that everything came out of nothing. At the root of their belief is not science, but immorality. They suppress the truth in unrighteousness. That leads to:
Paul says (1:18) that God’s wrath is revealed “against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” Some commentators see these two words, “ungodliness” and “unrighteousness,” as being somewhat synonymous, repeated for emphasis. But others say that Paul is using them quite strictly to refer to “lack of reverence for God” (“ungodliness”) and “lawlessness or injustice towards our fellow man” (“unrighteousness”).
Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Romans: The Gospel of God [Zondervan], pp. 355-359) argues at length that the terms refer to these two different aspects of sin and that Paul has put them in this order for an important reason: ungodliness is always the root sin and unrighteousness flows from it. Our first and basic problem is that we disregard and disobey God. This leads to our sins against one another. Ungodliness was the first sin, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God. This led to separation from God, which then led to alienation between them and eventually to the sin that caused Cain to murder his brother Abel.
The word “suppress” may mean to hold on to, or to hold down, which is the idea here. It implies that men knew the truth (note that there is such a thing as knowable absolute spiritual truth!), but they want to hold it down so that they can pursue their sins. Whether it is evolution denying God as the Sovereign Creator, or philosophy speculating that we cannot really know God at all, or psychology telling us that we are not responsible for our problems (psychologists don’t like the word “sin”!), these are all ways of pushing God away from us so that we can be our own lord. “So that they are without excuse” is probably a purpose clause that means, “Sinners cannot plead ignorance as an excuse” (Johnson, p. 69). God has posted huge warning signs with flashing lights, namely, His ongoing wrath and His magnificent creation. If sinners drive past them over the cliff, they only have themselves to blame.
So, Paul’s first point is: God is just in pouring out His wrath on the human race because we have sinfully rejected His revelation of Himself. I can only comment briefly on his second point and its implications:
Paul makes five points here:
Paul seems here to be interpreting human spiritual history in light of the fall (Johnson, p. 72). Verse 21 does not mean that men knew God in a saving way, but rather that they had a general sense that He exists. In The Institutes (ed. by John McNeill [Westminster Press], 1:3:1), John Calvin asserts that all people have an awareness of God. He says, “There is no nation so barbarous, no people so savage, that they have not a deep-seated conviction that there is a God.” As Paul has just shown, God’s creation makes His attributes evident within all people, until they suppress it. There is also the universal presence of the conscience (2:15).
This is the root sin: Although people know about God, they do not give Him His proper glory and they do not express thanks to Him for His many undeserved blessings. We could easily develop an entire sermon or two here, but let me apply it directly: It’s easy to sit here and shake our heads at the heathen, who have no concept of glorifying God or giving thanks. But do I glorify God for His goodness and mercy and grace? Do I give thanks to God for His many blessings that He showers on me every day?
Paul also refers to this in Ephesians 4:18, where he describes “the Gentiles” (pagans) as “darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart.” When Paul says, “their foolish heart was darkened,” he is referring to their entire inner life, including their intellect, emotions, and will (Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 85). To be in the dark refers to total moral and spiritual blindness. Only God can shine His light into such dark hearts (2 Cor. 4:4-6).
Since the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Ps. 111:10), those who do not fear God or bow before Him as God profess to be wise, but are fools (Ps. 14:1). “Fools” does not refer to mental deficiency, but to spiritual and moral deficiency. Turning from the revelation that God has given of Himself in His wrath and in creation, sinners plunge into futile speculation. As a philosophy major at a secular university, I know of no better description of godless university professors than Romans 1:21 and 22. The final result is:
Rejecting God does not lead to atheism, but to substituting the glory of the one true God with manmade idols “in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.” Man didn’t begin with idolatry and polytheism and work his way up to monotheism. Man began by knowing the one true God, but when he suppresses the truth in unrighteousness, he falls into the supreme foolishness of creature worship (Isa. 44:9-20).
I’ve seen idolatry of statues and sacred cows in Asia. I’ve observed people worship the creation here in Flagstaff. But it never ceases to amaze me, as I’ve said before, that here in a university town, we have a store that has stayed in business for many years by selling nothing but idols! It’s as if the idols of self, sex, money, and power were not enough! We’ve got a store selling just about any conceivable idol that you could see worshiped in India or Nepal or Thailand! Idolatry is really stupid, but, I should add, there is real power in idolatry—but it is demonic power, not God’s power.
So, is God just in pouring out His wrath on those who have rejected His revelation of Himself, who turn instead to worship the creature rather than the Creator? When you stand before Him, do you have any chance of winning your case? Only if by faith you stand there covered by the righteousness of Jesus Christ!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2010, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
If you were born after 1970, you may not realize how drastically America and the West changed during the 1960’s. I grew up in the 1950’s watching TV shows like “Ozzie and Harriet,” “Leave it to Beaver,” and “Father Knows Best,” all of which depicted the typical American family. The father wore a suit, supported the family, and was looked to as the head of the home. The mother wore a dress, prepared the meals, and dispensed wisdom to the kids to help them navigate life’s normal struggles. There was not a hint of sexual immorality, whether with the parents or kids. A kiss between a teen boy and girl was about as far as things went for the kids. There were no references to drugs. It was pretty radical when Ricky Nelson formed a rock band, even though their music was pretty tame compared to today’s standards.
When I was in high school, the word “gay” meant, “happy.” I did not know what homosexuality is until somewhere around ninth grade. Back then, it was a gross put-down to say that a guy “sucked” (that is the origin of that term; I wince when I hear Christians use it). I didn’t know what a condom was until I was in junior high. In my high school, a few of the kids smoked marijuana, but they were not in the “in” crowd. Using more potent drugs was pretty much unheard of.
I do not watch any of the current TV sitcoms. I’m probably a rare American, in that I’ve never watched an episode of “Cheers” or “Seinfeld” or other shows of that genre. But from reading reviews I know that on such shows, sex between unmarried partners is openly accepted, graphically talked about, and sometimes portrayed. Homosexuality is now accepted as normal. A popular show features housewives who are desperately looking for happiness by being unfaithful to their marriage vows. A current movie preaches that children raised by homosexual couples are just as emotionally healthy and normal as other children are.
We’ve gone down a long ways from the 1950’s! Some would say that because of these flagrant sins, America is on the brink of God’s judgment. But Paul would say, “No, America is already under God’s judgment.” When a society flaunts and gives hearty approval to such sins, even applauding them as right, it shows that God has already given that society over to impurity, to degrading passions, and to a depraved mind.
Leon Morris (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 87) explains Paul’s purpose in our text:
It is sometimes objected that this is not a balanced picture; the pagan world could do better than this. Of course it could, and Paul shows us something of this in the next chapter. But here he is not trying to picture the total scene. He is pursuing his theological purpose of showing that all people are sinners. In pursuit of this aim, he concentrates on that part of the picture which is relevant…. It is Paul’s purpose to show that [sin] exists, and that it exists universally. Wherever pagans are to be found, the kinds of sin of which he speaks will be found also.
Paul’s point in Romans 1:24-32 (we will only go through v. 27 this week) is:
When people reject God and exchange His glory for the worship of the creature, He gives them over to their sins and the horrible consequences.
As we saw last week, Paul is showing how the wrath of God is being “revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (1:18). One aspect of God’s wrath is to give sinners over to their lusts, so that they experience the inevitable, horrible consequences of sin. That is to say, sin itself is its own punishment! People think that sin will bring them fulfillment and happiness. It may feel good in the short run. But God has designed His moral laws so that if you break them individually or if a society casts them off collectively, those laws turn around and break you! It’s like the law of gravity: you can break it, but then it breaks you.
We might wonder when this divine judgment of giving people over to their sin took place. Is Paul describing the fall? Or does he have in mind the demise of certain cultures, such as Sodom and Gomorrah? Or is he talking about individuals who go so far in sin that God gives them over to their sins? Probably he is referring to all of the above.
At the fall, the human race was cut off from fellowship with the holy God and plunged into sin. We all are born in sin, alienated from God. We are by nature spiritually blind, children of wrath, and under God’s just condemnation. We are not sinners because we sin; rather, we sin because by nature we are sinners. Unless we are born spiritually by the power of the Holy Spirit, we will pursue a course of sin. Some are restrained from sinning more than others. But all people apart from God’s grace in Christ, have cast off the living and true God and have embraced whatever false gods they think will bring them happiness. So in one sense, this applies to the entire human race, born in sin.
But on another level, it applies to particular cultures down through history. At the Tower of Babel, proud sinners defied God, bringing down His judgment by confusing their languages. Sodom and Gomorrah were so corrupt that God rained fire and brimstone on them as an example to others of His wrath against sin. When God told Moses and Joshua to destroy the Canaanites, it was because over four centuries, they had filled up the measure of their sin (Gen. 15:16). Ancient Greece and Rome had their times of glory, but idolatry and immorality brought them down. And so it has been down through history. When a people abandons God, at some point God abandons that people.
This is also true on the individual level. All people without Christ are in sin, but when an individual brazenly turns his back on the light that God has given him and goes full bore into a decadent lifestyle, it shows that God has given him over to his lusts. If he keeps going in that direction, he may eventually cross the point of no return, where he is so hardened in sin that he is beyond the hope of salvation!
Paul here makes two main points: (1) The root sin is to reject the truth of God and to worship the creature rather than the Creator (1:25). (2) When people reject God, He gives them over to their sins and the horrible consequences (1:24, 26-32). He shows this judgment three times by stating, “God gave them over” (1:24, 26, 28). First, God gave them over to impurity; second, He gave them over to the degrading passions of homosexuality; third He gave them over to a depraved mind, expressed in all sorts of socially destructive sins.
“For they exchanged the truth of God for the [lit.] lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.” Verse 25 explains the reason that God gave people over in their lusts to impurity (1:24), to degrading passions (1:26), and to a depraved mind (1:28) by basically repeating the truth of 1:21-23. Because people did not honor God or give Him thanks, their foolish hearts were darkened. Their foolishness led them to exchange the glory of the incorruptible God for idols.
“The truth of God” refers to the truth that He has revealed about Himself and about all things. God is not a projection of our ideas or a figment of human imagination. God is. He exists in and of Himself and He has always existed outside of time before He spoke the universe into existence. Our knowledge of Him can only come through His revelation of Himself, which is centered in Jesus Christ His Son and contained in the Bible. As we saw in 1:18 and 20, God reveals Himself generally through His wrath against sin and through His creation. But to know specifically who God is and how to be saved, we must have His Word. Contrary to the postulates of postmodernism, this truth about God revealed in the Bible is knowable and absolute.
But sinful men exchanged this truth of God for [lit.] “the lie,” which refers to the lie of idolatry. In 1:23, sinners exchanged the glory of God for idols. Here, they exchange the truth of God for the lie, that we can worship things other than God, all of which are mere creatures, not the Creator. It is the lie that any creature can live independently of God as “self-sufficient, self-directing, and self-fulfilling” (John Witmer, The Bible Knowledge Commentary, ed. by John F. Walvoord and Roy Zuck [Victor Books], 2:443). As a result of exchanging the glory of God for idols and exchanging the truth of God for the lie, God gave these sinners over to degrading passions, so that they exchanged their natural sexual orientation for that which is unnatural (1:26). The word “exchange” implies that if you cast off God, you will serve idols.
The important thing to see is that there is this cause and effect relationship. The root cause is the sin of rejecting the truth of God, resulting in worshiping the creature rather than the Creator. By referring to God as the Creator, Paul takes us back to the opening statement of the Bible (Gen. 1:1), “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The Bible does not debate the point or open it up for discussion. Rather, the Bible asserts that God created everything and that He did it by speaking it into existence (“God said,” Gen. 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26; Ps. 33:6, 9). This asserts His sovereignty over everything. It means that as creatures, we depend totally on God and must be subject to Him. He is the only true God and He made all things for His glory.
Thus when Paul mentions God as the Creator, he almost uncontrollably adds, “who is blessed forever. Amen.” It’s as if he wants to clear the foul air after referring to men worshiping and serving the creature (H. C. G. Moule, The Epistle to the Romans [Christian Literature Crusade], p. 50). Blessing, extolling, or glorifying God forever and ever is the reason that He created us. “The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever” (Westminster Shorter Catechism). He is in fact blessed forever, whether we acknowledge Him or not (Rom. 9:5). Thus the root sin is when we turn from God and replace Him with the creature. Idolatry is the sin of worshiping anything in place of the true God.
In America, we do not see blatant idolatry as frequently as you see it in Asia or Africa. Most Americans do not set up statues and pray to them or offer incense or gifts before them. But there are many other forms of idolatry in America. If you “use” God for what He can give you and then “set Him back on the shelf” until the next time you need Him, you’re doing the same thing that idolaters do with their idols. They use the idols when they need them to achieve their own purposes. They are not usually subject to the idols to follow their commands. Self is really the root idol. Self uses the idol to get what self wants.
We can fall into idolatry of things that otherwise are good. Some people in effect worship the family. God gives us our families and they are good in their proper perspective. But if we rely on the family in place of God, so that we can only find fulfillment and happiness in our families, we have fallen into idolatry and are not following Jesus as Lord (Luke 14:26). Material possessions are a good gift from God and it’s not wrong to enjoy such things (1 Tim. 6:17). But if we put our hope in things or in our investments and not in God, we have fallen into idolatry (Luke 12:16-21; 14:33). Vocations, entertainment, sports, computers, TV, and many other things can dominate our lives and become idols, taking the place that God alone deserves. This is the root sin: rejecting the truth of God and worshiping the creature instead of the eternally blessed Creator. “Amen” means, “So be it!”
Three times Paul says, “God gave them over”: First (1:24), to impurity; second (1:26), to degrading passions (homosexuality); third, to a depraved mind (1:28). We find a similar expression in Psalm 81:12, where God responds to Israel’s disobedience by saying, “So I gave them over to the stubbornness of their heart, to walk in their own devices.” (See, also, Acts 7:42.) They abandoned God; God abandoned them. The phrase means that God took His hands off their lives and delivered them over to their sentence, where sin takes its own ugly course.
It does not in any way imply that God causes people to sin. But neither is God merely passive. Rather, as Frederic Godet (Commentary on Romans [Kregel], p. 107) says, “He positively withdrew His hand; He ceased to hold the boat as it was dragged by the current of the river.” Douglas Moo (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 111) goes a bit farther: “God does not simply let the boat go—he gives it a push downstream.”
Parents sometimes get to this point with a rebellious child. You say, “Do what you want and you will pay the consequences of your actions.” Maybe you help him carry his duffel bag out the door. The father of the prodigal son did this with the boy’s outrageous request to get his share of the inheritance before the father’s death. He gave him what he wanted, and let him squander it all and end up in the pigsty. It reminds me of Psalm 106:15, where in response to Israel’s demand for meat in the wilderness, it says, “So He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul” (NASB, margin). Sin is its own punishment!
Today we can only look briefly at the first two sections.
“Therefore, God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.” Paul is referring to sexual lusts. God designed sex as a good gift, but He clearly commands that it be restricted to monogamous, heterosexual marriages. In that context, the sexual union glorifies God as it expresses exclusive love between a man and a woman and is an earthly picture of the relationship between Christ and His church (Eph. 5:31-32).
Outside of that context, if we engage in sexual behavior, we dishonor our bodies and defile ourselves with impurity, a word used of decaying matter, like the contents of a grave (John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible, NASB [Nelson Bibles], p. 1661). Paul says that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one flesh with her, but in so doing, he defiles the temple of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in believers (1 Cor. 6:16-19). He gives us a godly perspective of how to use our bodies when he concludes (1 Cor. 6:19b-20), “You are not your own. For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”
Sexual lusts begin in the heart (Mark 7:21-23). If we do not judge lustful thoughts on the heart level, sooner or later we will face the temptation to involve our bodies. Does it feel good at the moment? Yes, of course, otherwise we wouldn’t do it. But it leads to your being enslaved by sin. Since sex outside of marriage is outside of the context for which God designed it, it never completely satisfies. It leaves you empty and broken.
Before I leave this point, let me say to the men, especially: If you are enslaved to pornography, you have exchanged the truth of God for a lie. You are worshiping the creature, not the Creator. Viewing pornography weakens your resistance to an actual sexual encounter, which Satan will bring your way. If you yield to that, you dishonor your body, defile yourself, and start on this downward cycle. If you are married, viewing pornography sabotages your marriage. Jesus warned that if you do not take radical action (pluck out your eye, cut off your hand) to rid yourself of the sin of mental lust, you are on your way to hell (Matt. 5:27-30)! I would not have said it so harshly, but Jesus did and He is Lord. So you don’t want God to give you over to that sin! Get help if you need it, but judge lust before it judges you!
We live in a time when the homosexual community has so strongly influenced our godless culture that if you stand against it and say that it is sin, you are labeled as an intolerant bigot. They have skillfully portrayed it as a “human rights” issue, so that those who oppose it seem anti-American. But God’s Word is not tolerant of homosexuality or ambiguous about it: it is clearly sin (Gen. 19:4-5; Lev. 18:22; 20:13; Judges 19:22-23). Paul elsewhere includes it in lists of sins (1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Tim. 1:10).
But why does Paul focus on homosexual relations here? Thomas Schreiner (Romans [Baker], p. 94) explains,
Probably because it functions as the best illustration of that which is unnatural in the sexual sphere. Idolatry is “unnatural” in the sense that it is contrary to God’s intention for human beings. To worship corruptible animals and human beings instead of the incorruptible God is to turn the created order upside down. In the sexual sphere the mirror image of this “unnatural” choice of idolatry is homosexuality.
Paul uses unusual Greek words for “male” and “female” here, which are elsewhere used in the creation account. His point is that homosexuality for either sex goes against God’s intention in creation (Schreiner, p. 95). Just looking at how men’s and women’s bodies are designed should prove that point!
Paul says (1:27) that homosexuals receive “in their own persons the due penalty of their error.” The error is not an inadvertent mistake, but rather the rejection of the true God for idols (Schreiner, p. 97). Paul may mean that being delivered over to homosexuality itself is the penalty. Contrary to the word “gay,” homosexuals are disproportionately unhappy people. Those who attempt to live in committed homosexual relationships have a three to four times greater dissolution than that of heterosexual married couples. They experience much higher rates of domestic violence than opposite sex couples do (these statements documented in an email from the Family Research Council, Aug. 10, 2010). The Journal of Human Sexuality (Vol. 1, p. 93, National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, 2009) concludes with regard to homosexuals, “No other group of comparable size in society experiences such intense and widespread pathology.”
Is AIDS God’s judgment on homosexuals? If you mean that each person who has AIDS got it from sexual sin, the answer is no. Babies get it from their mothers and patients get it from tainted blood transfusions. But when God sends a temporal judgment due to a nation’s sin, such as war, famine, natural disaster or disease, the so-called “innocent” suffer along with the directly guilty. The fact is, if there were no sexual promiscuity, especially homosexuality, there would be virtually no AIDS. There is an obvious, direct correspondence between practicing homosexuality and AIDS. So in that sense, it is God’s judgment against that sin.
Are homosexuals born that way? There is no scientific evidence to date to support that claim, although researchers have desperately been looking for it. But even if the inclination is genetic, it still is sin to practice it. Some may be genetically prone to heterosexual lust or to anger or alcohol addiction, but these are still sins. Even if we are genetically predisposed to a sin, we are responsible before God if we yield to that sin.
The good news is, Jesus came to deliver us from our sins. Paul includes former homosexuals in Corinth when he wrote (1 Cor. 6:11), “Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” That can be your testimony, too, if you will trust in Christ.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2010, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote (Life Together [Harper & Row], pp. 118-119), “The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the Cross of Jesus. The greatest psychological insight, ability, and experience cannot grasp this one thing: what sin is.”
We are studying the apostle Paul’s penetrating analysis of sin that runs from Romans 1:18 through 3:20. He is showing why all people, no matter how good they may seem outwardly, need the gospel (1:16-17), namely, because all have sinned. Thankfully, the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. So God’s only solution for the devastating effects of sin on the human race is the gospel, that Christ died for our sins and that He gives His righteousness to all who believe in Him.
Last time, we saw that the main theme of verses 24-32 is:
When people reject God and exchange His glory for the worship of the creature, God gives them over to their sins and the horrible consequences.
In these verses, Paul develops two main ideas:
Three times Paul repeats the frightening phrase, “God gave them over”:
Both of these judgments deal with sexual sins. We saw that sin is its own punishment. It promises freedom, but it enslaves. It entices us by making us think that it will bring happiness and fulfillment, and for a short time, it is pleasurable (Heb. 11:25). But the long-term effects of sin are devastating. It dishonors our bodies, defiles our conscience, destroys loving relationships, tears apart families, eats away at the foundation of society, and results in God’s temporal and ultimately eternal judgment.
John MacArthur (gty.org/Resources/Sermons/45-15_ Abandoned-by-God-Part-2) cites Thomas Watson, who said, “Sin puts gravel in our bread and wormwood in our cup.” Commenting on the phrase, “God gave them over,” MacArthur continues (ibid.),
And so man is turned over to the law of his own sinfulness and its compounded consequences.
And people really don’t like it. They run off to the psychiatrist, the psychologist, the analyst. They run off to take a vacation to try to forget. They travel. They entertain themselves. They drink. They take drugs. They seek alleviation of the consequences of sin every way possible. But have you noticed how utterly impossible it is? In fact, the highest suicide rate in America among any profession is that of psychiatrists who not only can’t help people but can’t help themselves. And this is the judgment of God upon them, that there is no way out of the inevitable consequence of their sinfulness. There’s no alleviation. There’s no freedom from the bondage. There’s no limiting of the pain. There’s no easing of the guilt because they’re turned over to wrath. And so it is the divine act of judgment on them that they are doomed to compound their sinfulness and have to endure all of its consequences.
With that as a review and introduction, we continue our study by looking at Paul’s third example of God giving sinners over:
If Paul had stopped after verses 24-25, many of us could think, “Preach it, brother! Hit all those sexually immoral people! I’m glad that I’ve never fallen into adultery or gross sexual sin!” And, if he had stopped after verses 26-27, many more could say, “Yes, Paul—give it to those homosexuals! They need to hear about God’s judgment on their sin.” We smugly would be thinking, “I’m glad that I’ve never desired to practice that sin!”
But Paul doesn’t stop there! He keeps going by moving from the area of sexual sins to that of relational sins. While some of them, like murder or being a hater of God, sound extreme, before we congratulate ourselves on never doing these sins, we need to remember Jesus’ teaching, that if we’ve ever been angry with our brother, we have committed murder in God’s sight (Matt. 5:21-22). If we do not put God in first place in every area of our lives, and honor and obey Him as He deserves, we really hate Him (Rom. 8:7; John 14:15). So as we work through Paul’s long list of sins that mark those whom God has given over to a depraved mind, if we’re honest we will recognize that he is describing our sins. Thus we need daily to apply the gospel to our hearts.
Paul traces four steps in the downward spiral:
“They did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer….” As we saw last time, “they” can refer to the entire human race after the fall. On another level, it refers to certain civilizations that have turned their backs on God. Or on an individual level, it applies to those who go headlong into sin. “God” is in the emphatic position in the sentence, indicating that it was no less than God, the Creator (1:25), whom they no longer saw fit to acknowledge (Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans [Apollos/Eerdmans], p. 93).
The Greek word translated “see fit” means to approve by testing. It was used of testing metals like gold to see if they were genuine. So Paul means that these sinners tested God and concluded, “He’s not real.” And so they rejected Him. Maybe they prayed and asked God to spare the life of a little child or a loved one, but that person died. Maybe they asked Him to deliver them from some problem, but things only got worse. So they concluded that God must not be genuine. They shut Him out of their lives.
At the root of this is that they were sitting in judgment on God. He was on trial and they determined that He is a phony. So rather than seeking to know God and submit to His ways, as revealed in His Word, they did not see fit to hold Him in their knowledge. They thought, “If God is like that, if He doesn’t relieve my suffering, then I don’t want to know Him.” So they cast Him aside like fool’s gold. They shut Him out of their lives.
That is always the first step in sin: Rather than submit to God by obedience to His Word and by persevering through trials, we turn our backs on Him. We decide that we know better than He does about how to be happy. So we move ahead without God.
“God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper.” As we saw last time, God’s giving sinners over to the consequences of their sin does not imply that He is in any way responsible for their sin. Rather, He lifts His restraining hand and perhaps gives them a gentle push out the door, saying, “If you want to sin, go for it!” He consigns them to their self-willed rebellion, with all of the horrible consequences. Sin is its own punishment, as we will see again in verses 29-31.
There is a play on words in the Greek text here. Just as sinners tested God and rejected Him, so God gave them over to minds that were tested and found false. They did not see fit to acknowledge God, so God gave them over to unfit minds. William Newell (Romans Verse by Verse [Moody Press], p. 34) renders it, “And just as they did not approve to have God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a mind disapproved of Him.” It means that “their minds became quite unable to make trustworthy moral judgments” (Morris, p. 94). “Those things which are not proper” refers to “that which is offensive to man even according to the popular moral sense of the Gentiles, i.e., what even natural human judgment regards as vicious and wrong” (H. Schlier, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. by Gerhard Kittel [Eerdmans], 3:440).
All sin begins in the mind or heart. Jesus said (Mark 7:21-23), “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.” Many of these sins that Jesus lists overlap with Paul’s list here. But the point is, sin warps our thinking so that we do not see it from God’s perspective. We begin to think that sin is not so bad, because it will get us what we really want in life. So we justify ourselves and blame others.
For example, maybe you start thinking, “I deserve a better wife than this nagging, complaining woman that I live with. I’m a good man. I’ve treated her right, but all I get is griping.” At this point, in your mind you are not acknowledging God and His Word, which tells you to love your wife sacrificially and help her become holy. When you do that, you’re a sitting duck for Satan to bring along a kind, understanding woman at work, who is divorced from her abusive husband. She’s looking for a good man just like you! So you fall into adultery and divorce. It all started in your mind.
So sin begins when we deliberately shut God out of our lives. It becomes entrenched when God gives us over to depraved, spiritually unfit minds.
The manuscripts behind the King James translation add the word “immorality” after “unrighteousness,” but it is probably not in the original text. Paul has just dealt with immorality in 1:24-27. So the list contains 21 different sins. Paul has many other such lists (Rom. 13:13; 1 Cor. 5:10-11; 6:9-10; 2 Cor. 12:20; Gal. 5:19-21; Eph. 4:19, 31; 5:3-5; Col. 3:5, 8; 1 Tim. 1:9-10; 6:4-5; 2 Tim. 3:2-5; Titus 3:3). He isn’t saying that every sinner is guilty of every one of these sins, but rather that the human race is guilty of sin in thought, word and deed. The list contains representative examples. All of the sins except for “haters of God” are relationally destructive sins. When we practice them, our families and our entire society suffer.
A cursory reading of terms like “envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, gossips, and slanderers” reminds us “that evildoers are not just one happy band of brothers” (Morris, p. 96). Sinners are out to get their way, even if it means destroying the reputation or even the lives of rivals who get in the way.
The first four terms come under the description, “being filled with,” and are general words for sin: “unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, and evil.” Then Paul says, “full of,” followed by five terms (in the genitive), “envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice.” Those terms, “filled with” and “full of,” indicate that these sinners did not just have a slight tendency or inclination towards these sins. Then there are 12 words (in the accusative, in apposition to “they”). The last four words in this group (1:31) all begin with the Greek alpha-privative, which negates the word it is added to. The NIV tries to capture this in English with, “senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.” Let’s look briefly at each term (following the NASB):
*“Unrighteousness”—is a general term for sin. William Barclay (The Letter to the Romans [Westminster, revised], p. 34) says that this word refers to “the man who robs both man and God of their rights. He has so erected an altar to himself in the center of things that he worships himself to the exclusion of God and man.”
*“Wickedness”—This word often is used to describe Satan, the evil one, “who deliberately attacks and aims to destroy the goodness of men.” It refers to “the active, deliberate will to corrupt and to inflict injury” (Barclay, ibid.).
*“Greed”—“means the inordinate desire to have more. It is selfishness unlimited…. This covetous person pursues his own desires with a complete disregard of the effect on other people. He does not care about others but is a complete egotist” (Morris, p. 96).
*“Evil”—“is the most general Greek word for badness. It describes the case of a man who is destitute of every quality which would make him good” (Barclay, p. 35). The scale of his life has tipped toward the worse.
*“Envy”—Aristotle distinguishes “envy” from “jealousy.” He says that jealousy is the desire to have what another man possesses, without necessarily bearing a grudge against him for having it. But envy wants to deprive the other man of the desired thing more than to gain it for oneself. Xenophon said, “The envious are those who are annoyed only at their friends’ successes” (D. H. Field, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, ed. by Colin Brown [Zondervan], 1:557).
*“Murder”—Envy often results in murder (Mark 15:10). As we’ve seen, Jesus extended this sin to being angry with someone else (Matt. 5:21-22). So the seeds of murder lie in all of our hearts.
*“Strife”—is “the contention which is born of envy, ambition, the desire for prestige, and place and prominence” (Barclay, p. 35). All of these sins stem from selfishness.
*“Deceit”—is the word used for bait for fishing. It refers to any deliberate attempt to mislead someone for your own advantage. Morris observes (p. 96), “There is nothing straightforward about sin, and sinners do not hesitate to deceive one another if their purposes can be advanced.”
*“Malice”—is “conscious and intentional wickedness” (Morris, p. 97, citing TDNT, 3:485). Aristotle defined it as “the spirit which always supposes the worst about other people” (Barclay, p. 36). It is the opposite of biblical love, which thinks the best about others unless there is solid evidence to the contrary (1 Cor. 13:7).
*“Gossips”—is literally, “whisperers.” It refers to the one who likes secretly to spread malicious stories about others. Since he speaks in secret, the one whom he speaks against cannot defend himself, since he doesn’t know about the falsehood being spread.
*“Slanderers”—refers to someone who openly speaks evil against someone, intending to hurt his reputation.
*“Haters of God”—This is the one term directly aimed at God, not at others. He sees God as “the barrier between him and his pleasures” (Barclay, p 37). God is out to spoil his fun.
*“Insolent”—“refers to a lofty sense of superiority out of which the insolent person treats all others as beneath him” (Morris, pp. 97-98). This person is “so proud that he defies God.” He is cruel and insulting (Barclay, p. 37).
*“Arrogant”—is the word used three times in Scripture when it says that “God opposes the proud” (Prov. 3:34; James 4:6; 1 Pet. 5:5). It refers to a man who has “a certain contempt for everyone” except himself (Barclay, p. 37).
*“Boastful”—came from a word meaning “wandering.” It referred to wandering merchants who would make extravagant claims for their products that could not be substantiated (Morris, p. 98).
*“Inventors of evil”—are not content with usual ways of sinning, so they invent new, outrageous sins that push the limit.
*“Disobedient to parents”—This sin strikes at the heart of family solidarity. “It implies a lack of gratitude and a contempt for family authority” (Morris, p. 98).
*“Without understanding”—refers to those who act stupidly, especially in the moral realm. They do not fear God, which is the beginning of wisdom (Ps. 111:10).
*“Untrustworthy”—refers to those who break covenants. They don’t keep their word. They don’t do what they promise and then they make up excuses for why they didn’t do it.
*“Unloving”—means “without natural affection.” It refers to parents who do not love their children or to children who hate their parents or to brothers and sisters who fight with each other.
*“Unmerciful”—refers to someone lacking compassion and kindness for others. Morris says (p. 99), “It is significant that, in an epistle that will stress God’s mercy throughout, the list of vices should be rounded off with ‘merciless.’ This is the very depth of evil. The person who shows no mercy can scarcely go lower.”
Paul isn’t saying that every society is marked by being full of all of these sins. So what’s his point? John Piper answers (desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/BySeries/2/1056_The_Perils_of_Disapproving_God/), “The point, I think, is to give us enough examples to show that virtually every form of evil has to do with God and comes from failing to know him and approve him and love him above all things. In other words, he gives us a sweeping array of evils to waken us to the fact that the ruin of any area of life is owing to the abandonment of God.”
But we haven’t hit bottom yet! Paul adds one more point:
“And although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.” What a description of our society! People know God’s moral standards through conscience or a general sense of right and wrong. Maybe they know about the Ten Commandments. But even though God’s Word threatens eternal death for those who break these commandments, these sinners cast off all restraint. They thumb their noses at God as they revel in their sin. And they’re happy to see others sinning. It helps ease their guilt.
The whole “gay pride” movement is a flagrant example of those who not only engage in sin privately, but openly boast of it and encourage others to do it. I recently heard of another example on NPR. It told of a computer dating web site that is devoted to helping married people who want to commit adultery link up with others who want to do the same! The owner of the site defended it as providing a service for those who were unhappy!
The danger of these lists of sin is that we read them and think, “I’ve got my faults, but thank God I’m not that bad!” But these verses should cause us all to examine our hearts and to fear sinning. W. H. Griffith Thomas wisely wrote, (St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 75), “The possibilities of evil in the human heart apart from divine grace are as real as they ever were, and no one who knows the plague of his own heart will ever dare to say that even these depths of evil are impossible, apart from the restraining influence of the grace of God.” These verses should cause us to examine whether we are truly living for God’s glory or whether we may be substituting something from the creation (ourselves, our possessions, some other person, etc.) in the place that only belongs to the Creator.
If all we had were these verses, it would be a hopeless and depressing picture. We can try to pass legislation to promote morality, but such legislation is of limited value. The sins in these verses go down to the heart level; so we need a heart solution. The only solution is the gospel that changes our hearts (1:16-17). God’s wrath is against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men (1:18), but, thank God, Christ came to die for the ungodly and unrighteous (Rom. 4:5; 5:6-8)! Romans 1:18-32 shows that God’s wrath against our sin is justified. We all deserve His judgment. But they also lead to the good news, that God has provided the righteousness we need in Jesus Christ (1:17; 3:21-26). And, this gift of righteousness is not given to those who try really hard, but rather to those who trust in Christ.
And so I conclude by asking, “Have you trusted in Jesus Christ to save you from God’s wrath?” And, “Are you applying the gospel to your daily life so that you overcome these sins that characterize the world without God?”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2010, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Waiting for his first orthodontist appointment, a 12-year-old boy was a bit nervous. He was completing a patient questionnaire and apparently had high hopes of winning the dentist’s favor. In the space marked “Hobbies” he wrote, “Swimming and flossing” (Reader’s Digest [Aug., 1994], p. 112). That humorous story reflects how we all want to portray ourselves to others as better than we really are. We all want to make a good impression!
But when we do that, we’re forgetting something important, namely, that “all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do” (Heb. 4:13). God knows the very thoughts and intentions of our hearts (Heb. 4:12). Someday we will stand before Him to give an account of our lives. So we must judge our sins on the thought level. And especially we must be on guard against the damnable sin of self-righteousness.
In Romans 1:18-32, Paul indicts the Gentiles (mainly) for their many sins: idolatry, sexual immorality, homosexuality, and a long list of destructive relational sins. Being a Jew and a former Pharisee, Paul knew that his fellow Jews would be sitting on the sidelines, cheering him on: “Give it to those pagan sinners, Paul!” They smugly would be thinking, “Thank God that I’m not like those awful Gentile sinners” (Luke 18:11).
So in chapter 2, Paul begins to zero in on the Jews. He does not begin directly (he doesn’t address them directly until 2:17), which has led to a lot of debate about whether he is addressing the moral Gentile or the Jew in these opening verses. It really doesn’t matter practically, but I think he is using the same indirect approach that the prophet Amos uses (Amos 1 & 2), where he begins by condemning the foreign nations around Israel. Just when the Jews are cheering him on, he moves in to hit them with their sins. (See, also, Nathan with David, 2 Sam. 12:1-7.)
From his own pharisaical background Paul knew that self-righteous people tend to justify themselves by blaming others. Self-righteousness is a very difficult sin to get people to see and condemn in themselves. But it’s a serious, damnable sin because it keeps people from seeing their need for the gospel. It believes the lie that we can be good enough in ourselves to qualify for heaven. Thus we don’t need a Savior who died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. “Maybe really gross sinners need a Savior. But me? Hey, I’m a basically good person! God wouldn’t judge a good guy like me, would He?” Or, would He?
If you’re tired of hearing about God’s judgment, I’m sorry, but clearly it’s a major theme of our text. Paul refers to “the judgment of God” in 2:2, 3, and 5, plus he refers to condemning yourself (2:1) and “storing up wrath for the day of wrath” (2:5). So it’s hard to dodge Paul’s message:
If you do not repent of your self-righteous hypocrisy, you are storing up wrath for the day of judgment.
I was going to say “we” instead of “you,” but I changed it because Paul does. In chapter 1, he speaks of “they.” But in chapter 2, he directly addresses his reader as “you.” He’s going from preaching to meddling! He knows that it is easy to be blind to this deadly sin of self-righteousness, so he reaches out, grabs us by the lapels, shakes us a bit, and says, “I’m talking to you! Listen up!” He makes four points in his indictment. I’m going to follow Paul by using the more direct “you” instead of “we.”
“Therefore, you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.”
It is difficult to understand the connection of “therefore.” Probably it refers back to the overall theme of 1:18-32, that God’s wrath is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Therefore, when seemingly moral people condemn other sinners, but then it comes out that they are practicing the very same sins, it renders them without excuse before God. By practicing the same sins, Paul probably is not referring to the more outwardly flagrant sins of idolatry, sexual immorality, and homosexuality (1:24-27), which are not so common among religious people, but rather to the relational sins (1:29-31), of which we all are guilty.
Paul is pointing out how prone we all are to condemn others and justify ourselves, even though we’re guilty of the same sins that we’re condemning in others. I read about a man who was a Republican Party chairman of a county in Florida who sued a former GOP county executive committee member for defamation because he sent out a letter to state party officials accusing the chairman of having been married six times. The chairman called the charge “unconscionable,” and stated that the correct number of marriages is five. He declared, “I believe in family values” (in FlagLive [12/29/05-1/4/06]).
We need to understand that Paul isn’t condemning the act of judging others per se, in that he expects his Jewish readers to agree with him that the sins of the Gentiles (1:24-32) are wrong. The problem with judging others is when you secretly engage in the same behavior that you openly condemn. When a pastor berates sexual immorality from the pulpit, but then it comes out that he secretly looks at porn, he has condemned himself. When a politician postures himself as standing for family values, but it comes out that he snuck off to visit his mistress in South America, he has condemned himself.
Probably one of the most frequently used, but misapplied, verses in the Bible is Matthew 7:1, “Do not judge so that you will not be judged.” If people would keep reading, they would see that in verse 6 Jesus tells us not to give what is holy to dogs or to cast our pearls before swine. He was not talking about literal dogs and swine, but rather about people who are dogs and swine. To obey that verse, you have to judge whether a person is a dog or a swine. Then, in verse 15, Jesus warns about false prophets who come as wolves in sheep’s clothing. You have to judge carefully to conclude, “This isn’t a sheep—this is a wolf masquerading as a sheep!” The point is clear: if you don’t make correct judgments about others, you’ll be eaten by wolves! Also, Paul tells us that we are responsible to judge those in the church who profess to be believers, but who are living in sin (1 Cor. 5:9-13).
So in Romans 2:1, Paul is not saying that it is wrong to judge others. Rather, he is saying that it is wrong self-righteously to judge others, while at the same time you’re practicing the sins that you’re judging. We could come up with more, but let me give you five marks of a self-righteous hypocrite by which to evaluate yourself. (If you apply these to your spouse, then you are one!)
(1) A self-righteous hypocrite judges the sins of others while overlooking his own sins. As Jesus says (Matt. 7:5), “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” Someone has defined a hypocrite as the guy who complains that there is too much sex and violence on his DVD player! (Reader’s Digest, Oct., 1991, p. 183; I changed VCR to DVD.)
(2) A self-righteous hypocrite judges others based on selective standards, not on all of God’s Word. One of the most helpful chapters for understanding the sin of self-righteousness is Jesus’ indictment of the Pharisees in Matthew 23. The Pharisees picked out certain parts of the Law and prided themselves on their obedience, but they neglected the weightier parts of the Law (Matt. 23:23). They tithed their table spices, but they neglected justice, mercy, and faithfulness. They invented loopholes around keeping the Law. They said that if you swore by the temple, you were not obligated to keep your word, but if you swore by the gold of the temple, you were obligated (Matt. 23:16-21).
We laugh at how stupid that sounds, but many Christians do the same thing. God’s Word tells us that God hates violence (Ps. 11:5) and that we should not even talk about immorality, impurity, or greed (Eph. 5:3). We should be innocent in what is evil (Rom. 16:19). But somehow it’s okay to fill our minds with TV shows and movies that are filled with profanity, violence, and sexual immorality. The self-righteous person picks parts of the Bible that he likes and prides himself on keeping those parts. And he condemns as “legalists” those who seek to obey all of God’s Word.
(3) A self-righteous hypocrite is more concerned about external conformity than with true, inner godliness. Jesus said (Matt. 23:28), “So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” The Pharisees were concerned that they not defile themselves for the Passover by going into Pilate’s Gentile court (John 18:28) at the same time that they were seeking to crucify the innocent Lord Jesus! Self-righteous hypocrites want to keep up outward “Christian” appearances, but they don’t judge their own sins on the heart level. They put on the happy Christian face at church, but use abusive speech with their families at home.
(4) A self-righteous hypocrite is not interested in helping others grow in godliness, but only in gaining a following. Jesus said (Matt. 23:13, 15), “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in…. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.” They didn’t care about the people or their hearts before God. They just wanted to gain followers so that they looked good.
(5) A self-righteous hypocrite justifies himself by comparing himself with others or by blaming others for his own sins. Jesus told the parable of the proud Pharisee who went to the temple and prayed, “God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get” (Luke 18:11-12). He wasn’t comparing himself with God’s Word, which condemns pride. Rather, he was comparing himself with others who, in his mind, were worse than he was. In his mind, he kept some of the Law; the tax collector didn’t keep any of it. So, on the curve, he is accepted by God, while the tax collector is rejected. But, God doesn’t grade on the curve!
This is the most common problem that I encounter when couples come to me for marriage counseling. It is also the biggest hurdle for them to get over. The husband says, “I know I’m not perfect, but I work hard to provide a good living for this woman, but all I hear is griping. When I come home after a hard day’s work, I deserve some time to watch a ball game, but she harps at me about disciplining the kids or fixing something around the house.” He justifies himself and blames her.
She does the same thing: “I’m not a perfect wife, but I work hard to make a good home for him. I do all the shopping, cook the meals, do the laundry, clean the house, and take care of the kids. All I want is a little love from him. But he just comes home and ignores me and the kids. He yells at us to be quiet. He gets mad if supper isn’t ready on time. He expects me to respond to him in the bedroom and gets upset when I’m too tired.” In her mind, she’s doing the best that she can do. The marriage problems are his fault.
They are both passing judgment on one another, while each of them is doing the same things that they are blaming their spouse of doing. If each of them would stop blaming the other and justifying himself or herself, they would see dramatic improvement in their marriage. So Paul’s point is quite practical: You are prone self-righteously to judge others for the very same sins that you commit.
“And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things. But do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God?”
Verse 2 literally reads, “the judgment of God is according to truth upon those who practice such things.” He means “that God’s judgment against sin is fully in accord with the facts, that it is just” (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 131). Paul’s hypothetical Jewish reader that he is addressing would have agreed that God’s judgment is according to the truth.
Where he would have disagreed is with Paul’s assertion that God’s righteous judgment falls on the Jews just as it falls on the Gentiles. In other words, the Jews claimed special status before God because they were His covenant people. They believed that if you were a Jew living in Palestine, you were treated as if you kept all of the commandments and were guaranteed of the life to come (Alfred Edersheim, Sketches of Jewish Social Life in the Days of Christ [Eerdmans], p. 5). But Paul applies God’s just judgment to Jew and Gentile alike and says, “If you judge others for the very sins that you commit, you’re guilty in God’s court of justice.”
At this point, Paul isn’t pointing to God’s revealed Law as the standard for judgment, although he could have done so. Rather, he is saying that if a self-righteous person judges someone else for a sin that he himself is practicing, he will not escape God’s judgment. If you condemn someone else for lying to you, but then you lie to someone else, you’ve just condemned yourself. If you berate someone who stole from you, but then you cheat the government on your taxes or steal something from your employer, you will not escape from God’s judgment. Of course, Paul is not saying that you’d escape God’s judgment if you lie or steal without judging others for those sins! Rather, he is showing that all of us have violated our own standards by doing the very things that we condemn in others. And so we are guilty before God.
“Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?”
In verse 4, Paul “introduces a rhetorical question that brings to light the false assumptions of the person who is addressed in v. 3” (Moo, p. 132). Paul is saying, “If you think that you can get away with sin because God is kind, tolerant, and patient, you’re greatly mistaken! His kindness should lead you to repentance, not to self-righteous complacency. If you go on sinning, presuming on His grace, you’re only storing up wrath for the day of judgment (2:5).”
God’s kindness, tolerance, and patience overlap somewhat, but have different nuances of meaning. His kindness points to the many good gifts that He bestows on this rebellious human race. He gives us air to breathe, food to eat, homes to live in, families that love us, beautiful scenery to enjoy, and bodies and minds that (for the most part) function as they are supposed to. He treats us far better than we deserve.
God’s tolerance points to the fact that He does not strike us dead instantly when we defiantly sin against Him. How many times we have known what is right and deliberately disobeyed! God could have struck us dead on hundreds of occasions and He would have been perfectly just, but He did not. He is tolerant.
God’s patience is similar to His tolerance. The word literally means “long on wrath,” or slow to anger. He gives us opportunity after opportunity to repent, without inflicting judgment.
God doesn’t just trickle these benefits on sinners. Rather, He gives them richly. But the problem is, sinners mistakenly think that because they experience all of these blessings and God’s judgment has not hit them yet, He must think that they’re okay. They won’t face His judgment, because they aren’t really bad sinners, like the pagans that Paul has just described in chapter 1. But Paul says, “If you think that God’s kindness, tolerance, and patience mean that you will escape His final judgment, you’re in big trouble! God is kind, tolerant, and patient so that you will repent!”
Thus, you are prone to self-righteously judge others for the very sins that you commit (2:1). Such self-righteous hypocrisy brings you under God’s judgment (2:2-3). Don’t mistake God’s kindness to mean that you will escape His judgment. He is only giving you time to repent (2:4). Finally,
“But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.”
Frederic Godet (Commentary on Romans [Kregel], p. 116) captures the grim irony of Paul’s words, “Every favor trampled under foot adds to the treasure of wrath which is already suspended over the heads of the impenitent people.” James Boice (Romans Baker], 1:220) pictures it as a miser who for years stores his horde of gold coins in the attic above his bed. It’s his treasure. But then one night, the weight of all that gold breaks through the ceiling and comes crashing on his head, killing him. He thought he was storing up treasure, but he was only adding to his own judgment.
It’s the same for the self-righteous person who presumes on God’s kindness and patience. He judges others, but does not judge his own sin. He goes on in his pride, thinking that his outward righteousness is amassing a great treasure in heaven. But, actually, he is amassing a “treasure” of wrath for the judgment day!
Note that Paul isn’t talking here to idolaters or to the sexually immoral. He’s talking to the moral, religious person. Also, the day of wrath points to its certainty. There will be a day of wrath for those who have not repented of their sins, especially the sin of self-righteousness. It’s on God’s calendar. “He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness …” (Acts 17:31). Since it is absolutely certain, we need to be ready for it. How?
The problem that we’ve got to deal with is our hard, unrepentant hearts. The word “stubbornness” (NASB) comes from a Greek word from which we get our word sclerosis. It means spiritual hardening of the heart. Repentance (2:4) is a change of heart and mind that causes us to turn from sin to God, not just outwardly, but on the heart level. It includes sorrow for our sins and the resolve to turn from them. We don’t just do it once, when we come to Christ. Rather, it is the ongoing mark of true conversion. True Christians habitually judge their own sins on the heart (or thought) level, based on the standards of God’s Word. That includes the damnable sin of self-righteousness, which stems from pride. True Christians are marked by broken and contrite hearts before God (Ps. 51:17).
A man complained about the amount of time his family spent in front of the TV. His girls watched cartoons and neglected schoolwork. His wife preferred soap operas to housework. His solution? “As soon as the baseball season’s over, I’m going to pull the plug” (Reader’s Digest, June, 1981, p. 99). How easy it is to fall into this deadly sin of self-righteousness!
God’s solution is to deal with our sins on the heart level before Him. Come to Christ and confess your sins, turning from them, and He will forgive and cleanse you from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). Spend time daily in His Word. It’s like looking in the mirror and applying soap and water to the dirt in your soul. Don’t play games with God. His kindness should lead you to genuine, ongoing repentance.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2010, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
During my college years, several of my friends and I knew an attractive coed who was Roman Catholic. She called us her “minister friends,” because we were always talking to her about the gospel. After hours of spiritual conversations, I persuaded her to read the Gospel of John. I told her that as she read, she should ask God to show her how she could have eternal life.
Shortly after that she came up to me beaming and said, “I did as you said. I asked God to show me how to have eternal life, and He did!” I thought, “Yes! She came to John 3:16 and discovered that those who believe in Jesus have eternal life!” But instead, she took me to John 5:28-29, where Jesus says, “… for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.” She said, “I will get eternal life if I do good deeds!”
How would you have answered her? That sounds like what Jesus is teaching there. And, it seems to be what Paul is teaching in our text. He says that those who persevere in doing good receive eternal life. Those who do evil will incur God’s wrath. Is salvation by grace through faith alone, as the Reformers insisted? Or is it by grace through faith plus works, as the Roman Catholic Church has taught?
It’s not just an academic question, because your eternal destiny depends on getting it right! Paul damned the Judaizers for perverting the gospel because they added just one biblical “work” (circumcision) to the gospel (Gal. 1:6-9). So we need to get the gospel right. We need to know for sure that when we stand before God for judgment, it will go well. You don’t get a makeup exam!
Our text continues a sentence that begins in verse 5: “But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each person according to his deeds.” So verses 6-11 elaborate on “the righteous judgment of God.”
Thomas Schreiner (The Law and Its Fulfillment [Baker], p. 190) explains, “The primary purpose of Romans 2 is to prove that the Jews are guilty before God, for they transgressed the revelation they received, just as the Gentiles rejected the revelation they received (1:18-32).” Charles Simeon says that Paul is countering the pervasive Jewish view “that no Jew could perish, except through apostasy or idolatry; and that no Gentile could be saved, but by subjecting himself to the institutions and observances of the Mosaic ritual” (Expository Outlines on the Whole Bible [Zondervan], 15:36).
So Paul is arguing that being Jewish doesn’t get you any special favors come judgment day. In fact, it gets you to the front of the line because you’ve been given more spiritual privileges! We can apply that to being raised in a Christian home in a country where you can readily hear the gospel. If you do not respond to those privileges, they render you more guilty on judgment day than if you had never known the truth. Paul’s point here is:
Since God will impartially judge each person according to his deeds, we must persevere in doing good.
The text follows a chiastic structure (adapted from Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 135):
A. God will judge everyone according to his deeds (2:6).
B. Those who do good will attain eternal life (2:7).
C. Those who do evil will incur wrath (2:8).
C’. Those who do evil will suffer tribulation (2:9).
B’. Those who do good will receive glory (2:10).
A’. God will judge everyone impartially (2:11).
The main point is at the beginning and the end, that God will judge each person impartially according to his deeds (Moo, p. 136). First let’s look at what the text teaches. Then we’ll try to understand how this fits with Paul’s teaching that we are saved by grace through faith alone, apart from our works.
Hebrew 9:27 makes this point: “… it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment.” That verse refutes reincarnation. Our text (and every other Scripture that touches on this topic) shows clearly that there are two and only two destinations after death: eternal life or eternal wrath. Some argue that the wicked will be annihilated after a time of punishment. Frankly, that would be an easier view to accept than the eternality of hell. But in Matthew 25:46, Jesus contrasts the punishment of the wicked with the reward of the righteous: “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Eternal is the same word both times. According to Jesus, life is eternal and punishment is eternal. In Romans 2, Paul contrasts these two eternal destinies:
Eternal life means, life pertaining to the age to come, and since that age will not end, it means life that goes on forever (Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 117). But also, it refers to the quality of life in the very presence of God. As Jesus prayed (John 17:3), “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” As such, eternal life begins the moment that we come to know God through faith in Jesus Christ. It grows sweeter as we grow to know Him better in this life. But it will be indescribably deepened and forever expanded the moment we step into God’s presence in eternity, free from all sin.
Paul describes this eternal life by four words: glory, honor, and immortality (2:7); and, peace (2:10). Glory refers to the hope of all believers, that we will be transformed into the image of God’s Son, so that God’s glory will be reflected in us (Rom. 5:2; 8:18, 21, 29-30; 9:23; 1 Cor. 2:7; 15:43; 2 Cor. 3:12-18; 4:17; Col. 3:4).
Honor is similar to glory, and focuses on the approval that God will give us in contrast with the scorn that the world gives us now and the eternal disgrace that God will pour out on the wicked (1 Pet. 1:7). To receive honor will be to hear from the Lord Jesus, “Well done, good and faithful slave…. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matt. 25:21). All glory and honor that we receive in heaven we will immediately turn back in praise to the risen Lamb as we sing (Rev. 4:11), “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed and were created.”
Immortality refers to the hope of the resurrection, when we will receive new bodies that are not subject to disease, aging, and death (1 Cor. 15:42, 50, 52-54). Paul says that those who seek for glory, honor, and immortality receive eternal life (2:7). But in the parallel verse (2:10), he mentions glory and honor, but substitutes peace for immortality.
Peace refers to “peace with God and peace of heart and mind in the full enjoyment of God to all eternity” (John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 67). It is the eternal peace of “deliverance from sin and its conflicts” (James Boice, Romans [Baker], 1:227). These four terms show that as believers, our hope is not in this short life, but in eternal life with God. Thus, as Paul says (Col. 3:1-4), we should be seeking the things above, where Christ is, because when He appears, “then you also will be revealed with Him in glory” (Col. 3:4).
But, Paul also mentions the other eternal destiny:
Paul says that the wicked (we will look at their characteristics later) receive “wrath and indignation” from God (2:8), resulting in “tribulation and distress” for them (2:9). Wrath is the usual word for God’s settled and abiding opposition to sin, with the purpose of revenge (R. C. Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament [Eerdmans], p. 131). God warns (Rom. 12:19), “‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord.” Indignation indicates the more turbulent, boiling agitation of the feelings (ibid.). Wrath, as in Romans 1:18 (same word), is God’s abiding anger towards the ungodly, whereas indignation points to the outbreak of His anger on the day of judgment (Alford, cited by William Newell, Romans Verse by Verse [Moody Press], p. 60, footnote).
Tribulation and distress describe the trauma experienced by those who are the objects of God’s wrath and indignation. Tribulation means “pressure,” and is illustrated by a form of capital punishment in ancient England where the victim had heavy weights placed on his chest to crush him to death (Trench, p. 203). Distress refers to restriction or confinement. It is illustrated by the torture that Queen Elizabeth used on some of her victims, who were placed in a room so small that they could not stand, sit, or lie at full length (Trench, pp. 203-204). Together, Paul uses both words here to describe the eternal punishment for “every soul of man who does evil.” Soul here refers to the entire person. Those in hell will suffer conscious torment “away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power” (2 Thess. 1:9). The Bible consistently uses frightening descriptions of the agonies of hell to warn, “You don’t want to go there!”
Thus Paul clearly says that every person will stand before God in judgment, resulting in either eternal life or eternal wrath.
Romans 2:6 is a quote from the LXX (Greek OT) of Psalm 62:12 and/or Proverbs 24:12 (English Bible references). There are three things to note about God’s judgment of our deeds:
Leon Morris explains (p. 116),
It is the invariable teaching of the Bible and not the peculiar viewpoint of any one writer or group of writers that judgment will be on the basis of works, though salvation is all of grace. Works are important. They are the outward expression of what the person is deep down. In the believer they are the expression of faith, in the unbeliever the expression of unbelief and that whether by way of legalism or antinomianism.
I can’t be exhaustive here, but let me give a few references from both the Old and New Testaments that show this point.
Jeremiah 17:10: “I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds.”
Jeremiah 32:19, the prophet in prayer describes God as “giving to everyone according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds.”
Ezekiel 33:20, the Lord says, “O house of Israel, I will judge each of you according to his ways.”
Matthew 16:27, Jesus says, “For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then repay every man according to his deeds.”
2 Cor. 5:10, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”
Galatians 6:7-8, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.”
Ephesians 5:6, after describing the evil deeds of the wicked, Paul warns, “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.”
Revelation 2:23, after telling how He will judge those who join in the immorality and idolatry of “the woman Jezebel,” the Lord warns the church in Thyatira, “I will give to each one of you according to your deeds.”
Revelation 20:12, at the great white throne judgment, “the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.”
Revelation 22:12, Jesus says, “Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done.”
(See, also, Job 34:10-12; Ps. 28:4; Jer. 25:14; 51:24; Hos. 12:2; Matt. 25:31-46; John 5:28-29; 1 Cor. 3:8; 2 Cor. 11:15; Eph. 6:8; Col. 1:21-23; 3:5-6, 24; 2 Tim. 4:14.)
So the uniform teaching of Scripture is that God will judge each of us according to our deeds.
“Each person” shows that this is individual judgment, not corporate or national. Paul uses the same phrase in 2 Corinthians 5:10, “each one may be recompensed for his deeds ….” Or, in Matthew 16:27 and in Revelation 22:12, Jesus says He will render to every man according to his deeds.
This is inherent in the fact that God is a righteous judge. As Abraham pleads with God prior to the destruction of Sodom (Gen. 18:25), “Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?” Again, there are many verses in both the Old and New Testaments that show that God judges impartially (Deut. 10:17; 2 Chron. 19:7; Job 34:19; Acts 10:34; Gal. 2:6; Eph. 6:9; Col. 3:25; 1 Pet. 1:17). Here, Paul especially is saying to the Jews that they will not get special treatment because of their being children of Abraham (Matt. 3:9). When he says (2:9, 10), “to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (= Gentile), he means that the Jews were first in privileges, in that God chose to reveal Himself to them and bring the Savior through them; so they will be first in either judgment or salvation.
In the same way today, growing up in a Christian home gives you greater access to salvation, if you repent of your sins and believe in Christ. But it also exposes you to greater judgment if you neglect this privilege. But the point is, God will impartially judge each person according to his or her deeds.
Note how Paul describes the two groups:
We’ve already looked at the meaning of glory, honor, and immortality. Here I just note that those who persevere in doing good seek these eternal blessings. Perseverance indicates lifelong persistence in the face of opposition, hardship, and discouragement. It isn’t referring to perfection, but rather to direction (seek) over the long haul. It’s a path or journey that one commits to, much as John Bunyan describes Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress. If the pilgrim gets off the path into By-Path Meadow or Doubting Castle, he persists until he gets back on the path to the Celestial City.
Scholars debate about the meaning of the word translated selfishly ambitious. Most now take it that way, although some think it has the nuance of factious or contentious. Paul lists it as a deed of the flesh (Gal. 5:20), where the NASB renders it, disputes. He also uses it (Phil. 1:17) to describe those who opposed him by proclaiming Christ “out of selfish ambition rather than from pure motives.” Whatever the translation, the word points to those who are selfish in their motivation. They do what they do to promote themselves or to feed their pride. They do not live for God’s glory. God will judge not only outward behavior, but also our motives—why we do what we do.
Paul also says (2:8) that they “do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness.” They “do evil” (2:9). They do not submit to God’s Word and seek to please Him by obeying His commands. Rather, they live to please themselves in disregard of God’s Word.
So, at this point the crucial question is, Which path are you on? Are you doing good as you seek for glory, honor, and immortality? Or, are you doing evil as you live for yourself, disobey God’s truth, and obey unrighteousness? Maybe you’re thinking, “I kind of do both, depending on the situation!” But you can’t straddle the line! You can’t go down two roads heading in opposite directions at once. You’ve got to choose the path of righteousness that leads to eternal life and then persevere on that path. So, how do you get on the right path?
Here is where we come to grips with the question, Is Paul contradicting himself? Is he saying here that we’re saved by works? But later, he clearly says that we’re saved by faith (Rom. 3:20-28; 4:4-5; Gal. 3:11; Eph. 2:8-9; Phil. 3:9; etc.). Which is it?
I assume that Paul was smart enough not to contradict himself in the space of a couple of chapters. He has already said (Rom. 1:16) that the gospel “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (the same phrase that he uses twice in our text). The power of God that saves us is not anything that sinful people can effect by their works. It is God’s resurrection power by which He imparts new life to those who were dead in their sins (Eph. 1:19; 2:1-6). God speaks and creates light out of darkness. He makes us new creatures (2 Cor. 4:4-6; 5:17). He changes our hearts, giving us new desires. Formerly, we loved the darkness and hated the light, but after God saves us, we hate the darkness and love the light (John 3:20-21; Eph. 5:8-14). By nature, “there is none who seeks for God” (Rom. 3:10). But here we see people who persevere in seeking for glory, honor, and immortality, which can only come from God. What explains the change? They have experienced the power of God in salvation by believing in Jesus Christ.
Genuine saving faith always results in a life of good deeds. Good deeds are not the basis of salvation, but rather the evidence of it. As Paul clearly puts it (Eph. 2:8-10), “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”
Good works do not earn salvation, but they are the essential evidence that a person is on the path to glory, honor, and immortality. We have to lean on God’s grace not only for salvation, but also for perseverance in good works. So we will be judged by our works, which reveal whether our faith in Christ is genuine or mere empty profession. Paul and James say the same thing: your faith is demonstrated by your works.
Two concluding thoughts:
First, to think that that you will get into heaven without good works because you prayed a prayer once or because you claim to believe in Jesus is foolish. Jesus said (Matt. 7:21-23), “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.’” Genuine conversion means that God has changed your heart. If the direction of your life is not to “do good” out of love for God, you need to repent of your sins and trust in Jesus for salvation.
Second, live with your sights on eternity and the hope of hearing “well done” from the Lord who knows your heart. Would you have lived differently last week if your mind had been on that great day when you stand before Christ? Would you have spent your time differently? Would you have treated others differently? If God exists and He promises to reward those who persevere in doing good and to punish those who live selfishly in sin, it is foolish to live for this short life only. Since God will impartially judge each person according to his deeds, persevere in doing good in light of eternity!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2010, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
If you’ve talked with people about the gospel, you’ve heard the question, “Is God fair to judge those who have never heard about Jesus Christ?” Will they go to hell because they did not believe in Jesus when they never heard of Him? Another variation of the question is, “Won’t those who have done the best that they could do get into heaven?”
In Romans 2:12-16, Paul is establishing the point of verse 11, “For there is no partiality with God.” God will judge everyone with perfect justice. Paul is anticipating a Jewish objection, “But surely God will treat us more favorably than the pagan Gentiles. We know God’s ways as revealed in His Law, but they don’t!” Or, perhaps a Gentile would object, “It’s not fair for God to judge me for disobeying a standard that I knew nothing about! I’ve done the best that I could with what I knew. God won’t judge me, will He?”
So Paul shows that God will impartially judge everyone for sinning against the light that they were given. His line of reasoning goes like this: The Gentile sinned without the Law, so he will perish without the Law. The Jew sinned under the Law and so he will be judged by the Law (2:12). In other words, as verse 6 stated, God “will render to each person according to his deeds.” Hearing the Law isn’t good enough; you must be a doer of the Law (2:13). Although the Gentiles did not have God’s Law, they all have an inner sense of right and wrong (2:14). And, although occasionally they may do what is right, they all have sinned against what they know to be right. Their consciences and thoughts convict them of their guilt (2:15). But whatever they may think of themselves, the day is coming when God will judge not only outward deeds, but also the secrets of men through Jesus Christ, in accordance with the gospel (2:16). To sum up, Paul is saying:
Since God will impartially judge everyone for sinning against what they know to be right, everyone is guilty and thus everyone needs the gospel.
These verses are not easy to interpret and so godly scholars differ on many issues. There are two main views, going back into the verses that we covered in 2:6-11. One camp argues that verses 7, 10, and 13 are hypothetical. That is to say, if anyone actually could persevere in doing good and obeying the Law, he would be saved by his obedience. But no one is able to do it, so no one can be justified by keeping God’s Law (Rom. 3:20). Justification is only through faith in Christ, apart from works (Rom. 4:4-5).
True, says the other camp, but genuine saving faith always results in a life of obedience to God’s Word (Eph. 2:8-10). We are not saved on the basis of our good deeds, but our good deeds necessarily show the validity of our faith (James 2:18-26). Thus while we are saved by faith alone, we will be judged by our works. Because (as we saw last week) this is the consistent teaching of all of Scripture, Paul is not talking here about something hypothetical.
Rather, he is showing that God’s impartial judgment of all people will be on the basis of their works. Those who are doers of God’s Word will be acquitted and go to heaven. Those who disobey God’s Word will be condemned and go to hell. At this point Paul is not looking at how a person enters into a life of obedience, but rather at the results of it. As we saw last time (and will see again today), we can only live in obedience to God if we have experienced the new birth through faith in Christ. Thus verse 13 (as also 2:7 & 10) is not talking about sinless perfection, but rather about direction. Those who live on the path of obedience to God’s Word are those who will be justified at the final judgment.
Let’s trace Paul’s argument verse by verse:
“For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law.”
“For” shows that Paul is explaining verse 11, “For there is no partiality with God.” Verse 12 means that God will judge each person according to the light that he was given. The Gentiles, who did not have the Law, will be judged apart from the Law. The Jews, who received God’s Law, will be judged by that Law. But, note carefully: Both groups have sinned and both groups will be judged for their sin. The Gentiles who sinned without the Law will perish, which refers to eternal condemnation. We have to wait until verses 14 & 15 to answer the question, “How could the Gentiles be guilty of sin if they didn’t have the standard of God’s Law to live by?” But the point of verse 12 is that God will judge every person, Gentile or Jew, according to their response to the light that they were given. So God can’t be accused of partiality.
Jesus taught the same thing in a passage that boggles your brain as you try to grasp it. In Matthew 11:20-24 we read:
Then He began to denounce the cities in which most of His miracles were done, because they did not repent. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Nevertheless I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will descend to Hades; for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day. Nevertheless I say to you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for you.”
Jesus is saying that there will be degrees of punishment in hell, based on the amount of light that a person has rejected. Those who witnessed Jesus’ miracles and yet rejected Him will be judged more harshly than those in Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom, who never heard about Jesus. What is brain-boggling is that Jesus knew how the pagans in those cities would have responded if they had witnessed His miracles. And, in the case of Sodom, He easily could have had the angels who went there to destroy the city perform enough miracles to bring them to faith. But He did not do that! Sodom did not repent and was judged on the basis of the light they rejected. They will spend eternity in hell for their sins. But their judgment will be lighter than that of the people of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, who witnessed Jesus’ miracles, but still rejected Him.
But don’t let this be a fascinating brain-teaser without applying it: How much light have you received? Have you responded to the light you have received by repenting of your sins and trusting in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord? If not, what kind of judgment will you face when you stand before God?
“… for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified.”
Paul again uses “for” (see also, 2:11, 12, and 14) to show that he is explaining or proving what he has just said. The Jews boasted in having God’s Law. They heard it read every week in their synagogues. But Paul says, “Hearing it is not enough. Hearing the Law doesn’t put you in God’s favor ahead of the Gentiles, who have not heard the Law. The issue is, doing it. Only those who do God’s Law will be acquitted or justified on judgment day.”
Again, many commentators understand Paul here to be speaking hypothetically, in that no one is able to keep God’s Law perfectly or to earn salvation by good works. As Romans 3:20 says, “by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight.” Paul’s argument in Romans 1:18-3:20 is that all have sinned and thus all need God’s saving grace through the gift of His Son, who died to redeem sinners who trust in Him. No one can earn right standing before God by good works.
But, while that is clear, there are reasons to argue that Paul is not talking here about hypothetical perfect obedience, which no one can do, but rather about a direction of obedience, which those who have been born of God’s Spirit do practice consistently.
For one thing, this agrees with the uniform teaching of the Bible, that God will judge everyone impartially by his works (see last week’s sermon). A person’s works reveal the reality of his faith. Works are the inevitable and essential proof of saving faith (Eph. 2:8-10). Paul is not saying that a person earns justification by obedience. Rather, he is describing those who will be justified by God on judgment day. They are doers of the Law. They obey God’s Word as a way of life.
Also, there are biblical examples of those who are doers of the Law (or, God’s Word). In Romans 2:26-27, Paul mentions the physically uncircumcised man who keeps the requirements of God’s Law. He goes on (2:28-29) to specify that he is not talking about outward observance of the Law only, but rather, obedience from the heart. He is describing Gentiles who have been saved by faith and now demonstrate their faith by obedience to God’s Word. In Romans 8:4, Paul says that through the cross (8:3), “the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” In other words, those who have trusted in Christ’s death now walk by the Holy Spirit and thus fulfill God’s Law.
In Luke 1:6, it says of John the Baptist’s parents, Zacharias and Elizabeth, “They were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord.” This does not mean that they were sinlessly perfect, because Zacharias goes on to sin by not believing the word of the angel that they would have a child in their old age. Nor does it mean that they somehow would earn eternal life by their blameless obedience. Rather, because they had trusted in God and received His mercy, they became consistent doers of the Law. Their deeds proved that they would be justified on judgment day. (In defending this interpretation, I have relied on Frederic Godet, Commentary on Romans [Kregel], pp. 118-122; Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], loc. cit.; Schreiner, The Law and Its Fulfillment [Baker], pp. 179-204; and, John Piper, “There is no Partiality with God” [part 2], on desiringgod.org.)
So, Paul’s argument thus far is that God is not partial to the Jews by giving them the Law, because He will judge everyone based on the light that they were given (2:12); and, hearing the Law only does not justify anyone; we must be doers of the Law (2:13).
“For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, …”
Some argue that Paul is referring here to saved Gentiles who obey the Law and thus are justified. Rather, he brings up the Gentiles to show his Jewish readers that having the Law and occasionally obeying it are not enough. So verse 14 explains (“for) the first half of verse 12, that “all who sin without the Law will also perish without the Law.” Even unsaved Gentiles have an inner sense of right and wrong. Sometimes they do what they know to be right. But they often disobey what they know to be right, so that their conscience condemns them. They will be guilty before God on the day when He judges their secret sins (2:16).
Paul is not saying that the Gentiles instinctively know all of the stipulations of the Mosaic Law. Rather, he is pointing out the obvious fact that even pagans, who have had no exposure to God’s revealed Law, have a built-in sense of right and wrong that coincides with God’s Law. He is not referring to the promise of the New Covenant, when God’s Law will be written on the heart of believers (Jer. 31:33; Heb. 8:10). Rather, when he says that “the work of the Law [is] written on their hearts,” he probably means, what the Law does, namely, teaching the difference between right and wrong (H. C. G. Moule, The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges [Cambridge University Press, 1903], p. 71).
Paul is referring to the fact that almost all cultures believe that murder, stealing, rape, assault, etc. are wrong. Treating others as you want to be treated, obeying just laws, and loving your mate and your children are right. C. S. Lewis opens his argument in Mere Christianity [Macmillan, pp. 17ff.] by showing how even pagans have this sense of right and wrong. They all hold to a standard of behavior that they expect others to hold to also.
But, there is a problem: Even though we all have this built-in sense of right and wrong, we all have violated our own standards. When we do, we justify it by various arguments. “I know that I treated him wrongly, but he had it coming!” “I know that I shouldn’t cheat on my taxes, but everyone else does it. Besides, the government wastes so much money. And I’m not a millionaire!” So our conscience and our thoughts go back and forth, either condemning us or trying to defend us. That’s what Paul is describing.
The conscience is not an infallible guide, but we should never go against our conscience. It is not infallible in that it needs to be informed by Scripture, not just by what our culture may think is right or wrong, or by what we may instinctively feel is right or wrong. I have heard of new Christians, for example, who were so influenced by our godless culture, that they had no inner sense that it is wrong for a couple who love one another to have sexual relations outside of marriage. Their conscience was not reliable. It needed to be informed by the unchanging standard of God’s Word.
But Paul’s point is that every culture has standards of right and wrong that often coincide with God’s Law. And every person has a conscience that condemns him when he violates what he knows to be wrong.
To recap, in answer to the objection that God’s judgment is unfair because He gave the Jews the Law, Paul says, “No, God will judge everyone by the light they have been given and sinned against. Hearing the Law is not enough; it is the doers of the Law who will be justified. With the Gentiles, not having the Law is no excuse. They instinctively know what is right and wrong and they all have violated what they know to be right, as their consciences affirm. Finally,
“… on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Jesus Christ.”
The connection between verses 15 & 16 is not obvious, which has led some to put either verses 13-15 (KJV) or 14-15 (NIV) in parenthesis. Thus they tie verse 16 back either to verse 12 or verse 13. But that is not necessary. The connection is that the present work of the conscience in either accusing or defending the sinner will reach its climax on the final day of judgment, when God will judge even the secrets of men by His righteous standards. Whether a person had God’s Law or not, he will stand guilty before God on that day.
There are several things that we should not miss in verse 16 (C. H. Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 31:373-384, has an excellent sermon, “Coming Judgment of the Secrets of Men,” from which I modified these points).
First, there will be a certain day of judgment. God has fixed the day (Acts 17:31). If we believe that, we’d better be ready! And if you don’t believe it, that does not mean that it will not happen! Unless Jesus was a liar or mistaken, that day is coming (Matt. 16:27; John 5:22, 24-29).
Second, on that day, God will judge the secrets of everyone. That is a scary thought! God doesn’t just look at our outward deeds. We can put on a pretty good show towards others. We can impress them with our knowledge of the Bible or our prayers or religiosity. But God knows every secret thought we have and private sin that we do. He knows the hidden prideful motives, even when we outwardly serve Him. He knows the lustful glance that no one else sees. He knows every click of the mouse on your computer, even late at night when no one else is around. He sees the seething anger in your heart, even when you camouflage it. Nothing will escape His penetrating gaze on judgment day.
Third, when God judges the secrets of men, it will be through Christ Jesus. Jesus made the astounding claim (John 5:22-23), “For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father.” There couldn’t be a clearer claim to deity than that! For Christ to sit in judgment on the secrets of all men, He must have infinite knowledge, which only God can have (Charles Hodge, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 58).
Also, this means that if you have a picture in your mind of Jesus as being all-loving and never judgmental, then you do not have the biblical picture of Jesus. He described Himself as the judge of all! In Revelation 19:11-15, He returns on a white horse to judge and wage war. His eyes are a flame of fire. He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood. From His mouth comes a sharp sword to strike down the nations. “He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty” (19:15). So if that isn’t your image of Jesus, you need to change your thinking!
Fourth, this final judgment is according to Paul’s gospel. At first glance, this doesn’t sound like good news! But, if there is no judgment for all sin, then there is no need for a Savior and thus no good news (Morris, p. 129; Spurgeon, p. 383). The gospel does not offer you the option of going on in your sin or shrugging it off as if it will not come under judgment if you do not repent. As Spurgeon put it (ibid.), “With deep love to the souls of men, I bear witness to the truth that he who turns not with repentance and faith to Christ, shall go away into punishment as everlasting as the life of the righteous.” We need to understand the bad news of judgment in order to appreciate the good news of salvation through faith in Christ.
Paul calls it “my gospel” both because he had personally owned it and to defend it against critics who accused him of preaching grace to the neglect of good works (Rom. 3:8). Paul is saying that the gospel he preached was in complete harmony with the solemn truth that God will judge the secrets of men. He “will render to each person according to his deeds” (Rom. 2:6).
Spurgeon rightly argues (p. 384) that if we do not preach the coming judgment and wrath of God, we do not preach the gospel at all. We would be like a surgeon who didn’t want to tell his patient that he is ill. He hopes to heal him without his knowing that he was sick. So he flatters him that he is well and the man refuses the cure. Such a doctor would be a murderer. And so are we, if we do not warn people about God’s impartial, certain judgment of our every secret, and then point them to the good news that Christ offers forgiveness to repentant sinners as their only hope.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2010, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
A pastor had been preaching on the importance of daily Bible reading. He and his wife were invited for a meal at a parishioner’s home. While there, the pastor’s wife saw a note that the hostess had written on her kitchen calendar: “Pastor/Mrs. for dinner—dust all Bibles” (from Reader’s Digest [March, 1990], p. 129).
Hypocrisy—presenting ourselves as something that we know we’re not—is one of the most subtle and dangerous of sins. Seven times Jesus thundered against the religious leaders of His day, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites” (Matt. 23:12, [14], 15, 16, 23, 25, 27, 29; v. 14 is probably not original). He warned the disciples (Luke 12:1), “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” Leaven spreads subtly and pervasively, until the whole lump of dough is affected. So does hypocrisy. It is a perpetual danger for the religious, and especially for religious leaders. It is the root sin that Paul confronts in our text.
From Romans 1:18-3:20, Paul shows why all people need the gospel of God’s righteousness imputed to the believing sinner: because we all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory (Rom. 3:23). First (1:18-32), he shows how the pagans who suppress the truth in unrighteousness are guilty before God. Then (2:1-16), he shows how outwardly moral people have violated their own standards and thus are guilty before God. In doing so, he quietly sneaks up on the Jews, who prided themselves on their special standing before God. But he doesn’t mention them by name until verse 17. Up to this point, they have nodded in approval as Paul indicts the Gentiles. But now, he springs the trap on them.
The Jew thought himself exempt from God’s judgment on three grounds: (1) He was a son of Abraham (John 8:33), not a Gentile dog! (2) Unlike the pagans, he had God’s Law, revealed to Moses on the holy mountain. (3) He was circumcised, again in contrast to the defiled Gentiles.
Paul shows how being a Jew by birth cannot save anyone (2:17, 28-29); how having the Law cannot save those who do not keep it (2:17-24); and, how being circumcised in the flesh is of no avail if the circumcised man does not keep the entire Law (2:25-27; this analysis from Alva McClain, Romans: The Gospel of God’s Grace BMH Books], pp. 81-82.)
In our text, Paul mainly focuses on the Law (2:17, 18, 20, 23 [twice]). He is applying the point of 2:13, “it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified.” The Jews will not escape God’s righteous judgment because they were Jews and possessed the Law, unless they obeyed the Law, which they did not do. So he exposes their hypocrisy and shows the spiritual devastation of hypocrisy:
Hypocrisy deceives the hypocrite, damages unbelievers, and dishonors God.
If you’ve ever been deceived by a con artist, you know that the reason he got your money is that you didn’t know at the time that you were being deceived. If you had known, you wouldn’t have let him get your money. And, once you find out, you’re embarrassed that it happened, and so you tend to cover it up in order to save face.
Hypocrites don’t get into hypocrisy deliberately by thinking, “I’d like to bring God’s judgment down on myself by being a hypocrite. That sounds like the way to go!” Rather, due to pride, they think, “I want people to respect me. If they knew what I was really like, they wouldn’t respect me. So I need to keep up a good front. Besides, everyone does that to some extent.” So he tries to impress others, forgetting that God examines the heart. He ends up deceiving himself in the worst way. At the heart of this process is this basic principle:
James 1:22 states the principle: “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers, who delude themselves” (emphasis added). These Jews that Paul confronts felt secure before God because of their religious heritage as Jews. They had God’s Law; they could confidently teach it to others. But they were deluded because they were hearers of the Law, but not doers of it.
At the outset, we need to understand that this is not a racial attack on the Jews. Paul was not being anti-Semitic. He himself was a Jew. He loved the Jewish people so much that he said that he would be willing to spend eternity in hell if it meant the salvation of the Jews (Rom. 9:1-3)! Any form of racism against any race is sinful. If we’re honest, as we read Paul’s indictment of the Jews here, we will see ourselves, because we’re all prone to hypocrisy. We all easily fall into the trap of trying to impress others with how spiritual we are, while our hearts are far from God. So we need to apply these verses carefully to our own hearts! Paul shows five ways that the hypocrite is deceived:
Paul first hits the Jew for taking pride in his birth as a Jew (he will hit this further in 2:28-29). When Jesus confronted the Jews with being enslaved to sin, they arrogantly pointed to the fact that they were Abraham’s children and even made the ridiculous statement, we “have never been enslaved to anyone” (John 8:33; see, also, vv. 39, 53). They knew that they were God’s elect, but they grossly misapplied it!
Moses had told the Jews (Deut. 7:6), “For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.” But he knew that they were prone to get puffed up with pride, thinking that God chose them because they deserved it. So he goes on to tell them that God didn’t choose them because of anything in them, but rather because of His love and His faithfulness to His covenant promises to their forefathers.
Just as God chose the Jews to be His people, so He chooses us to believe in Christ and be His people (1 Pet. 2:9; Eph. 1:4-5; 1 Thess. 1:4; Rom. 8:29; 9:11-23; 1 Cor. 1:26-30; etc.). He did not do this because He foresaw anything of merit in us, including our faith. Rather, He did it to display His unmerited favor (grace), so that we would glorify Him (Eph. 1:6).
So if you boast in being one of God’s elect, you’ve missed the whole point of the doctrine of election. Knowing that God chose us in spite of our sin should humble us and cause us to glorify Him for His mercy and love.
Paul says of the Jew, you “rely on the Law.” All of the things that Paul mentions in verses 17-20 are good, in and of themselves. There were many advantages to being a Jew (Rom. 3:1-2; 9:4-5). It’s good to rely on God’s Law, if you truly obey it. It’s good to know His will and be morally discerning. The problem was that the Jews relied on the fact that they had received God’s Law as if it would magically protect them, even though they didn’t obey it.
Paul probably had in mind Micah 3:11, where the prophet rebuked the Jewish religious leaders for their sin and then said, “Yet they lean on the Lord saying, ‘Is not the Lord in our midst? Calamity will not come upon us.’” In the LXX, the word “lean upon” is the same rather uncommon Greek verb that Paul uses to say that they “rely on” the Law. So, the Jews in Paul’s day thought that relying on the Law would protect them from judgment, even though they disobeyed it (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], pp. 159-160).
Of course, the Jews did obey some of the external requirements of the Law. They were fastidious about ceremonial cleanliness. They meticulously tithed even their table spices. They fasted and prayed at the stipulated times. But Jesus rebuked them because while they honored God with their lips, their hearts were far from Him (Mark 7:6). They knew God’s commandments, but they just kept those that could be seen by men, so that they looked spiritual. They didn’t seek to please God from the heart. Hypocrisy is all about maintaining outward appearances, with no regard to obedience from the heart.
Paul says (2:17), you “boast in God.” Again, this is a good thing to do in and of itself. Jeremiah says (Jer. 9:23-24), “Thus says the Lord, ‘Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on the earth; for I delight in these things,’ declares the Lord.” Paul says (1 Cor. 1:30-31), “But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, ‘Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.’”
So boasting in the Lord is good, if our aim is to give Him all glory for our salvation. But Paul’s Jewish readers were boasting in God in the sense of elevating themselves above the pagan Gentiles, who did not know God. It was a form of spiritual pride, where they said, “We know the only true God, but you don’t! We’re better than you are!” They were like the super-spiritual faction in Corinth (1 Cor. 1:12). Some were saying, “I am of Paul,” and others, “I am of Apollos,” or “I am of Cephas.” But some boasted, “I am of Christ!” They were boasting in God, but not to honor God, but to honor themselves. But they were deceived by their hypocrisy.
Paul says (2:18), you “know His will and approve the things that are essential, being instructed out of the Law.” Again, these are good things in and of themselves. We should be diligent to study God’s Word so that we know His will. His Word teaches us discernment, so that we can approve the things that are essential (or, “excellent,” ESV). This refers to moral discernment. But, as Charles Hodge (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 61) comments on that phrase, “It was not their moral judgments, but their moral conduct that was in fault.” It is good to be “instructed out of the Law,” that is, God’s Word. Biblical and theological knowledge is a good thing, in that it helps us to know God and His ways as He has revealed Himself.
But the goal of understanding theology is never to be able to win arguments or impress others with our great knowledge. Rather, it should humble our hearts before God and lead us to worship Him more fervently and obey Him more thoroughly.
Then Paul turns to how his Jewish readers applied their spiritual privileges. We learn a final way that hypocrisy deceives us:
Paul continues (2:19-20), you “are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth.” God appointed Israel to be “a light to the nations, to open blind eyes” (Isa. 42:6-7). If they had done it with humility, it was a proper thing to do.
But everyone who teaches God’s Word must first apply it to himself. Knowledge without obedience puffs us up with pride (1 Cor. 8:1), which is the root of hypocrisy. Spiritually proud hypocrites who have a lot of knowledge without obedience look down on the blind, foolish, and immature that they teach. But when you apply the truth to yourself first, it humbles you as you realize where you’ve come from and how much you still need to grow. You realize that if God had not graciously shed His light on you, you’d still be in the dark, too!
I once wrote a short article on preaching titled, “The Gospel Boomerang.” I pointed out how preaching is a hazardous occupation. You aim your biblical arrows at your congregation, intending to hit them where they need to change. But you quickly discover that God’s Word is not just an arrow—it’s also a boomerang! It comes back and clobbers the preacher with how he needs to change! As John Calvin said, “It would be better for [the preacher] to break his neck going up into the pulpit if he does not take pains to be the first to follow God” (cited by T. H. L. Parker, Calvin’s Preaching [Westminster/John Knox Press], p. 40). Before we teach others, we need to apply the Word to our own hearts.
That’s what Paul goes on to confront these Jewish teachers with (2:21-22): “You, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that one shall not steal, do you steal? You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?”
Paul’s first two examples are easy enough to understand. Sadly, we’ve all known of preachers who have done what he accuses the Jews of doing. They have preached against stealing, but then it comes out that they were embezzling money from the church. Or, they preached against adultery, but they are exposed for committing that very sin. It happened with the Jewish religious leaders in Paul’s day. It still happens today. Whenever it happens, it’s a spiritual tragedy.
But what does Paul mean when he accuses the Jews of robbing temples? Almost all scholars agree that this does not refer to sacrilege (KJV), but to robbing pagan temples to get the idols or their gold for sale. But we don’t have much evidence from history that the Jews were known for robbing pagan temples. Moses warned the Israelites that when they conquered pagan nations, they must burn the pagan idols with fire and not covet the gold or silver on them (Deut. 7:25). In Acts 19:37, the town clerk who quieted the Ephesian riot, said of Paul and his men, these men “are neither robbers of temples nor blasphemers of our goddess.” So, perhaps the practice was more widespread than we know about.
But it is still a bit puzzling as to why Paul picked these three sins to bring against the Jews. While some Jewish leaders may have been guilty of such flagrant sins, most Jews would probably have said, “Yes, Paul, we agree that those sins are terrible. Shame on anyone who does these things, but we don’t do them.” So why did Paul bring up these sins?
He may have been picking especially shocking sins as examples to argue that the Jews did not keep the Law they possessed and taught (Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], pp. 133-134). He could be saying that although not all Jews did these things, the fact that some do them illustrates that having the Law and teaching it does not spare you from God’s judgment if you don’t practice it. The implication, then, would be, “Maybe you don’t do these sins, but do you keep the whole law? Are you without sin?” (The previous two thoughts are from John Piper, “The Effect of Hypocrisy,” Part 2, Dishonoring God, on desiringgod.org.) Douglas Moo explains (ibid., p. 165), “It is not, then, that all Jews commit these sins, but that these sins are representative of the contradiction between claim and conduct that does pervade Judaism.”
To summarize, Paul is saying that hypocrisy deceives the hypocrite because he knows the truth, but he doesn’t obey it on the heart level. His knowledge feeds his pride, rather than humbles him, because he doesn’t examine his own heart and teach himself first. But, hypocrisy not only deceives the hypocrite. Also,
“For ‘the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,’ just as it is written” (2:24). Paul is citing Isaiah 52:5, where because of Israel’s sin, the nation has been destroyed and the people taken into captivity. Because of their sin, the Gentiles mock their God, who was not, in their minds, able to deliver them. But the real cause of their captivity was not God’s inability to rescue, but rather Israel’s disobedience. It made their God look bad.
The point is, if we tell others that we’re Christians, but we’re living in disobedience to God, unbelievers will mock the Christian faith. If a professing Christian is dishonest in business or immoral in his personal life or abusive towards his family, the world concludes, “Why follow their God? Who needs that kind of life?” And while God is sovereign in saving His elect, humanly speaking, a sinning Christian keeps a needy sinner from the only good news that can save him. We were supposed to be a light to those in darkness (2:19), but we ourselves were in the dark. We may well be the only “Bible” that those in the world around us ever read. Our lives should make them want to know our God.
Hypocrisy deceives the hypocrite and damages unbelievers. Finally, and most seriously, …
Verse 23 may be a rhetorical question or it may be read as a statement: “You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, you dishonor God.” This is the root sin of all sin, to dishonor or not to glorify God: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). In Romans 1:21, the Jews would have cheered as Paul indicted the Gentiles because they did not honor God or give thanks. But now Paul brings the same charge against the Jews. God chose Israel to be a glory to Him (Isa. 43:7). But by their disobedience, they have failed to honor God. In the same way, God chose us to be “to the praise of the glory of His grace” (Eph. 1:4, 6). But if we disobey His Word, we dishonor Him.
Sometimes, living in obedience to God’s Word is presented as the path to blessing, and it is. If we obeyed God’s Word by loving our wives as Christ loved the church and if we consistently showed God’s kindness and grace toward our children, we would be blessed with happy families. God knows what is best for us and obedience to His Word brings blessing. Disobedience always results in pain and trouble.
But the main reason we should want to obey God is not to be blessed, but rather, to honor Him. The main reason we should fear disobedience is that God’s holy name would be dishonored. He is infinitely worthy of all honor and glory and praise. So we should fear the sin of hypocrisy, of putting a veneer of godliness over disobedient hearts, because we do not want to dishonor the all-glorious God who saved us for His glory.
Since deception is always a tricky thing to overcome, how can we overcome the deception of hypocrisy? There are no slick formulas, but let me offer a few action points:
First, fight daily to maintain reality with God on the heart level. Meet with Him in the Word and in prayer, not to check off that you did your “quiet time,” but to come before Him and expose everything in your heart to Him. Confess your sins and your struggles. Seek His strength. Be aware that He examines your heart (1 Thess. 2:4).
Second, cultivate honesty and humility towards others. Don’t try to impress others with your godliness. Let them know that you are weak, but the Lord is strong. Pick up Stuart Scott’s booklet, “From Pride to Humility” on the book table and go over it often.
Finally, when you read and meditate on the Bible, aim at applying it personally. Ask, “So what? How am I supposed to live in light of this text?” And, if you struggle with a particular sin (anger, lust, greed, etc.), memorize relevant verses to help you apply it. Don’t let the sin of hypocrisy deceive you, damage unbelievers, or dishonor our glorious God!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2010, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Who are the most difficult people to reach with the gospel? I realize that only God can save a soul and that nothing is too difficult for Him. But, from a human standpoint, some types of people seem to be more difficult to bring to saving faith than others are (Luke 18:24-27). The Bible shows us that the most difficult people to reach are religious people who trust in their religion. They relish their rituals and religious traditions. They don’t see their need for a Savior from sin because they view themselves as pretty good people. They think they are right with God because of their religious performance (Luke 18:11-12).
They may be Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Baha’i, Mormon, Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant. They can even be Baptists! They think that their performance of their religious rituals will somehow commend them to God. But they lack reality with the living God on the heart level.
Paul knew that the most difficult people to reach with the gospel were not the pagans whom he described in Romans 1:18-32. Like Matthew or Zaccheus (Luke 5:27-32; 19:1-10), the tax collectors, or like the sinful woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears (Luke 7:36-50), many obviously wicked people know that they are sinners. They may not be sure that God could ever forgive them. But they welcome that news when they hear it.
But the religious Jews didn’t see themselves as sinners and so they didn’t see any need for a Savior. They trusted in their Jewishness, in their possession of God’s Law, and in their conformity to the prescribed religious rituals, especially circumcision. Why did they need the gospel? Why did they need to get right with God? Didn’t Paul know what kind of people they were?
Yes, Paul knew. He was one of them. At one time, he had taken great pride in his circumcision, his Jewishness, and his zeal for the Jewish religion (Phil. 3:4-6). But he didn’t know Christ. He didn’t have his sins forgiven. He wasn’t reconciled to God. So now he wants his fellow Jews who trusted in their religious rituals to see their need for the gospel. So he hits them with what would have been a shocking argument: the obedient Gentile will fare better on judgment day than the disobedient Jew. Paul is trying to strip every religious person of his religiosity as the basis for acceptance with God, so that he will be driven to the cross of Christ for mercy. He wants us to see that…
Reality with God is not a matter of outward conformity to religious rituals, but rather of obedience that results from God changing your heart.
Paul here hits the first and third reasons why the Jew would claim to have exemption from judgment. The first was, “I am a Jew, a son of Abraham.” Second, “We have the Law given to our chosen nation.” (Paul dealt with that in 2:17-24.) Third, “I have been circumcised, unlike those unclean Gentiles.” But Paul shows that being true Jew and being truly circumcised are not outward matters, but matters of the heart.
“For indeed circumcision is of value if you practice the Law; but if you are a transgressor of the Law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision” (2:25).
God instituted the practice of circumcision (the removal of the male foreskin) as a sign of His covenant with Abraham, over 500 years before He gave Moses the Law (see Genesis 17). It symbolized moral purity and separation from the world unto God. Under the Law of Moses, it became a sign of membership in the covenant community. So as a God-ordained ritual, circumcision was of value to the Jews as a reminder of their covenant relationship to God and of the need to be morally set apart to God.
When Paul says that circumcision is of value, he is speaking to the Jews as Jews. When he addresses those who are in Christ, he says (Gal. 5:6), “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.” Circumcision was a Jewish sign of the covenant that ended when Jesus instituted the new covenant. Except for hygienic reasons, it holds no value for believers in Christ.
Also, when Paul says, “circumcision is of value if you practice the Law,” I do not understand him to mean, “if you practice the Law perfectly.” Some think that when Paul mentions keeping the Law in this section (2:25, 26, 27), he is speaking hypothetically of perfect obedience, which no one can do. But I understand him to be referring to a lifestyle of obedience to God’s Law, which is possible for those who have been born again (Luke 1:6; 2:25). For such Jews before the cross, circumcision was of value.
But the perpetual danger of religious rituals, even of those that God commands, is that they become external only. Thus from the earliest times Moses exhorted Israel (Deut. 10:16), “So circumcise your heart….” Later (Deut. 30:6), he again gave the ritual a spiritual meaning when he promised, “The Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.” Later, the prophet Jeremiah preached with similar imagery (Jer. 4:4), “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord and remove the foreskins of your heart, men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, or else My wrath will go forth like fire and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds.”
Moses and Jeremiah were making the point that the physical ritual of circumcision had to be accompanied by its spiritual meaning, namely, holiness and obedience to God on the heart level. Without such reality with God, the ritual had lost its essential meaning and was virtually worthless.
But by Paul’s day, the Jews had come to put great stock in the ritual itself. Several of the Jewish rabbis taught that no circumcised man will go to hell (Charles Hodge, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 63). So Paul is standing in line with Moses and Jeremiah when he tells the Jews that if they do not obey God’s Law, their “circumcision has become uncircumcision.” They might as well be pagan Gentiles if they lived in disobedience to God. Their circumcision meant nothing.
How do we apply Paul’s words to Christian “rituals”? Do the rituals of the ancient Christian church have spiritual value for us today? Many who were raised in evangelical circles have moved to Episcopal, Roman Catholic, or Orthodox churches because they felt that the rituals and liturgy made them feel closer to God. Are we missing something if we abandon these rituals?
First, we need to be clear that there are only two “rituals” (or “sacraments” or, better, “ordinances”) prescribed in the New Testament: baptism and communion. To add other rituals, or to invest those two rituals with meaning that is not taught in the New Testament, is to worship God falsely. In New Testament terms, every believer is a priest (1 Pet. 2:9), and so we do not need a human priest, dressed in special robes and vestments, offering the sacrifice of the mass or performing rituals on our behalf. Jesus is our high priest and He offered Himself as the complete and final sacrifice for our sins (Heb. 9:11-14; 10:1-14).
Also, the New Testament is clear that being baptized or partaking of communion are of no spiritual value, unless you do them out of faith in Christ. Baptism, whether performed on infants (which I believe is wrong) or on those old enough to understand what it means, does not convey salvation or forgiveness of sins. Neither does partaking of the Lord’s Supper. If the baptized person acts in obedience to Christ as a confession of saving faith in Christ, then baptism is of great value. If we partake of the Lord’s Supper as a reminder of His death on our behalf and of all that that means to us, it, too, is of great value. We should not minimize or abandon these rituals. But there is no spiritual benefit conveyed just by going through these religious rituals, apart from reality with God through faith in Christ. So Paul’s first point is that reality with God is not a matter of outward conformity to religious rituals.
At this point, Paul would have shocked his Jewish readers. He makes the point that…
Paul writes (2:26-27), “So if the uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the Law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? And he who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the Law, will he not judge you who though having the letter of the Law and circumcision are a transgressor of the Law?”
He means, “If a Gentile obeys the moral requirements of God’s Law, God will count him as righteous, even though he is uncircumcised!” And, even more shocking, “The obedient, but uncircumcised Gentile some day will condemn you who have the written Law and have been circumcised, but are disobedient to that Law.” He does not mean that obedient Gentiles literally will act as judges against the Jews, but rather that they will “be a witness for the prosecution in the sense that the Gentiles’ obedience will be evidence of what the Jew ought to have been …” (C. E. B. Cranfield, cited by Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], p. 139).
There is debate about who is the uncircumcised man who keeps the requirements of the Law. Is this merely hypothetical? Does Paul mean that no Gentile has ever kept the Law or could do it, but if he could, he would be counted as circumcised and thus condemn the Jew? Or, could Paul be referring to unsaved Gentiles like Cornelius (Acts 10), who were devout, God-fearing men? Or, is he referring to Gentiles who really do obey the Law because God has changed their hearts?
As I’ve already said, it seems to me that Paul is talking about genuinely converted Gentiles, who keep God’s Law because God has circumcised their hearts through faith in Christ. Paul will explain this in verses 28 and 29, where he says that being a true Jew (which means, one who is in right relationship with God) is not a matter of external circumcision, but of internal circumcision of the heart, brought about by the Holy Spirit. Thomas Schreiner (who gives much more support for this point than I can cite here, The Law and Its Fulfillment [Baker], pp. 197-201), states (p. 198), “Paul’s main point in this section is … that no one can be saved and observe the law without the Holy Spirit. Those who have the Spirit are empowered to observe the law (8:4), but one only receives the Spirit by believing in Jesus, whom God has set forth as a propitiation for sin (3:21-26).”
So Paul’s point in 2:26-27 is that God regards obedience that results from a changed heart as righteous, apart from keeping the external ritual of circumcision.
“For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God” (2:28-29).
Again, this would have been shocking to the Jew of Paul’s day, who took great pride in being a circumcised son of Abraham. The Jews despised the “unclean” Gentiles and took great pride in their Jewish lineage and religious rituals. But they wrongly were concerned more about outward matters than about their hearts before God. As Jesus said (Matt. 23:25), they cleaned the outside of the cup, but inside they were full of sin. So Paul cuts through all of the external privileges and practices and says that the main thing in God’s sight is not the outward, but the inward. Reality with God is a matter of the Holy Spirit changing your heart, not of your performing religious rituals.
Paul uses four somewhat overlapping contrasts to drive home this point: (1) not outward, but inward; (2) not the flesh, but the heart; (3) not the letter, but the Spirit; and, (4) praise not from men, but from God.
Jesus made this point in the Sermon on the Mount when He pointed out that you have committed murder in God’s sight if you’ve been angry with your brother. You’ve committed adultery in God’s sight if you’ve lusted in your heart after a woman, even if you’ve never touched her. God looks on the heart. You can impress people with polished prayers, powerful sermons, generous gifts to the church, and all sorts of religious activities. But all the while you’re impressing people, God is looking at your heart. What was your motive when you did those things? And, what kinds of thoughts were you entertaining? You can take the communion elements while you’re lusting after the girl sitting nearby or while you’re angry with your mate. To have reality with God, you’ve got to focus on the inward. Of course, if you’re right inwardly with God, it will express itself properly in outward deeds. But the outward must begin with the inward.
Paul says (in line with Moses and Jeremiah) that true circumcision is not a matter of the flesh, but of the heart. This means that we must deal with sin on the heart or thought level. We must put to death or cut off the deeds of the flesh when they occur in our minds. Paul says (Rom. 8:12-13), “So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”
This means that the second you are tempted, turn from it, cry out to God’s Spirit for the strength to run from it, and fill your thoughts with Christ (Rom. 13:14; Col. 3:1-4). If you develop that habit, you will not fulfill the deeds of the flesh by outward sins.
In Ezekiel 36:25-27, God promised a spiritual revival for His sinning people: “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.” While those promises will still be fulfilled with the Jews in a future revival (Rom. 11:2-32), they also now apply to all who believe in Christ. Ezekiel was talking about the new birth, which Jesus told the religious Nicodemus he needed (John 3:1-16). Nicodemus’ observance of religious rituals was not enough. He needed God’s Spirit to give him a new heart by faith in Jesus’ death on the cross for his sins.
The “letter-Spirit” contrast is a salvation-historical one (Schreiner, Romans, p. 142; Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 175). The letter refers to the past age of the Law and its many commandments. The problem was, the Law combined with sinful human flesh, resulted in disobedience and death (Rom. 7:5-6; 2 Cor. 3:3-11). The Law by itself did not give the power to obey it. But now that God’s Spirit has been poured out on His people and He has changed our hearts, we are able to obey God from the heart (Rom. 6:17; 8:1-4; 13). Reality with God means that His Spirit has changed your heart so that now you are able joyfully to obey Jesus Christ.
This refers ultimately to the rewards that we will receive from God when Christ returns. In 1 Corinthians 4:5, Paul says that when the Lord comes, He “will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men’s hearts; and then each man’s praise will come to him from God.”
This means also that those whose hearts the Spirit has circumcised live with a new focus. Rather than seeking to impress others with their religious activities, as the Pharisees did, they seek to please God from the heart. Instead of focusing on what others think of us, we focus on what God thinks of us. As Paul said when he contrasted himself with the Judaizers, who focused on the ritual of physical circumcision (Phil. 3:3), “For we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.”
This final phrase, “his praise is not from men, but from God,” is a word play that the Jews would have picked up on. Although Paul wrote in Greek, his Jewish readers would know that in Hebrew, Jew comes from Judah, meaning, praise (Gen. 29:35; 49:8). So Paul has a double meaning: “his Judaism/praise is not from men, but from God.” In other words, the one who has experienced the circumcision of his heart by the Holy Spirit is the true Jew. He hasn’t just gone through a religious ritual, but he is now pleasing God, who gave him a new heart through faith in Jesus Christ. He isn’t practicing his religion to get the praise of men (Matt. 6:1-6). Rather, he lives before God, so that one day he will hear, “Well done.” His praise will be from God.
If you had asked one of these religious Jews, “Are you going to heaven?” he would have been offended. He would have said, “Of course, I’m going to heaven!” If you had pressed him for the reasons that he was going to heaven, he would have said, “I’m a Jew. I’ve been circumcised.” In other words, he would have had absolute assurance of his salvation, but it was false assurance!
Why should God let you into heaven someday? “I was raised in a Christian home.” That doesn’t matter. “I believe in God and I’ve always gone to church.” Nope! “But, years ago I invited Jesus to be my Savior and was baptized.” But, has God changed your heart so that you now seek to love Him, obey Him, and please Him on the heart level? Do you live to know Christ more deeply? Are you growing in victory over the deeds of the flesh and in habitually displaying the fruit of the Spirit? If your honest answer is, “Well, not really,” you may be into ritual, not reality with God.
In the fall of 1999, I stepped inside of the Orthodox Church at the town square in Timisoara, Romania. The architecture was beautiful. Icons were everywhere. Candles floating in water lit up the dimly lit sanctuary. My eye was drawn to a woman, seductively dressed, who was kneeling before an icon, praying with tears running down her cheeks. A priest with his full beard and long robe walked by and looked approvingly at her. I wanted to grab him by his robe and shout, “Tell her about the blood of Jesus that cleanses from all sin!” The woman was going through the prescribed religious rituals. Only God knows her heart, but my guess was, she didn’t have the reality of knowing Jesus.
Reality with God is not a matter of going through religious rituals or of a general belief in God. Rather, reality with God means having a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord. Reality with God means that He has changed your heart and you now see the evidence of that change by a lifestyle of obedience to His Word. Don’t substitute religious ritualism for true spiritual reality with the living God! Following religious rituals has never saved anyone. True religion is a matter of God changing your heart.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2010, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
If you share the gospel with unbelievers, you will encounter a number of common objections: Why does a good and loving God allow so much suffering in the world? Why is Jesus the only way to God? Will God send good, sincere people from other religions to hell? What about all the people who have lived and died without ever hearing about Jesus? Will they be punished eternally in hell even though they never had the chance to believe? Is this fair? What about all the errors and contradictions in the Bible? What about the contradictions between science and the Bible? Etc.
I gave two messages last summer dealing with these and other objections, so I’m not going to speak directly to these questions today. (See “Witnessing: Answering Questions and Objections,” Parts 1 & 2, June 27 & July 4, 2010, on the church web site.) But our text shows the apostle Paul responding to questions and objections that he anticipated in response to his teaching in chapter 2. These were probably questions that he had often encountered when he preached the gospel in Jewish settings. He knew that religious Jews would challenge his statements (2:28-29) that being a true Jew and being truly circumcised were not external matters, but rather, matters of the heart. His aim is to show that even the most religious of Jews, like the Gentiles, are all under sin and thus need the gospel (3:9-20).
So in rapid fire he raises and answers a series of questions that Jewish critics would have fired at him. If you find it difficult to track with the flow of Paul’s argument in these verses, you’re in good company. Many commentators admit that these are the most difficult verses to interpret in Romans. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Romans: The Righteous Judgment of God [Zondervan], p. 174) says that many say they are not only the most difficult verses in Romans, but also in the whole of Scripture! John Piper devoted an entire sermon on these verses to answer the question, “Why God Inspired Hard Texts” (on desiringgod.org). John Bunyan (cited by William Newell, Romans Verse by Verse [Moody Press], p. 74) composed a little ditty: “Hard texts are nuts—I would not call them cheaters: whose shells do oft times keep them from the eaters.” So to eat the meat of this “nut,” we have to work hard to crack the shell.
First I want to try to explain the text, because we cannot properly apply any Scripture unless we understand what it is saying. Then I will offer some practical applications. First I will give an overview; then we’ll work through the text more carefully.
The first question Paul anticipates in response to his comments that being a Jew or being circumcised physically are not what matter is (3:1), “Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the benefit of circumcision?” These are the same question stated in two ways to correspond to Paul’s assertions in 2:28-29. To paraphrase, Paul’s Jewish readers would have objected, “Paul, if being a physical descendant of Abraham and receiving the sign of circumcision are of no value, then you’re throwing out the entire Old Testament! What good are God’s promises to Abraham? What good was God’s choice of the nation Israel?” Paul replies (3:2), “Great in every respect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God.”
That leads to a second objection (3:3): “What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it?” Does Jewish unbelief negate God’s promises? Paul responds with horror to the thought that God might be unfaithful (3:4): “May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar.” Then he cites David from Psalm 51:4 to show that God is faithful whether He keeps His promises or whether He judges guilty sinners. He is glorified in both instances.
This leads to a third objection (3:5): “But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is He? (I am speaking in human terms.)” If our sin glorifies God’s righteousness in judgment, then isn’t God unrighteous to punish us for it? Paul apologizes for even stating such an ungodly thought and then adds (3:6), “May it never be! For otherwise, how will God judge the world?”
But the objector isn’t silenced yet. He restates the objection of verse 5 (in 3:7): “But if through my lie the truth of God abounded to His glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner?” The absurd idea is, if my sin brings God glory when He judges me, then He should thank me, not judge me! Paul takes it further by alluding to some slanderous charges that had been leveled against his teaching (3:8), “Let us do evil that good may come.” He replies tersely, “Their condemnation is just.”
Now let’s work through this dialogue more carefully. I will paraphrase the critic’s challenge, followed by Paul’s response.
The Jewish critic is saying, “Your view, Paul, takes away all the advantages that the Old Testament promised to the Jews. In effect, you just wiped out the entire Old Testament!” Because of what Paul said in 2:28-29, you would expect him to answer, “You’re right! Being a Jew or being circumcised doesn’t get you anywhere.” But instead, he surprises us by saying, “Great in every respect.” He then says, “First of all,” but he doesn’t list a second or third. Much later (9:4-5), he gives a list: “who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.” All of Romans 9-11 is devoted to answering the question of whether the unbelief of the Jews somehow nullified the promises of God.
But in Romans 3:2, Paul only lists one great advantage of being a Jew: “They were entrusted with the oracles of God.” This refers to the Old Testament as a whole, with special reference to God’s promises of salvation (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 182; Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], p. 149). God had not revealed Himself in this specific way to any other nation on earth (Deut. 4:8; Ps. 147:19-20). God promised through the Jewish prophets, as recorded in the Old Testament, to send the Savior of the world through them (John 4:22). Through the symbolic significance of the Temple and of the laws and sacrifices, the Jews uniquely had God’s revelation about the coming Messiah and Savior. All the other nations were left in spiritual darkness. God entrusted the Jews with His very Word!
This was a great privilege, but also a great responsibility. To have the light of God’s Word and yet to reject it means that you are more accountable than the person who had no light except the general revelation of creation (Rom. 1:20; Matt. 11:21-24). During two thousand years of human history from Abraham to Christ, the pagan nations worshiped their false gods, offering sacrifices to appease their anger, living in fear and confusion, with no hope of salvation. But the Jews knew how to approach the living and true God, maker of heaven and earth. They had His promises to send the Savior. The godly in Israel were looking for the fulfillment of that promise (Luke 2: 25-32). What an unspeakable privilege!
But the fact that many in Israel did not believe in God’s promises of salvation leads to the second objection:
“What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it? May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar, as it is written, ‘That You may be justified in Your words, and prevail when You judge’” [most scholars agree that the last verb is active in meaning, in line with Ps. 51:4].
Paul answers this more thoroughly in Romans 9-11, where he shows that the widespread Jewish unbelief did not thwart God’s sovereign election of a remnant. There is still a future widespread conversion of the Jews, when “all Israel will be saved” (Rom. 11:26). But here, he first gives some grace to his critics by asking (3:3), what if some did not believe? Actually, most of the Jews did not believe. Only a few were faithful. But Paul probably is being gracious so as not needlessly to offend his Jewish critics.
But then he takes it farther by arguing that even if every person in the world were unfaithful and accused God of being unfaithful to His promises, it would only mean that they all are liars and God is true. God’s faithfulness to His Word is a necessary attribute of His being. If He were not faithful, He would not be God, but a liar. But it is a given that God cannot lie (Titus 1:2). If there seems to be a discrepancy between His promises and what we perceive, the fault always lies with us, not with God. In any contention, He is right, even if the whole world lines up against Him.
Paul backs up his assertion by citing Psalm 51:4, “That You may be justified in Your words, and prevail when You judge.” Psalm 51 is David’s confession and plea for mercy after his sin with Bathsheba. He agrees that God is justified in every word that the prophet Nathan spoke to David about the consequences of his sin. David has no excuses and no grounds to complain. He deserved death, but God mercifully spared his life. But God also pronounced a series of judgments against David. David is saying, “God, You are completely right in Your judgments and I am completely wrong and guilty before You.”
Paul uses this quote to show that God is just as faithful when He judges His people for their sins as He is when He saves them according to His promise. If sinners repent, God mercifully forgives the guilty, but He never treats them unjustly, even if He judges them. We all have sinned many times, so we all deserve His judgment. If He judges the guilty, He does not cease to be faithful to His promises to save those who repent and trust in Him.
At this point, those who object to Paul’s reasoning move into the realm of the ridiculous. They are showing what William Barclay (The Letter to the Romans [Westminster Press], rev. ed., p. 54) calls their “amazing ingenuity” in justifying their sin. But Paul had no doubt heard this objection when he preached in the synagogues:
“But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is He? (I am speaking in human terms.) May it never be! For otherwise, how will God judge the world?”
To paraphrase: “Paul, if you’re saying that God’s righteousness shines through when He judges us, then He would be wrong to judge us because we would actually be instruments for His glory! How can God judge us for something that He turns to His own advantage?” It’s an outrageous argument, but when people start to rationalize their sin, reason goes out the window, replaced by “amazing ingenuity”!
Paul answers this objection first by apologizing for even stating it (“I am speaking in human terms”). Then he gives the strong negative, “May it never be!” Then he asks a question that he knows his Jewish opponents would not want to concede: “For otherwise, how will God judge the world?” The Jews wanted God to judge the Gentiles for their many gross sins, but they thought that the Jews would get a free pass. But Paul is saying that their line of reasoning would prohibit God’s judgment on anyone. If the sins of the Jews bring God glory and thus should be exempt from His judgment, then the sins of the Gentiles would also merit exemption. Their argument proves too much.
But Paul’s critics are not ready to concede defeat, so they rephrase the objection of verse 5 again in verse 7:
Paul shifts here to the first person. Some (John Piper, “Let God Be True Though Every Man a Liar,” on desiringgod.org; the following is my summary) think that Paul is using himself to refute the critic by saying, “Take me, for example. If you think that what I’m teaching here is false, but my lie results in greater glory for God, then how could God judge me?” In other words, “The argument that you’re using to prove that God should not judge you (3:5) applies to me, also. If God shouldn’t judge you for your sin, then neither should He judge me if I’m lying.” Or, Paul may be using the first person to individualize his critics’ argument by bringing it home to the individual’s conscience. In this case, verse 7 should be in quotes, as the critic asks, “But if through my lie the truth of God abounded to His glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner?”
Paul adds a logical extension of this retort (3:8), “And why not say (as we are slanderously reported and as some claim that we say), ‘Let us do evil that good may come’? Their condemnation is just.” In other words, Paul’s critics accused him of teaching that if our sin magnifies God’s grace, then let’s sin a lot so that God will be more glorified! The end justifies the means. But Paul has shown that his critics have just hung themselves. If they accuse Paul of arguing that we should sin more to bring more glory to God, they accuse themselves, because that’s where their excuses for their own sin lead (3:5, 7). So Paul refutes them with a terse, “Their condemnation is just.” Their absurd conclusions reveal that they are under God’s righteous judgment.
Although Paul’s argument in these verses is not easy to follow, his bottom line is pretty clear:
If you contend with God, He will win and you will be condemned.
Paul’s bottom line is, you can raise all the objections you want against God, but in the end, He wins and you lose. You will end up under His just condemnation.
Now (hopefully) that we understand the text, let’s apply it:
Israel as a nation was given amazing spiritual privileges. They were the only nation on earth entrusted with the very words of God. But rather than responding in faith and a life of thankful obedience to God, most of the Jews rebelled against Him and worshiped the idols of the pagan nations around them.
If you grew up in a Christian home, you have an amazing spiritual privilege. Your parents taught you about God and the way of salvation that He provides in Jesus Christ. They took you to a church where you could hear God’s Word explained and applied. But, have you responded with faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior? Have you repented of your sins? Do you seek to walk in obedience to God’s Word? If not, on judgment day growing up in a Christian home will prove not to have been a blessing, but a curse, because it increased your accountability to God.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones applies this point this way (ibid., p. 171): “So the point, therefore, at which you and I start is this: we say, ‘This is no ordinary book, this is the Word of God.’ Do we show that we realize that and what a privilege it is, by reading it, studying it, delving into it, spending our time praying over it?” He continues by saying that we should not just quickly read over a few verses as a matter of custom in the morning before rushing off to more important things. Rather, we should say, “Here God is speaking to me, …” He says that if we really believed that the Bible is God’s direct word to us, we would not spend more time each day reading the newspaper and other things than we do seeking to understand and apply “the oracles of God.”
John Wesley, the great 18th century evangelist, wrote about the Bible (cited by James Boice, Romans: Justification by Faith [Baker], pp. 279-280):
I am a creature of a day, passing through life as an arrow through the air. I am a spirit come from God and returning to God, just hovering over the great gulf ’till, a few moments hence, I am no more seen; I drop into an unchangeable eternity! I want to know one thing—the way to heaven, how to land safe on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach me the way. For this very end he came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God!
If God has entrusted us with His very word, then surely it must be the foundation of our life and the light for our path in this dark world! Do not neglect your Bible!
There are many things in God’s Word that are difficult to understand, such as the doctrine of God’s sovereign election. There are things that are difficult to rejoice in, such as the doctrine of eternal punishment. There are matters that are hard to understand: Why does God allow little children to suffer terrible things? Why does He allow many to live and die with no gospel witness? Why doesn’t God tear down the satanic strongholds of false religions that deceive millions? I’m not saying that we shouldn’t wrestle with these hard issues and try to think them through more carefully.
But, there are two ways to approach these hard matters. You can come as a submissive child, asking the Father to give you more light, so that you will know Him and His ways more accurately, so that you can obey Him more fully. Or, you can come as a critic, demanding that God give you answers, as if He owes it to you.
If you try to prove that you’re right and God is wrong, you’re on thin ice! Even though you may not understand God or His ways, you have no right to contend against Him or accuse Him of wrong. The Book of Job shows that even the most righteous man on the face of the earth has no grounds to contend with God and demand answers, even if he feels that he is suffering unjustly. Learn from Job to slap your hand over your mouth, admit your own insignificance in God’s presence, and repent in dust and ashes (Job 40:4; 42:6). If you fight against God, you lose. If you submit to Him, you win. So wrestle with your questions in a spirit of submission, not defiance.
It’s easier to rationalize sin rather than to repent of it. It’s easy to latch on to some objection about God or the Bible, use that objection to dodge the clear truth of the Bible about Jesus Christ, and then justify your own sin. The Lord Jesus Christ is the centerpiece of God’s Word. If He is true, then every objection against Him is a lie. God will prevail when He judges all sin. Make sure that you have repented of your sin and taken refuge in the Lamb who was slain for sinners! Jesus Christ and Him crucified is God’s final answer to every objection!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2010, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
The late well-known preacher Harry Ironside once asked a man after a gospel meeting, “Are you saved, sir?”
“No, I really can’t say I am, but I would like to be.”
“Why would you? Do you realize you are a lost sinner?”
“Oh, of course, we’re all sinners.”
“Ah! But that often means little or nothing. Are you a sinner yourself?”
“Well, I suppose I am, but I’m not what you could call a bad sinner. I am, I think, rather a good one. I always try to do the best I know.”
Ironside went on to tell the man that there was little use in showing him the way of salvation. Good sinners are like honest liars and upright thieves: they are far from ready to admit that they are vile, hell-deserving sinners who need God’s grace to be saved (Illustrations of Bible Truth, H. A. Ironside [Moody Press], p. 71).
Most people view themselves as “good” sinners. They would say, “I know I’m not perfect. I’ve got my share of faults. But I’m not a murderer or terrorist or child molester. I’m a decent person. So, yes, I’m a sinner, but I’m a good sinner.”
“Good” sinners, especially religious ones, are the most difficult to reach with the gospel. They faithfully attend church. They give money to the church. (The stained glass window has a plaque commemorating their generous gift!) They serve on the church board. Their family has been a mainstay in the church for many generations. “Who do you think you are, preacher, to call me a sinner? I’ll get you fired if you keep talking like that!”
But Paul, like Jesus before him (see Matthew 23), talked like that to the most religious people he knew, the Jews. Paul knew that if the Jews trusted in their religiosity and good works, they would not see their need to trust in Jesus as their Savior. If they did not feel the condemnation of their true moral guilt before the holy God, they would not sense their need to be rescued from the coming judgment. Even if they professed to trust in Christ, but thought that He had forgiven them just a little, they would only love Him a little (Luke 7:47).
So as Paul comes to the conclusion of this section showing why everyone needs the gospel, namely, because everyone is under God’s just condemnation, he strings together a number of Old Testament texts to show the Jews (who professed to believe those Scriptures) that he wasn’t making this up. Through machine-gun fire repetition, Paul shows that…
Since all people are under sin, they all need the good news that God has provided a Savior from sin.
First (3:9), he summarizes the charge which he has leveled (1:18-3:8), “that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin.” Then (rallel, Ps. 53:1-3). Scripture also shows that all of us are guilty of sins of speech (3:13-14). Verse 13 quotes from Psalms 5:9 and 140:3. Verse 14 comes from Psalm 10:7. Also, we all have committed sins that destroy harmonious relationships (3:15-17). These verses cite Isaiah 59:7-8. The root cause of our sinful behavior comes back to our relationship with God (3:18): “There is no fear of God before their eyes” (citing Psalm 36:1). The quotations are not in every case verbatim from the LXX, which may mean that Paul was either citing from memory or translating from the Hebrew into Greek. But this rapid-fire string of quotations shows that the Bible clearly establishes that everyone is under sin.
But some may think, “Now wait a minute! I’ve got my faults, but I’m not nearly as bad as this description! I’ve bent the truth at times, but verses 13 & 14 do not describe my speech. And I’ve never murdered anyone as verse 15 alleges. Unlike verse 17, I’m a peaceable man.”
But like the list of sins in 1:29-32, Paul isn’t saying that every sinner does all of these sins all the time. Rather, he is saying that the seeds for all of these sins are planted deeply in every fallen human heart. Through His common grace, God prevents sinners from being as terrible as they would be if He didn’t restrain them. But if you can read this description of human nature and think, “Thank God I’m not like that,” then God has not opened your eyes to the true condition of your heart. As Jesus pointed out, if you have ever been angry with another person, in God’s sight you are a murderer. If you’ve ever lusted, you’re an adulterer. By nature, your heart is “under sin.” If you had been reared in less favorable circumstances and had not met Christ, there is no limit to the sins to which you would be enslaved (see Eph. 4:17-19).
If we don’t understand how bad the disease is, we won’t seek the cure, whether for ourselves or to share with those who outwardly seem to be “good” folks. So let’s examine Paul’s penetrating analysis of sin.
Paul begins by summarizing his charge (a legal term; 3:9), “What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin.”
Scholars debate how to translate the first three phrases. Without getting into all of the technical arguments, I think that the way the NASB translates it is probably the best: “What then? Are we better than they? Not at all….” But, you still have to determine, who is “we” and who are “they”? Again, without delving into the various arguments, I think it’s best to understand “we” as “we Jews” and “they” as the Gentiles. But, that seems to make Paul contradict in verse 9 what he said in verse 1, that the Jews have many advantages over the Gentiles. But he is considering two different issues. In verse 1 he is saying that there are many spiritual advantages to being born a Jew, if the Jew will take them. But in verse 9 he is coming back to what he argued in 2:17-29, that the Jews are just as much under sin and in need of God’s salvation as the Gentiles are.
And so in verse 9 he restates his charge that the entire human race (“Jews and Greeks”) is under sin. This is the first occurrence of sin in Romans. Paul goes on to use that word nearly 50 times from here through chapter 8. He is charging that both religious people and raw pagans are under sin. Relatively “good” people and rotten scoundrels are under sin. As an ancient Chinese proverb observed, “There are two good men—one is dead and the other is not yet born” (cited by S. Lewis Johnson, Jr. “Studies in Romans: Part IX: The Universality of Sin,” Bibliotheca Sacra, 131:522:164).
Then, to show that he didn’t make up this charge, Paul cites Scripture. Verse 10b, “There is none righteous, not even one.” is not verbatim from Psalm 14:1, which reads, “There is no one who does good” (or, LXX, lit., “kindness”). Paul may be blending Ecclesiastes 7:20, “Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins” with Psalm 14:1.
But whatever the source, verses 10-12 drive home the fact that every human being, without exception, is under sin: “As it is written, ‘There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one.’”
Paul hammers the lid with so many nails that you cannot pry it open: none righteous; not even one; none who understands, none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one! Paul does not let anyone slip under the radar! We all have sinned.
To be righteous means to be blameless with regard to God and to our fellow man, to live in perfect conformity to God’s law (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans: The Righteous Judgment of God [Zondervan], pp. 197-198). So Paul means “that there is not a single person who, apart from God’s justifying grace, can stand as ‘right’ before God” (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 203).
When Paul says (3:9) that all are “under sin,” he means that everyone is under the guilt of sin. This is not to say that everyone feels guilty. A mafia hit man may not feel the slightest twinge of guilt after shooting a man in the face. Afterwards, he goes to dinner with his friends and jokes about the look of horror on the victim’s face just before he blew him away. But although he doesn’t feel guilty, he is truly guilty of murder in God’s sight. To be “under sin” means that we are truly guilty of violating God’s holy law. We will be condemned when we stand before Him for judgment, unless our sins are atoned for through Christ’s blood.
Also, to be “under sin” means that outside of Christ, we are under the power of sin. It dominates our lives so that we obey its lusts. Paul refers to this as being slaves of sin (Rom. 6:6, 16-22). Again, this does not mean that unbelievers are as wicked as they possibly could be. Nor does it mean that they are incapable of being kind or doing good deeds. Rather, in God’s sight and by His perfect standard of righteousness, even their good deeds are as filthy rags (Isa. 64:6). They do them ultimately to exalt self, not to glorify God.
Also, note that being “under sin” means that sin, like a disease, affects their entire being. Acts of sin are the symptoms of the underlying disease. Their understanding or mind is darkened (3:11; 2 Cor. 4:4; Eph. 4:18). Their motivation is warped, so that they do not seek God or fear Him (3:11, 18). Their speech, which comes out of their heart (Matt. 12:34), is corrupt (3:13-14). Their behavior is selfish and destructive (3:15-17). Their entire way of life (“path”) is misdirected (3:16, 17). So all human beings and all parts of all human beings are under sin.
The two greatest commandments are to love God with all our being and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matt. 22:37-39). Sin sabotages both relationships.
God warned Adam and Eve that in the day they sinned, they would die (Gen. 2:17). This referred to the curse of physical death, but also to spiritual death, being cut off from the life of God in their souls. Since their original sin, the entire human race is born in sin, alienated from the life of God. Hence, no one is born righteous, not even one. No one, apart from God’s saving grace, is able to seek or attain righteousness in God’s sight, because we all sin often in many ways. The assessment of Genesis 6:5 is not limited to the human race just prior to the flood, but is true of all who are outside of Christ: “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
When Paul says (3:11a), “there is none who understands,” he is referring to moral and spiritual understanding (see 1:31; Matt. 13:14, 15, 19, 23, 51). Outside of Christ, our minds are darkened with regard to spiritual truth, as we’ve seen. As Paul explains (1 Cor. 2:14), “But the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.”
“There is none who seeks for God” (3:11b) means that, apart from God’s drawing the sinner to Himself (John 6:44, 65), none could or would seek for Him. As Jesus said (John 3:19, 20), “Men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.”
Furthermore (3:12a), “All have turned aside.” As Isaiah 53:6 puts it, “All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way….” We deliberately tossed aside God’s roadmap to heaven and took what we thought would be a shortcut. But it got us hopelessly lost.
Also (3:12b), “Together they have become useless.” The word useless is used of sour milk or of rotten fruit. Our lives are useless to God because of our sin. Then (3:12c, d) Paul repeats verse 10 with a slight variation, “There is none who does good, there is not even one.” Since “good” in God’s sight means to do what we do for His glory, no one outside of Christ does good. Everything we do before we come to Christ is tainted by the disease of sin.
At the end of this section (3:18), Paul comes back to another sin issue that negatively affects our relationship with God, “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” This is the root problem. Since “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov. 9:10), the one who does not fear God is a fool. He hasn’t even entered the kindergarten of wise living, because he does not revere God. He does not bow in awe before God’s sovereignty, majesty, and glory. He does not fear God’s judgment on his sins.
Since the fear of God is not “before his eyes,” it means that God is not at the center of his thoughts. The sinner does not live with the awareness that he is accountable to God and dependent on God for all things. He does not think about the fact that God could easily say (Luke 12:20), “You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?” Sin negatively affects our relationship with God.
Sin prevents us from obeying the second great commandment, to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. We’ll look at these destructive behaviors more in just a moment, but here I just want to point out the obvious, that people who use deception and abusive speech (3:13-14) do not have harmonious relationships. People who use anger and threats of violence are on the path of destruction and misery, not on “the path of peace” (3:15-17) They shred harmonious relationships.
Again, I am stating the obvious, but it needs to be stated. Why do we fall into sin? Because we wrongly think that it will bring us the happiness and satisfaction that we long for. True joy and lasting pleasure is found only in God. As David wrote (Ps. 16:11), “You will make known to me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand there are pleasures forever.”
But maybe you aren’t experiencing God’s joy and the pleasures of His presence. Maybe you’re in a difficult marriage. You know that you ought to obey God by being faithful to your mate and by loving her as God has commanded. But it’s not easy. Along comes a seductive woman at work who shows an interest in you. She seems as if she will give you the happiness that your wife is not providing. So you give in to temptation, fall into adultery, get a divorce, and marry the new “Ms. Right.” Will you be happy?
Not for long, because sin is like buying stuff on credit. For a short while, you can live like a king. Travel wherever you want, stay in five star hotels, and eat in the finest restaurants. What a great life! But then the bills start coming due, and life isn’t so great anymore! Sin provides short term pleasure, but long term pain. Obedience is often difficult in the short term, but it yields pleasures forever at God’s right hand.
Also, note how sin destroys relationships. Paul (3:13a) describes the throat of sinners as an open grave. The idea is that the stench of a corpse belches out. The person who gets near such a place will be defiled. Also (3:13b), the tongues of the wicked “keep deceiving.” They use smooth speech to beguile you, but all the while they are trying to use you for their own evil advantage. “The poison of asps is under their lips” (3:13c) just waiting to strike and kill their victim. Their “mouth is full of cursing and bitterness” (3:14). They not only take the Lord’s name in vain, but they use curses to get power over their enemies. They are bitter, unforgiving people. They seek to destroy others, and the result is misery and no peace (3:16-17).
In some cases, sin destroys the sinner himself by driving him to suicide. His sin has alienated him from God and from all human relationships to the point that he loses all hope. He has no peace with God, no peace with others, and no peace in his own soul. In despair, he destroys himself. Sin always has destructive results.
So Paul’s picture of the human race, fallen in sin, is pretty grim. First, he allows no exceptions: all people, even so-called “good” people, are under sin. Second, their sin negatively affects their relationships with God and others. Third, sin always has destructive results. It never gets us where we hope it will take us. It leaves a trail of destruction and misery.
If I stayed strictly with our text, I’d end the message here and say, “Have a great week!” There isn’t much hope in these verses. And, he’s not quite done. Next time, we’ll look at verses 19 & 20, which close his case. But Paul knows that unless you feel the despair of the awful disease of sin, you won’t take the cure. But rather than end on a downer, let’s briefly look at verses 21 and following, where Paul gives us the cure:
Paul breaks in with one of the great “buts” of Scripture (3:21, 22): “But now apart from the Law [which we could never keep perfectly] the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe.” He is going back to 1:16-17, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith.’” Or, as we saw, the last phrase may be translated, “But the righteous man by faith shall live.”
The greatest news in the world is that although we all are under sin’s condemnation, by faith in Jesus Christ, who paid the penalty we deserved, we can receive God’s gift of eternal life. As Paul says (Rom. 3:24), “being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” Have you received that gift?
There are modern preachers, some with huge, “successful” churches, who would never preach the message of Romans 3:9-18. It’s too negative. It puts people down. It tears down their self esteem. It makes them feel terrible about themselves. It sounds harsh, not loving.
But Paul knew that the most loving doctor will tell you the truth about your disease. If he knows that you’re terminally ill and he has the cure, but he just hugs you and tells you that you’re wonderful and sends you out the door, he doesn’t love you. Or, if he doesn’t tell you the bad news that you’re terminal, he knows that you would not take the chemotherapy that could cure you. If you don’t think you’re sick, you won’t take the medicine.
In love, God (through Paul) tells you the grim truth: you’re terminal under sin. You’re headed for eternal condemnation. But then He gives you the good news: God will justify the guilty sinner who puts his trust in Jesus Christ and the redemption He secured on the cross. It’s not a dreadful cure, like chemo. It’s a wonderful cure! Believe in Him today and you will be freed from the curse of sin and death!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2010, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Have you ever noticed how prone you are to excuse yourself and blame others? This especially comes out when I’m driving. The driver who whizzed past me is a maniac. The granny in front of me holding up traffic by her slow driving is a road hazard. But me? Hey, I drive just right!
The guy who spends less than I do is a tightwad. The guy who spends more is irresponsible. But me? I’m a careful manager of what the Lord gives me.
We chuckle at these examples, but if we go through life justifying ourselves and blaming others, the day will come when we won’t be laughing. We’ll be standing before God, all of our excuses will evaporate, our mouths will be closed, and we will hear the Sovereign Judge pronounce, “Guilty as charged!” At that point, it will be too late to plead for mercy.
As we’ve seen in recent messages, the most difficult people to reach with the gospel are relatively “good” people, especially religious “good” people. They go to church. They are outwardly moral. They take pride in their good deeds. They think, “Sure, I’ve got my faults. Who doesn’t? But, God knows that I’m a basically good person. Criminals and terrorists may deserve hell, but I’m not like they are.” Filled with self-righteousness, they trust in their good works to justify them on judgment day. They don’t see their need for a Savior from sin. And so they never repent of their sins and trust in Jesus Christ.
Paul is like a prosecuting attorney, summing up his case. He’s still aiming at the self-righteous Jews. In Romans 3:9, he sums up his case, “for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin.” Then, to cinch his case with the Jews, he cites from their own Scriptures to prove that there is none righteous, not even one (3:10-18).
But he’s not quite done. Paul realizes that religious, “good” sinners are very difficult to convince of their sin. He knows that they still may be thinking, “The passages you just quoted, Paul, refer only to wicked Jews or to the Gentiles. But I’m a good, law-keeping Jew. Those verses don’t describe me!”
So Paul shows (“we know” appeals to something that is common knowledge, which even the religious Jews would agree with) that the Law speaks to all who are under it. Yes, God’s Law condemns the Gentiles, too, so that “the whole world may become accountable to God.” But the Law speaks to those who are “in the Law” (literal translation), namely, to the Jews. He is showing that their own Law, in which they boasted, condemns them. They will not be justified by the Law unless they have kept it perfectly, which no one has. We can’t expect to be justified by a law that we have only kept occasionally and have broken often. That is his closing argument before resting his case.
But this raises a question: Then why did God give the Law? Paul shows,
God gave the Law to reveal His standard of absolute righteousness to convict us all of our true guilt before Him, so that we would see our need for the gospel.
We all need to understand and apply this text personally, so that we abandon any attempt to justify ourselves. We need to trust in Christ alone. Also, we need to understand these verses so that we can use them to dislodge the propensity of others toward self-righteousness, so that they will see why they need to believe in the gospel. This is by far the most common problem that you will encounter when you talk to others about their need for the Savior. They’re blind towards their own sin. They wrongly think, “God will let me into heaven because I’m a good person.” They can’t imagine how a loving God could damn them eternally for their “few” faults. These verses show God’s standard of absolute righteousness and how that standard will convict everyone who trusts in his own righteousness. To be acquitted, we need the perfect righteousness of the Savior credited to our account (3:21-28).
When you tell people that they have sinned against the holy God, you will often hear, “God knows that I’ve done the best that I could. I believe in the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule. I try to live by the Sermon on the Mount.” They seem to think that if you try to do your best, even if you fail thousands of times, God will let you off on judgment day. He will reward your effort, not penalize your failures. Besides, if He demanded perfection, no one could be saved! Precisely!
But James 2:10 points out, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.” We don’t like to admit this, but if you think about it, you have to admit it. If a man stole your credit card and used it to buy thousands of dollars of purchases, he is guilty of stealing. What would you think if, when he came to trial, he argued, “But judge, I didn’t commit adultery with his wife”? “I didn’t steal his car or burn down his house. I didn’t lie to him. I didn’t molest his children. And, besides, I try to live by the Golden Rule. I do the best that I can.” All of that is irrelevant to the main issue: “Did you steal his credit card and use it to buy thousands of dollars of goods?” If so, he is guilty in spite of all the other bad things he didn’t do and in spite of all the good things that he may be doing. He’s a law-breaker.
Let’s look for a moment at the absolute righteousness of God’s Law (Paul means the whole Old Testament), which gives us “the knowledge of sin” (3:20).
Jesus said (Matt. 22:37-40) that the entire Law rests on the two great commandments: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
Who can possibly claim even to have come close to keeping the first great commandment? Have you, from your earliest memory, always loved God completely, with all your heart, soul, and mind, every day all day long? This would mean that you have always obeyed Him, because if you don’t obey Him, you don’t love Him. It would mean that He always has been the center of your waking thoughts. His will has been at the center of every decision that you have made. His glory has been your supreme desire and aim in whatever you think, say or do. You begin every day by worshiping Him. You love His Word more than food and meditate on it day and night. Who in his right mind can say, “You’ve just described me”?
We don’t fare any better on the second great commandment, to love our neighbor just as much as we in fact love ourselves. Did you always gladly share your toys as a toddler? In school, did you always put others ahead of yourself? Have you given generously and sacrificially to help the needy? Have you always put your mate’s needs ahead of your own? Have you always treated your children with love and kindness, even when they were disobedient? At work, did you rejoice when your co-worker got the promotion that you thought you deserved? Again, who in his right mind can say, “You’ve just described me”? What about the Ten Commandments?
Surveys have shown that even though many people say that they try to live by the Ten Commandments, few can name them all. So it’s hard to imagine how anyone can keep commandments that he doesn’t even know! The Ten Commandments are found in Exodus 20:1-17 (also, Deut. 5:6-21). The first four commandments elaborate on our love for God. (1) “You shall have no other gods before Me.” (2) “You shall not make for yourself an idol….” (3) “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain….” (4) Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy….”
There is a debate about whether Christians under the New Covenant are under the Ten Commandments and especially about how the sabbath command applies to believers in Christ. But all of the Ten Commandments, except for the sabbath command, can be found in the New Testament. So even if we say that you are free to watch a football game on Sunday afternoon, have you perfectly kept the first three commandments? “Yes, I’ve never had any other gods before the Lord, or made or worshiped any idols.” Really? You’ve never usurped God’s rightful lordship over your life? You’ve never put your money or possessions or some pastime ahead of the place that belongs to God alone? And, you didn’t mention the third command. Have you never carelessly said, “Oh, my God”? Or, “Oh, Jeez”? Most of us have said far worse in a moment of anger!
Skipping how you have violated the Lord’s Day, let’s move on to the other six, which focus on your love for others: (5) “Honor your father and mother.” (6) “You shall not murder.” (7) “You shall not commit adultery.” (8) “You shall not steal.” (9) You shall not bear false witness….” (10) “You shall not covet….”
None of us have made it through childhood by always honoring our parents. As for murder and adultery, let’s wait until we come to the Sermon on the Mount. But, what about stealing? Have you never taken what does not belong to you? Have you always claimed all of your income on your tax forms and never fudged on a deduction? What about lying? Have you always told the truth, even if it made you look bad? And have you never coveted something that belongs to someone else?
“But I’m a Christian. I try to follow Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount.” Really? You just jumped from the frying pan into the fire!
As I just alluded to, Jesus brought up the command about murder. While the self-righteous Pharisees were congratulating themselves that they had never killed anyone, Jesus nailed them (and us!) by saying that if you’ve ever been angry with your brother, you’re guilty of murder in God’s sight and deserving of “the fiery hell” (Matt. 5:21-22). He did the same thing regarding the seventh commandment against adultery. He said that if you’ve ever lusted in your heart after a woman, you’re guilty of adultery (Matt. 5:27-30). He sums up the requirement (Matt. 5:48): “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” How can anyone claim, “I keep the Sermon on the Mount”?
The so-called Golden Rule is a part of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 7:12), “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” Again, it’s a noble goal, but who can claim that they’ve done it perfectly? If you say that you have, you just broke the commandment about lying!
So Paul’s point is that God’s Law reveals His standard of absolute righteousness. As a result,
This is Paul’s point when he says (3:19b-20), “so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.”
These verses re-emphasize the universality of sin, which verses 10-12 established so forcefully. Paul makes three points:
The picture is of an accused person standing before the judge to present his case. But in this case, the judge is the Sovereign, holy God, creator of heaven and earth! Here comes the proud atheist, who wrote books arguing that God is not great or that He is a delusion. What will he say when he stands before the blinding glory of the holy God? Nothing! His mouth will be stopped. He has no more arguments.
Or, here is the person who often complained about how unfair God is. If He were a God of love and power, He would not allow all of the suffering that we see in this world. If He would just run the universe differently (as I would!), it would be a much happier place. Now he stands before the Almighty. What does he say? Nothing! He has no defense.
Even godly men have had their down times, when they questioned God. God allowed Satan to attack the righteous Job by taking his possessions, killing his ten children, and then covering his body with painful boils. Job wanted to argue his case before God that he was being dealt with unfairly. But when God appeared and gave Job a glimpse of His power and wisdom, Job’s response was to slap his hand over his mouth, to be silent, and to repent in dust and ashes (Job 40:4-5; 42:6). Isaiah (Isa. 6:1-5), Habakkuk (Hab. 3:16), and the apostle John (Rev. 1:17) were also silenced when they got a glimpse of the glory of the Lord. The point is, when you stand for judgment before God on His throne, you won’t have anything to say. Every mouth will be closed.
I read about a woman who got a traffic ticket. She was guilty, but she thought that she had some excuses that might get the charges dropped, so she arranged to argue her case before the judge. In her mind, she imagined how the judge would ask if she was guilty. She would say, “Yes, but I want to explain why.” She would proceed to convince the judge that what she did could hardly be avoided and so the ticket should be excused. She had her argument ready.
“But,” she said, “when I came into that court and stood up there all alone, and the judge was on the bench, dressed in his black robe, and he looked over his glasses at me and said, ‘Guilty or not guilty,’ all my arguments faded.” Her mouth was stopped.
If that happened in a traffic court with a human judge, how much more will we be silenced when we stand before the Sovereign of the universe! Martyn Lloyd-Jones observed (Romans: Atonement and Justification [Zondervan], p. 19), “You are not a Christian unless you have been made speechless! How do you know whether you are a Christian or not? It is that you ‘stop talking.’”
“Accountable” is a legal term that occurs only here in the New Testament. It means that we are guilty and liable for punishment. It’s not that we are accountable in a human court, but to God Himself! He knows every evil thought that we’ve entertained. He knows every secret sin that we’ve committed. All things are open and laid bare before Him (Heb. 4:13). We’ve all broken His holy Law, not just a few times, but thousands and thousands of times. How could we possibly hope that all charges will be dropped?
But, you may wonder, how can the whole world be accountable to God through the Law, since it was only given to the Jews? Paul has already pointed out that even the Gentiles, who did not have the Law, had the work of the Law written in their hearts and consciences (2:15). But here, Paul does not seem to be referring to that, but to the Law that God gave in written form to the Jews. He is arguing from the greater to the lesser: If the Jews, who were God’s covenantal people, could not even keep His Law, then it follows that no one else could keep it either. The failure of the Gentiles is obvious (1:18-32), but here Paul is indicting the self-righteous Jews. If they are guilty, then the whole world is also accountable to God. None will escape His judgment.
Back in 2:13, Paul said, “It is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified.” As I explained when we studied that verse, some understand it in a hypothetical sense, that if anyone can keep the Law, he will be justified, but none can. Others (and I lean this way) say that in the context there, Paul was not speaking of hypothetical perfect obedience, but rather to the general obedience that some, by God’s saving grace, are able to perform. He was not looking at the front end of how one attains justification, but at the pattern of life of those who have been justified by faith.
But here Paul is looking at how one attains justification in the first place. It is not earned by keeping the Law, because no one can keep it perfectly. If we could earn right standing with God by our perfect obedience to God’s Law, salvation would not be by grace alone and we then could boast. Nothing that we do by way of obedience (here called, “the works of the Law”) will ever be good enough, because we all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory (3:23). As we’ve seen, God gave the Law to reveal His standard of absolute righteousness, not to be the way of salvation. J. B. Phillips (The New Testament in Modern English [Geoffrey Bles], p. 314) paraphrases the last clause of verse 20, “it is the straight-edge of the Law that shows us how crooked we are.” Thus,
Paul has been laying the foundation for this point from 1:18 through 3:20. We will study it in 3:21-28, but briefly notice (3:21-22): “But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe.” As he goes on to say (3:24), we are “justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” That’s the greatest news in the world: Even though we are all guilty of breaking God’s Law, He offers a pardon to all that trust in Jesus and His substitutionary death on the cross!
Years ago, Donald Grey Barnhouse, the pastor for many years of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, used to ask those with whom he shared the gospel, “When you die and God asks, ‘What right do you have to come into my heaven?’ what will your answer be?” He was trying to get people to understand that their only right to heaven had to be that they were trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ and His death on the cross to pay for their sins.
On one occasion, an Arthur Murray dance instructor had been out late on a Saturday night. In the early hours of the morning, he stumbled back to his hotel room and fell into bed. The next morning, he was jolted awake by his clock radio, where the speaker asked, “If in the next few moments some great disaster should happen and you should be killed and if you should find yourself before God and he should ask you, ‘What right do you have to come into my heaven?’ what would you say?”
The question amazed and confounded the dance instructor. He had never heard such a question before. He realized that he didn’t have an answer. His mouth was stopped. He sat silently on the edge of his bed while the speaker, Dr. Barnhouse, explained the answer. The dance instructor put his trust in Jesus Christ that day in his hotel room.
His name was D. James Kennedy. He went on to become the pastor for many years of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He also developed the Evangelism Explosion program that has led thousands to Christ by asking that question: “If you were to die today and God asked you, ‘Why should I let you into my heaven?’ what would you say?” (This story related by James Boice, Romans [Baker], 1:326-327.)
“Lord, I’ve tried to be a good person; I’ve done my best to keep the Golden Rule,” won’t cut it. “Lord, I’m a guilty sinner, but I put my trust in Your Son Jesus who died to pay my penalty,” is the only answer that will be accepted. Make sure that your trust is in Christ alone!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2010, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Marla and I spent the infamous Y2K, when the calendar turned to January 1, 2000, in a remote village in the Czech Republic, ministering to a group of college students. One day during a break, we were walking around the village when we met a friendly local man, who took us on a nice hike and showed us around town. We told him what we were doing there.
The next day, I was in the middle of a question and answer time with the students when someone ushered in this man. He raised his hand and asked, “What is the difference between Christianity and the other religions of the world?” I thought, “What an opportunity! I get to share the gospel with this man, plus all of these students can listen as I do it!”
I then explained that all religions, including some Christian ones, such as Roman Catholicism (the Czech Republic used to be mainly Catholic, but now is largely atheist), believe that the way a person gets right with God is through good works. Every religion is man’s effort to be reconciled to God by earning His favor. But biblical Christianity is God’s reconciling sinful man to Himself apart from our good works. God sent His eternal Son to pay the penalty that we deserve so that we can be right with Him through grace alone by trusting in Jesus Christ.
I don’t know whether God used my words to open that man’s heart to the truth or not. His English was broken enough that I was not able to follow through with him via email. But his question was a vital one that leads to what is the most important question that any person can ever ask: How can I be right with God? Or, more specifically: How can a sinner such as I be right with God, who is absolutely righteous?
This is the question that Paul finally answers in our text and the following verses. I say finally because from Romans 1:18-3:20, Paul forcefully drives home the point that all people, whether the pagan Gentiles or the religious Jews, are under sin. He spent so long on that subject, especially hitting the religious Jews with their self-righteousness, because he knew that unless we feel the weight of our own sin and condemnation, we will not appreciate our need for the gospel. We need to understand the bad news before we will welcome the good news.
Paul had referred to the gospel in Romans 1:16-17, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith.’” Now, he comes back to that theme, mentioning “the righteousness of God” being “manifested,” that there is “no distinction” (between Jew and Greek), and the need for everyone to come to faith in Jesus Christ.
Coming after the inescapable condemnation of 1:18-3:20, “But now” is one of the greatest contrasts in the Bible. He uses the same phrase later when he contrasts our past as slaves of sin, headed for death (ving been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.” He is fond of making this same dramatic contrast in other places, also (1 Cor. 15:20; Eph. 2:4, 13; Col. 1:22). Martyn Lloyd-Jones points out (Romans: Atonement and Justification [Zondervan], pp. 24-25), “No man can be a Christian without realizing his utter hopelessness.” He goes on to say (p. 26) that the answer to whether you are a Christian or not hinges on your answer to this question, “Is there a ‘But now’ in your experience?”
In our text, Paul answers the age-old question asked several times in the Book of Job (4:17; 9:2; 25:4), “How can a person be right with God?” This is such a profound text that Leon Morris (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 173) calls verses 21-26, “possibly the most important single paragraph ever written.” Alva McClain (Romans: The Gospel of God’s Grace [BMH Books], p. 101) says that if he could only have six verses out of the entire Bible, it would be Romans 3:21-26. Lloyd-Jones (p. 31) says, “It is no exaggeration to say of this section that it is one of the greatest and most important sections in the whole of Scripture.” These and other similar comments make me feel wholly inadequate to preach on it! We desperately need the help of the Holy Spirit to understand and apply these crucial verses!
Paul shows here that if salvation depends on our works, we face two impossible barriers: the righteousness and glory of God. How can we who have sinned be reconciled to the righteous God of all glory? How can we who have dishonored Him enter His holy presence? The great news is:
Sinners can be right with God through faith in Jesus Christ and His gracious sacrifice to redeem us.
It is crucial to understand three main things in our text:
After spending two and a half chapters hammering home this point, why does Paul bring it up again? He writes (3:22b-23), “for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” He says it again because he knows how prone we all are, especially those of us from religious backgrounds, to minimize our sin and to justify ourselves by our good deeds. But …
When we present the gospel, we’re apt to talk about God’s love and mercy. But Paul is mainly concerned here to talk about God’s righteousness and our sin, or lack of righteousness. He mentions righteousness in verses 21, 22, 25, and 26, plus “justify” in 24 and 26, and “just” in v. 26. In Greek, all of these words come from the same word root. God’s righteousness refers to His absolute holiness or separateness from all sin and all that is wrong. But in this context, Paul is especially referring to how sinners may be justified or declared righteous in God’s sight (3:20).
“But now” (3:21) certainly must be applied personally as Dr. Lloyd-Jones brought out, but in the context, it refers to the contrast in salvation history between the era of the Law of Moses and the grace that comes through Jesus Christ. As we saw in our last study, God’s Law is not able to justify us. Rather, it condemns us by pointing out the many ways in which we have violated God’s holy standard. Since we’re all guilty of breaking God’s Law, we all must face the crucial question, “How can I get right with the righteous God in view of my many sins?”
When Paul says (3:22b) “for there is no distinction,” he means, “no distinction between Jew and Gentile.” The religious Jews would have agreed wholeheartedly with Paul that the Gentiles are under sin, but he has labored through chapters 2 and 3 to show that even the carefully religious Jew is guilty of not keeping God’s holy Law. When Paul says, “all have sinned,” he uses the Greek aorist tense. This leads some commentators to argue that he is referring to our identification with Adam in his original sin (in 5:12 he uses the same tense), which may be true. But the aorist tense may also be used to look at the fact or reality of the action itself (“constative” aorist). So Paul means, “Look around, look at yourself, and you will see that all without exception have sinned.” “Fall short” is in the present tense, meaning, we are consistently sinning and falling short of (or, lacking) God’s glory.
What does this mean? John Piper (The Pleasures of God [Multnomah Publishers], revised and expanded edition, p. 158, note 1) explains that we were created to reflect God’s glory. He says, “We reflect his glory as we cherish it and keep it ever before us and make it the treasure and the goal of our lives.” Then he refers to Romans 1:23, where Paul says that sinners “exchanged the glory” of God for idols. He continues,
Thus we have traded treasures. We prefer other things in life to the delights of seeing and knowing the God of glory. This is the sense in which we “lack” the glory of God. We lack it as the treasure of our lives. We lack it as our passion and goal. We lack it as our all-satisfying vision. This is the essence of sin: preferring other things to the glory of God.
Of course, this is bad news, as we’ve seen. We “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” But, there is a hint of good news even in Paul’s stating this bad news. If God’s Law condemns us all as sinners, how can we possibly get around it and get right with God?
“But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets” (3:21). As we’ve seen, the Law cannot put anyone in a right relationship with God. Rather, the Law reveals God’s holy standard, which convicts and condemns us for our sin.
But this new way of gaining right standing with God is apart from the Law. He means, it is apart from keeping the Law perfectly as an attempt to be right with Him. It is a completely different approach. But then, is it in opposition to the Law? No, it is “witnessed by the Law and the Prophets” (which means, the whole Old Testament). Paul adds this phrase to show his Jewish readers that he is not overthrowing the Scriptures. He reinforces this in 3:31 when he says, “Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law.”
He goes on to illustrate this in chapter 4 with the example of Abraham, who was justified by faith, not by his works. He backs this up with Psalm 32, where David exults in “the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works” (4:6). So we would be mistaken if we thought that the Old Testament taught that sinners get right with God by keeping the Law, whereas the New Testament overthrows that and says that we get right with God by faith. In the Old Testament, God credited His righteousness to sinners who by faith looked ahead to the promised Savior. In the New Testament, that Savior has been revealed and has given Himself as the sacrifice for sinners.
To paraphrase Paul’s flow of thought here (3:20-24), “Trying to keep God’s Law will not get anyone into right standing with Him. Rather, the Law just shows us how sinful we are. So now, apart from the Law, but in line with what both the Law and the Prophets pointed to, God declares sinners righteous when they believe in His final sacrifice for sins, Jesus Christ.” That leads to…
Since “all have sinned,” it would be pointless for Paul to write about a way of being right with God that did not apply to all sinners. But, ironically, it is those who do not see themselves as sinners who miss God’s way of righteousness. If you don’t think you’re sick, you won’t go to the doctor or take the medicine. We have to accept the diagnosis that we’re sinners before we will welcome the cure of God’s free grace in Christ.
To understand this good news is both simple and yet profound. It’s easy enough for a child to grasp and yet deep enough to evoke thousands of pages of deep theology. In these and the following verses Paul uses some important theological words. In verses 21-24, we need to understand four terms: justification; free grace; redemption; and, faith.
To justify does not mean to make someone righteous, but to declare him to be righteous. It is a forensic or legal term that means to obtain the verdict of acquittal. Charles Hodge defined it (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 102), “Justification is pronouncing one to be just, and treating him accordingly, on the ground that the demands of the law have been satisfied concerning him.” For example, Deuteronomy 25:1 talks about judges deciding a case where “they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked.” They pronounced the verdict, “not guilty,” on the righteous and “guilty” on the wicked. They did not make the accused righteous or wicked. Rather, they pronounced them to be such.
In Romans 3:24, the verb is passive. It is something that God does to us, not something that we do for ourselves. It is not a process, but a judicial action. The process of becoming righteous in character and behavior follows the judicial act of God declaring us to be righteous.
Note (3:24), “being justified as a gift by His grace ….” The single Greek word translated “as a gift” means, “freely.” Jesus used it to say (John 15:25), “They hated Me without a cause.” Read that sense into Romans 3:24, “being justified without a cause.” Paul uses the word to say that he did not eat anyone’s food “without paying for it” (2 Thess. 3:8). Again, we can say that we are justified “without paying for it.” It is used in Revelation 22:17, where the thirsty soul is encouraged to “take the water of life without cost.” We are justified “without cost.” It’s completely free!
As if that word alone were not enough to convey this astounding news, Paul adds one of his favorite words (which should be your favorite word, also!), “by His grace.” Grace is God’s favor shown to those who deserved His wrath. It is completely unmerited. You can see this by looking at Romans 4:4, “Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due.” The word translated “favor” is the Greek word, “grace.” When you work, you don’t get grace; you get wages. Your boss owes it to you and he must pay you or you can file legal charges against him. But grace is the opposite of working and receiving what you’re owed. With grace, you get undeserved favor. You deserved to get fired because you messed up, but your boss gave you a huge bonus instead. That’s grace. God justifies sinners who deserve His wrath freely by His grace. The bonus is eternal life!
That’s terrific news if you are the guilty sinner who is declared innocent freely because of grace. But, frankly, it doesn’t seem right! If an earthly judge declares a guilty murderer “not guilty” and in addition awards him a healthy judgment and then says, “I wanted to give him what he did not deserve,” we would say, “That’s unjust!” So how can God be just when He declares guilty sinners to be justified when they don’t deserve it?
“Redemption” means to buy something back by the payment of a price, or to release someone by the payment of a ransom (see Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross [Eerdmans], for an in depth study of redemption, justification, and other biblical terms for salvation). In Paul’s day it referred to freeing prisoners of war and slaves by paying the required price (Morris, pp. 12-13). Jesus used the word “ransom” (which is the root for the word “redemption”) in Mark 10:45, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Through His death, Jesus paid the price or penalty that God righteously imposed for our sins. Thus God’s justice was satisfied. Jesus was our substitute, paying what we should have paid, so that we go free at His great expense. Thus, justification is completely free for us, but it was costly to Jesus who redeemed us with His own blood.
In the Old Testament, the chief picture of redemption was Israel’s being freed from slavery in Egypt. To avoid the deaths of their firstborn sons, the Jews had to kill a lamb and place its blood on the doorposts and lintel of their houses. God saw the blood and passed over those homes. Jesus is our Passover lamb, slain to redeem us from our slavery to sin. He paid the price that God required. In that way, God can be both “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (3:26). That leads to the last word, “faith” (or “believe”). This word is the key to the question, “How can I be right with God?”
Paul says (3:22a), “even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” (The KJV adds the phrase “and on all”; but most commentators agree that it is not original.) Scholars debate whether the Greek phrase, which is literally, “through faith of Jesus Christ,” refers to Jesus’ faithfulness or to our faith in Him (the Greek grammar can be taken either way). I agree with those who argue that it means “faith in Jesus Christ” (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], pp. 224-225; Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], pp. 181-186). He is the object of our faith. It is not enough to have a general faith in God. You must specifically put your trust in Jesus Christ and what He did for you on the cross.
But then is Paul being redundant when he adds, “for all those who believe”? Paul knows that our fallen human tendency to want to be justified by our own supposed righteousness is so strong that he repeats it to make sure we don’t miss it. The righteousness of God comes through faith in Jesus Christ and it is for all who believe. The first phrase, “through faith,” shows that faith is not something that merits salvation, but rather it is the hand that receives the gift. The last phrase, “for all those who believe,” underscores the universal offer of God’s grace. No sinner needs to despair that he is too far gone. All who believe are justified by God’s free grace.
So how can you and I as sinners be right with a God who is absolutely holy? It’s impossible to be right with God by striving to be a good person or by attempting to keep God’s Law. As we saw last week, the Law only reveals how far we fall short of God’s glory. To be right with God by our good deeds would be like lining up at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and trying to jump across to the North Rim. An Olympic broad jumper might get 25-30 feet from the edge before he went down. I’d get maybe 8-10 feet before I would go down. A person with infirmities would only step off the edge and plummet to his death. But no one could leap the ten miles to the other side. It’s impossible!
On judgment day, the question will not be, how far did you jump before you went down? The only question will be, did you get to the other side? You either will be lost by trying to get to heaven by your good deeds, or justified by trusting in the sacrifice of Jesus on your behalf. The great news is that although we all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory, freely by His grace He declares righteous all who put their faith in Jesus Christ and His sacrifice to redeem us. To be right with God, make sure that your trust is totally in Jesus Christ! If you have put your trust in Christ alone to carry you across the chasm between you and God, you know that there is a huge “but now” in your life!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2010, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Jonathan Edwards preached a powerful sermon on the phrase in Romans 3:19, “that every mouth may be stopped,” titled, “The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners.” He forcefully shows since God is infinitely lovely and holy, to sin against Him is an infinitely heinous crime, deserving infinite punishment. Thus God is just to punish sinners with eternal punishment.
As far as I know, Edwards did not follow up that sermon with another on Romans 3:25-26 on, “The Justice of God in the Salvation of Sinners.” But that is the question that Paul answers in our text: How can a holy God be just and yet justify sinners? How can He forgive our sins and still be a God of justice?
Admittedly, that question probably doesn’t keep you awake at night! Probably, you’ve never been asked that question when you shared Christ with someone. It’s more likely that you’ve been asked, “Why can’t God just forgive everyone? When someone offends me, I just forgive him. So why can’t God do that? Why did Jesus have to shed His blood?”
The answer to those questions is, “You can forgive like that because God is absolutely holy and you’re not. God must maintain His absolute justice by punishing all sin. An unjust ‘God’ would not be God at all.” There’s the rub: If God must punish all sin to maintain His absolute justice, then how can He forgive sinners? If a human judge started “showing love” by pardoning murderers and terrorists and rapists, we’d say, “Wait a minute! This is horrible! He’s not upholding justice.” So the question that Paul is grappling with here is, “How can a holy God be just if He pardons guilty sinners?” How can He be a God of love who shows mercy and yet be a righteous God of justice? His answer is:
Jesus’ sacrificial death satisfied God’s wrath and displays His justice in justifying sinners who have faith in Jesus.
As with our text last week, this week’s text is simple on one level and yet difficult and deep on another level. The easy-to-understand message is: When He died on the cross Jesus bore the penalty for sin for all who will trust in Him. Thus if I trust in Him, God can justly forgive my sin.
But, as with last week’s text, there are some difficult theological terms here that have generated thousands of pages of commentary and debate among scholars—propitiation; blood; righteousness; justify; and faith. We need to understand these terms and the flow of thought to apply this Scripture correctly. And, it’s a vital Scripture to apply properly, since it deals with our eternal destiny! And, of course, because it is such a vital text on a vital topic, the enemy has been relentless in attacking its truth. There are several current attacks on the doctrine of the atonement.
Propitiation is not a word that we use in common conversation. It comes from the ancient religious world, where people offered sacrifices to appease the anger of the gods. Because of that imagery, some liberal scholars have tried to eliminate the idea of God’s anger by changing the word to expiation, which refers to the removal of guilt. But Leon Morris (The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross [Eerdmans, third ed.], pp. 144-213) and other scholars have shown that the idea of satisfying God’s wrath against sin is inherent in propitiation. Paul is saying here that Christ’s sacrificial death is the means by which God’s just wrath is turned away from sinners.
But we need to understand several things that distinguish biblical propitiation from the pagan expressions of it. In pagan religions, the person who is experiencing some difficulty assumes that he has offended the gods in some way, but he often doesn’t know how. The gods are unpredictable, but something apparently got them upset! And, he’s not quite sure which sacrifice will work to calm down the gods so that he or his family can get relief from their troubles. But the shamans have more experience with these sorts of things. So the troubled man pays them their fee, offers the prescribed sacrifice, and hopes that the deities will be happy for a while. His sacrifice is an attempt to propitiate the gods.
But biblical propitiation is much different. In the first place, God’s wrath against sin is not capricious or mysterious. Rather, it is His settled holy opposition to evil, expressed in both temporal and eternal judgments. We see the temporal consequences of God’s wrath in both the Old and New Testaments. God cast Adam and Eve out of the garden and pronounced curses on them, on the earth, and on the serpent because of their sin. He sent the flood to destroy everyone on earth in the days of Noah. He rained fire and brimstone on the decadent people of Sodom and Gomorrah. However you interpret the Book of Revelation, it’s clear that God’s temporal judgments were not limited to the Old Testament. He pours out His wrath on rebellious people right up to the time of Christ’s return. That same book shows what Jesus often taught, that God’s temporal wrath will turn into horrible, eternal wrath at the final judgment.
We’ve already seen the concept of God’s wrath in Romans. In 1:18, Paul wrote, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” We saw that a large part of God’s presently revealed wrath against sin is to let us suffer the consequences of sin, as described in 1:24-32. In 2:5, Paul refers to God’s wrath as it pertains to eternal judgment: “But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.” Again in 3:5, he mentions “the God who inflicts wrath.” So the concept of propitiation as the satisfying of God’s wrath is not foreign to the Bible or to Romans.
But there is another major difference between the pagan concept of pacifying the anger of the gods and the biblical concept of propitiation. In the pagan religions, people take the initiative by offering sacrifices in an attempt to placate the gods. But in the Bible, God takes the initiative by providing the specific means of averting His wrath on sin. First, God always spells out what sin is, so that no one should accidentally do something to make God angry. He warned Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and He spelled out the consequences that would follow if they disobeyed: they would die. The same is true in the Law of Moses. God spells out what Israel should do or not do, along with the consequences for disobedience.
Also, in mercy God provides the way to satisfy His wrath and be reconciled to Him. He slaughtered an animal and provided their skins to clothe Adam and Eve. He told Noah to build the ark to preserve his family and him from the flood. He provided the ram, so that Abraham did not have to sacrifice Isaac. He gave detailed instructions to Moses about the sacrificial system. And, finally and supremely, by sending His own Son to die in our place on the cross, God satisfied His own wrath against our sin. Jesus paid the debt that we owed, so that God can show His grace and love to all that trust in Jesus Christ.
Paul makes this clear by the phrase, “whom God displayed publicly.” Other versions read, “set forth” (New KJV), “presented” (NIV, Holman CSB), and “put forward” (ESV). The verb that Paul uses can also mean to purpose or plan beforehand (Rom. 1:13; Eph. 1:9; the noun is used in Rom. 8:28; 9:11; Eph. 1:11; 3:11) and some scholars argue for that meaning here. It would then mean that God planned beforehand to provide Jesus as the propitiation for our sins. But it also can mean to display or set forth publicly. In this view, God’s setting forth or displaying Jesus as a propitiation would refer to His public death on the cross or to the apostolic preaching of the cross. Whichever view is correct, they both point to the fact that God took the initiative in providing the sacrifice that we need to satisfy His wrath.
Evangelical scholars debate one other thing about the Greek word that is translated propitiation. Some (Morris, Godet, and Lloyd-Jones) argue that it should be translated propitiation or propitiatory sacrifice. But others (Thomas Schreiner, Douglas Moo, and James Boice) point out that this word was used many times in the Old Testament to refer to the mercy seat of the ark of the covenant in the holy of holies, where the high priest sprinkled the blood of atonement once a year. While perhaps we should not translate the word as mercy seat, it is easy to think that Paul could have had this in mind when he used the word here. The mercy seat was the place where atonement took place. God’s wrath was averted by the sprinkling of the blood of an innocent substitute on that mercy seat. While that yearly ritual was hidden from public view, it pointed ahead to Jesus, whom God publicly displayed (the veil is torn) as the final and complete sacrifice for our sins.
Again, liberals do not like the emphasis on Christ’s blood as the means of propitiation. This seems crude and primitive. We may wonder why the New Testament puts such an emphasis on Christ’s blood. Why doesn’t it just refer to His death, which is clearly what His blood symbolizes (John Stott, The Cross of Christ [IVP], p. 180, citing Alan Stibbs’ Meaning of the Word ‘Blood’ in Scripture)? Why does Paul say that God displayed Christ as “a propitiation in His blood”? He did so to connect what Christ did with the Old Testament sacrificial system (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans: Atonement and Justification [Zondervan], p. 83).
But why did God require blood sacrifices in the Old Testament? The Lord explains to Moses (Lev. 17:11), “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.” God told Adam and Eve that the punishment for their sins was death. This referred both to physical death and to spiritual death, or separation from God. When God killed an animal, perhaps a lamb, and clothed them with its skin, He was indicating that the way of reconciliation with Him was through shedding the blood of an acceptable substitute.
In the Old Testament sacrificial system, God provided a temporary way for sinners to have their sins atoned for so that they could be reconciled to Him. He required that they kill a male firstborn lamb or goat without blemish and use its blood as the propitiation or atoning sacrifice for their sins. It pictured the substitutionary death of the victim in place of the sinner. It pointed ahead to Jesus, the Lamb of God, the ultimate and all-sufficient sacrifice for our sins. Thus Jesus, just before going to the cross, as He celebrated the Passover with His disciples, took the cup and said (1 Cor. 11:25), “This cup is the new covenant in My blood.”
So Paul’s point when he says that God publicly displayed Christ “as a propitiation in His blood,” is that Jesus’ sacrificial death satisfied God’s wrath against sin. All of this is foundational to understand the issue that Paul goes on to address: How can God be just when He forgives our sins?
“This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed.” Paul is answering the charge that if atonement and forgiveness come only through Christ’s death on the cross, then God was either unjust or terribly sloppy about sin to let go all of the sins committed before the cross. As Hebrews (9:9; 10:1-4) makes clear, those Old Testament sacrifices of animals could never make perfect or cleanse the consciences of the worshipers who offered them. The fact that people in the Old Testament era could be forgiven without the full satisfaction of Christ’s death implies that God is unjust or not righteous.
But Paul, like the author of Hebrews, argues that God’s forbearance in passing over sins in that era did not undermine His righteousness because that sacrificial system would find its fulfillment in the death of Jesus. Douglas Moo explains (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 240)
This does not mean that God failed to punish or “overlooked” sins committed before Christ; nor does it mean that God did not really “forgive” sins under the Old Covenant. Paul’s meaning is rather that God “postponed” the full penalty due sins in the Old Covenant, allowing sinners to stand before him without their having provided an adequate “satisfaction” of the demands of his holy justice (cf. Heb. 10:4).
It’s as if the Old Testament saints who offered animal sacrifices in obedience to the Law were in heaven on credit. The payment of the bill was promised, but it had not yet been paid. Hebrews 9:15 explains, “For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.” God’s righteousness in passing over the sins of those before Christ was vindicated because Jesus paid the debt in full for those sins when He died. He made full atonement.
Verse 25 deals with the question of God’s justice in justifying sinners before the cross. Verse 26 focuses on His justice in justifying sinners after the cross: “for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” As we saw last week, to justify is to declare the accused to be righteous. But if the accused is actually guilty and the judge declares him to be righteous, isn’t the judge unjust?
Paul answers, “No, the cross where Jesus shed His blood to satisfy God’s wrath against our sin actually displays God’s righteousness.” Here righteousness does not refer to God’s declaring sinners righteous (as it does in 3:21-22), but rather to God’s justice. The death of Jesus demonstrates that justice has been served. God didn’t just shrug off our sin. “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). Jesus, who was innocent of all sin, paid the penalty that we deserved. He bore the awful wrath of God when He cried out on the cross (Matt. 27:46), “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
On the cross, God’s justice was satisfied so that His mercy could flow to every sinner who trusts in Jesus. The propitiation that God set forth in Jesus’ blood means that “He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” Paul uses the name Jesus alone to emphasize His identification with us as a man. Because He was fully human, His death may be applied to the sins of humans. Because He is the eternal Son of God, His death has infinite merit. Jesus’ death vindicates God against any charge of injustice or unrighteousness.
But, note carefully that the benefits of Jesus’ death do not apply to everyone. God only justifies “the one who has faith in Jesus” (3:26). Paul emphasizes faith in verses 21-31. It’s in verses 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30 (twice), and 31, plus believe is in verse 22. Faith is not a work on our part that contributes toward our salvation. It is a gift from God and not something that we originate, or we would boast in our faith (Eph. 2:8-9; Phil. 1:29). Faith is the hand that receives the gift of justification that God provides through the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ.
Some versions (in 3:25) read, “faith in His blood.” We put our faith in His blood in the sense that we trust in His death on the cross as our only means of being right with God. But technically, we trust in Jesus Himself. We trust the biblical witness concerning who He is. We trust the apostolic witness about the significance of His death in our place. It is the faith that realizes, “I’m spiritually terminal and I can’t heal myself. But Jesus can. His death paid the awful penalty that my sin deserves. Abandoning all efforts to save myself by my own good deeds, I cast myself totally upon Jesus and His shed blood.”
So thankfully, God is “the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” But don’t miss that He also is just. If you do not have faith in Jesus, you will face God’s inescapable justice brought against all your sins. Either Jesus met God’s justice on your behalf, or you will face God’s wrath on judgment day.
I conclude with some practical applications:
First, these verses show us that God takes sin very seriously. His grace does not mean that He is sloppy about sin. God does not just shrug and say, “Oh well, let’s not worry about your sins. After all, everyone makes mistakes.” No, His grace is grounded in His justice. God takes sin so seriously that He made Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21). Either you trust in Christ as your sin-bearer, or you’ll face God’s wrath throughout eternity.
Second, because God takes sin so seriously, so should we. It was our sin that put Jesus on the cross. That means that we should hate our sin and fight to kill it every day, especially on the thought level. C. H. Spurgeon said (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 53:225), “Shall I spare the sins, then, that nailed my Savior to the tree? O Christian, how you ought to hate the very thought of sin! We are very severe upon the sins of others, sometimes; how much more severe ought we to be upon our own!”
Finally, if Christ offered Himself as the satisfaction of God’s wrath against sinners, then any sinner can come to Him and find mercy. William Cowper was an 18th century English poet who suffered greatly from depression. His mother died when he was six and he was sent to a boarding school where the older boys mercilessly bullied and beat him. In his late twenties, he tried to commit suicide and was finally admitted to an insane asylum. Cowper struggled with his guilt and often cried out, “My sin! My sin! Oh, for some fountain open for my cleansing!” The main doctor there was a committed Christian, who gently guided Cowper to the only fountain that can wash away our sin and guilt.
One day Cowper opened a Bible and saw Romans 3:24-25: “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood, to manifest his righteousness.” Cowper said, “Immediately I received strength to believe, and the full beams of the Sun of Righteousness shone on me. I saw the sufficiency of the atonement he had made, my pardon in his blood, and the fullness and completeness of his justification. In a moment I believed and received the gospel.” (I took this account from James Boice, Romans [Baker], pp. 371-372. For more, see John Piper, The Hidden Smile of God [Crossway], pp. 81-119).
Cowper struggled with severe depression for the rest of his life, but God used him to write many beloved hymns, including “There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel’s veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.”
Cowper’s experience of knowing that his sins were forgiven the instant that he believed in the shed blood of Jesus can be your experience. Trust in Jesus and God’s wrath is satisfied. He declares you not guilty both now and forever.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2010, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
If I were to ask all of you to write down the sin that causes you the most trouble, I would probably get many responses listing anger, lust, lying, and greed (or, materialism). I might get a few entries for jealousy, hatred, gossip, and laziness. Maybe I’d get one or two for gluttony. But I wonder how many would list pride as the most difficult sin that they battle every day?
It ought to be at the top of our lists, because it is the root of virtually every other sin. If you get angry, it’s because you want your way and you didn’t get your way. The truth is, you don’t like how God is dealing with you and you think you could do it better. The root of such anger is pride! If you lust, it’s because you imagine that you are so sexy that this woman would want to give herself to satisfy your desires, apart from a committed, loving relationship. You want to use her, not love her. Pride is at the root of such lust.
In Mere Christianity [Macmillan], C. S. Lewis refers to pride as “The Great Sin” (pp. 108ff.). After mentioning that pride led to the devil’s downfall, he says (p. 109), “Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.” He contends that pride is a sin that we are very much aware of and dislike when we see it in others, but most of us are blind to it in ourselves. Regarding spiritual pride, he offers this test (p. 111):
Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good—above all, that we are better than someone else—I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil. The real test of being in the presence of God is that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object. It is better to forget about yourself altogether.
I bring up pride because Paul does (3:27): “Where then is boasting?” But that leads to some questions: Why does he bring up boasting here? Why does he ask this string of other questions? Why didn’t he just end the discussion of justification by faith after 3:26?
Before I address these questions, let me give a brief overview of verses 27-31. Most commentators understand Paul to be addressing three issues here: (1) Justification by faith alone excludes all boasting (3:27-28); (2) The fact that there is one God means that there is one way of salvation (justification by faith) for all people (3:29-30); (3) Justification by faith does not nullify the Law, but rather, establishes it (3:31). I’m going to differ slightly from the majority and suggest that the second point is really a continuation of the subject of boasting, aimed at the religiously proud Jew, so that Paul is saying two main things about justification by faith:
Justification by faith alone takes away all grounds for boasting and is the only doctrine that truly establishes God’s Law.
In 3:27-28, Paul contends that justification by faith alone takes away all grounds of boasting about keeping the Law for salvation. In 3:29-30, he shows that justification by faith alone takes away any grounds of boasting about one’s religious rituals as a basis for salvation. In 3:31, he anticipates the question that a Jewish critic may raise, “Then doesn’t justification by faith nullify God’s Law?” He replies, “May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law.”
But let’s come back to the question, why does Paul bring up boasting and these other issues here? First, we must understand that Paul is still aiming at religious Jews. Back in 2:17, after approaching them indirectly in 2:1-16, he took direct aim: “But if you bear the name ‘Jew’ and rely upon the Law and boast in God….” He goes on to hit them with their religious hypocrisy. In 2:23, he asks, “You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God?” And, he will go on to deal further with boasting in 4:2, where he states, “For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.”
So, why does Paul hammer on this theme? I suggest that it was because Paul knew, both from personal experience and from the Scriptures, how deeply embedded in our fallen hearts is the pride that wants to take some of the credit for being our own savior. Even if we acknowledge that God is the primary agent in our salvation, we’re still prone to claim that we had something to do with it, so that we can boast.
We’re like Stacey King, who played with the Chicago Bulls when Michael Jordan was at his peak. One night, Jordan scored 69 points and King scored one. He said later, “I’ll always remember this as the night that Michael Jordan and I combined to score 70 points” (Reader’s Digest [10/1991], p. 22). Of course, he was joking. But we’re often serious when we take some of the credit for our own salvation: “God must have seen something in me that caused Him to pick me out of the crowd!” We even can boast in our own faith, as if we were smart enough to believe. (See Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans: Atonement and Justification [Zondervan], pp. 110-114, for four other reasons that Paul raises these questions.)
So Paul follows up his argument that we are justified by faith as a gift by God’s grace (3:24) by underscoring these important implications of that crucial doctrine. If we understand this doctrine correctly, it deflates all our pride. And, it does not nullify God’s Law, but rather, establishes it.
“Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law” (3:27-28).
The Jews boasted in the Law (2:23), as we just saw. The Pharisees especially prided themselves in keeping the Law: They fasted, they prayed at the required times, they observed the Sabbath, they carefully washed themselves according to the prescribed rituals, and they even tithed their table spices (Matt. 23:23)! But Jesus confronted them with the defilement of their evil hearts (Mark 7:1-23).
Paul himself, before his conversion, took great pride in his Jewish religious credentials and good works. In Galatians 1:14, he says that he was advancing in Judaism more than many of his contemporaries. C. S. Lewis observes (ibid., pp. 109-110) that competition is the essence of pride. We glory in being better than others are. In Philippians 3:5-6, Paul rattles off the list that he once took great pride in: “circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.”
But he goes on to say that when he met Jesus Christ, he counted all of these things to be rubbish so that he might gain Christ, adding (Phil. 3:9), “and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.”
That’s the same point that Paul is hammering home in our text: If we are justified by faith alone, apart from any human works, then we have no grounds for boasting. We can’t boast in our morality as the reason for why we are right with God, because even if we were outwardly moral before we met Christ, our hearts were corrupt (Rom. 3:10-12). Jesus’ words to the Pharisees apply to us all (Matt. 23:27): “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.” Even if we’re outwardly moral, it won’t put us right with God because He sees our corrupt hearts.
We can’t boast in our religious observance as a means of salvation, because the Bible is clear that God sees through such outward rituals and looks on our hearts. You can go to church every week, be baptized, and partake of communion, but none of these things earn points toward your salvation. None of these practices qualify you as a better candidate for salvation.
The same is true of spiritual knowledge. It’s helpful to study the Bible and understand its doctrines and moral precepts. It’s good to study the original languages in which the Bible was written so that your knowledge is more accurate. But none of these things will get you right with God apart from faith in Jesus Christ.
In fact, some even turn faith itself into a work and boast about their faith, as if they believed in Christ on their own, apart from His grace! If faith is something that fallen sinners can exercise on their own, apart from God’s granting it as a free gift, then those sinners will boast in their faith. After all, what makes me differ from unbelievers? I believed in Christ and they didn’t. But, why did I believe in Christ? If I claim any credit for that, I’m boasting in my faith. But, as Romans 3:11 states, “There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God.” Jesus said (John 6:44, 65), “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; … no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.” Saving faith isn’t something that we can produce and thus boast in. It’s a gracious, undeserved gift from God, so that we cannot boast (Eph. 2:8-9).
But, what does Paul mean when he says (3:27) that boasting is excluded by “a law of faith”? Some (e.g., Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], p. 202; John Piper, “Justification by Faith is the End of Boasting,” on desiringGod.org) say that Paul means that “the law [of Moses] rightly understood is a law that teaches righteousness by faith.” This is further elaborated on in 4:3, where Paul cites Genesis 15:6 to show that “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
But, in the context (3:21-16, 28) Paul is contrasting the righteousness that comes through faith with the Mosaic Law. This leads to the natural question of 3:31, “Do we then nullify the Law through faith?” So, it is better to understand that Paul is making a play on words when he refers to “the law of faith.” He is saying, “It is not the Law of Moses, which required works, that excludes boasting. Rather, it is the new ‘law of faith,’ apart from works that excludes boasting” (I’m following Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], pp. 247-250).
In 3:28, Paul explains his point in 3:27, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.” Right standing with God (“justification”) is not something that we earn by doing good works. Rather, it is something that we receive as a gift through faith in Jesus Christ and His shed blood. Instead of the words, “apart from works of the Law,” we can rightly say that we are justified by faith alone.
But, that raises another important question: Is Paul at odds with James 2:24, “You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone”? This issue was at the heart of the Protestant Reformation and it remains the major divide between the Protestant understanding of the gospel versus the Roman Catholic view. Bible-believing Protestants affirm with the Reformers, Martin Luther and John Calvin, that we are justified by faith alone, apart from works. The Roman Catholic Church contends that we are justified by faith plus our works, as James seems to affirm.
When we studied James, I spent two messages dealing with this crucial question. It is crucial because the way that we are saved hinges on it! (See, “Saving Faith: Genuine or False? June 26, 2005; and, “Are We Justified by Works?” July 3, 2005, on fcfonline.org.) So here I must be brief.
First, both James and Paul affirm that we are saved by grace through faith alone. But each man was addressing a different problem. James was looking at those who professed to have faith in Christ, but their lives were void of works. James claimed that that sort of faith was not genuine and it does not save anyone. Genuine saving faith always results in a life of good works. Paul would concur (Eph. 2:8-10; Titus 2:11-14; 3:4-8). No one is saved by a faith that is mere mental agreement. The faith that justifies is obedient faith (Rom. 1:5; 15:18; 16:26).
But Paul (in Romans and Galatians) was writing to those who taught that we must add our works to faith in Christ in order to be justified. The Judaizers claimed to believe in Christ, but they insisted that Gentiles who believe must also add circumcision and keep the Law of Moses in order to be saved. Paul called this a distorted “gospel” that damns (Gal. 1:6-9). He accused these false teachers of emphasizing these things so that they could boast in the flesh (Gal. 6:12-13). If you want to boast in anything, Paul said, “Boast … in the cross” (Gal. 6:14).
Before we leave this point, please make sure that you have applied it personally. Have you abandoned all attempts to earn right standing with God by your good works? Are you trusting in Jesus Christ alone, who shed His blood to pay the penalty that you deserved because of your sin? Is your boast completely in the Lord, who chose you and saved you in spite of yourself (1 Cor. 1:26-31)?
“Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one” (3:29-30).
Paul is still zeroing in on the Jews. He takes the creed that was central for all Jews (Deut. 6:4), “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!” and argues, “If God is one, then He must be God not only of the Jews, but also of the Gentiles. And, if He is one, it is likely, isn’t it, that He would have only one means of salvation for all people? Since, as we’ve shown, we are justified by faith in Christ apart from the works of the Law, this must apply equally to both Jews and Gentiles. God justifies all people through faith alone.” Besides, the Old Testament clearly proclaimed that the God of Israel is the Lord of all the nations (e.g., Psalms 67, 96-98).
So Paul is arguing here that justification by faith means that there is only one way of salvation for all people. But, also, as I said, it seems to me that Paul is still confronting the tendency of the Jews to boast in their religion, especially in the rituals of their religion, the epitome of which was circumcision. As Paul will go on to show, God justified Abraham before he was circumcised, so justification cannot be based on compliance with that religious ritual. If God justified the yet-uncircumcised father of the Jewish nation by faith, then it follows that He also justifies the uncircumcised Gentiles by faith. You can’t take pride in any religious rituals.
Let’s apply this point: If you come from a religious background, don’t trust in church membership, baptism, or communion for salvation. You must trust in Christ alone. If you don’t come from a religious background, you don’t need to join the church, be baptized, partake of communion, or go through other religious rituals to get right with God. In fact, doing these things to earn right standing with God would only fill you with pride, which keeps you from God! Rather, laying aside all of your good works and all religious rituals, put your trust in Jesus Christ alone. God imputes the righteousness of Christ to all who believe (3:22).
But if “a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law” (3:28), and if a sinner can be justified by faith apart from any religious rituals, then aren’t we nullifying the Law? Paul anticipates and answers this question:
“Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law” (3:31; the NIV and ESV translate, “we uphold the Law.”)
This is a very difficult verse to interpret and every interpreter necessarily reads the verse through the lens of his own view of how the Law relates to believers in Christ. Having read many books and articles on this subject, I would say that it is one of the most difficult theological issues in the Bible to understand. It has to do with how much continuity versus discontinuity there is between the Old and New Covenants. There are verses that seemingly support the ongoing validity and benefit of the Law (Matt. 5:17-19; Rom. 3:31; 7:12; James 1:25) and other verses that say that we are not under the Law and speak negatively about it (Rom. 6:14; 10:4; 2 Cor. 3:6-18; Heb. 7:12, 22; 8:7, 13). So I do not claim infallibility here!
For sake of brevity and clarity, I’m not going to give you the various interpretations of how we establish the Law through faith. Rather, following several authors (mainly, James Boice, Romans [Baker], 1:421-425) I’m going to suggest three ways from the context that justification by faith establishes or upholds the Law.
First, justification by faith establishes the Law by showing that it is impossible to attain right standing with God by keeping the Law. This is Paul’s point in 3:20, “because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.” The Law requires perfect obedience to every commandment, not only externally, but also on the heart level (Matt. 5:21-22, 27-28; Gal. 3:10; James 2:10). So if anyone is going to be saved, it can’t be by keeping the Law. The Law’s purpose is not to save us. Rather, the Law shows us our sin so that we will despair of being saved by works. In this way, the doctrine of justification by faith establishes or upholds the Law.
Second, justification by faith establishes the Law by showing that the punishment which the Law demanded has been fulfilled by Jesus Christ. That is Paul’s point in 3:25, where he refers to Christ Jesus as the one “whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.” By His death, if we trust in Him, Jesus satisfied God’s just penalty for our sin, which was death.
Third, justification by faith establishes the Law by showing that God imputes the righteousness of Christ to us so that we meet the Law’s righteous demand in Him. As we’ve seen, justification means that God declares us righteous. But He doesn’t just do this arbitrarily. Rather, Jesus fulfilled the righteous demands of the Law on our behalf. As Dr. Boice explains (p. 424), “By saving us through this righteousness, and not by any lesser standard, God establishes the law that defines this righteousness.” Thus God can now be “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (3:26).
The doctrine of justification by faith alone in Christ alone has always been under attack, including at the present time. How do we know whether it is the true gospel? One test of true doctrine is that it humbles our pride and it exalts God and His grace. Conversely, false doctrine always lifts up man and pulls down God, so that we don’t really need a Savior. Justification by faith alone excludes all boasting, except for boasting in Christ and Him crucified. It doesn’t allow me to say, “I teamed up with Jesus to score 70 points!” No, He scored all the points. God justifies sinners totally on the merits of Jesus Christ when they abandon their own works and trust in Him alone. This is the true gospel. Believe it, stand firm in it, and proclaim it to others!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2010, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
A faithful Catholic nun spends her life working in a slum in a poor country, feeding the poor, ministering to the sick and dying, and caring for the orphans. As she nears death, you ask her why God should let her into heaven. She replies, “Because I have devoted my life to serving Him. I have denied myself for decades. I hope that I have added enough merits that God will accept me.” She dies and faces God’s eternal wrath because her faith was in her own good works, not in the shed blood of Jesus Christ alone.
Meanwhile, on death row a serial killer awaits execution. He mercilessly tortured, raped, and murdered many young women. Their families mourn the tragic loss of their daughters. A chaplain visits this killer and finds that he has been reading the Bible. God has convicted him of his terrible sins, so that he despairs about dying and facing God. He knows that he deserves eternal torment in hell. But the chaplain shares that if he will believe in Jesus Christ, who died for the ungodly, God will forgive all his sins and credit Christ’s righteousness to his account. He does believe, is filled with joy, and goes to his execution at peace with God. He spends eternity in the unspeakable joy of heaven.
Do these two stories grate on your soul? Do you want to scream, “Wait a minute! That’s not fair! That sweet, selfless old nun deserves to go to heaven! That evil, depraved murderer deserves to burn in hell!” If that’s your reaction, then you may not understand the crucial, bedrock message that Paul sets forth in our text, that…
God graciously justifies the ungodly sinner who does not work for salvation, but believes in Jesus Christ.
In Romans 4:5, Paul makes one of the most outrageous claims in all Scripture: “But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.” What a staggering verse! Surely, there must be a copier’s error in the text! Paul must have said, “God justifies the one who tries to do his best. God justifies the nice person who always meant well, who loved his family, devoted his time and money to help the needy, went to church, read his Bible, and prayed every day.” But Paul could not have meant, “God justifies the ungodly, could he? That’s unthinkable!”
In All of Grace [Ages Software], C. H. Spurgeon wrote about Romans 4:5,
I have heard that men that hate the doctrines of the cross bring it as a charge against God, that He saves wicked men and receives to Himself the vilest of the vile. See how this Scripture accepts the charge, and plainly states it! ... You thought, did you not, that salvation was for the good, that God’s grace was for the pure and holy, who are free from sin? It has fallen into your mind that, if you were excellent, then God would reward you; and you have thought that because you are not worthy, therefore there could be no way of your enjoying His favor. You must be somewhat surprised to read a text like this: “Him that justifieth the ungodly.” I do not wonder that you are surprised; for with all my familiarity with the great grace of God, I never cease to wonder at it.
My aim today is that all of you will understand this crucial doctrine that is at the core of the gospel and that you will join Spurgeon in worshipful wonder that God has justified you.
Paul is still hammering at the religious Jew (or any other religious person) who thinks that he qualifies for heaven because of his religion and good works. He brings up Abraham because the Jews revered him as the father of their nation and their faith. Many early Jewish writings put Abraham on a pedestal far higher than the way the Bible portrays him. For example, the Book of Jubilees (23:10), written about 100 B.C. states, “Abraham was perfect in all his deeds with the Lord, and well-pleasing in righteousness all the days of his life” (cited by Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 256). The Prayer of Manasseh (8), states that God did not appoint repentance for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, “who were righteous and did not sin against Thee.” (What Bible were they reading?) Thus many Jews assumed that Abraham was right with God, at least in part, because of his life of obedience. It’s a short step from there to believing that any person who follows Abraham’s example of obeying God will be accepted by God.
But in Romans 4 Paul challenges that view head-on. The flow of thought in the chapter is as follows (from Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], pp. 210-211): In verses 1-8, Paul expands on and illustrates with Abraham and David the principle of 3:27-28, that we are justified by faith, not by our works, and thus we have no grounds for boasting. Verses 9-16 develop the theme of 3:29-30, that righteousness by faith applies equally to Jews and Gentiles. He proves this by showing that Abraham was justified before he was circumcised. Thus God can justify uncircumcised Gentiles who follow the faith of Abraham. Verses 17-22 explain the nature of Abraham’s faith. Finally (4:23-25), Paul applies the lessons of Abraham’s faith to his readers.
It’s absolutely essential for you to understand the doctrine that Paul sets forth in Romans 4:1-5, that we are justified (declared righteous) by faith alone, apart from any works. It was when Martin Luther finally understood this truth that he was saved. He called justification by faith “the chief article from which all our other doctrines have flowed.” He said, “If the article of justification is lost, all Christian doctrine is lost at the same time.” He argued, “It alone begets, nourishes, builds, preserves, and defends the church of God, and without it the church of God cannot exist for one hour.” (James Boice, Romans: Justification by Faith [Zondervan], p. 126, citing from What Luther Says: An Anthology, compiled by Ewald Pass, [Concordia], 2:702-704.)
John Calvin called justification by faith “the main hinge on which religion turns” (The Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. by John McNeill [Westminster Press], 3:11:1). He explained (ibid.), “For unless you first of all grasp what your relationship to God is, and the nature of his judgment concerning you, you have neither a foundation on which to establish your salvation nor one on which to build piety toward God.” In other words, this truth is foundational for your entire Christian life.
Thus it is not by accident that it always has been under fire. The Catholic Church launched the counter-Reformation and published The Canons and Decrees of Trent in large part to attack justification by faith alone (see my “Justification by Faith Alone,” Aug. 11, 1996, on fcfonline.org). In our day, the unity movement has sought to break down any divisions between Protestants and Catholics by advocating that we come together where we agree and set aside the things that divide us, including this doctrine. In the 1990’s, many evangelicals signed a document, “Evangelicals and Catholics Together,” that would relegate justification by faith alone to the sidelines. The New Perspective on Paul also argues that the Reformers misinterpreted Paul regarding this doctrine.
But if the Reformers were right that this doctrine is the foundation of our salvation, then justification by faith plus works cannot be right. We cannot politely agree to disagree on the core of the gospel! Thus for your own salvation, for your being able to resist the winds of false doctrine blowing in our day, and for your being able to present the gospel clearly to those who are trusting in their good works to save them, you must be clear on this truth: God graciously justifies the ungodly sinner who believes in Jesus Christ. Paul first demonstrates this truth in the life of Abraham (4:1-3). Then he illustrates it negatively by a common example (4:4) and states it positively in rather shocking language (4:5).
Paul goes back to the theme of boasting (3:27), to argue:
“What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God” (4:1-2)
Some commentators argue that the phrase, “according to the flesh,” should not modify “forefather,” but rather, “has found.” Thus Paul would be asking whether Abraham found some way, according to the flesh apart from God’s grace, to be justified. Others argue that it should modify “forefather” (NASB & ESV). Paul is referring to Abraham as the Jewish forefather by lineage; but there may also be the hint that fleshly descent from Abraham is insufficient.
Verse 2 explains (“for”) verse 1, “For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.” Most commentators understand the last phrase to mean, “When God’s viewpoint is considered, Abraham has no right to boast at all” (Moo, p. 261). In other words, Paul does not mean that Abraham could have boasted before people, but not before God. Rather, he had no grounds for boasting at all.
But it seems to me that Paul could be conceding to his Jewish readers, “Okay, maybe Abraham has some grounds to boast before men. After all, he was a godly man. But when you bring God into the picture, Abraham’s boast vanishes.” It’s as if one bug was bragging to another bug, “I’m taller than you are!” just before a human comes along and squashes both of them. When you compare humans to humans, Abraham was a good guy. But when you compare humans to God, Abraham is just a bug along with everyone else.
Paul’s point in 4:1-2 is that if justification were by works rather than by faith alone, it would give us a ground for boasting. It would feed our pride. But such boasting is foolish, because we’re really just one bug boasting to another bug. What is the best of human righteousness when you compare it to God’s absolute righteousness? So Paul is attacking the popular Jewish views about Abraham in his day, saying, “He couldn’t have been justified by his works.” Then he supports his argument with Scripture:
“For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.’” (4:3, citing Gen. 15:6)
Genesis 15:6 is the first time that the word believe is used in the Bible and it is also the first time that the concept of God crediting righteousness to anyone (justification) is mentioned. So it’s a very important text to understand. Paul not only cites it here, but also in Galatians 3:6, where he argues against the Judaizers, who said that we must add our works to faith in order to be saved.
The passage in Genesis raises the question, “What did Abraham believe and why did God credit it to him for righteousness then?” We know that he had believed God previously, when he left Ur and set out for Canaan (Heb. 11:8). Thus Abraham was already what we would call “saved” before this experience. So why does Moses mention in Genesis 15:6 that Abraham believed God and that God reckoned it to him as righteousness?
Martin Luther said that Abraham was justified by faith long before this time, but that it is first recorded in this context in a connection where the Savior is definitely involved in order that none might venture to dissociate justification from the Savior (cited by H. C. Leupold, Exposition of Genesis [Baker], 1:479). John Calvin thought that it is mentioned here, long after Abraham was first justified, to prove that justification does not just begin by faith, only to be perfected later by works. Rather, justification is by faith alone, apart from works, from start to finish (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], 1:408-409). So Genesis 15 ratifies Abraham’s earlier faith.
Derek Kidner (Genesis [IVP], p. 124) notes that Abraham’s faith was both personal (in the Lord) and propositional (the Lord’s promise concerning a son). Abraham knew that through his seed, blessing would come to all the families of the earth (12:3). In Galatians, Paul argues that seed is singular, not plural, thus pointing to Abraham’s one descendant, Christ (Gal. 3:16). So when Abraham believed in the Lord, he believed the specific promise that a Savior for all nations would come forth from his descendants.
How much did Abraham know about Jesus Christ, who would be born 2,000 years later? He knew more than we may assume! Jesus Himself said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad” (John 8:56). Paul said that God preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham when He promised, “All the nations shall be blessed in you” (Gal. 3:8). Though he didn’t know Jesus’ name and he had no evidence other than God’s promise, Abraham looked forward in faith to God’s Redeemer and thus God credited it to him as righteousness.
The word credited (Greek = logidzomai) is used 40 times in the New Testament, 34 times by Paul, 19 times in Romans, and 11 times in this chapter, so it is a key word. It’s an accounting term that means that God credited to Abraham a righteousness that did not inherently belong to him (Moo, p. 262). The word it does not refer to Abraham’s faith, as if God exchanged his faith for righteousness, in a sort of trade. That would give some sort of merit to faith, which cannot pay the debt of our sin. Rather, faith is the means by which we lay hold of God’s promise in Christ. Abraham believed God’s promise about the Savior who would come and God credited the work of the promised Savior to Abraham through his faith. Christ’s substitutionary death paid the just penalty for the sins of those who will trust in Him (3:25).
Having illustrated from Abraham’s experience as recorded in Scripture that God justifies by faith alone, not by works, Paul proceeds to apply it to every sinner who will believe in Christ:
“Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness” (4:4-5).
First (4:4) Paul gives a negative example from everyday life that we can easily understand. When you work and your boss pays you, he isn’t doing you a favor. (Favor is literally grace.) You don’t send him a thank you note, telling him how much you appreciated his kindness. No, he owes you the money. If he doesn’t pay, you can take him to court to make him pay. It’s a debt.
But the principle of grace is different (4:5). Under grace you do not work for justification. Rather, you believe God’s promise to declare righteous any sinner who trusts in Jesus and His shed blood as the propitiation for his sins (3:25). As the righteous Judge, God recognizes Jesus’ death as payment in full for all our sins. The instant we believe in Jesus, God bangs the gavel and declares, “Not guilty!” But He not only removes our sin and guilt. Also, He imputes the very righteousness of Jesus to our account.
Again, although Paul says here, “his faith is credited as righteousness,” in the context (3:24-26) he means that the guilty sinner’s faith has laid hold of Jesus Christ as the perfect and final sacrifice for sins. Faith is not a work that merits righteousness. If it were, verse 5 would be saying the opposite of what Paul is arguing! Faith does not merit God’s favor, or grace would not be undeserved. Rather, faith means not doing anything ourselves to earn salvation, but rather trusting what Christ did for us on the cross. God justifies us as a gift through faith (3:24). Faith is the hand that receives the free gift of right standing with God apart from our works.
Let me draw out four implications of this astounding truth:
Paul clearly spells it out, “to the one who does not work….” If you try to blend your works with God’s grace, you muddy the waters of pure grace. If you work to earn justification, then God owes you something. But God will not be a debtor to anyone.
If you feel bad about your sins and are trying to get them under control so that God will accept you, you have not ceased working. You do not understand God’s grace. If you think that maybe you should become a missionary or go live and work in a slum for years, depriving yourself of the normal comforts of life, so that God will overlook your sins on judgment day, you’re still working. You do not understand His grace. To be justified by God’s grace, you must stop working!
God justifies only one kind of person: the ungodly. There is debate among scholars as to whether Paul was referring specifically to Abraham or whether he meant to contrast a notoriously sinful person with the relatively good Abraham. While Abraham was relatively good when you compare humans with humans, in God’s sight we all have sinned and fall short of His glory. Abraham was as much in need of God’s perfect righteousness as were the wicked people of Sodom. In God’s sight (Rom. 3:10), “There is none righteous, not even one.” We’re all bugs!
So if you see yourself as a basically good person, you can’t be justified. If you see yourself as better than notorious sinners and thus somehow more deserving of salvation, you can’t be justified. To be justified, you must see yourself as ungodly and deserving of God’s righteous judgment.
Faith means taking God at His word when He promises to justify the one who has faith in Jesus (3:26). You acknowledge that the wages of your sin is death (Rom. 6:23), eternal separation from the holy God. But you trust God’s promise that “while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6). Faith means taking the gift of Christ’s full payment for your sins, much as you would thankfully receive a check from a wealthy man who offered to pay a large fine that you couldn’t afford to pay. Faith means trusting Jesus to be your advocate in court, to plead His shed blood in your case before the bench of God’s justice.
If justification were based on how righteous we were in actual conduct, then we could never be declared perfectly righteous in this life, because we always have some indwelling sin in us. We need Christ’s perfect righteousness credited to our account. We need our sin put on Christ’s account. That transaction takes place the instant that we believe in Jesus (2 Cor. 5:21).
Spurgeon ended that chapter in All of Grace by telling a story about an artist in the years before photography who painted a picture of a part of the city where he lived. For historic purposes, he wanted to include in his picture certain characters well known in the town. A street sweeper who was unkempt, ragged, and filthy was known to everyone and there was a suitable place in the picture for him. So the artist found the man and told him that he would pay him well if he would come down to the studio so that he could paint him.
He came to the studio the next day, but the artist sent him away because he had washed his face, combed his hair, and put on a suit of clean clothes. The artist needed him as a poor beggar and he was not invited in any other capacity.
Spurgeon applies it by saying that even so, God invites sinners to come at once for salvation, just as they are. Come in your disorder. Come with your confusion. Come with your despair. Come filthy, naked, and dirty. Come with all of your sin. Come to Jesus, crucified for sinners! If God justifies the ungodly and you’re ungodly, there’s hope for you! The best news in the world is, God graciously justifies the ungodly sinner who does not work for salvation, but rather believes in Jesus Christ!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2010, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Carl Hoefler (Will Daylight Come? [C. C. S. Publishing, 1979]) tells the story of a little boy who was visiting his grandparents. He was given his first slingshot and was having fun playing with it in the woods, but he never hit anything he was aiming at. But on his way home, as he cut through the back yard, he saw Grandmother’s pet duck. He took aim and let the stone fly. To his horror, it went straight to the mark and the duck fell dead.
The boy panicked. He quickly hid the dead duck in the woodpile. Then he saw his smirking sister Sally standing by the corner of the house. She had seen the whole affair.
They went in for lunch. Sally said nothing. After lunch, Grandmother said, “Sally, let’s clear the table and wash the dishes.” Sally said, “Oh, Grandmother, Johnny said he wanted to help you in the kitchen today. Didn’t you, Johnny?” Then she whispered to him, “Remember the duck!” So Johnny did the dishes.
Later in the day Grandfather called the children to go fishing. Grandmother said, “I’m sorry, but Sally has to stay here to help me clean house and get dinner.” Sally smiled and said, “That’s all been taken care of. Johnny said he wanted to help today, didn’t you, Johnny?” Then she whispered, “Remember the duck!”
This went on for several days. Johnny did all the chores, both his and those assigned to Sally. Finally, he could stand it no longer, so he went to his grandmother and confessed all. His grandmother took him in her arms and said, “I know, Johnny. I was standing at the kitchen window and saw the whole thing. And because I love you, I forgave you. And knowing that I loved you and would always forgive you, I wondered just how long you would let Sally make a slave of you.”
Guilt makes slaves of us all. When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden, they tried in vain to hide from God. Guilt makes us want to hide from His holy presence. It also alienates us from one another. We’re afraid that if others find out what we have done, they will either reject us or use the information to hold us hostage. “Remember the duck!” Because we all have sinned and because God knows all of our sins, even our secret sins, what we all desperately need is the supreme blessing of God’s forgiveness.
In our last study, we saw how Abraham, the father of the Jewish faith, was justified by faith alone, not by his works. To be justified is to be declared righteous by God. It is to be acquitted of all our sins by God’s judicial decree. In explaining this wonderful truth, Paul states (Rom. 4:4-5), “Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.” We saw that God does not justify the pretty good guy who tries to do his best. He does not justify the one whose good works outweigh his bad works. Rather, He justifies the ungodly sinner who has faith in Jesus.
But maybe Paul was stretching things a bit. After all, the Jews knew that Abraham was a good man. Maybe God justified Abraham because of his good works. So Paul brings in another witness, King David. The Jews also recognized David as a great man. He was the best of Israel’s kings. But as everyone knew, he also sinned greatly. He committed adultery with Bathsheba and then tried to cover it up when she got pregnant by having her husband murdered. So Paul brings David in as a second witness to prove that God justifies sinners by faith apart from any good works.
Paul (4:7-8) cites David’s Psalm 32:1-2 (from the LXX): “Blessed are those who lawless deeds have been forgiven, and whose sins have been covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.” The common thread between Psalm 32:2 (Rom. 4:8) and Genesis 15:6 (Rom. 4:3) is the word “credited” or “take into account” (Greek = logidzomai). It is an accounting term, meaning to enter something into a ledger. In Abraham’s case, God entered into the asset column, “Righteousness.” In David’s case, God did not enter into the liabilities column, “Sin.” He didn’t credit David’s sins against him.
But Paul says that it amounts to the same thing (4:6), “just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works.” And so in Psalm 32 David extols the supreme blessing of God’s gracious forgiveness of all our sins. Paul uses these verses to teach us that…
The supreme blessing of God forgiving all your sins comes through faith apart from any works.
As we saw in our last study, this doctrine of God justifying the ungodly by grace alone apart from any good works grates against our fallen human nature. We instinctively want good people to go to heaven because of their goodness. We want terrible sinners to pay for their sins. They shouldn’t get off scot-free. But if that were true, then we would have grounds to boast in our own goodness as the reason for our salvation. And, there would be no hope for really bad sinners. There would be no good news. So if Mother Teresa is in heaven, it is because she saw herself as an undeserving sinner and she fled to the cross for mercy. And if a mass murderer is in heaven, it is because he saw himself as an undeserving sinner and fled to the cross for mercy. God only justifies the ungodly.
Do you remember the parable that Jesus told in Matthew 20? A landowner went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for their day’s wages, so they went to work. Mid-morning, he went out again and hired others and agreed to give them whatever was right. He did the same thing at noon and at mid-afternoon. Then, an hour before sundown, he found others and sent them into his vineyard.
When it was time to pay the laborers, those who came an hour before dark received a denarius. When those who had been working all day came, they expected to get more, since they had put in a long day’s work. But they also got a denarius. They grumbled about how unfair it was, but the landowner said, “I gave you what we agreed on, so take what is yours and go. But am I not free to be generous to these last men with what is my own?” That’s how God’s grace works. It is not dispensed according to merit. He gives it freely to whom He chooses. As Paul says (Rom. 9:16), “It does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.”
The point that Paul drives home from 1:18-3:20 is that we all are under sin. The pagans who do not know God are obviously under sin. But so are the religious folks (the Jews), who think that they are better than the pagans. All deserve God’s judgment and so all desperately need His grace (unmerited favor). The good news of the gospel is that God freely justifies and pardons every sinner who does not work, but believes in Jesus as the propitiation for his sins.
So in our text, Paul is reinforcing that point from David’s Psalm 32. The emphasis is on the blessing of God’s gracious forgiveness. (He uses “blessing” or “blessed” in 4:6, 7, 8, and 9.)
To appreciate the blessing of forgiveness …
A cartoon pictured a psychologist saying to a patient, “Mr. Figby, I think I can explain your feelings of guilt. You’re guilty!”
Ever since the fall, sinners have instinctively responded to their guilt by blaming others. When God confronted Adam, he blamed his wife and he even implicated God for giving him his wife (Gen. 3:12): “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.” In effect, he was saying, “It’s her fault or Your fault, but don’t blame me!”
But blaming others doesn’t alleviate the guilt. True, if a person keeps denying his sin and blaming others for it, eventually he may develop a seared conscience (1 Tim. 4:2), where he feels no guilt, even for horrific sins. I read that the Cambodian dictator, Pol Pot, felt no twinge of guilt for murdering over a million of his countrymen! But even if the sinner’s conscience is seared, it doesn’t remove the reality that he will answer to God for his many sins.
So a guilty conscience is a good thing. It’s like the pain sensors in our body, which alert us to a problem. A person with leprosy can’t feel pain, and so he can burn his finger off without knowing it. If we suppress our guilt, it often leads to other emotional, physical, and relational problems. But guilt should get our attention by shouting, “You’re not right with God!” David suppressed his guilt over his sin with Bathsheba for about a year until the prophet Nathan cornered him with a story and then directly said, “You are the man!” You’re guilty!
Puritan Robert Bolton, who at first resisted the gospel, but later came to Christ after deep conviction of his sins, wrote (Instructions for a Right Comforting Afflicted Consciences, cited by Iain Murray, Jonathan Edwards [Banner of Truth], p. 128):
A man must feel himself in misery, before he will go about to find a remedy; be sick before he will seek a physician; be in prison before he will seek for a pardon. A sinner … must be cast down, confounded, condemned, a cast away, and lost in himself, before he will look about for a Saviour.
J. C. Ryle (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], on John 4:7-26, pp. 204-205) put it,
Never does a soul value the Gospel medicine until it feels its disease. Never does a man see any beauty in Christ as a Saviour, until he discovers that he is himself a lost and ruined sinner.
Or, as C. H. Spurgeon put it when describing his own painful five years of conviction of sin before his conversion (C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography [Banner of Truth], 1:54):
Too many think lightly of sin, and therefore think lightly of the Saviour. He who has stood before his God, convicted and condemned, with the rope about his neck, is the man to weep for joy when he is pardoned, to hate the evil which has been forgiven him, and to live to the honour of the Redeemer by whose blood he has been cleansed.
So for God’s blessing of forgiving all your sins to be the supreme blessing, you must feel to some extent the heavy burden of your guilt before Him. Then,
The Greek word “blessed” means “happy,” especially in the sense of being the recipient of God’s favor (A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, by Walter Bauer, translated by William Arndt and Wilbur Gingrich [University of Chicago Press], 2nd ed., p. 486). John Piper (“When the Lord Does not Take Account of Sin,” on DesiringGod.org) defines it as “a condition in which you are deeply secure and content and happy in God.”
We might think that those who are rich in this world’s goods are blessed, but as you know, many rich people are miserable because they lack close relationships with others. They often have to keep others at a distance because they’re afraid that they will take their money. Besides, this world’s riches can disappear in a moment with a stock market collapse or war or some other disaster. And everything that we accrue in this life is instantly taken the moment we die. So the only true and lasting blessing is to be right with God by knowing that He has forgiven all our sins. What a great feeling to know that the burden of guilt is gone forever!
We need to understand that when God forgives all our sins, it does not mean that He removes all temporal consequences for our sins. God forgave David, but He ordained some rather severe consequences on David and his family for the rest of his life (2 Sam. 12:10-15). Sometimes God graciously softens the consequences, but at other times He uses them to teach us to hate our sin The fact that we experience difficult trials does not mean that God has not forgiven us. In fact, it is one evidence that He has forgiven us (Heb. 12:8-10).
Also, although many Christian authors talk about the need to forgive yourself, you won’t find that concept anywhere in Scripture. If we have sinned, we must seek God’s forgiveness and we must ask forgiveness of those we have sinned against. And if others have wronged us, we must forgive them. But the Bible never talks about forgiving yourself. Your need is to receive God’s forgiveness.
Before we leave this point, let me ask: Have you experienced this greatest of all blessings? Do you know that God has forgiven all of your sins? Are you sure that He will not take them into account on that day when you stand before Him?
In the context Paul is still talking about the doctrine of justification by faith alone. But we might wonder, how does forgiveness fit in with justification?
John Calvin (The Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. by John McNeill [Westminster Press], 3:11:3, p. 727) summed up his understanding of justification, “that it consists in the remission of sins and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.”
As we saw in verse 3 (citing Gen. 15:6), “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” To justify is not to make righteous or to infuse righteousness into the sinner, but rather, to declare the sinner righteous. It is a judicial act of God, based on the satisfaction of God’s righteous penalty by the shed blood of Jesus Christ (3:25). Because Christ paid the penalty that our sin deserved, God can be both “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (3:26).
Positively, God declares the sinner righteous by crediting to his account the very righteousness of Jesus Christ. Negatively, God does not credit the sinner’s sins to his account. Paul uses three somewhat synonymous phrases to describe this blessing of forgiveness:
First (4:7a), “Blessed are those who lawless deeds have been forgiven.” The Greek word for forgive means “to send away.” It is sometimes used of divorce, which means a permanent sending away of one’s spouse. It was used of forgiving a debt. The books were wiped clean as the debt was removed from the debtor. In the Old Testament ritual for the Day of Atonement, two male goats were selected. The high priest laid his hands on the head of one goat (the scapegoat), confessing the sins of the people. That goat was then sent away into the wilderness, taking away the sins of the people. Forgiveness means that God has sent away all of our sins. They are removed from us.
Second (4:7b), blessed are those “whose sins have been covered.” The word covered is used only here in the New Testament, quoted from Psalm 32:1. It also referred to the Day of Atonement when the priest took the blood of the other goat and sprinkled it on the mercy seat (or covering) of the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark contained the Ten Commandments, which God’s people all have broken. The blood of an innocent victim covered the sins of the people. Those repeated animal sacrifices postponed judgment until Christ offered Himself as the perfect and final sacrifice to cover all our sins (Heb. 9:11-15; 10:1-14).
Third (4:8), “Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.” This is the accounting term, used 11 times in this chapter (translated as “credited” in 4:3, 4, 5; “credits” in 6). God takes our debt of sin off the books. He wipes the slate clean. It means (Rom. 8:1), “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
Also, since David was already a justified man when he sinned with Bathsheba and murdered her husband, Psalm 32 shows that God’s crediting of righteousness and forgiving of sins is not revoked by a believer’s sins (Everett Harrison, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. by Frank Gaebelein [Zondervan], 10:49). Although as I said, God disciplines us for our sins and does not remove all of the consequences of our sins, He does forgive them so that we do not incur His eternal wrath and judgment. We must submit to His discipline, but we do not need to fear His condemnation.
Paul says (4:6) that “David speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works.” If it’s apart from works, then how is it done? In verse 5 Paul says that the ungodly person’s faith (in Christ) is credited as righteousness. We must be clear that he does not mean that God views our faith as a work that merits righteousness. That would make verse 5 say the exact opposite of what Paul is saying! If faith somehow merited God’s favor, then grace would not be undeserved. Rather, faith lays hold of what Christ did for us on the cross (3:24-26). God justifies us as a gift (3:24), not as a reward or payment that our faith earns. Faith by definition looks away from oneself and to Christ. Faith is the hand that receives the gift of forgiveness through Jesus paying for our sins on the cross. Thus,
As we saw in verse 5, the only one God justifies is “the one who does not work.” In case we missed it, Paul repeats (4:6), “apart from works.” If you are trusting in any sense in your good works, you exclude yourself from God crediting Christ’s righteousness to your account. Paul plainly states (4:6), “God credits righteousness apart from works.” While you must repent of your sins, if you are trusting in your repentance, you exclude yourself from this blessing of forgiveness. And while you must believe in Christ, if you are trusting in your faith, you exclude yourself from God’s forgiveness. Your faith must not be in faith. Rather, your faith must be in Christ alone.
Some years ago, a 6-year-old Michigan boy could not be found. That night, 80 people frantically searched the woods near his home. By morning, more than 300 were looking for him. Then at about 10:30, he suddenly emerged from his bedroom. He had been hiding in a large drawer underneath his captain style bed.
It turned out that he hid himself in there because he was afraid. The evening before he disappeared, a policeman had asked him if he knew anything about a broken window across the street. He lied to the officer. A little later the officer turned on his flasher to stop a nearby motorist. The boy saw it and his imagination ran wild. He thought he would be locked up in jail. Fear and guilt drove him into hiding (from “Our Daily Bread,” Winter, 1980-81).
Guilt over your sins can cause you to keep your distance from others and to try to hide from God. If you are not in Christ, you have legitimate cause to fear His judgment. But God offers every sinner the supreme blessing: He will forgive all of your sins and credit the very righteousness of Christ to your account if you will cease from your own works and trust in what Christ did for you on the cross. Trust in Christ and you don’t have to “remember the duck.” The guilt will be gone and you will know the supreme blessing of having all of your lawless deeds forgiven.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
If you’ve been tracking with this series in Romans, you may be getting to the point where you’re thinking, “Why does Paul keep hammering on the truth that God’s righteousness is credited to us by faith alone?” How many times does he need to say it? He states it in Romans 3:22, “even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” He hits it again in 3:26, “so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” (To be the justifier means to declare righteous the one who has faith in Jesus.) He hammers it again in 3:28, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.”
He keeps going in 4:3 (citing Gen. 15:6): “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him for righteousness.” In case we missed it, he repeats it in 4:5: “But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.” If you still didn’t get it, he comes at it again in 4:6, “just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works.” Not done yet, he says it again (4:8), “Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account” (“credits” and “take into account” both come from the same Greek word).
But he still isn’t done! He anticipates the reaction of religious Jews who will still be thinking, “Yes, God credits righteousness by faith, but it is only for the circumcised who believe, not for uncircumcised Gentiles.” So in 4:9-12, he proves from the Old Testament that God credited righteousness to Abraham by faith while he was still uncircumcised. In proving this, he relentlessly beats the same drum. In 4:9, he cites again Genesis 15:6, “Faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness.” In 4:10, he insists that it was credited to him while he was still uncircumcised. In 4:11, he repeats that the uncircumcised who believe will have righteousness credited to them. And in 4:12 he applies it to the circumcised Jews: They, too, must follow in the steps of the faith of Abraham which he had while he was still uncircumcised.
But Paul anticipates another objection from religious Jews: “Surely we become heirs of God’s promises to Abraham through the Law. Gentiles must keep the Law to come under these blessings.” This was the teaching of the Judaizers, who plagued Paul’s ministry (Acts 15:1, 5; Galatians). But Paul insists that the true heirs of the promises to Abraham are not those who are of the Law, but rather those who are of faith. He sums this up in 4:16 (which we will examine in more detail next time): “For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.”
So why does Paul keep hammering on this truth that God’s righteousness is credited to us by faith alone? I think it’s because he knows how deeply embedded in the fallen human heart is the idea that we can do something to commend ourselves to God. The last two millennia of human history prove him to be right. All religions, including the major ones that go under the label of “Christian,” are works oriented. They teach what Paul explicitly and repeatedly denies here, that at least in part, we are saved by keeping religious rituals and by our good deeds.
For example, at the Council of Trent (in 1547), the Roman Catholic Church responded to the Protestant Reformation, including the doctrine of justification by faith alone. The Canons and Decrees of Trent represent the official teaching of the Catholic Church to this day. The Second Vatican Council in the 1960’s declared these doctrines “irreformable.” The Council of Trent did not deny that we are saved by God’s grace through faith. But it added works to faith by combining justification (right standing with God) with sanctification (our growth in holiness subsequent to being justified) and by making justification a process that depends in part on our good works. To quote:
If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified, in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, ... let him be anathema. (Session 6, Canon 9, in Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom [Baker], 2:112.)
If any one saith, that justifying faith is nothing else but confidence in the divine mercy which remits sins for Christ’s sake; or, that this confidence alone is that whereby we are justified: let him be anathema. (Session 6, Canon 12, in Schaff, 2:113.)
If any one saith, that the justice received is not preserved and also increased before God through good works; but that the said works are merely the fruits and signs of Justification obtained, but not a cause of the increase thereof: let him be anathema. (Session 6, Canon 24, in Schaff, 2:115.)
If any one saith, that, after the grace of Justification has been received, to every penitent sinner the guilt is remitted, and the debt of eternal punishment is blotted out in such wise that there remains not any debt of temporal punishment to be discharged either in this world, or in the next in Purgatory, before the entrance to the kingdom of heaven can be opened [to him]: let him be anathema. (Session 6, Canon 30, in Schaff, 2:117.)
In other words, the Roman Catholic Church declares that we are justified before God by grace through faith, but not through faith alone. We must add our good works to that faith in order to obtain, preserve, and increase our right standing before God. This process is not completed at the initial point of faith in Christ, and not even in this life, but only, hopefully, in Purgatory. Thus the Catholic Church denies the sufficiency of the guilty sinner’s faith in Christ’s sacrifice as the means of right standing with God. (See Justification by Faith Alone [Soli Deo Gloria], ed. by Don Kistler, especially pp. 7-14, by John MacArthur, Jr.)
I do not point out these things to be unkind to Roman Catholics. Quite the contrary, I say it because I care deeply that Catholics come to understand what Paul teaches about this most crucial matter of how a person gets right with God. And, even if you are not from a Catholic background, because of the fall you are prone to trust in your religious activities and your good works as the basis of your standing before God. But Paul wants you to see that …
Salvation does not come through religious rituals or the Law, but through God crediting righteousness through faith alone.
“This blessing” (4:9) refers to the blessing of salvation, of God not counting our sins against us (4:7-8). First, Paul shows that Abraham was not justified after he was circumcised, but before:
We can apply this to any religious rituals, such as baptism, communion, going to mass, praying the rosary, or whatever. We can sum up Paul’s flow of thought under two headings:
This is the shocking point that Paul makes in 4:5, “But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.” As I said when we studied that verse, most people would assume that it should read, “But to the one who tries hard and believes in Him who justifies all good people, his faith is credited as righteousness.” But Paul specifically states that on the one hand, this person isn’t trying hard; he does not work. On the other hand, he isn’t described as a good person, but rather as ungodly. He isn’t a religious person who tries to obey God. He isn’t a person who devotes his life to serving the poor. He isn’t a person who never deliberately hurt anyone. He is ungodly. God justifies the ungodly sinner who believes in Jesus!
The Jews viewed Gentiles as ungodly, but they viewed themselves as godly people. Circumcision was the main religious ritual that distinguished them from the “Gentile dogs.” When Abraham was 99 years-old, God commanded him to circumcise himself and all the males in his household. He extended that command for all Jewish baby boys throughout all generations, that they be circumcised on the eighth day. It was the sign of the covenant between God and Abraham (Gen. 17:11-12).
But Paul here points out a simple fact of Old Testament chronology: God’s command to Abraham to be circumcised happened at least 14 years after the incident in Genesis 15:6 where God credited Abraham’s faith to him as righteousness. Thus Abraham was in effect still an uncircumcised Gentile! So Paul effectively turns the tables on the Jews who argued for circumcision as essential for salvation. He is saying that it is not for the Gentiles to enter through the gate of Jewish circumcision, but rather for the Jews to enter through the gate of Gentile faith apart from circumcision (Frederic Godet, Commentary on Romans [Kregel], p. 174)!
Or, to put it in more modern terms, you do not get saved (or justified) by being baptized (whether as an infant or an adult) or by taking communion. You do not get saved by going to church or by faithfully saying your prayers or by doing penance. Rather, you get saved when God credits the very righteousness of Christ to you the instant that you believe in Him. Salvation does not come through the performance of any religious rituals, but only through faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:25).
Well then, what is the role of religious rituals? Are they worthless? Should we just forget about them? No,
Paul (4:11) refers to circumcision as both a sign and a seal of the righteousness of the faith that Abraham had while uncircumcised. This makes him “the father of all who believe without being circumcised, that righteousness might be credited to them.”
A sign is not the real thing, but it points to it. A sign that says “Flagstaff, 10 miles” is not the actual city, but it points you to it. Circumcision was a physical sign in every Jewish man’s flesh that pointed to the fact that he belonged to God. He was in covenant with God and God’s people. He was separated to God through the shedding of blood. It was a sign of purification from the flesh, so that both Moses (Deut. 10:16) and the prophets (Jer. 4:4) exhorted Israel spiritually to circumcise their hearts.
As Christians, baptism is a sign that your sins have been washed away through faith in Christ (Acts 22:16). It pictures the truth that you have been identified completely (immersed) with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection (Rom. 6:3-4). The Lord’s Supper is a sign of the New Covenant (1 Cor. 11:25), showing that you are a partaker in Christ’s sacrificial death on your behalf. The sign is not the reality, but it points to the reality. The reality is God’s promise to forgive all our sins and impute Christ’s righteousness to our account by faith alone. The “ritual” is a sign of the reality. If you don’t have the reality, the ritual is worthless.
Also, Paul refers to circumcision as a seal. A seal authenticates or attests to the reality of something. A notary’s seal on a document attests that it is the real thing. Circumcision attested to the reality of Abraham’s previous faith that justified him and to God’s covenant with him. But it was the faith that justified, not the act of circumcision. In 4:12, Paul applies this to the Jews, but then narrows it by saying that it does not apply to all Jews, but only to those “who also follow in the steps of the faith” of Abraham. He almost twists the knife when he adds, “which he had while uncircumcised.” He is saying that whether you are a Gentile or a Jew, the key thing is to believe God’s promise to justify the ungodly. The rituals follow as signs and seals, but the reality is through faith alone.
What then is the benefit of religious “rituals,” such as baptism and communion? Should we do them at all? Yes, because Scripture commands us to do them. But they should only be done after you have put your trust in Christ as your righteousness. They then become a sign pointing to that reality and a seal that attests to your faith in Christ.
I can only briefly deal with the fact that those who argue for infant baptism point to Romans 4:11 as a key verse. They argue that although for Abraham circumcision pointed back to his previous faith, for Abraham’s descendants, it was done for them as infants and thus pointed ahead to the faith they later would exercise. They argue that baptism has replaced circumcision as the sign of the covenant. Thus we should baptize infants.
How do we answer this? (For a more thorough treatment, see my sermon, “Why We Do Not Baptize Infants,” 9/8/96, on fcfonline.org). But, briefly: First, there is no New Testament example or command to baptize infants. Rather, every mention of baptism in the New Testament shows that it is the appropriate response to saving faith, not the precursor of it. Also, while the New Testament shows some correspondence between circumcision and baptism (Col. 2:11-12), it explicitly mentions faith in that context. It is an argument from silence, but it is a loud silence when in the many New Testament discussions about circumcision, there is absolutely no reference to it now being replaced by baptism.
There are some significant differences between circumcision and baptism. But even if we grant the parallels, then just as circumcision was administered to the physical descendants of Abraham in the age of type, so baptism ought to be administered to the spiritual descendants of Abraham in the age of fulfillment, namely, to believers. Old Testament Israel consisted of the physical descendants of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob, and thus the sign was given to show that the males were children of the covenant. But the New Testament church consists of those who are the spiritual children of Abraham through faith in Christ (Gal. 3:7). Thus baptism should only be administered to those who give a clear profession of faith in Christ.
I should also point out that while some denominations (Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran) teach that baptism imparts regeneration to infants, others that practice infant baptism (Presbyterians, the Reformed Church, and Methodists) do not. But I argue that even if a church denies that it imparts regeneration, to baptize infants is potentially damaging in that it later gives them false assurance that they are right with God through a ritual. But we are right with God through faith in Christ alone. (See also, John Piper, “How do Circumcision and Baptism Correspond?” on DesiringGod.org.)
But Paul anticipates that his Jewish readers will bring up the Law. Surely Paul wouldn’t throw out God’s Law! Don’t the Gentiles have to keep the Law in order to call Abraham their father?
The Jews would have not restricted the obedience which they thought necessary for salvation to circumcision, but would have expanded it to the whole Law (Acts 15:5). Paul could have countered their argument, as he does in Galatians 3:17, by showing that the Law, which came 430 years after the promise to Abraham, does not invalidate the previous covenant. But instead, he limits himself here to the argument of Galatians 3:18, that the concept of a covenant promise is fundamentally opposed to the concept of the Law.
He states the principle in 4:13: “For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith.” Then he explains (4:14), “For if those who are of the Law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise is nullified.” Thus he is saying,
The principle of receiving a gift by faith is the opposite of receiving a reward that you work for (Rom. 3:24; 4:4). If you offer me a gift and I say, “Let me pay you back by working for it,” I have turned the gift into something that I owe you or you end up owing me. God promises to justify the ungodly person who does not deserve it, but who receives it freely by His grace. If you mix human works with God’s grace, then grace is no longer grace. The promise of salvation as a free gift received by faith has been nullified and turned into a debt for payment of services rendered.
In 4:15, Paul explains why the attempt to gain salvation by the Law is doomed to fail: “for the Law brings about wrath, but where there is no law, there is no violation.” The Law brings wrath because no one can keep it perfectly. To gain acceptance with God by keeping the Law, you have to keep it perfectly (James 2:10). Any failure makes you liable for God’s judgment. The second phrase does not mean that there is no sin when there is no law. As Paul previously stated, the Gentile who did not know the explicit commands of God is guilty of violating his own conscience (Rom. 2:14-15). But the Jew who knows the Law and violates it is going against what he explicitly knows to be right. The Law shows us what sin is (Rom. 7:7). Thus to know the Law and violate it incurs God’s wrath to a greater degree than not to know the Law at all.
Also, note that there are two and only two possible eternal futures for every person: either you are an heir of the world as a true descendant of Abraham (4:13) or you are an heir of wrath as one who sought to be right with God by keeping the Law (4:15).
The phrase, “heir of the world,” does not occur in those exact words anywhere in God’s promises to Abraham. Rather, Paul is probably summing up God’s promises that Abraham would have a large number of descendants from many nations (Gen. 12:2; 13:16; 15:5; 17:4-6, 16-20; 22:17); that he would possess the land (Gen. 13:15-17; 15:12-21; 17:8); and that he would be the channel of blessing “all the peoples of the earth” (Gen. 12:3; 18:18; 22:18; Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 274). Jesus Christ is the final “seed” (“descendant”) of Abraham (Gal. 3:16). If we are in Christ through faith, then we are fellow heirs with Him (Rom. 8:17; Eph. 3:6). As Paul puts it (Gal. 3:29), “And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.”
In verse 9, as I said, “this blessing” refers to the blessing that Paul has enumerated from Psalm 32 (in Rom. 4:7-8), namely, the blessing of knowing that your lawless deeds have been forgiven, that your sins have been covered, and that God will not take your sins into account. Do you want that blessing?
You won’t get it by being born into a Christian home or by faithful attendance at a Christian church. You won’t get it by being baptized and partaking of communion. You won’t get the blessing of forgiveness by doing penance or devoting yourself to sacrificial service to the poor. In short, you won’t get the blessing of salvation through religious rituals or by keeping the Law. Rather, God forgives all our sins and credits Christ’s righteousness to us if we put our faith in Jesus and His shed blood. Religion can’t save you, but Jesus can. Trust in Him and instantly you become an heir of God’s promise of eternal life as His free gift!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
In 1947 a rumor spread that the Ford Motor Company would give a Ford in exchange for every copper penny dated 1943. The rumor spread so fast that Ford offices throughout the country were jammed with thousands of requests for information. The U.S. mint also received a large volume of inquiries.
It all turned out to be a hoax. The statistics of the mint show that in 1943 there were over one billion pennies minted from steel-zinc, but due to a copper shortage, the number of copper pennies was exactly zero.
There has been a rumor abroad in the human race for centuries that entrance into heaven can be obtained by good works. But it’s not true. The fact is, there are no works made on earth that are acceptable in heaven. All of our works are tainted by sin. The only righteousness that gains entrance to heaven is the righteousness of Jesus Christ graciously imputed to sinners who believe in Him (I adapted this illustration from Donald Grey Barnhouse, Let Me Illustrate [Revell], p. 356).
Your eternal destiny depends on your understanding and personally believing the truth that Paul has been hammering on in Romans 4, that we are justified (declared righteous) by faith alone. We are not justified by works or by moral behavior, but rather by faith in the God who credits righteousness to the ungodly apart from works (Rom. 4:1-8). This blessing is not based on religious rituals (4:9-12) or on keeping the Law, which only serves to condemn us (4:13-15). Rather, as Paul now shows,
Saving faith is rooted in God’s grace, it rests on God’s promise, it revels in God’s glory, and it relies on God’s power.
Paul is arguing that Abraham, whom the Jews rightly extolled as the father of their faith, was justified by faith alone, not by being circumcised or by keeping the Law. And as such, Abraham is not only the father of believing Jews, but also of Gentiles who believe. So Paul now expounds on the nature of Abraham’s faith as an example for us all.
After pointing out that the Law brings wrath, not salvation (4:15), Paul continues (4:16), “For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.”
This verse is a summary of 4:1-15. “It” refers to the promised inheritance to Abraham, which was not promised on the basis of obedience to the Law, but rather through the righteousness of faith (4:13). The reason that this promised inheritance is by faith is so that it may be in accordance with grace. Paul explained this back in 4:4-5, “Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor [“favor” is the Greek word for “grace”], but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.”
The point is simple: if salvation comes to us as a wage that we deserve because of our good works, then it is not by grace, which is undeserved favor. God would owe it to us, and of course then we could boast in our own efforts which obtained it. Salvation would not be a gift, but a wage. But God only gives it as a free gift, so that no one can boast (Eph. 2:8-9; 1 Cor. 1:27-31).
When Paul mentions in verse 16, “those who are of the Law,” he is referring to believing Jews, not to all Jews. If he meant all Jews, he would be contradicting what he has just said (4:15), that the Law brings about wrath. So he means that since the promise of becoming an heir of righteousness is by faith, it is available to all who believe. Gentiles do not need to keep the Law of Moses in order to be saved. Rather, Jews and Gentiles alike must believe in Jesus to be saved.
Paul says that faith (as opposed to Law or human performance) guarantees this promise. If salvation were based on our good deeds, how could we ever know when we’ve done enough? As I pointed out in our last study, this is the problem with the Roman Catholic system of adding our works to faith in order to accumulate enough merit for heaven. When have you done enough service to the poor? When have you given enough money? When have you been honest enough? When have you demonstrated that your love for God is pure and fervent enough? When have you arrived at loving your neighbor as you in fact love yourself? If you base salvation on good works, you’ll always be plagued with doubts.
And so we must all come to God with “the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all” (4:16). This faith is rooted in God’s gracious promise to declare righteous all who believe in Jesus Christ, who paid the penalty for our sin. It is available to all people, without distinction. Perhaps, like the Jews in Paul’s day, you come from a religious background. God must open your eyes to see that you are a guilty sinner who cannot earn salvation by your own efforts. If you respond to God’s gracious promise by faith, He will credit the righteousness of Christ to your account.
Or, perhaps like the Gentiles, you come from a pagan background. You have lived to pursue pleasure through sin. But if God opens your eyes to see that you are a guilty sinner and that He offers a full pardon to those who believe in Jesus’ death as the payment for sin, He will credit Christ’s righteousness to you the instant you believe in Jesus. The faith of Abraham guarantees the promise to all.
Paul goes on to expound on Abraham’s faith:
As indicated in the NASB, the citation from Genesis 17:5 is parenthetical (4:17a): “(as it is written, ‘A father of many nations have I made you.’)” In Genesis 17, Abraham was 99 years old. Although God had promised to give him a son through Sarah almost 25 years before, they still had no son. Now, the human prospects of having a son seemed impossible. Abraham was almost 100 and Sarah was about 90. She had been barren all her life and now both of them were past the age of conceiving a child.
At this point, the Lord appeared to Abraham and promised to establish His covenant with him, which included making him the father of a multitude of nations (Gen. 17:4). In light of this, God gave Abram (his name up to this point, which means “exalted father”) a new name, Abraham, which means, “the father of a multitude.” Then (in Genesis) the citation that is in our text follows (from the LXX), “A father of many nations I have made you.”
As Abraham stood there before God, although the promise was outside of the realm of human possibility, Abraham believed in God, whom Paul here (4:17) describes as the one “who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.” That faith was not without its struggles, as we will see. But the point is, Abraham believed God’s promise, even though the fulfillment of it was humanly impossible and seemed very unlikely.
To believe in God’s promise is the same as believing in God’s person. If I promise to do something for you, but you don’t believe my promise, in effect you’re calling me a liar. You’re saying that I won’t do what I’ve promised. If God promises something and we refuse to believe it, we’ve called God a liar!
Paul is emphasizing God’s promise (4:13, 14, 16, 20; the verb is in 4:21). Leon Morris writes (The Epistle to the Romans Apollos/Eerdmans], p. 212), “Abraham had nothing going for him except the promise of God. But for the man of faith that was enough.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones puts it (Romans: Atonement and Justification [Zondervan], p. 211), Abraham believed “the bare Word of God” and “nothing else whatsoever.” He adds, “Faith is content with the bare Word of God, because He is God.”
It’s easy to sit here and think, “Well, I’d believe God, too, if He appeared to me as He did to Abraham and promised me something.” But, would we? The promise flew in the face of every human consideration. First, Sarah, who had been barren all of her life, had now gone through menopause. And Abraham was 100. So when God told him that he would be the father of a multitude of nations and that Sarah would be the mother of nations, Abraham laughed and asked God that Ishmael might be the heir. But God insisted that the heir would come through Sarah (Gen. 17:15-19).
Then there was this embarrassing matter of changing his name. Abram was embarrassing enough. When people met him they would probably ask, “Abram, ‘exalted father,’ huh? How many children do you have?” Abram would look down, clear his throat and say, “One.” He’d probably not explain that the one son was not through his wife, but through her servant. Abram probably saw a lot of people roll their eyes as they thought, “Exalted father, and he’s 99 and only has one child? Yeah, sure!”
But now, after God appears to him, the next day Abram announces, “I have a new name. God gave it to me last night.” Everyone is waiting, thinking, “Maybe he’s finally going to take a name that reflects reality!” Then Abram says, “My new name is Abraham, father of a multitude!” Maybe some of his servants turned their backs quickly and put their hands over their mouths to suppress their laughter. They thought, “The old man is losing it!”
But Abraham believed God and His promise, even though it was humanly impossible ever to be fulfilled. We look back in history and can see how the promise was fulfilled literally through the many descendants of Isaac and Jacob, Ishmael and Esau, and through Abraham’s sons through Keturah (Gen. 25:1-4). But the promise has been fulfilled even more so through the spiritual descendants of the Seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ, with the gospel going around the world to every nation. But Abraham didn’t live to see any of this. He “died in faith, without receiving the promises” (Heb. 11:13).
John Calvin perceptively observes (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], on Rom. 1:20, p. 180):
All things around us are in opposition to the promises of God: He promises immortality; we are surrounded with mortality and corruption: He declares that he counts us just; we are covered with sins: He testifies that he is propitious and kind to us; outward judgments threaten his wrath. What then is to be done? We must with closed eyes pass by ourselves and all things connected with us, that nothing may hinder or prevent us from believing that God is true.
Before we leave this point, let’s apply it to God’s promise of salvation. He promises to justify and give eternal life to the ungodly person who believes in Jesus. Where do we learn about this promise? Our only source is the Word of God. You won’t learn how to have eternal life by studying nature. You won’t deduce it from philosophy or logic. You won’t learn it by studying human behavior. Rather, the only source is the written Word of God, conveyed to us by the apostles and prophets. Do you believe it? Have you put your trust for eternal life in God’s promise as recorded in His Word? If not, you’re calling God a liar!
Another application of this is: When you talk to people about the gospel, cite God’s Word and encourage people to read it, especially the Gospel of John. John tells us that he wrote his gospel (John 20:31), “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). The Word is powerful to save sinners (James 1:18).
Paul writes (4:20), “yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God.” Abraham’s faith was solidly God-centered. He didn’t believe in himself. He didn’t have faith in faith. He wasn’t an optimist who practiced positive thinking. He didn’t think, “If Sarah and I just visualize the goal and try again, we’ll succeed.” Rather, looking away from the circumstances and away from himself, he believed God and His promise, so that God got the glory. In Romans 1:21, we saw that the fundamental sin of the human race was, “even though they knew God, they did not glorify [lit.] Him as God or give thanks.” But here, by way of contrast, Abraham grew strong in faith and gave glory to God.
This teaches us that our faith should grow. Weak faith (or little faith) is still faith, but we should grow strong in faith. The Greek verb is passive, “was strengthened in faith.” Although some scholars take it in an active sense, I think that Paul could have used the active verb if he had meant to; but he used the passive. It implies that faith must come from God. It is His gift to us. And yet, like so many gifts of God, we have a responsibility to appropriate it and grow in it.
How do we grow in faith? The key is to grow in your knowledge of the object of our faith, namely, God. Faith is only as good as its object. You can have strong faith in a faulty bridge and it will collapse under you in spite of your strong faith. Or, you can have weak faith in a strong bridge and it will hold you up, along with a semi-truck that rumbles over it next to you. But your weak faith does not glorify the strong bridge for what it is. The right way to have strong faith that glorifies the bridge is to know that the engineer who built it is competent and the company that constructed it has a solid reputation of not cutting corners. Your knowledge of that bridge would increase your faith in it, even though it may go over a frightening chasm below. Your strong faith stems from your knowledge that this is a trustworthy bridge. The bridge, not your faith, gets the glory.
To grow in faith, study God’s attributes and His ways as revealed in His Word. See how He has been faithful to His Word in the past. See how He has kept His promises to His people, even in the face of staggering odds against them. Read how He has acted in the history of the Bible. Read the history of His saints who have trusted Him. In some cases, He delivered them miraculously. At other times, they were tortured, thrown in prison, stoned, sawn in two, and put to death by the sword (Heb. 11:37). But in no case did God ever abandon His people or act unfaithfully to His promises. Revelation 6:9-11 tells us that He has a precise number of martyrs who will be killed before He finally judges the wicked. But the evil deeds of the wicked do not threaten God’s sovereign power or plan. Study His attributes and His ways and you will grow in faith.
Then, put your faith into action. As you act in faith and see God work, your faith is strengthened to trust Him the next time. We need to be careful not to misapply His promises. John the Baptist in prison was confused because he thought that if he was the Messiah’s forerunner and Jesus was the Messiah, then he should not be in prison (Matt. 11:2-11). Jesus gently assured John that He was indeed the Messiah, but as you know, John did not get out of prison alive. But even if God’s will is our death, we can glorify Him by dying in faith as we look to His promise of eternal life. Faith does not glory in human effort or human will power, but rather in God alone. Salvation is totally from God and so saving faith properly gives Him all the glory.
Thus saving faith is rooted in God’s grace. It rests on God’s promise. It revels in God’s glory. Finally,
These verses contrast Abraham’s hopeless inability with God’s mighty power. Abraham and Sarah were past their human ability to conceive a child, and even when they were in their prime, Sarah could not conceive. But God waited until they were clearly past all ability to conceive, so that the greatness of the power would be in God, “who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist” (4:17).
Verse 19 says that Abraham “contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb.” The King James Version follows a textual variant that says that Abraham did not consider his own body, but the better reading (textually and contextually) says that he did consider it. In other words, he didn’t ignore reality. He didn’t close his eyes to the obvious and have blind faith.
Rather, he faced the reality of his and Sarah’s complete inability to conceive the promised son. When Paul says that Abraham did not waver in unbelief, he is looking at the overall pattern and final result, not at his momentary lapses in faith. He wavered in faith when he took Hagar, conceived Ishmael, and then asked God to make Ishmael the heir. The phrase, “in hope against hope” implies the struggle of faith that Abraham experienced and that everyone who walks by faith experiences. Circumstances often dash our hope, but against that, we fight back with hope. Our faith and hope are not in ourselves or our ability or in a positive attitude that everything turns out okay for good people in the end.
No, our faith and hope are in the God who gives life to the dead and who calls into being that which does not exist. He renewed Abraham’s and Sarah’s “dead” bodies to produce Isaac, the son of the promise. He said, “I have made you a father of many nations” before Abraham had Isaac. God’s word that said, “Let there be light, and there was light” (Gen. 1:3) is effectual. Paul applies this to our salvation when he says (2 Cor. 4:6), “For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” Saving faith relies on God’s power to keep His promise, not on any human ability.
Verse 22 gives the cumulative result of Abraham’s faith: “Therefore it was also credited to him as righteousness.” Paul repeats that verse in 4:3, 5, 9, and now here. Plus, he alludes to it in 4:6, 8, 11, and 13. He has repeatedly mentioned “faith” or “believe,” often in deliberate contrast to human works (4:3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20). He wants us to see that we are justified (declared righteous) by faith alone in God’s promise, not by any works or merit added to it. Since God’s salvation is by grace through faith apart from works, we can join Abraham (in 4:21), “being fully assured that what God [has] promised, He [is] able also to perform.”
I’ve told you before about the granny who had never flown in an airplane, but she had to make a trip by air. Her kids and grandkids all tried to convince her that it was safer than riding in a car. Finally, with a lot of misgivings, she got on board.
When she returned safely, the family met her at the airport and asked, “How’d it go, Granny? Did the plane hold you up?” She reluctantly agreed, “Yeah.” But then she added, “But I never put my full weight down on it!”
Could your faith in Jesus Christ to save you be like that? You believe in Him, but you’re also keeping one foot in your good works to get you into heaven. Saving faith puts all its weight on Jesus Christ and His shed blood. It’s rooted in God’s grace, it rests on God’s promise, it revels in God’s glory, and it relies on His power. Make sure that your trust is in Christ alone.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
A former secretary of mine told me about a doctor from Texas that she knew who owned a home in Mexico. He felt sorry for the poor people there, many of whom were often sick because they didn’t pasteurize their milk. So he bought them a pasteurizing machine. The villagers built a special shed to house the machine and had a big celebration when he brought it down and installed it.
A few months later when the doctor returned, the leading man of the village greeted him by saying, “Oh, doctor, good to see you! If we had known you were coming, we would have plugged in the pasteurizing machine.”
We chuckle at that story, and yet it describes the way that many Christians use their Bibles. They know that the truths of the Bible would be good for what ails them, but they only plug it in for special occasions, like when the pastor comes around. The rest of the time, it’s as useless as an unplugged pasteurizing machine.
D. A. Carson observed (Christianity Today [6/29/1979], p. 31):
The supreme irony is that most Christians hear best what the Spirit is saying to someone else. Speak to the fundamentalist about the truth, and he hears you, precisely because he doesn’t need to; it is the person with fuzzy notions about the eternality of the truth who will not hear. Speak to the genuinely broad-minded ecumenist about love, and he hears you, precisely because he doesn’t need to, but fundamentalists of a harsher variety will not. Speak to the Ephesian Christians about discipline, endurance, perseverance, and sound doctrine, and they will hear you—precisely because they don’t need to. But will they hear when you speak of lovelessness? The one who truly hears what the Spirit says to the churches will be the one who is receptive to the words of God that he least wishes to hear.
Paul has spent an entire chapter hammering home the truth that we are justified by faith in Christ alone, not by our good works, not by our religious rituals, and not by keeping the Law of Moses. He uses Abraham as the prime example of a man who believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness (4:3, 5, 9, 22). But now, as he wraps up this chapter, he wants us to plug it in personally. He doesn’t want us to cheer and say, “Brilliant argument, Paul! You really stuck it to those religious Jews! Nice going!” No, he wants each of us to apply it on the most fundamental level so that we, too, are sure that the righteousness of Jesus Christ has been credited to our account by faith. In applying this to us, Paul gives us a simple description of what a true Christian is:
A Christian personally believes in God who delivered over Jesus to pay for our sins and raised Him from the dead to confirm our justification.
Paul writes (4:23-24), “Now not for his sake only was it written that it was credited to him, but for our sake also, to whom it will be credited, as those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.” Note four things:
Verse 24 reads literally, “to whom it is about to be credited.” The verb, “is about to,” has a future reference from the standpoint of the Old Testament, looking ahead to God’s promise as fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Jesus (Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], p. 242). Schreiner paraphrases it (ibid.), “Genesis 15:6 was written for the sake of those who would in the future be reckoned righteous by faith.” In other words, Paul wants us to apply personally the truth of Abraham’s being justified by faith.
We can see this in the text by the fact that Paul uses the pronoun “our” four times: “for our sake also”; “Jesus our Lord”; “our transgressions”; and, “our justification.” These truths must be ours personally. And as C. H. Spurgeon pointed out (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 48:560), “you can never truly say, ‘Our Lord,’ till you have first said, ‘My Lord.’” Is Jesus your Lord because you personally have trusted in Him for eternal life?
Paul’s point is that this chapter about Abraham and his faith is not just a quaint history lesson. We need to apply it personally. The Bible was written so that first we would understand it, but then so that we will apply it. The story of Abraham is for your sake also. Has the righteousness of Christ been credited to your account? Romans 4 won’t do you any good unless by faith you are a true son of Abraham, an heir according to God’s promise (Gal. 3:7, 29).
Also, Romans 4 shows the importance of understanding and applying the Old Testament. Paul built the entire chapter on the story of Abraham’s faith being credited to him as righteousness. If we do not understand the Old Testament, we will not properly understand the New Testament. Douglas Moo observes (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 287), “Paul’s conviction that the OT everywhere speaks to Christians is fundamental to his theology and preaching.” As Paul goes on to say (Rom. 15:4), “For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” (See, also, 1 Cor. 10:11.)
So before we leave this point I want to ask you two questions: First, do you regularly read and seek to understand and apply the Old Testament? Reading through the entire Bible in a year is a good plan. I try to read from the Psalms, the Old Testament, and the New Testament, each day. Don’t neglect the Old Testament.
Second, have you put your faith in Christ alone, trusting God to credit Christ’s righteousness to your account? If you have not done that, you are not a Christian in the most important sense of the word. A Christian personally believes in Jesus Christ.
Paul’s emphasis here is on the continuity and similarity of Abraham’s faith with ours. As he said (4:12), we must “follow in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham.” And (4:16), we are to be “of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.”
Last week we saw the nature of Abraham’s faith, which is an example for our faith. Abraham believed God’s promise and so should we. In his case, it was God’s promise to give him an heir through Sarah, to give him the land, to make him the father of many nations, and to bless the nations through his “seed.” Those promises were ultimately fulfilled in Christ. But Abraham died in faith without receiving the promises (Heb. 11:13). In our case, we look back to God’s promise to justify sinners who believe in Christ.
Also, Abraham believed God’s promise in spite of circumstances that seemed to be to the contrary. He and Sarah were both beyond the years when they could physically conceive children. It required a miracle for God to fulfill His promise. But “in hope against hope he believed” (Rom. 4:18). As we look at our own hearts and realize how sinful we have been and how inclined toward sin we still are, it seems impossible for God to save us. But, like Abraham, we must believe God’s promise in spite of circumstances that seem to be contrary.
Abraham also believed that God is able to give “life to the dead” and to call “into being that which does not exist” (4:17). In Abraham’s case, it was his and Sarah’s “dead” bodies, which were incapable of conceiving a child. Later, Abraham’s faith focused on God raising Isaac from the dead after He commanded Abraham to sacrifice him (Heb. 11:19). In our case, we must believe that God raised Jesus bodily from the dead. And, we must believe that every time God saves a soul, He is giving life to the dead (Eph. 2:1-5) and calling into being that which did not exist (2 Cor. 4:6; 5:17). In other words, the new birth is a miraculous, life-giving event.
Also, Abraham’s faith grew strong and gave glory to God, being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able to perform (4:20-21). Even so, our faith in Christ must grow stronger as we study God’s Word and learn more of His attributes and His ways. We don’t glory in our strong faith, but rather in our strong God. Our faith should point others to Him, because He is faithful.
Note also that in 3:26, Paul talks about God justifying the one who has faith in Jesus, but here (4:24) he talks about believing “in Him who raised Jesus from the dead,” namely, God the Father. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Romans: Atonement and Justification [Zondervan], p. 238) expresses his concern that some people speak only about Jesus, but never mention God the Father. Others put the emphasis on God, but don’t see their need for Jesus. And others put all their emphasis on the Holy Spirit, while some hardly mention the Spirit. Lloyd-Jones’ plea is that we maintain the balance of Scripture, where everything starts with God and ends with God. The work of Christ is designed to bring us to God and reconcile us to Him. The work of the Holy Spirit is to apply the work of Christ to us who believe. But it is all aimed at bringing us to glorify God.
Thus our faith must be personal. It must be like the faith of Abraham, although because of God’s promise being fulfilled in Christ, we have much more revelation than Abraham did.
As we saw in our last study, Abraham didn’t have faith in himself or faith in faith itself or faith in positive thinking. Rather, he believed the specific promises of God. Even so, our faith must have the specific content of what the Bible teaches about God, who is holy, just, and loving. We must believe the biblical revelation about the pervasiveness of human sin, which renders us all incapable of seeking after God or pleasing Him. We must believe in the full deity and sinless humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ, who came to die as the substitute for sinners. And, we must believe that we are saved—rescued from God’s wrath—by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
It is important to say that our faith must have specific content because there are those who make the false distinction that our faith must be personal, but not propositional. They argue that we are to believe in Jesus, but not in specific doctrines about Jesus or about salvation. They contend that doctrine only divides us, so we should set it aside and just believe in Jesus without the doctrines. But clearly the apostle Paul didn’t spend an entire chapter arguing that we are justified by faith alone if that doctrine doesn’t matter for our salvation!
The Bible is filled not only with stories, but also with many doctrines that are vitally important to our salvation and our spiritual health. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons claim to believe in Jesus as Savior and Lord, but their doctrines contradict and deny the Jesus and the way of salvation set forth in the Bible. There are many Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Protestants who believe in the Jesus of the Bible (not in the Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormon “Jesus”), but contrary to Scripture, they believe that we are saved at least in part by our good works. But Paul said that the Judaizers, who taught that to be saved we must believe in Jesus plus keep the Mosaic Law (especially circumcision), were damned (Gal. 1:6-9). So we must believe in sound doctrine, especially regarding doctrines related to salvation.
Of course, some doctrines in the Bible are more important than other doctrines are (Matt. 23:23; Rom. 14:17). We should not divide over minor doctrinal differences or even over more major doctrines (such as biblical prophecy) where godly men differ. So we need wisdom and discernment to major in the things that matter. We all need to be growing in our understanding of the content of the Bible so that we don’t minimize key doctrines or maximize minor ones.
Paul keeps repeating the word “credited” (4:3, 5-6, 8, 9-11, 22, 23, 24) to hammer home the point that righteousness before God is a forensic matter. It is not a matter of God making us righteous or infusing righteousness into us, which is the process of sanctification. Rather, justification is God’s declaring us to be righteous based on Jesus taking all of our sins on Himself on the cross. God credits the perfect righteousness of Christ to every ungodly person who believes in Him (4:5).
I’ve said it before, but let me emphasize once more that God does not credit our faith as righteousness as if faith were a work on our part that God agrees to accept as payment for our sins. Our faith is not viewed as some sort of righteousness that is good enough to cover our sins. Rather, faith lays hold of Jesus Christ, who becomes the righteousness of God for us (1 Cor. 1:30; 2 Cor. 5:21). By faith, God’s righteousness in Christ is applied to us (Rom. 3:22). So when Paul talks about faith being credited as righteousness (4:3, 5, 9, 22), it is the same thing as when he says that God credits righteousness to us apart from works (4:6, 11). The righteousness of faith (4:11, 13) is God’s righteousness that comes to us through faith in Jesus Christ.
John Piper devotes an entire message to explain this in far more detail than I can do here (“Faith and the Imputation of Righteousness,” on Rom. 4:22-25, on DesiringGod.org). He uses this illustration:
Suppose I say to Barnabas, my sixteen-year-old son, “Clean up your room before you go to school. You must have a clean room, or you won’t be able to go watch the game tonight.” Well, suppose he plans poorly and leaves for school without cleaning the room. And suppose I discover the messy room and clean it. His afternoon fills up and he gets home just before it’s time to leave for the game and realizes what he has done and feels terrible. He apologizes and humbly accepts the consequences.
To which I say, “Barnabas, I am going to credit your apology and submission as a clean room. I said, ‘You must have a clean room, or you won’t be able to go watch the game tonight.’ Your room is clean. So you can go to the game.” What I mean when I say, “I credit your apology as a clean room,” is not that the apology is the clean room. Nor that he really cleaned his room. I cleaned it. It was pure grace. All I mean is that, in my way of reckoning—in my grace—his apology connects him with the promise given for a clean room. The clean room is his clean room. I credit it to him. Or, I credit his apology as a clean room. You can say it either way. And Paul said it both ways: “Faith is credited as righteousness,” and “God credits righteousness to us through faith.”
So when God says … to those who believe in Christ, “I credit your faith as righteousness,” he does not mean that your faith is righteousness. He means that your faith connects you to God’s righteousness.
Thus Paul is saying that a Christian personally applies the lesson of Abraham’s faith so that the righteousness of Christ is credited to him. Have you done that? It is essential!
Here we are focusing on the phrase, “He who was delivered over because of our transgressions” (4:25). “Delivered over” is passive, meaning that God delivered Jesus over to death. There is a sense in which Jesus voluntarily gave Himself over to death (John 10:18), but there is another sense in which the Father delivered over the Son (Rom. 8:32). Romans 4:25 is not a quotation, but it relies in substance on Isaiah 53:12 (LXX), which states of Messiah, “his soul was delivered to death: and he was numbered among the transgressors; and he bore the sins of many and was delivered over because of their iniquities.” Or, as it says just a few verses earlier (Isa. 53:6), “The Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.” Or, again (Isa. 53:10), “But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; if He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, …” The last two phrases refer to the resurrection, which we will look at in a moment.
Peter mentions God’s delivering Jesus over to be crucified in his sermon on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:23): “This Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.” He goes on to affirm that God raised Him up again.
But the point is, our salvation, which includes at its center Jesus’ death on the cross, was not an unfortunate moment in history when evil men gained the upper hand. Although they were fully responsible for their sin, the crucifixion was God’s predetermined plan to give His eternal Son to pay the penalty for our sins. A Christian believes that salvation is from the Lord so that it all is “to the praise of the glory of His grace” (Eph. 1:6). Finally,
Paul emphasizes Jesus’ resurrection from the dead twice here: “Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead” (4:24); and, Jesus “was raised because of our justification” (4:25). As Paul argues in 1 Corinthians 15, the bodily resurrection of Jesus is central to our faith and our forgiveness. And, it is based on solid, varied eyewitness testimony. He says there (1 Cor. 15:17), “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.” In Romans 1:4, Paul says that Jesus “was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead.” The resurrection puts God’s stamp of approval on the death of Jesus as payment in full for the sins of all who believe.
The phrase, “Jesus our Lord,” emphasizes both His deity and His humanity. Jesus took on human flesh so that He could bear our sins, but He did not give up His deity. He is the Lord. But as I said, we must trust in Him as our Lord personally.
The phrase, “raised because of our justification,” is a bit difficult. It is parallel with the phrase, “delivered up because of our transgressions.” Perhaps the simplest way to understand it is that Jesus was delivered up to death as a consequence (“because”) of our sin; He was raised as a consequence (“because”) of our justification, which He achieved by His death (Rom. 5:9). In other words, when God raised Jesus, He put His seal of approval on Christ’s death as obtaining our justification (Murray J. Harris, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, ed. by Colin Brown [Zondervan], 3:1184). So the resurrection confirms that our justification was valid and acceptable to the Father.
Note carefully that not everyone is justified. Jesus’ death only justifies “those who believe in Him who raised Jesus from the dead” (4:24). In other words, this truth that God delivered Jesus over to pay for our sins and raised Him from the dead to affirm our justification will save you only if you personally believe it. The pasteurizing machine only benefits you if you plug it in and actually use it to pasteurize your milk. This wonderful doctrine of justification by faith that Paul has spent an entire chapter hammering home was not written as a quaint history lesson about Abraham. It was written for your sake. God will credit the righteousness of Christ to your account the instant that you believe in Him. Jesus’ resurrection from the dead affirms that it is true!
So what is a Christian? A Christian is a person who personally believes in God who delivered over Jesus to pay for our sins and raised Him from the dead to confirm our justification. Make sure that you are a true Christian through faith in Jesus Christ!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
If you were to ask many Christians what words they associate with “doctrine,” you would probably hear, “boring,” or “irrelevant.” We tend to be pragmatists who view the doctrines of the Bible as something that interests theologians or seminary students, strange breed that they are. But we want something practical. We want to know how to deal with the problems we face every day. So we tend to skip the doctrine and move on to the how-to’s.
The apostle Paul would be baffled by that approach. He would view it as building a house without a foundation. In all of his letters, he first sets forth the doctrine and then draws the practical applications from it. In Romans, he spends 11 chapters laying the doctrinal foundation before he gets really practical. But even within the first 11 chapters, he can’t resist drawing out the practical implications of the doctrines that he sets forth. So in chapter 5, he gives us some wonderful blessings that flow from the doctrine of justification by faith alone, which he has laid down in 3:19-4:25.
Some scholars argue for a major break between chapters 4 & 5, so that chapters 5-8 form a unit that sets forth the hope and assurance of believers. Others understand chapter 5 as concluding the section that began at 3:19, dealing with justification by faith. Still others make the break at 5:12. I would not be dogmatic, but I am comfortable viewing chapter 5 as the conclusion of the earlier section dealing with salvation, with chapter 6 beginning to deal with sanctification. But however you outline it, the themes of hope and assurance certainly are prominent in chapters 5-8.
In 5:1-11, the word “exult” occurs three times: Paul exults in the hope of glory (5:2); he exults in his tribulations (5:3); and he exults in God (5:11). The theme of reconciliation with God (5:10-11) ties back in to the opening theme of peace with God (5:1). So we could view the entire section as “exulting in the blessings of justification.” Today we can only look at 5:1-2, where Paul sets forth three blessings that come from justification:
Justification by faith gives us peace with God, access to His grace, and the joyous confidence that we will share His glory.
“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (5:1). Before we go farther, I should mention that there is a textual variant consisting of a single letter in the Greek text which would make the verse read, “let us have peace with God.” It is an unusual situation in that the strongest manuscripts support “let us,” but almost all scholars argue on the basis of the flow of thought that Paul wrote, “we have peace with God.” There are no other exhortations in 5:1-11. Rather, Paul sets forth the wonderful blessings that flow from the fact of our justification. So it is almost certain that Paul wrote, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (5:1).
Peace with God is the most wonderful gift that anyone can possess! This does not refer to the feeling of inner peace, but rather to the objective fact of peace. People may feel at peace with God when in fact they are in danger of His judgment (Jer. 6:14). Genuine peace with God means that we are truly reconciled with Him. We are no longer enemies with God, but friends with Him. We do not need to fear His judgment.
Because of the universality of sin, the human race is by nature at war against God. Many may feel at peace because they do not comprehend God’s absolute holiness or their own sinfulness. But because of sin, the wrath of God abides on all who do not believe in and obey Jesus Christ (John 3:36). As Paul wrote (Rom. 1:18), “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.”
This means that unless people come to peace with God on His terms, when they die they will face His eternal judgment. They may be the world’s greatest philanthropists, who have given millions to help the poor. But philanthropy will not atone for their many sins. They may be the nicest, most loving people you could know. But all the niceness and love that anyone can show will not atone for the many sins that we all commit. They may be fastidious about their religious duties, but the most religious people in the world cannot gain an entrance to heaven by their religious observance. None of these things gain genuine peace with God. So, how do we get it?
If you do not know what it means to be justified by faith, please go back to the previous seven messages from Romans 3:21-4:25, where we covered this in depth. It means that God declares an ungodly person to be righteous based on that person’s trusting Christ’s death as the payment for his or her sins. It is not something that we earn or deserve. It is a gift of grace alone (4:5).
Paul’s statement implies that we can know for certain that we have been justified by faith and that we now are at peace with God. If we’re justified by adding our good works to what Christ did on the cross, we can never know that we’ve done enough. When have you done enough penance to be justified? When have you served enough or given enough money to the church? When have you been good enough? The system of works keeps everyone uncertain about whether they are saved or not and it keeps them dependent on the church. But Paul implies here that we can know that we are justified by faith alone. We trust in Christ’s death on our behalf to pay for our sins. As a consequence, we do not need to fear God’s judgment. “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (8:1). But note:
“We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (5:1). This means that peace with God is not due to any merits or efforts on our part, but rather through what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us on the cross. Douglas Moo observes (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 300):
That all God has for us is to be found “in” or “through” Jesus Christ our Lord is a persistent motif in Rom. 5-8: peace with God comes “through our Lord Jesus Christ” (5:1); our boasting in God is “through our Lord Jesus Christ” (5:11); grace reigns through righteousness, resulting in eternal life “through Jesus Christ our Lord” (5:21); the gift of God bringing eternal life is “in Christ Jesus our Lord” (6:23); thanks for deliverance are due to God “through Jesus Christ our Lord” (7:25); the love of God, from which nothing can ever separate the believer is “in Christ Jesus our Lord” (8:39). When we consider that these phrases occur in only one other verse in Romans (15:30), and that every chapter in this part of the letter concludes on this note, a very definite focus on this matter is evident here.
The full title, “our Lord Jesus Christ,” looks at all that He is for us. First, He is our Lord, which focuses on His deity and His sovereign authority. We are His subjects or slaves. When you become a Christian, there is no option to believe in Jesus as your Savior, but to wait before you submit to Him as your Lord. He is both Savior and Lord, which means that you begin the Christian life by submitting all of yourself that you are aware of to all of Christ that you know. As you grow in Him, you learn more of who He is and what He commands and you see more areas in your life that you need to submit to Him, including your thought life. Jesus is the only rightful Lord of everything.
As Jesus, He is fully human. He took on human flesh in the incarnation, yet apart from sin. He lived in perfect dependence on the Father, in perfect obedience to His will. He went to the cross to atone for our sins (Rom. 3:24-26).
As Christ, Jesus is God’s Anointed One, the promised Messiah (“Christ” is Greek and “Messiah” is Hebrew for “Anointed One”). As such, Jesus is God’s appointed prophet, priest, and king. As God’s anointed prophet, Jesus spoke the very words of God to us (John 8:16-17). As God’s high priest, Jesus offered Himself once for all to atone for our sins. Now He lives to make intercession for us (Heb. 7:24-28). As God’s anointed king, Jesus is the rightful Sovereign over our lives. He is coming again to rule the nations with a rod of iron and to tread the winepress of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty (Rev. 19:15).
This means that the only way to have peace with God is through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other way of salvation (Acts 4:12).
Paul continues (5:2), “Through whom we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand.” Some early manuscripts omit “by faith,” but the context makes it clear that we receive all of God’s benefits through faith in Christ. Two things:
“Through whom” refers to Christ. “Introduction” may point to our initial introduction into the sphere of God’s grace. The word is used in extra-biblical Greek for introducing someone to royalty (William Barclay, The Letter to the Romans [Westminster Press], rev. ed., p. 73). Other New Testament authors use the verb to refer to bringing someone into another person’s presence (Matt. 18:24; Luke 9:41; 1 Pet. 3:18). So it could refer to our initial introduction to God’s grace when we first believed.
Or it may refer to our ongoing access to the treasures of grace. Paul is the only author to use the noun and both of the other times, he uses it to refer to ongoing access. In Ephesians 2:18, he says, “for through Him we both [Jews and Gentiles] have our access in one Spirit to God the Father.” In Ephesians 3:12 he adds, “in whom [Christ Jesus our Lord] we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him.” I lean towards this idea here. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, we can come again and again into the presence of Almighty God to receive grace for every need!
This means that we do not need another way of access to God. Jesus is the only way (John 14:6). We do not need to pray to Mary or the saints or to go through a priest. Rather, we come directly to the Father in the name of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. That gains us access, any time and anywhere.
The late Donald Grey Barnhouse (Epistle to the Romans [Bible Study Hour], Part 19, p. 1007) told a story about Abraham Lincoln that illustrates this point. A Southern soldier who had been freed from a prison camp because he was too wounded to return to active duty was seeking access to the President to intercede for his brother in a prison camp who was the sole support of their mother. But the White House guards would not let him in to talk to President Lincoln. He had no access.
One day the President’s young son, Tad Lincoln, was walking near the White House and saw the wounded veteran crying as he sat on a bench. The boy went up and asked him what the matter was. The soldier explained that he wanted to get in to see Mr. Lincoln to tell him about his brother, but the guards would not let him in. The President’s son took the man by the hand, led him past the guards, who all saluted, and brought the man into the presence of his father.
Barnhouse says that the story may be apocryphal, but it illustrates what the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, has done for us. We were desolate and alone, wounded by our sin. We had no way to come into God’s holy presence. On the cross, Jesus tore the veil into the holy of holies. When we come in faith to Him, He clothes us with His righteousness. Now He takes us by the hand and leads us again and again, at any time we have need, into the presence of His Father. What a wonderful blessing to have access to God!
Paul pictures God’s grace as a realm in which we stand. The verb tense of “have obtained” and “in which we stand” implies past action with ongoing results. In other words, we have gained entrance and now have ongoing standing in this realm of God’s grace. “Stand” implies a place of solid footing, or a place where we belong by right—not in ourselves, but by our union with Jesus Christ, the rightful heir.
In Ephesians 2:7, Paul says that in the ages to come God will “show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” In Ephesians 3:8 he describes it as “the unfathomable riches of Christ.” It will take all eternity for God to show us the various treasure rooms, loaded with all of the blessings that come to us by free grace through Jesus Christ! It’s as if we’ve been given unlimited blank checks to the bank account of a billionaire like Bill Gates and told, “Use it any time you have a need.”
Either you relate to God by trying to earn His favor by keeping the Law, which only brings His wrath when you disobey (4:15); or by receiving His undeserved favor through all that Christ did for you on the cross. It’s a no-brainer, isn’t it? When you trust in Christ, He becomes your way of access into the presence of God, who now relates to you as a loving Father. Some of you may have had angry fathers who seemed to be against you and who always said “no.” But listen to how Paul describes the riches of God’s grace in which we stand (8:31b-35a):
If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ?
Again, the way to gain access to permanent standing in God’s grace is by being justified by faith alone in Christ alone. Justification by faith gives us peace with God and access to the surpassing riches of His grace. Finally,
Paul concludes these two packed verses (5:2), “and we exult in hope of the glory of God.” Note two things:
Hope in the New Testament is not something uncertain, as when we say, “I hope it doesn’t snow tomorrow.” Rather, it is absolutely certain because it is based on the sure promises of God, who never fails. But we hope for it because we have not yet received the promise (8:24-25). It’s as if when you were a kid your dad promised, “For your birthday, I’ll give you a new bike.” You know that your dad does not lie or tease you on something like this. You know that he has plenty of money to keep his promise. It’s just that your birthday is still a month away. The bike is yours and it’s certain, but you don’t yet have it; so you hope for it.
What does Paul mean when he says that we hope in the glory of God? It means in part that he eagerly looked forward to seeing the glory of God. God’s glory is the radiant splendor of His being. It is the visible manifestation of all of His perfect attributes. It was what Moses asked to see, but God told Him that He would show him His back, because no man could see God’s face and live (Exod. 33:18-23). But in heaven, we will see God (Matt. 5:8). It will be the most beautiful, stupendous sight that we’ve ever seen!
Paul also means that he hopes to see the glory of Christ. In His high priestly prayer, Jesus asked that His disciples might see His glory (John 17:24). Peter, James, and John got a glimpse of Jesus’ glory on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. 17:2; 2 Pet. 1:16-18). John saw it again in Revelation (1:13-17). Paul was blinded by the heavenly vision on the Damascus Road (Acts 9:3-6). He saw it again when he was caught up to the third heaven (2 Cor. 12:1-6). But in heaven, we will see the glory of the risen Lamb who was slain (Rev. 7:9-17).
But beyond seeing the glory of the Father and the glory of our Lord Jesus, we are promised that we also will share in His glory! We lost that glory as a race when Adam sinned (Rom. 3:23), but when we see Jesus, we will be fully conformed to His image, free from all sin and from every shortcoming (Rom. 8:29; 1 John 3:2). And thus we will be glorified with Him (Rom. 8:17). It’s our certain future! But this isn’t just a truth to grasp with our intellects.
“We exult in hope of the glory of God.” “Exult” is a favorite word with Paul that means literally, to boast or glory in. It contains the idea both of confidence and joy, so that it can be rendered, “we are joyfully confident of” (Moo, ibid., pp. 301-302). While it’s wrong to boast in man, it’s right to boast in God, because it brings Him the glory He deserves (1 Cor. 1:31; Gal. 6:14; Phil. 3:3).
But—and I admit that I fall far short here—to exult in hope of the glory of God is not just an intellectual truth to affirm. It’s also an emotional response that we should have even, as verse 3 shows, in the face of trials (see, also, 1 Pet. 4:13). In my case, as perhaps you will admit for yourself, I just don’t spend enough time meditating on the hope of seeing and sharing in the glory of God.
Dr. Barnhouse (ibid., Part 20, pp. 1037-1038) illustrated the joys of heaven by picturing a soldier in a cold foxhole, eating K-rations. He has to stay there day and night to hold his unit’s position against the enemy. Then one night he hears a voice call out his name and serial number. It’s another soldier telling him, “I have orders to replace you. You are to go out on the next Red Cross flight. An order has come for you to go home. You have to go back to your mother’s house. They’re going to give you a hot shower and clean clothes. You have to go home and eat your mother’s Southern fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy, with apple pie and ice cream for dessert.” And the soldier replies, “Oh! You don’t mean that I’m going to have to leave this nice foxhole and give up my K-rations, do you?”
Barnhouse says, “We smile at the absurdity of the idea, and yet there are some believers, perhaps some of you … who are unwilling to leave your foxhole in this life to go to the Heavenly home to sit down at the banquet table of our God and to fellowship with Him in [the] joys of Heaven ….”
So to conclude, I ask you three questions:
Have you been justified by faith so that you enjoy peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ?
Do you frequently utilize your access to God and the riches of His grace through our Lord Jesus Christ?
Do you exult in your certain future of sharing God’s glory?
These are just a few of the blessings of being justified by faith in Jesus Christ!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
I always dread preaching about suffering, because as I have told you, preaching is a lot like throwing a boomerang. You aim it at the congregation, but it comes back and hits you first! And who wants to be hit with the thought of “exulting in trials”? I’d rather not have to practice what I preach on this topic!
But trials are a fact of living in this fallen world, so we all need to learn what God’s Word tells us about how to handle them. The problem is, the biblical approach to trials is just plain nuts! Paul says that he exults in his tribulations. Maybe we could explain him away as being a bit carried away, but then what do we do with Jesus? He tells us (Matt. 5:11-12), “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great.”
But it’s not just Paul and Jesus. James (1:2-3) says the same thing: “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.” Peter is of the same mind (1 Pet. 4:13-14): “But to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.”
When you trace the behavior of the apostles through the Book of Acts, you discover that they actually practiced this strange response to trials. When the Jewish Sanhedrin flogged the apostles, we read (Acts 5:41), “So they went on their way from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name.” When Paul and Silas were illegally beaten, imprisoned, and fastened into the stocks in Philippi, we read (Acts 16:25), “But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God.” Paul told the Corinthians (2 Cor. 12:9b-10), “Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” And the author of Hebrews reminded his readers (Heb. 10:34), “For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one.”
So we can’t escape the fact that this strange response of exulting in trials is the uniform teaching of the New Testament. But if you’re like me, you’ll have to admit that it is not your standard response! Some of us may be able to say that we don’t complain about our trials. We grit our teeth and stoically endure them. A few may be able to say that you usually rejoice in spite of your trials. But how many of us can honestly say that we exult in our trials? So we all have something to learn here.
Paul is continuing to enumerate the blessings of being justified by faith (5:1-2), as seen by his words, “And not only this ….” Probably he is answering an unexpressed objection to his teaching in verses 1 & 2: “Paul, you say that you have peace with God and that you now stand in His grace. You exult in the future hope of the glory of God. But why doesn’t God protect you from trials right now? If you’re the object of His love and grace, shouldn’t you be enjoying a trouble-free life?” So Paul is showing why God brings trials into the lives of His saints: because through the trials, we grow in endurance, proven character, and hope. And our hope will not disappoint, because even now God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
By the way, note that Paul mentions the three persons of the Trinity in 5:1-5. We have peace with God [the Father] through the Lord Jesus Christ. God has given us the Holy Spirit. Each person of the Trinity plays a role in our salvation and preservation as God’s children. In our text, Paul is saying,
We can exult in trials if we develop God’s perspective and keep in mind that trials do not nullify His great love for us.
Regarding exulting in our tribulations, Thomas Schreiner (Romans [Baker], p. 255) observes, “This is an astonishing statement since future glorification is prized precisely because afflictions are left behind.” To get a handle on what Paul means and how we can grow in this strange virtue, let’s explore four thoughts:
If exulting in trials were the automatic response, we’d see multitudes of people rejoicing, because nobody lacks trials. Instead, we often see multitudes complaining about their trials. Even among Christians, grumbling about trials is far more common than rejoicing or exulting in them (the word, literally, is boasting or glorying in). Whether it’s being caught in a traffic jam when we’re late for an appointment or something more major, like being diagnosed with cancer, our knee-jerk response is to grumble, not to exult.
We see this with the children of Israel after the exodus. God has brought them out of slavery in Egypt by inflicting the plagues on the Egyptians and then parting the Red Sea so that Israel could escape from Pharaoh’s army, which was drowned when they tried to pursue Israel. Israel celebrated God’s miraculous salvation with singing and dancing. Then we read that they went three days in the wilderness and found only bitter water. Did they rejoice and exult, saying, “Let’s see how the Lord will provide”? No, we read (Exod. 15:24), “So the people grumbled at Moses, saying, ‘What shall we drink?’” The Lord told Moses how to make the water drinkable.
But in the very next chapter, we read that the whole congregation grumbled again, saying that they should have stayed in Egypt, where they had plenty to eat (Exod. 16:2-3). So God graciously provided daily manna for them. But then as they traveled across the desert, in spite of God’s provision, they grumbled again about having no water (Exod. 17:3). Their history for those 40 years was that of constant complaining in spite of God’s gracious provision. Paul uses their story as a warning to us, so that we will not grumble in our trials, as they did (1 Cor. 10:6-11).
In Philippians 2:14-15, Paul exhorts us to follow the example he set when he was falsely accused, beaten, and wrongly imprisoned in Philippi: “Do all things without grumbling or disputing; so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world.” Isn’t that the truth! We live in a grumbling world. If we don’t grumble, but are cheerful and even exult in trials, whether the minor irritations at work or the major trials in our personal lives, we’re going to shine like lights in the darkness. But this doesn’t happen automatically. It requires deliberate focus.
The Bible does not encourage us to deny reality, put on a happy face, and pretend that we’re just praising the Lord, when in fact we’re hurting inside. Later in Romans (12:15), Paul says, “weep with those who weep.” He does not say, “Exhort those who weep to exult in their trials!”
I’ll never forget my 36th birthday. I had to conduct a funeral for a man in his late thirties who died of cancer. He left behind a wife who had already battled breast cancer. Two and a half years later I had to conduct her funeral as she succumbed to the disease. They had two young children. Before he died, Scott asked me to preach at his funeral on his favorite chapter, Isaiah 40.
After the service, as I was consoling the widow, who of course was weeping, her former pastor from another town bounced up with a silly grin on his face and said in an upbeat voice, “Praise the Lord! Scott’s in glory now!” I wanted to punch him in the mouth! I wanted to scream, “Let her weep and weep with her!” Exulting in trials does not mean denying the pain.
Paul acknowledges the tension when he describes himself (2 Cor. 6:10), “as sorrowful yet always rejoicing.” He goes on to describe how in his trials his emotions were all over the chart, but he had God’s comfort (2 Cor. 7:4b-6). Undergirding all of his trials was genuine joy in the Lord. The author of Hebrews recognizes the same tension when he says (12:11), “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.” You see the same thing throughout the Psalms. The psalmist is in a situation where he despairs of life itself. His enemies are trying to kill him. Sometimes he even questions where God is or why God delays. He expresses his anguish and pain as he cries out to the Lord. But by the end of the psalm, even though he’s still in grave danger, he is filled with joy and praise to God.
So there’s nothing wrong with feeling sorrow or pain or grief in the midst of a difficult trial. We shouldn’t deny these feelings in an attempt to look more spiritual. But through our tears and pain, we should be sustained by our hope in the promises of God. We know that He is sovereign over all things and that He cares for us. Exulting in our tribulations does not mean denying the pain.
After mentioning exulting in his tribulations, Paul continues (5:3b-4), “knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope.” Don’t miss the word, “knowing.” This is part of the deliberate focus that I just mentioned. Our mental focus must include some vital knowledge, namely, that God is using the trials to shape our character, if we submit joyfully to Him. Not everyone grows in the way that Paul describes here. We will grow only if we submit joyfully to God because we keep in mind that He is sovereign and that He is using these trials to make us more like Christ.
Note the chain of thought here: Tribulation (lit., “pressure”) brings about perseverance (endurance or steadfastness). Calvin (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], on Rom. 5:3, p. 190) points out that you don’t need endurance if you’re not feeling distressed and sorrowful. But, he adds, when you regard your trials as dispensed from a kind Father for your good, you feel great comfort. When you know that God is promoting your salvation, you have a reason for glorying.
So Paul’s point is, you don’t develop endurance unless you go through trials. You don’t have to endure when everything is going your way. It’s not difficult to trust the Lord when you’re experiencing nothing but blessings. But will you endure by faith when life is hard? Will you trust God and submit to His mighty hand when you lose your job or when you’re going through a hard time in your marriage or when you’re diagnosed with a serious disease?
Perseverance produces proven character. This is a single word in Greek that means something that has passed the test. It comes out approved. In the desert west of here, south of Kingman, there is a Ford proving ground. They put their vehicles through various tests to prove that they will hold up in extreme situations. Once their trucks pass the test, they can confidently say, “Ford trucks are built to last.” They’ve proven their character.
When you go through a trial trusting in God, your faith becomes proven. You’ve been through the test and passed. You know by experience that you can lean on His faithfulness. It proves that you’re not just a flash in the pan Christian, like the seed on the shallow soil, which faded quickly under the heat of trials. Perseverance works proven character.
Then Paul adds that proven character works hope. This brings us back full circle to verse 2, where we who have been justified by faith “exult in hope of the glory of God.” It’s the same hope, but now it’s stronger. It works like this (I’m following Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans: Assurance [Zondervan], p. 71): The initial hope comes from understanding the blessing of being justified by faith. We begin the Christian life full of faith and hope. Then we get hit by difficult trials. We cling to God like we’ve never had to cling before. We prove His faithfulness and He develops proven character in us as we endure. We come out the other side more certain of the hope of eternal glory with Him than we were before the trials. Our hope is stronger because it has been tempered in the flames of affliction. That leads to the last thought under this heading:
Our hope is not in a trouble-free life, but rather in a glorious, trouble-free eternity. To exult in our present trials, we have to keep our focus on the hope of the glory of God, which we will experience in heaven. Paul put it this way (2 Cor. 4:16-18): “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” Paul could maintain hope and not lose heart in what he describes as “momentary, light affliction” (light!) because his focus was on the eternal hope of heaven.
Critics will say that Christianity is just “pie in the sky when you die.” The answer to that charge is, “Yes, you’re going to die. Would you like pie with that or no pie?” Your decaying outer man—graying and thinning hair, failing eyesight and hearing, and increasing aches and pains, are broadcasting a clear message to your brain, which can’t remember things any more: You’re going to die! Either you have the hope of heaven because you have trusted in Jesus Christ to forgive all your sins, or you have no hope. The only way to exult in trials is to develop and remember the sure hope of heaven. It is certain because it is based on Jesus’ resurrection and His promise to return and take us to be with Him (John 14:1-3).
Paul adds, “and hope does not disappoint.” Literally, “hope does not make us ashamed.” The phrase is rooted in the Old Testament. In Psalm 22:4-5, the psalmist in great distress cries out, “In You our fathers trusted; they trusted and You delivered them. To You they cried out and were delivered; in You they trusted and were not disappointed.” That last phrase is literally, “they were not put to shame.” In Psalm 25:3, David proclaims, “Indeed, none of those who wait for You will be ashamed.”
The idea is, if you trust in God and He fails, you’re going to be put to shame. Others will mock and say, “He trusted in God, but God didn’t come through! What a joke! There is no reality in trusting God!” (See Ps. 22:7-8.) Keep in mind that Psalm 22 is a picture of Christ on the cross. His murderers were gloating in His death. Sometimes God permits His children to go through terrible persecution and martyrdom. They are only vindicated in the final resurrection. So if heaven is not true, we will be put to eternal shame. We will be eternally disappointed. But if it is true—and the resurrection of Jesus guarantees it—then even if we suffer persecution and a martyr’s death, our hope will not disappoint or put us to shame. We will wear the victor’s crown in the glory of heaven throughout all eternity.
Thus, to exult in trials, develop and maintain God’s perspective: He is using trials to shape our character and prepare us for heaven.
“But,” a critic may ask, “what about God’s love? If God really loves you, wouldn’t He spare you all of these trials?”
The reason that hope does not disappoint is (5:5b), “because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” Paul is talking here about God’s love for us, as verses 6-8 plainly show. He did not see suffering as an indication that God does not love us. Quite the contrary, as he will show at the end of Romans 8, neither tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword can separate us from God’s great love. Keep your focus on God’s love and you can exult in trials.
Paul says that God’s love “has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” The tense of “poured out” indicates past action with continuing results, which especially points to God’s great love as we experience it at the time we are saved. “Given” points to the fact that the Holy Spirit is given to every believer at the moment of salvation. Because the Holy Spirit is God, it means that God Himself comes to dwell in our hearts. The Spirit makes us aware of God’s great love in sending His own Son to die for our sins. “Poured out” implies an abundant, continued supply of His love refreshing and sustaining us, especially in our trials.
This experience of God’s love comes to us as we meditate on the amazing truth of the gospel, that the Father gave His eternal Son, who willingly took the punishment we deserved so that God can be both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. As Charles Wesley put it, “Amazing love, how can it be, that Thou my God shouldst die for me!” Don’t ever get over the wonder of it! Let the Spirit wash you daily in the amazing love of God!
In your trials, whether minor or great, remember Jesus’ words just before the cross (John 15:20-21): “Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they keep My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me.” Did Jesus’ trials even hint that the Father did not love Him? Of course not! Neither do yours. To exult in trials, drink deeply of God’s great love, poured out in your heart by the Holy Spirit whom He gave to you.
James Boice (Romans: Volume 2: The Reign of Grace [Baker], pp. 533-534) concludes his sermon on these verses by telling about how the church in China grew exponentially during the terrible persecution under the Communists. An American student was going to Hong Kong to study the Chinese church. Before he left the States, a friend had asked him, “If God loves the Chinese church so much, why did he allow so much suffering to come upon it?” The student had no answer.
But after he had traveled to China and had talked in depth with many Chinese Christians, he decided to go back to America and ask his friend this question: “If God loves the American church so much, why hasn’t he allowed us to suffer like the church in China?”
It is a good question because trials are not to harm us. Rather, God uses them to shape us into the image of Christ. He uses them to strengthen our hope of heaven. Trials are a part of the “all things” that He works “together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (8:28). Even as strange as it may seem, we can exult in them.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
In 1861, a wild gambler and drinker named Harry Moorhouse rushed into a revival meeting in Manchester, England, looking for a fight. But instead he got saved. Six years later, the famous evangelist, D. L. Moody, was preaching in Dublin when Moorhouse came up and told Moody he would like to come to America and preach the gospel. Moody guessed Moorhouse to be about 17 (although he was older). He didn’t know if Moorhouse could preach, so he brushed him off.
But after Moody got back to Chicago, he got a letter from Moorhouse saying that he had landed in New York and he would come and preach. Moody wrote a cold reply, saying that if he came west to call on him. A few days later, Moody got a letter saying that Moorhouse would be in Chicago the next Thursday. Moody didn’t know what to do with him, so he told his deacons, “There is a man coming from England who wants to preach. I’m going to be gone Thursday and Friday. If you let him preach those days, I’ll be back Saturday and take him off your hands.”
On Saturday Moody returned and asked his wife how the young Englishman had gotten along. Did the people like him? She said they liked him very much. “Did you like him?” “Yes,” she said, “very much. He preached two sermons from John 3:16. I think you’ll like him, but he preaches a little different than you do.”
“How is that?” Moody asked.
“Well, he tells sinners that God loves them,” she replied.
“Well,” Moody said, “he’s wrong.”
Moody went to hear him that night, determined that he would not like him. But that first night as Moorhouse preached again from John 3:16 on God’s great love for sinners, Moody’s heart began to thaw out and he could not hold back the tears. For seven nights, Moorhouse preached to a crowded church on John 3:16.
The final night Moorhouse concluded his sermon by saying, “My friends, for a whole week I have been trying to tell you how much God loves you, but I cannot do it with this poor stammering tongue. If I could borrow Jacob’s ladder, and climb up into Heaven, and ask Gabriel, who stands in the presence of the Almighty, if he could tell me how much love the Father has for the world, all he could say would be, ‘For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.’”
Those sermons changed D. L. Moody’s life. He said, “I have never forgotten those nights. I have preached a different gospel since, and I have had more power with God and man since then.” (I collated this story from A. P. Fitt, The Life of D. L. Moody [Moody Press], pp. 53-56, and Roger Steer, George Muller: Delighted in God [Harold Shaw], pp. 260-262.)
Romans 5:8 is the apostle Paul’s version of John 3:16: “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Paul wants us to know and experience even more deeply the truth of verse 5, that “the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”
In verses 6-8, Paul is explaining further (“for”) this life-changing truth of God’s great love for us as sinners. In doing so, he is showing why our hope of heaven will not disappoint us (5:5). This, as we saw in our last study, is a continuation of the blessings of being justified by faith (5:1), which include: peace with God (5:1); access into God’s grace (5:2); hope of the glory of God (5:2); and, joy in our trials, knowing that God is using them to develop perseverance, proven character and hope (5:3-4). The thing that anchors our hope is this abundant outpouring of God’s love within our hearts through the Holy Spirit. So now Paul shows us why God’s love is a sure thing and thus, our hope of heaven is sure:
Our hope of heaven is secure because it is based on God’s love that sent Christ to die for us while we were yet sinners.
In other words, God’s amazing love is not based on us getting our act together to deserve it. It is not based on our track record of performance to guarantee its continued flow. Rather, God’s love is based on the fact that God is love (1 John 4:7). He is gracious (Exod. 34:6). He extends His love and grace to sinners apart from and in spite of anything in them. This means:
Paul emphasizes this in our text with a series of synonyms: we were helpless (5:6); ungodly (5:6); sinners (5:8); and, enemies (5:10). Before we look at these terms, note:
Martyn Lloyd-Jones observed (God’s Way of Reconciliation [Baker], Ephesians 2, p. 201), “In order to measure the love of God you have first to go down before you can go up. You do not start on the level and go up. We have to be brought up from a dungeon, from a horrible pit; and unless you know something of the measure of that depth you will only be measuring half the love of God.”
This is illustrated in the story in Luke 7:36-50, where Jesus went to dine at the house of Simon the Pharisee. Picture the scene: You have this very religious man, who took great pride in his religious observance. He never ate unclean food. He tithed meticulously. He kept the commandments of Moses. He kept his distance from notorious sinners. He wanted to find out if this upstart, uneducated rabbi from Galilee was legitimate or not.
As they reclined at dinner, a woman who was known to be a prostitute slipped in with an alabaster vial of perfume. Standing at Jesus’ feet weeping, she wetted His feet with her tears, wiped them with her hair, and kissed and anointed them with the perfume. And Jesus seemed to be pleased with her actions! Simon was aghast! He was thinking (Luke 7:39), “If this man were a prophet He would know who and what sort of person this woman is who is touching Him, that she is a sinner.”
Jesus knew what he was thinking, so He told him a story. A lender had two debtors. One owed him 500 denarii; the other owed him 50. When they were unable to repay, he forgave them both. Then Jesus asked (7:42), “So which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “I suppose the one whom he forgave more.”
Jesus said, “Correct.” Then He drew the lesson. The sinful woman, who had been forgiven much, loved much. But the one who is forgiven little loves little. His point was not that Simon had little to be forgiven of. In fact, Simon had not even shown Jesus common hospitality. He was rude and arrogant. Rather, the point was that Simon did not realize how much he needed God’s forgiveness, and so he did not love Jesus as much as this woman, who knew her great need for the Savior.
If, like me, you grew up in a Christian home and never got into much trouble growing up, you’re more prone to be like Simon than like the prostitute. If you want to know and experience the great love of God in Christ, you have to see more of the awful depths of sin that lurk in your own heart. Again, to cite Lloyd-Jones (Romans: Assurance [Zondervan], p. 114), “It is to the extent to which we realize our inability and incapacity that we realize the love of God.” Paul shows us our inability in these verses:
“Helpless” in this context means, “incapable of working out any righteousness for ourselves” (The Epistle to the Romans, by William Sanday & Arthur Headlam [T. & T. Clark] 5th ed., p. 127). F. Godet (Commentary on Romans [Kregel], p. 191) says that it means “total incapacity for good, the want of all moral life such as is healthy and fruitful in good works.” Lloyd-Jones (ibid., p. 112) says that it means “total inability in a spiritual sense.” But so that you see that these men are not making this up, let’s see what the Bible says about our helpless spiritual condition outside of Christ:
We were spiritually dead, living in disobedience to God. “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked” (Eph. 2:1-2). We needed God to raise us from the dead.
We were not able to save ourselves. Jesus told the religious Nicodemus (John 3:3), “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” As a Pharisee, Nicodemus was about as religious as you can get. But all that religion could not get him into the kingdom of God. He needed the new birth. And just as we could not produce our natural birth by our own efforts or will power, so it is spiritually. It must be an act of God. You can’t save yourself.
We were not able to see the light of the gospel to be saved. Paul said (2 Cor. 4:4) that “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
We were not able to understand spiritual truth. Paul explains (1 Cor. 2:14), “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.” God has to open our eyes to understand the gospel.
We were not able to hear God’s truth. In John 8:43, Jesus asked the Jews who were challenging Him, “Why do you not understand what I am saying?” He answered His own question, “It is because you cannot hear My word.” They lacked the spiritual ears to hear (see, also, John 14:17).
We were not seeking God. We saw this in Paul’s indictment of the human race (Rom. 3:11), “There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God.”
We were not able to submit to God’s law or to please Him. In Romans 8:7-8, Paul states, “the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”
So when Paul says that “we were still helpless,” he means that we were totally unable and unwilling to do anything to bring about reconciliation with God. But he doesn’t stop there!
“Christ died for the ungodly” (5:6). This word takes us back to his indictment of the human race (1:18), “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” To be ungodly is to be unlike God, who is holy and apart from all sin. It means that our ways are not God’s ways and our thoughts are not His thoughts (Isa. 55:8-9). There is a humanly uncrossable chasm between us and God.
Paul says (5:8): “while we were yet sinners ….” As we saw in Romans 3:23, “for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” The essence of sin is to fall short of God’s glory. We did not live for His glory. We had no concern for His glory. Rather, we lived for ourselves and our own glory.
I’m jumping ahead to verse 10, where Paul describes our past as being God’s enemies. We were hostile toward Him (8:7), alienated from Him and opposed to His lordship over our lives.
Maybe you’re thinking, “This is awfully depressing. It tears down my self-esteem. It doesn’t help me to feel good about myself.” But if you do not see the depths of sin from which God rescued you, you won’t appreciate His great love. Christ didn’t come to help you polish your self-esteem or to feel good about yourself. He came to die for your sins in order to reconcile you to God. If you don’t see yourself as a helpless, ungodly sinner at enmity against God, then you won’t see your need for the Savior. And, you’ll never have assurance about your hope of heaven, because you’ll base that hope on your own goodness or merit. Our hope of heaven can only be secure if it is not based on anything good in us.
“God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (5:8). Demonstrates means to show, prove, establish, or render conspicuous. Note briefly:
These verses show that salvation is totally from God and His great love. There was nothing in us that was lovable or that motivated God to send the Savior. As God pictures Israel (Ezek. 16:3-6, 9-10), we were like an unwanted newborn infant, thrown into a field, squirming in our blood, a piece of garbage about to die. He took us, bathed us with water, anointed us with oil, and wrapped us in fine garments. Salvation stems from His great love.
This is Paul’s point in verse 7: “For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die.” Some commentators argue that Paul is drawing a distinction between the righteous man, who keeps the law but is not very kind; and the good man, who is both righteous and kind. But I don’t see that as his point. The two terms are never distinguished like that in Scripture. Rather, Paul makes an initial statement and then qualifies it by granting that in some cases, a person may die for a good person. But who would offer to take the place of a scoundrel who deserves to die? Answer: Jesus would! In fact, He died for only one type of person: ungodly sinners! None of us deserved what Jesus in love did for us.
Who is the One whom the Father sent to die for our sins? It was His beloved Son, in whom He was well-pleased (Matt. 3:17). He was the eternal Word, who was with God and who was God, who created all things (John 1:1-3). He is the One who “is the radiance of [God’s] glory and the exact representation of His nature, [who] upholds all things by the word of His power” (Heb. 1:3). He is the One whom the angels of God worship, whose throne is forever, who laid the foundation of the earth, and made the heavens, whose years will never come to an end (Heb. 1:6-12).
Paul says that God demonstrates His own love for us in that Christ died for us. But doesn’t that demonstrate Christ’s love for us? Yes, because Jesus and the Father are one (John 10:30). Leon Morris observes (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 224), “Unless there is a sense in which the Father and Christ are one, it is not the love of God that the cross shows. But because Christ is one with God, Paul can speak of the cross as a demonstration of the love of God.” On the cross, Christ didn’t die to persuade the angry God of the Old Testament to love us, as some mistakenly have pictured it. The Father and the Son were one in their love that devised the plan of salvation for guilty sinners. The fact that it required the death of the eternal Son of God should cause us to bow in love and wonder.
Leon Morris explains this phrase (p. 222): “Two ways of looking at the time of Christ’s death are combined here: he died at a time when we were still sinners, and at a time that fitted God’s purpose. This second way emphasizes that the atonement was no afterthought. This was the way God always intended to deal with sin; he did it when he chose.” So in the grand scheme of the ages, Christ’s death was right on schedule. As Paul explains (Gal. 4:4), “But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law ….”
But on the personal level, He died for us at the right time in that we were perishing. We had no hope. We would have been doomed if God had not sent the Savior. You must come to the end of trusting in yourself and your good works so that you see your hopeless, helpless condition. As Spurgeon put it (C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography [Banner of Truth], 1:54), you’ve got to stand before God, convicted and condemned, with the rope around your neck, so that you will weep for joy when God at the right time sends Christ into your life as your Savior.
The word die is prominent in these verses: it occurs once in verse 6, twice in verse 7, and once again in verse 8. Since the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23), Christ had to die to pay the penalty for our sins. He was our substitute, bearing the punishment that we deserved. He died as “the Just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God” (1 Pet. 3:18). While Jesus is our great example of how to live, His example did not save us. While He is our great teacher, His teaching did not save us. His death as our substitute bore the awful penalty of God’s justice. Jesus alone can save us and He does it through His death. “Christ died for the ungodly.” “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” The bottom line is:
These verses do away with all works-based salvation. We were helpless, ungodly sinners, enemies with God. Christ did not come to help us save ourselves. He did not come to die because He saw a spark of potential in us. He didn’t come to die for us because we had some inherent worth in His sight. As Charles Hodge put it (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], pp. 136-137), “Our salvation depends … not on our loveliness, but on the constancy of the love of God.”
This is tremendously good news! It means that our hope of heaven is secure because it doesn’t have anything to do with us. In fact, it’s in spite of us! It has everything to do with God’s gracious love for us “while we were yet sinners.” If you’re not saved, it’s because you have not received the free gift that God offers. Maybe you’re still trying to earn your way to heaven. But if heaven is based on your works, you’ll never be sure of it, because you can never do enough. Trust instead in God’s loving gift of eternal life through Jesus, who died for us when we were yet sinners.
Years ago, the Swiss theologian Karl Barth visited the United States. At a question and answer session, someone asked him, “Dr. Barth, what is the greatest thought that has ever gone through your mind?” The questioner probably expected some deep, incomprehensible answer, as if someone had asked Einstein to explain his theory of relativity. Barth thought about the question for a while and then replied, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so” (from James Boice, Romans: The Reign of God’s Grace [Baker], p. 539).
While Barth was off on some of his theology, he was right on that answer! The apostle Paul wants us not only to know intellectually, but also to feel experientially the great love of God as seen in the fact that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
“Have you come to a place in your spiritual life where you can say you know for certain that if you were to die today you would go to heaven?” That is one of two questions that those who are trained in “Evangelism Explosion” ask as a prelude to presenting the gospel. The second question seeks to find out the basis for the person’s answer to the first question: “Suppose that you were to die today and stand before God and He were to say to you, ‘Why should I let you into My heaven?’ what would you say?” (D. James Kennedy, Evangelism Explosion [Tyndale House], p. 22.)
You can easily see the importance of answering those questions correctly. Some have complete assurance that they are going to heaven when they die, but they wrongly base that assurance on their belief that they are good enough to qualify for heaven. How horrible to die and find out that you were not good enough to make it into heaven! There won’t be any make-up exams or second chances! It’s crucial to know that your hope for heaven is sure.
But Christians are divided with regard to assurance of salvation. The Roman Catholic Church declared, “No one can know with a certainty of faith, which cannot be subject to error, that he has obtained the grace of God” (Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom [Baker], 2:99, The Council of Trent, Session 6, Chapter 9). Among Protestants, those from the Arminian wing (Wesleyan, Holiness churches, the Nazarene Church, Pentecostal churches, etc.) argue that true believers through sin can lose their salvation and fall from grace. Some Arminians, inconsistent with their view of saving grace, hold that believers are eternally secure. Those who hold the Reformed view believe that those whom Christ has genuinely saved, He will keep unto eternity.
We cannot survey the many verses of Scripture that the various camps use to defend their views. While there are difficult texts, such as the warning passages in Hebrews (you can read my sermons on Hebrews on the church web site), I believe that the Reformed view makes the most sense of all of Scripture: Those whom Christ saves, He keeps for all eternity. “He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6).
Our text is one of the strongest arguments for assurance of salvation in the Bible. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote (Romans: Assurance [Zondervan], p. 128), “The argument of these two verses [9 & 10] is, I suggest, the most powerful argument with respect to assurance of salvation, or the finality of our salvation, that can be found anywhere in the whole of the Scripture.” He goes on to say that the only thing that goes beyond it is the immediate witness of the Holy Spirit, which Paul mentions in Romans 8:16. Since being assured of your salvation is an important part of the foundation for spiritual growth, it is vital that you understand and apply the verses that we are studying here.
Before we examine Paul’s argument, let me give you a brief overview of my understanding of the basis for assurance of salvation. There are three aspects to it: First and foremost, have you trusted in Jesus Christ alone and His death in your place to forgive all your sins and clothe you with His righteousness?
If you answer “yes,” then there is a secondary basis for assurance: What evidence of the new birth do you see in your life? While we never will be perfectly sanctified in this life, there should be some definite signs of the new birth: a growing love for God, a desire to know Him through His Word, a desire to please Him by keeping His commandments, a growing love for others, a growing hatred of sin, etc. The “tests” of First John fit into this category, along with the qualities of 2 Peter 1:5-11.
Third, there is the witness of the Spirit, who “testifies with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom. 8:16). While this aspect of assurance is partly subjective and therefore subject to error, I understand it to be based on the objective promises of God. This inner witness of the Spirit is when He takes the promises of salvation in the Bible and testifies to your spirit, “Yes, these are true and by God’s grace I rest on them!” Or, the Holy Spirit assures you by reminding you of how He has worked the signs of new life in you.
Our text falls under the first basis for assurance, as Paul enumerates the blessings of being justified by faith (5:1). He takes these blessings a logical step farther by arguing from the greater to the lesser, as we can see by the twice repeated, “much more” (5:9, 10). He reasons, “If we were justified by Christ’s blood when we were yet sinners and if we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son while we were His enemies, then we can expect to be saved from God’s wrath by the risen Savior.” It is also an argument from the past to the future: If in the past God loved us and Christ died for us when we were sinners, then we can expect that in the future He will keep us from judgment as those who have been reconciled to Him. This, in turn, causes us to “exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have received the reconciliation” (5:11). Thus,
If as God’s enemies we were saved through the death of His Son then, praise God, as His friends the risen Savior will save us from future judgment.
I added “praise God” to that summary sentence to reflect Paul’s response in verse 11 to his arguments in verses 9 & 10. In other words, these aren’t just rational arguments that we hear and calmly conclude, “Yes, I agree.” The force of the arguments should cause us to exult in God! Verses 9 & 10 are essentially the same argument looked at from two slightly different perspectives.
There are two parts to this:
“Being justified” goes back to the entire argument of 3:24-4:25, summarized in edemption which is in Christ Jesus.” This shows us that justification is not something that we deserve, merit, or qualify for by our good deeds. Rather, it is the undeserved gift of God.
In 5:1 Paul shows that the means by which we receive God’s gracious gift of justification is faith. We saw this especially in 4:5, “But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.” This does not mean that God counts faith itself as some sort of righteousness that qualifies the sinner to stand before Him as not guilty. If that were so, faith would be a work, which would undermine the very point of Romans 4:5! Rather, faith lays hold of the shed blood of Jesus Christ as the just payment for our sins, so that God credits the righteousness of Christ to the guilty sinner who has faith in Him. So faith is the means of receiving the gift of justification.
But in 5:9, Paul says that we have been justified “by His blood.” This looks at the ground or basis of our justification. The blood of Christ atones for our sin. As Paul stated (3:25), “God displayed [Christ] publicly as a propitiation in His blood … to demonstrate His righteousness.” Christ’s blood satisfied the righteousness of God, which declares (6:23), “the wages of sin is death.”
Also, our text makes it clear that justification is a completed action, a “done deal.” Paul uses the same verb form as in 5:1, “having been justified by faith.” Here (5:9), “having now been justified by His blood.” It’s a past completed action that the believer knows has taken place. When we trusted in Christ and His shed blood to save us, God banged the gavel and declared, “Not guilty! The penalty has been paid by My Son!” From this sure fact, Paul argues:
To wrath the translators have added for clarity “of God.” Literally, the text reads, “we shall be saved from the wrath through Him.” The wrath refers to the coming day of judgment, which Paul referred to (2:5), “But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.” There is a present manifestation of God’s wrath against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men in which God gives them over to the consequences of their sins (1:18). But that is nothing compared to the coming eternal wrath of God, where all who have not been justified by faith will be cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:11-15).
It is important to grasp Paul’s “much more” line of reasoning here. To send Christ to shed His blood was the big thing. It was the only way that God could maintain His righteousness and at the same time forgive sinners. Through the propitiation in Christ’s blood, God can now be both “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (3:26). If God loved us enough to send Christ to die for our sins (the big thing), then how much more will He save us from the wrath to come?
I should point out that the Bible speaks of salvation in three tenses. Sometimes it looks at salvation in the past (Eph. 2:8), “For by grace you have been saved through faith ….” This happened the moment we truly trusted in Christ as our Savior. He delivered us from the penalty of our sins. At other times, the Bible looks at the present process of salvation (1 Cor. 1:18), “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” And, sometimes (as in 5:9), it looks at the future and final deliverance that will be ours on the day of judgment (also, 10:9, 13; 13:11). The verb “to be saved” is in the future tense in seven of its eight uses in Romans (Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans [Apollos/Eerdmans], p. 225). Here Paul wants us to know how we can be sure that on that awful day, “we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.”
Then Paul repeats the same idea, but with a different slant:
Again, there are two parts to consider:
Justification looks at salvation from the legal standpoint, whereas reconciliation looks at it from the relational point of view. Bishop Moule looks at verses 9 & 10 as a progression from the law-aspect of salvation to the love-aspect and then (at the end of verse 10) to the life-aspect (The Epistle to the Romans [Christian Literature Crusade], p. 138). So verse 10 picks up on the theme of God’s love for us, demonstrated by sending Christ to die for us while we were yet sinners (5:8).
But here the focus is, “while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son.” Referring to Jesus as “His Son” especially brings out the love of the Father, both for Jesus and for us. Jesus was God’s beloved Son in whom He was well-pleased (Matt. 3:17). The Father loved the Son with a perfect, unbroken love from all eternity (John 17:24-26), and yet He sent Him to die on the cross so that we, His enemies, could be reconciled to Him! “Amazing love, how can it be, that Thou my God, shouldst die for me!”
“Enemies” is the strongest of the string of synonyms that Paul has used to describe our condition before Christ saved us. We were helpless (5:6), which means that we were totally unable to do anything to save ourselves or to help out in the process. We were ungodly (5:6) because of our many sins. We were sinners (5:8), having violated God’s holy commandments. But worst of all, we were God’s enemies.
The word implies active hostility, both from our side toward God and from God’s side toward us. From our side, we did not want to submit to God’s rightful lordship over our lives. We wanted to block Him out of our lives so that we could do what we want to do. We viewed Him as the spoiler of all our fun. Paul describes our enmity toward God (8:7), “The mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so.” True, many might protest and say, “I’m not hostile toward God; I don’t have anything against Him.” But they show their hostility by their indifference toward His love. They’re happy if He just stays out of their lives and lets them live as they please. In this sense, they are enemies of God.
But the greater hostility here, as seen by the word “wrath” (5:9), is God’s hostility toward unrepentant sinners (Morris, Romans, p. 225; his The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross [Eerdmans], third rev. ed., pp. 214-250, deals with this more extensively). From God’s side, He is opposed to all that is evil and to everyone who is in rebellion against Him. They are His enemies (Phil 3:18; Col. 1:21; James 4:4). He will eventually judge all who do not willingly bow before His Son (Ps. 2). When Jesus comes again, He is pictured as a powerful warrior, whose robe is dipped in blood, who strikes down all rebels with His sharp sword as He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty (Rev. 19:11-15). This is God’s hostility toward all who do not submit to Jesus Christ. He cannot have fellowship with those who walk in darkness (1 John 1:5-6).
But our text says, “While we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son.” Reconciliation is a wonderful word! One of the all-too-rare, but great joys of being a pastor is when I can have some part in seeing a couple who are hostile toward one another be reconciled. But it’s an even greater joy to see sinners reconciled to God through the death of Jesus, which removed the barrier of our sin. As Morris states (Romans, p. 225, note 33), “The death of Christ puts away our sin, which had aroused not our opposition but God’s.”
So the main idea here is not that we first ceased to be hostile toward God, but that through the death of His Son, He could cease to be hostile towards us whom He purposed to save. It was through the cross that God put to death the enmity, contained in the Law of commandments that we had violated, so that we now can be reconciled to Him (Eph. 2:15-16). So, while we were God’s enemies we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son.
Charles Hodge captures the logic (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 138): “If Christ has died for his enemies, he will surely save his friends.” If God did the really hard thing by reconciling us to Himself through the death of His Son, it only follows that we shall be saved at the future judgment by (or, better, in) His life. “Shall be saved” points ahead to the day of judgment. Paul will develop the idea that we share “in His life” in 6:8-11. We are now completely identified with Christ in His death and resurrection life. Paul also explains this in Colossians 3:3-4, “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.” Because we are now united with Christ, as members of His body, sharing His life, we shall be saved from the final judgment.
When God raised Jesus from the dead, He gave to Him all authority in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18). He exercises this authority for the salvation of His people (Eph. 1:22; see Hodge, p. 140). Furthermore, as Paul says (Rom. 8:33b-34), “God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.” Hebrews 7:25 says, “Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.” We can know that our salvation is secure because if God did the greater thing by reconciling us to Himself through the death of His Son, He will do the relatively easier thing by saving us from judgment because we are now partakers of His resurrection life. As Jesus promised (John 14:19), “because I live, you will live also.”
But Paul never set forth biblical truth as a dry, boring lecture and then said, “Class dismissed!” These glorious truths about our sure salvation evoked an emotional response:
“And not only this” means, “don’t stop there! Class isn’t dismissed yet!” If you understand this truth, you’ve got to exult in God! As we’ve seen, Paul exulted in hope of the glory of God (5:2). He exulted in his tribulations (5:3). But now he exults in God Himself. To exult means to glory in or boast in. It’s an emotional word. A young man who is in love exults in his fiancée: “She’s the most beautiful creature on earth!” An artist exults in a beautiful sunset: “Isn’t it spectacular! Look at those gorgeous colors!” A football fan exults in a touchdown run: “Did you see how he dodged all those tacklers?” And those who have been justified by Christ’s blood and reconciled to God through the death of His Son exult in God through the Lord Jesus Christ: “Isn’t God wonderful! There’s nothing to compare to His love, His grace, and His tender mercies! There is no love like the love of Christ for sinners! Praise God!”
The last phrase of verse 11, “through whom we have now received the reconciliation,” shows that reconciliation is a finished work that we receive as God’s gift. It is an objective, accomplished fact because of the cross. It also shows that all God’s blessings come to us through the Lord Jesus Christ. But you must receive this reconciliation by trusting in Jesus and His shed blood to cover all your sins.
Paul states it as a given that those who have received this reconciliation now exult in God. But do we? Have you spent any time this past week exulting in God because of all that He has freely given to you through the Lord Jesus Christ? I encourage you to make time each day to open God’s Word and pray, “Lord, show me today some of the unfathomable riches of Christ so that I may exult in You. Thank You that I have been justified by Christ’s blood! Thank You that while I was Your enemy, You reconciled me to You through the death of Your Son!” The fact that you are saved for sure—justified by Christ’s blood, saved from God’s wrath, reconciled to God although you once were His enemy—ought to cause your heart to exult in God.
The early church father, Chrysostom, wrote (cited by Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 314), “And so the fact of his saving us, and saving us too when we were in such plight, and doing it by means of his only-begotten, and not merely by his only-begotten, but by his blood, weaves for us endless crowns to glory in.”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
When most commentators say, as Thomas Schreiner does (Romans [Baker], p. 267), that our text “is one of the most difficult and controversial passages to interpret in all of Pauline literature,” I know I’m in trouble when I have to preach on these verses! Another commentator (Alva McClain, Romans [BMH Books], p. 131) suggests that perhaps it was this passage that Peter had in mind when he said that some of Paul’s writings are hard to understand (2 Pet. 3:16). After reading hundreds of pages of commentaries and sermons on these verses, I began to wonder if I should look for another line of work!
The difficulty with the text is not with the main idea, which is fairly clear, but with the many details. Just about every word or phrase generates pages of discussion and debate among the scholars. But rather than wading into several weeks of messages on that level of detail, I decided to give a single broad overview of verses 12-19. I won’t be able to explain every detail, but hopefully you will get the big picture.
Part of the debate is whether these verses summarize what came before or point ahead to what follows. It seems that they serve as a transition to do both. “Therefore” (5:12) looks back, especially to 5:1-11, to show more benefits of being justified by faith in Christ. Paul shows that the only way to escape the effects of the fall of the human race into sin is through the free gift of God’s grace that offers justification to all who will receive it. Practically, this gives even greater assurance and hope to believers. If we are in Christ, we are saved not because of our good deeds, but because of what Christ did for us on the cross. So these verses reinforce and cement what came before.
But they also point to what follows. In chapter 6, Paul moves from salvation to sanctification. Crucial to living a life of holiness and freedom from sin is understanding our new identity in Jesus Christ. So when Paul contrasts our old identity in Adam with our new identity in Christ, he looks ahead by laying a foundation for our sanctification. Also, the themes of grace, sin, and death as reigning powers will appear frequently in chapters 6-8 (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], pp. 315-316).
Identification, either with Adam or with Christ, is the key to understanding 5:12-21. Paul is saying that either you’re under condemnation because you are in Adam or you’re justified because you are in Jesus Christ. Also, he is showing that God’s gracious gift of righteousness in Christ is far greater than the devastation of sin that resulted from Adam’s disobedience. Twice (5:15, 17) he says, “much more.” He wants to encourage believers in Christ with the certainty of their glorious future in Him. To sum up:
If you are in Adam, you are under the reign of death, but if you are in Christ, you will reign in life, because Christ’s gift is greater than Adam’s sin.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Romans: Assurance [Zondervan], p. 178) put it, “The whole story of the human race can be summed up in terms of what has happened because of Adam, and what has happened and will yet happen because of Jesus Christ.” First, Paul explains what happened to the human race through Adam:
Romans 5:12-14: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.”
In passing, note that Paul believed in the historicity of Adam and the story of the fall in the first three chapters of Genesis. Adam was not a mythical figure invented by the author of Genesis to explain how sin entered the human race. Rather, God created Adam and Eve as the first humans, placed them in the Garden of Eden, and gave them a strict commandment not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They disobeyed God, resulting in God banishing them from the garden and imposing the curse on the human race as a result of their sin.
Also, note in passing that although Eve was the first to sin, God held Adam accountable for plunging the human race into sin. Why? Because God appointed the man as the head of his wife in the garden before the fall. The main idea of headship is responsibility or accountability. Satan approached the woman to tempt and deceive her. Adam passively followed her lead into sin. But God charges Adam with introducing sin into the world, because as Eve’s head, Adam was responsible. This responsibility and accountability for husbands to lead their families spiritually is still in place (Eph. 5:23; 1 Cor.11:3). And men are responsible to provide godly leadership in the local church (1 Tim. 2:11-15; 3:2-7; Titus 1:5-9).
Paul says (5:12a), “through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin.” The one man is Adam (5:14). Paul is referring to the original sin when Adam disobeyed God’s explicit command and ate the forbidden fruit. God had warned Adam that in the day he ate of that fruit, he would die (Gen. 2:17). This referred both to physical death and to spiritual death, or separation from God. At the moment Adam and Eve ate the fruit, the effects of physical aging and death were set into motion. While the patriarchs lived extraordinarily long lives, the repeated refrain of Genesis 5 is, “and he died, … and he died.” Not only did people begin to die physically after the original sin, but also the entire creation began to experience death (Rom. 8:20-22).
But Paul has in mind not only physical death, but also the spiritual death that came through Adam’s fall. In Romans 5:21, Paul contrasts the death that came in through sin with eternal life. When Adam sinned, he experienced spiritual separation from God that, apart from the gift of eternal life, would have resulted in eternal separation from God, which the Bible describes as “the second death” (Rev. 20:6, 14). So both physical and spiritual death entered into this world through Adam’s original sin.
But the crucial (and most controversial) phrase in Romans 5:12 is, what does Paul mean when he says, “and so death spread to all men, because all sinned”? There have been four main views (plus a fifth, more recent view of Thomas Schreiner). Without explaining those views, I think the best view in light of the context is that Paul is saying, “When Adam sinned, we all sinned.” In other words, God appointed Adam as the representative head of the human race. His sin involved the entire human race in sin. His sin was imputed or charged to everyone born after him. Because of Adam’s sin, each of us was born guilty of sin before we ever committed our first willful sin. We are not sinners because we sin; we sin because we are sinners by virtue of our union with Adam.
The common reaction to this is, “That’s not fair!” But it’s always very dangerous to accuse the Almighty Sovereign of the universe of unfairness (Rom. 9:20-21)! If God determined to treat Adam as the representative head of the human race, it is certainly God’s prerogative to do so. Also, we live with this sort of representation every day. If our political leaders declare war against another country, we go to war and some of our soldiers will die because of the action of our leaders. Their decision was our decision because they represent us. A further response to the unfairness charge is, do you think that you would have done better than Adam? Do you think that you would have resisted temptation and lived a sinless life if you had been born without the effects and guilt of Adam’s sin? That’s not likely! And, finally, if it’s not fair that Adam represented you when he sinned, neither is it fair that Christ represented you when He died on the cross.
But since there are other views, how do we know that Paul is really saying, “When Adam sinned, we all sinned”?
Paul begins verse 12 with a comparison (“just as”), but then breaks off in mid-sentence to explain or prove (“for”) his comment, “because all sinned.” While the flow of thought is not easy to follow, Paul seems to be arguing that the fact of universal death from the time of Adam until Moses was not due to their individual sins, which were not imputed to them because they were not breaking the specific commands of the law, but rather due to their identification with Adam in his original sin.
But, what does Paul mean when he adds (5:14), “even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam”? Again, there is much debate, but it seems that Paul means that after the Law was given, sinners violated the specific commands of God, even as Adam did. But those who lived between Adam and Moses still sinned, even though their guilt was not imputed because they didn’t violate specific commands. So, if their guilt wasn’t imputed, why did they all die? Answer: they died because Adam’s sin was imputed to them. They sinned when he sinned. The proof of their sinning in Adam is that they all died.
But, why does Paul add at this point that Adam is “a type of Him who was to come,” namely, of Christ? Answer: Paul wants us to see the parallel. Adam’s descendants were all implicated in his sin and died, even though they didn’t violate specific commands as he did, because they are “in Adam.” When he sinned, they sinned. In like manner, all of Christ’s descendants, born spiritually through the new birth, are identified with Him and are counted as righteous not because of their individual deeds of righteousness, but because of Christ’s righteousness.
John Piper (“Adam, Christ, and Justification,” Part 2, on desiringgod.org.) explains and applies this:
That is the all-important parallel. The deepest reason why death reigns over all is not because of our individual sins, but because of Adam’s sin imputed to us. So the deepest reason eternal life reigns is not because of our individual deeds of righteousness, but because of Christ’s righteousness imputed to us by grace through faith.
O how much light this sheds on why Paul embarked on this paragraph at all! He did it for the sake of our faith and our assurance and our joy. He did it to underline the fact that our right standing with God and our freedom from condemnation is not based on our righteous acts but on Christ’s righteous acts.
One other thought before we look at the rest of our text: Outside of Christ, the human race is still under the reign of death. As George Bernard Shaw wryly observed, “The statistics on death are quite impressive: one out of one people die!” We try to put it out of our minds, but then it hits someone close to us and we realize, “I’m going to die someday, too.” We try to preserve our bodies through exercise and health food, and AARP magazine perpetuates the myth by showing us old geezers who compete in triathlons, as if they will live forever. But the fact is, those old geezers are going to die. Plastic surgery may allow us to leave a young looking corpse, but it’s still a corpse! And, contrary to popular mythology, death is not a natural part of the life cycle. Death is God’s penalty for Adam’s sin, imposed on all his posterity. Death reigns if you are still in Adam. How do we escape the curse?
These are also very difficult verses, and I can only skim them. Paul is making a comparison between Adam and Christ, but even more, a contrast. He’s showing why Christ is far superior to Adam, as seen by his twice-repeated phrase, “much more” (5:15, 17). Adam’s sin resulted in condemnation and death to the human race, but Christ’s obedience unto death resulted in justification and life to those who receive it. Let’s look briefly at each verse:
Romans 5:15: “But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.”
Paul contrasts the devastating effects of Adam’s transgression—the many died—with the glorious effects of God’s free gift and grace, which abounds to the many. “Many” is not viewing the affected groups numerically, but qualitatively. It has two different ranges here. In the first instance, it refers to the devastating effects of one man’s sin on many, which means, the entire human race. It’s like one little campfire left untended which starts a forest fire that destroys the entire forest. One man sinned, but many died. In the second instance, it cannot refer to the whole human race, but only to those who “receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness” (5:17). It would be wrong to interpret the second “many” to mean that salvation is offered to all, because in 5:16, the second group is actually justified. Rather, it refers to the many who actually receive the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ.
The “much more” refers to the superlative nature of salvation over judgment. Paul piles up words like “grace,” “gift,” and “abound” to emphasize how wonderful God’s gift of salvation is, provided freely to us at Christ’s expense. It is an undeserved gift and it abounds to us through the grace of God and through the grace of Christ, who are linked in this verse. How much sin have you piled up? God’s grace in Christ is more abundant! How great is your guilt and debt? God’s free gift and abounding grace is greater!
Romans 5:16: “The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification.”
The main contrast here is that one sin resulted in condemnation of the entire human race, but the many sins of that fallen race resulted in justification for all who believe. The word believe is not here, but it’s implicit because from 3:24-5:1 Paul hammered home that justification is received by faith alone. Condemnation and justification are judicial terms. Christ’s work is greater than Adam’s sin because it overcame the great devastation that resulted from Adam’s sin. Adam lit the forest fire that devastated the human race, but Christ not only put it out, but planted a new forest, an eternal one, for all who will receive His gracious gift.
Romans 5:17: “For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.”
How do we escape the awful reign of death? By receiving “the abundance of grace” and “the gift of righteousness” through Jesus Christ! Again Paul refers to the abundance of grace to let us know that there isn’t any chance that God’s supply will run dry on the sinner who is in line before you. The gift is righteousness, Christ’s righteousness credited to your account, which is the meaning of justification. God does not just forgive your sins; He also bestows the positive righteousness of Christ to you, so that you stand before God not in your own righteous deeds, but in the righteousness of your representative, Jesus Christ.
And, not only do you escape the reign of death. Also, you will reign in life through Jesus Christ. This begins now as you live in victory over sin (Romans 6). It also means that the sting and fear of death are removed, so that we are more than conquerors in Christ (Rom. 8:36-37; 1 Cor. 15:56-57; Heb. 2:14-15). But it also means that throughout eternity we will reign with Christ (Rev. 1:6; 3:21; 1 Cor. 6:2, 3). He is the King of kings. Who are the kings that He is King over? We are (Lloyd-Jones, p. 265)!
Then Paul sums up verses 12-17:
Romans 5:18-19: “So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.”
Verse 18 completes the idea that Paul began, but broke off, in verse 12: One man’s sin brought death and condemnation to all, but One Man’s righteousness brought justification of life to all. Paul is not teaching universalism, that all people will be saved. That would contradict what he teaches elsewhere, that sinners will face judgment and eternal condemnation (2:5, 8, 9). Also, in 5:17 he has just stated that it is those who receive the gift of righteousness who will reign with Christ. Rather, the two “alls” relate to their representative heads. All who are in Adam are condemned. All who are in Christ are justified. The same limits apply to the “many” in verse 19: Through one man’s disobedience, the many (the entire race) were made sinners. Through One Man’s obedience at the cross, the many (believers) will be made righteous.
The word made means to appoint, but it must be interpreted here in light of the forensic context. Douglas Moo (p. 345) explains, “To be ‘righteous’ does not mean to be morally upright, but to be judged acquitted, cleared of all charges, in the heavenly judgment.”
So Paul is summing up 5:12-17 in verse 18 and repeating it in slightly different language in verse 19. The main point is: If you are in Adam, you’re under the reign of sin and death, headed for eternal condemnation. But if you are in Christ by faith in His sacrifice on the cross, you are free from sin and death and will reign in life through Him, because Christ’s gift is greater than Adam’s sin.
These difficult verses have required a lot of explanation, but let me wrap it up by restating some of the practical applications:
(1) Fathers, your behavior and choices greatly affect your children, so live prayerfully and carefully. Thankfully, our sins won’t affect the entire human race, as Adam’s sin did. But we never sin in isolation. Think about how your conduct will affect your children.
(2) Since the universal problem of the human race is sin, the universal solution is the gospel. From primitive tribes to educated professors, the need and the solution are the same. Don’t be intimidated by someone with a Ph.D. He is a sinner and he needs the Savior. You can point him to Christ.
(3) If the universal problem is guilt by identification with Adam’s sin, then salvation cannot be through adding our good works. This text is all about how sinners can be put right with God. We must be identified with Christ’s righteousness by faith. We must receive God’s gift through Christ.
(4) If we are in Christ, our salvation is secure not because of anything in us, but because we’re in Him. You won’t be saved by your performance, but rather by Christ’s obedience on the cross and the fact that you’re trusting in Him alone. Are you in Adam, under the reign of death? Or, by faith are you in Christ, reigning in life?
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
In 2005, Christian Smith and Melinda Denton wrote Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers [Oxford University Press]. Based on interviews with about 3,000 teens, they described what they considered to be the common religious beliefs among American teenagers as “moralistic therapeutic deism.”
The authors summed up these beliefs as having five elements: (1) A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth. (2) God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions. (3) The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself. (4) God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem. (5) Good people go to heaven when they die.
The authors believe that “a significant part of Christianity in the United States is actually only tenuously Christian in any sense that is seriously connected to the actual historical Christian tradition, but has rather substantially morphed into Christianity’s misbegotten stepcousin, Christian Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.” (Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moralistic_therapeutic_deism)
Sadly, I think the authors are largely on target: much of what goes under the banner of Christianity is moralistic in that it believes that good people will go to heaven (although often the standards for “good” are not in line with the Bible). It is therapeutic in that feeling good about yourself is the main reason to go to church and believe in Jesus. He can help you succeed in your goals. And it is deism in that you don’t really need a Savior from sin because you’re a good person. God is there when you need Him, but the rest of the time, just believe in yourself and pursue your dreams. God, His glory, and the cross are not at the center of this belief system.
I hope that you can see how far moralistic therapeutic deism is from the gospel that Paul sets forth in Romans. After stating the theme of Romans, that he is not ashamed of the gospel, which reveals the righteousness of God (1:16-17), Paul shows that every person has sinned and is under God’s condemnation (1:18-3:20). He then shows that by His death on the cross, Jesus Christ satisfied God’s righteous demand so that He can be both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (I hope that you can see how far moralistic therapeutic deism is from the gospel that Paul sets forth in Romans. After stating the theme of Romans, that he is not ashamed of the gospel, which reveals the righteousness of God (1:16-17), Paul shows that every person has sinned and is under God’s condemnation (1:18-3:20). He then shows that by His death on the cross, Jesus Christ satisfied God’s righteous demand so that He can be both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (3:21-4:25). Then Paul sets forth some of the blessings of being justified by faith in Christ (
Then (5:12-19) Paul re-emphasizes why we must be justified by faith: When Adam sinned, we all sinned in him. His sin was our sin; the fact of universal death proves it. But the last Adam, Jesus Christ, more than overcame the devastating effects of Adam’s sin. Adam’s sin resulted in death for all who are in him, but Jesus Christ’s obedience in going to the cross resulted in justification of life for all who are in Him. Adam’s sin was credited to all his descendants, but Christ’s righteousness is credited to all who are His descendants through faith in Him.
But, Paul anticipates a question that anyone familiar with the Old Testament would have: Why, then, was the Law given? What was its purpose? Didn’t God give the Law through Moses so that people could keep it and live? So in 5:20-21 Paul contrasts the Law and its result with God’s grace in Christ and its result. He is saying,
Through the Law, sin reigned in death, but through Christ super-abundant grace reigns in righteousness to eternal life.
Paul’s words in 5:20 would have been utterly shocking to his Jewish readers: “The Law came in so that the transgression would increase ….” The average Jew would have thought that the Law came in to restrain sin, not to cause its increase (Thomas Schreiner, The Law and Its Fulfillment [Baker], p. 73). We’ll consider in a moment what Paul meant by this statement, but for now just note that most Jews would do a double-take and say, “Did I read that correctly?” Paul’s assertion definitely would have gotten their attention! He is saying:
There are several things to consider here:
There is a sense in which both civil law and God’s Law restrain sin externally. The speed laws cause us to slow down, especially when we see a police car. Laws against theft, murder and other things may restrain people who would otherwise do those things. But the law cannot restrain the evil desires of the fallen human heart. I still want to speed. Greed makes me want to steal. The law cannot bring my sinful heart into willing submission.
Jesus hit the Pharisees with their hypocrisy in these things. Outwardly, they practiced obedience to the Law so that others would think that they were righteous. But in their hearts, Jesus said that they were full of self-indulgence, uncleanness, and lawlessness (Matt. 23:25-28).
“The Law came in so that the transgression would increase ….” Paul isn’t just describing what actually happened, but rather God’s intent or purpose for giving the Law. This was not God’s only purpose or ultimate purpose, in that the increase of sin under the Law magnified the splendor and power of God’s grace (Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], p. 295). But, in the sense that I am going to explain, the Law actually increases sin. It didn’t make the human race as fallen in Adam better; it made it worse.
The verb translated came in (5:20) points to the Law’s subordinate role in God’s economy (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 347). The idea is that the Law came alongside the existence of human sin, not to provide salvation, but to increase sin in several ways:
This is Paul’s main point, as seen by the words, the transgression. He has just used this word to describe Adam’s disobedience (5:15, 17, 18). Adam disobeyed an explicit commandment of God. By way of contrast, those living from Adam until Moses sinned, but not in the same way that Adam sinned, in that they did not have God’s explicit commandments (5:14). They violated their consciences (2:12, 15). But when God gave the Law, the transgression of Adam increased, in that now sinners violated God’s explicit commandments. And so the Law of Moses turned those it addresses into “their own Adam” (Moo, p. 348). Each sinner, like Adam, now broke an explicit law. As Paul says (3:20), “for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin” (also, 7:7).
Maybe you’ve had the experience of doing something that didn’t quite seem right, but you were not aware of any law against it. But then you learned that the law specifically forbids doing what you were doing. If you do it again, the law has caused your sin to increase, because you are now deliberately disobeying.
In Romans 4:15, Paul said, “Where there is no law, there is no violation.” In 5:13 he added, “For until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.” Sin existed before the Law, in that sinners instinctively knew that what they were doing was wrong. But that sin was not specifically charged to them unless God had expressly forbidden it. So when the Law came, the transgression increased by imputing guilt to every sinner.
Paul says (7:13) “that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.” It’s one thing to do something wrong when you are not aware of any law against it. But when the law is posted on the wall or it is verbally explained to you, and then you go out and break that law, you have no excuse. Your deliberate disobedience reveals your sin to be utterly sinful.
This is not Paul’s primary meaning in 5:20, but in light of what he goes on to say (7:7-11), it cannot be completely absent from his thought. The Law, which is holy, combines with our rebellious flesh to entice us to sin. Paul says that when the Law said, “You shall not covet,” it produced in him coveting of every kind (7:7-8). It’s like the little old lady who told the preacher that she wished he would stop quoting the Ten Commandments every week, because he was putting wrong ideas into people’s heads! We’ve all had the same experience. I wouldn’t have thought about walking on the grass if that sign had not said, “Do not walk on the grass”!
So the Law does not restrain sin at the heart level. Rather, the Law actually increases sin. But this raises the question: By giving the Law, was God causing us to sin? I hope that the very question causes you to say, “God forbid!” God cannot tempt anyone to sin (James 1:13). Rather, sin comes from our own lusts (7:5, 11-14). But that leads to a third observation about how the Law operates:
Outside of Christ, the tendency of the proud human heart is to trust in our own goodness and good works. We think that by our own efforts, we can commend ourselves to God. But the problem is, like the Pharisees, we focus on the outside of the cup, but conveniently ignore that the inside of the cup is filthy. And so God graciously sends the Law to tear down our self-righteousness and convict us of our sin so that we will be driven to the Savior.
Jesus did this with the Pharisees in the Sermon on the Mount. They took pride in never having murdered anyone, but Jesus said that if they had ever been angry, they were guilty of murder. They prided themselves on their morality, but Jesus said that if they had lusted after a woman, they were guilty of adultery in God’s sight. Jesus did the same thing with the rich young ruler. He took pride in having kept all the commandments, or so he thought. But by telling him to sell his possessions and give the money to the poor, Jesus showed him that he had not kept the first commandment, to have no other gods before the living God. His money was his god.
Thus the Law comes in, not just to increase the transgression, but also to reveal to us how guilty we are of violating God’s holy standards. This is actually gracious on God’s part, because in our self-righteousness, we don’t see our need for a Savior. But when the Law exposes our self-righteousness and convicts us of our sin, it drives us to the cross where we find grace. But not only does the Law cause sin to increase; also …
We saw this last week: sin led to death and “death reigned from Adam to Moses” (5:14); “death reigned through the one” (5:17); but, he repeats it again (5:21): “as sin reigned in death.” Two brief thoughts:
In other words, sin doesn’t just move in as a polite houseguest; it takes over. It’s like bringing home a pet tiger kitten. It’s so cute and playful at first. But pretty soon, it grows into a vicious predator that kills you. Sin does not come in to work with you to accomplish your cherished objectives. It does not cooperate with you to help you be happy. It comes in pleasantly enough at first. It seems like a nice little pet. But invariably, it grows into an evil tyrant that reigns in death. If you do not conquer it, it will conquer and kill you (Gen. 4:7).
Sin reigns in the sphere of death, which refers both to physical and finally to spiritual death, which is eternal separation from God in the lake of fire (Rev. 20:14-15). At first, sin always puts on a positive look: “You will be like God.” The fruit is good for food and a delight to the eyes (Gen. 3:5-6). Why not give it a try? It will bring you what you’ve always wanted! But that’s how sin deceives us. It did not bring Eve what Satan promised. It led her and the entire human race into death. Her oldest son murdered his brother out of jealousy. Sin is always ugly and leads to death. Remember that the next time you are tempted!
It’s a bleak picture, isn’t it! Outside of Christ, God’s holy Law causes sin to increase, so that it reigns in death. But thankfully there is some very good news:
Romans 5:21 stands in contrast to 5:12. In 5:12, there are Adam, sin and death; in 5:21, we see the new Adam, Jesus Christ our Lord, righteousness, and eternal life. The new factor that makes the difference is super-abounding grace (Alva McClain, Romans, the Gospel of God’s Grace [BMH Books], p. 139).
The backdrop of sin displays the glory of God’s grace all the more (Schreiner, The Law, 242). F. Godet (Commentary on Romans [Kregel], p. 228) points out that Golgotha, “where human sin displayed itself as nowhere else, was at the same time the place of the most extraordinary manifestation of divine grace.” I once read about a master gem salesman who watched a rookie salesman fail to make a sale. With the next customer, the master showed the rookie how to display the gem on a background of black velvet to bring out the beauty and luster of the diamond. Even so, the glory of God’s manifold grace shines even brighter against the blackness of human sin. Note three things here:
The Greek verb translated “increase” and “increased” has the idea of numerical increase. But the root of the word translated “abounded” means “to overflow,” or “to have more than enough.” But then Paul adds the Greek word, hyper, so that it means, “abounded all the more.” So we can translate, “where sin added up, grace super-abounded.” Donald Grey Barnhouse paraphrased it, “Where sin reached a high-water mark, grace completely flooded the world” (cited by James Boice, Romans [Baker], 2:618).
James Boice develops two points regarding God’s super-abundant grace. First: Grace is not withheld because of sin. Second: God’s grace is never reduced because of sin (pp. 619, 621). He points out that we do not usually operate this way. If someone wrongs or offends us, we withdraw from that person and do not treat him graciously. But God is not like this. Sinners crucified His Son who came to save them. After the resurrection, Jesus easily could have instructed the disciples, “Get out of this evil city of Jerusalem. It does not deserve to hear the gospel.” But instead, He told them (Luke 24:47) “that repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations,” and then He added, “beginning from Jerusalem.”
John Bunyan, who titled his autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, also wrote a little book called, The Jerusalem Sinner Saved (both in The Whole Works of John Bunyan [Baker], vol. 1). His point was that Jesus Christ would have mercy offered, in the first place, to the biggest sinners.
Paul does not just say that in contrast to sin reigning in death, now grace reigns in life. He adds that “grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life.” Righteousness here refers to “the gift of righteousness” (5:17), which is the justification that all sinners receive when God imputes the righteousness of Christ to them by faith. As sinners who have been declared righteous, we are not made perfectly righteous in actual conduct until we see Jesus and become like Him (1 John 1:8; 3:2-3). We grow in godly behavior, but when we do sin, we have “an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1). So our sins do not cut us off from God because His super-abundant grace reigns through the righteous standing that we have before Him through Christ.
This grace reigns “to eternal life.” In 5:17, Paul says that grace causes us to reign in life, but here he says that God’s super-abundant grace reigns to eternal life. This means that God’s grace takes us beyond where Adam was before the fall. He did not possess eternal life before the fall. We do. He did not have permanent, perfect righteousness credited to his account. We do. This should give us solid assurance of salvation. What God began in us when He graciously credited Christ’s righteousness to us as ungodly sinners (4:5), He will complete unto eternal life.
John Piper (“The Triumph of Grace Through Righteousness,” on desiringgod.org) points out that Romans 5 begins and ends with two infinite realities: eternal life at the end, and the hope of the glory of God at the beginning (xistence needs to be eternal so that we can experience more and more of the infinite glory of God (Eph. 1:6, 18; 2:7; Rom. 9:23). This also insures us that heaven will not be boring, because God’s glory is infinitely beautiful and enjoyable. He puts it this way:
Any amount of time short of eternity would be inadequate for a finite creature to experience the glory of God. It will take forever for us to see all there is to see and admire all there is to admire and enjoy all there is to enjoy of the glory of God. Therefore God ordains that there be eternal life for us.
There is one last thought that I can only mention in passing:
All blessings come to us as believers through Jesus Christ our Lord, who graciously came to this earth and bore the penalty that we deserved on the cross. He mediates God’s blessings to us. Since we deserve nothing from God except judgment, this is pure grace. Throughout this chapter, Paul has repeated this so we won’t miss it: “We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (5:1). “We shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him [Christ]” (5:9). “While we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son” (5:10). “We also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation” (5:11). “Much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ” (5:17). And here (5:21), grace reigns “through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
All spiritual blessings are to be found in Christ (Eph. 1:3). Do you have Him? If so, His super-abundant undeserved favor will keep flowing and flowing to you unto eternal life!
In the center of Bath, England, stands a stone marker in honor of the city’s medicinal waters that have blessed so many people. It reads: “These healing waters have flowed on from time immemorial. Their virtue is unimpaired, their heat undiminished, their volume unabated. They explain the origin, account for the progress, and demand the gratitude of the City of Bath.” (From “Our Daily Bread,” Aug., 1982.)
That’s like God’s super-abundant grace for sinners who have trusted in Jesus Christ! The gospel of God’s grace is decidedly not moralistic therapeutic deism! Rather, through the gospel God’s enemies are reconciled to Him through “the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness” (5:17). His super-abundant grace reigns in us through Christ’s righteousness unto eternal life! A godly pastor who was about to die said, “I’m gathering together all my prayers, all my sermons, all my good deeds, all my evil deeds; and I’m going to throw them all overboard and drift to glory on the plank of Free Grace” (ibid.). Amen!
1. Is it necessary to experience deep conviction of sin before coming to saving faith? If so, how should this affect our presentation of the gospel?
2. Someone may reason, “If the Law causes sin to increase, why not just throw out God’s commandments?” Your response?
3. Discuss: Self-righteousness is one of the biggest hindrances to a person’s reception of the gospel.
4. Someone objects: “You say that sin reigns in death, but I’ve been much happier since I started yielding to my lusts.” How would you respond?
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
I’ve often chuckled at a cartoon (by Mary Chambers) that I saw years ago where two couples are talking and one woman says, “Well, I haven’t actually died to sin, but I did feel kind of faint once.”
That cartoon captures how many of us feel about Romans 6:2, where Paul says that we “died to sin.” We would have to admit, “I don’t feel very dead to sin!” Maybe there have been a few times when I’ve felt kind of faint towards it. But, dead? No way!
So when we come to Romans 6, where Paul doesn’t just say once (in 6:2) that we died to sin, but in some form he says it in 6:3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, and 13. So if it seems like I’m repeating myself over the next couple of weeks, it’s because Paul repeats himself. But he wants us to get it because apparently it is crucial when it comes to living a godly life. And yet it’s very difficult to understand because I don’t feel very dead to sin! In fact, I rarely feel kind of faint!
Although commentators differ, most agree that in Romans 6:1 Paul turns from the subject of justification (or salvation) to sanctification, or how we grow in holiness. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, whom I highly respect, vigorously differs with that analysis and James Boice, whom I also highly respect, follows Lloyd-Jones. So it’s difficult for me to disagree with such men, whose insight into Scripture far exceeds mine. They may be correct.
But even though this section obviously flows out of chapter 5 (as Lloyd-Jones argues from “then” in 6:1), it seems to me that Paul begins a new theme that he pursues through chapter 8: If we have been justified by faith, how do we grow in sanctification? Justification by faith dealt with the penalty of our sin. But how can we live a holy life in which sin’s power is broken?
Chapter 6 falls into two main sections: In 6:1-14, Paul addresses an objection that he knows will follow from what he has been teaching about God justifying sinners by grace alone through faith alone, apart from any merit. He is especially responding to what he has just said in 5:20, “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” The anticipated response is, “If God’s response to increased sin is to pour out super-abundant grace, then maybe we should sin all the more so that God can be all the more gracious!” Paul brought up this same reaction to his teaching back in 3:8, where he acknowledged that some were accusing him of saying, “Let us do evil that good may come.” His response there was, “Their condemnation is just.” Here (6:2), his response is, “May it never be!” Then he launches into his extended discussion of our being united with Christ in His death and resurrection.
In the second main section (6:15-23), Paul responds to another anticipated response to his teaching (in 5:20) that the Law came in so that sin would increase, along with his comment that we are not under law but under grace (6:14). The objection is (6:15), “Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?” His response is the same as in 6:2, “May it never be!” Then he develops an analogy from slavery. In 6:1-4, his main idea is:
Our union with Christ in His death and resurrection is the foundation for separation from sin and walking in newness of life.
I’m going to work through the text verse by verse to try to get our minds around what Paul is saying under four headings:
Romans 6:1-2a: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be!”
Verse 1 is a test of whether you have correctly understood Paul’s message up to this point. If you’ve been tracking with him, he knows that you will be thinking, “If God’s response to increased sin is abundant grace (5:20), then why not sin more?” Since God freely justifies not those who try hard, but rather those who do not work; and since He justifies not those who are good people, but rather the ungodly (4:5); then why work at being good? Or, another form of it is, “If God is gracious towards sinners, then I’ll just sin and ask for His grace.” Or, as poet W. H. Auden put it (cited by Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans Eerdmans], p. 356), “I like committing crimes. God likes forgiving them. Really the world is admirably arranged.”
But the point is, if salvation or justification is by faith plus our good works, the objection that Paul anticipates here never would have come up. Or, if we hedge in God’s grace or tone it down, no one would dare to think what Paul knows we will think if we heard him correctly. For example, the popular seminar leader, Bill Gothard, redefines “grace” to mean, “the desire and power to do God’s will” (Men’s Manual [Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts], p. 112). While God does give us the desire and power to do His will, that is not grace! God’s grace is His undeserved favor. If we understand and teach grace correctly, people will at least think what Paul here anticipates. And, significantly, Paul doesn’t modify his teaching that God justifies the ungodly apart from their works, or that increased sin leads to abounding grace. Neither should we!
Romans 6:2b: “How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” This is a rhetorical question, which expects the answer, “There is no way that those who died to sin can still live in it!” It should be obvious: Dead men can’t live in sin.
But this raises a lot of questions. If Christians are dead to sin, then why do they sin? Can we attain sinless perfection in this life? If so, doesn’t this statement imply that we attain this state of being dead to sin at the moment of conversion? If not, do we need to work at being dead to sin? So what does Paul mean when he says that we “died to sin”?
There are a number of views (Martyn Lloyd-Jones elaborates on them, Romans: The New Man [Zondervan], pp. 16-20). For sake of time, I’m not going to take you through them all. But let me tell you what it does not mean, and then what I think it does mean.
Clearly, Paul does not mean that believers cannot sin or that they are immune to temptation. Some teach that if you go into a morgue and try to tempt a corpse to commit some sin, you will not succeed because he is dead. Likewise, it is said, Christians are dead to sin. It can’t entice them.
But, apart from the obvious fact that there are no such Christians in existence and there never have been, such a view makes all of the moral commands in the Bible to be superfluous. Why command me not to lust if I can’t lust because I’m dead to it? Why command me not to steal if I’m dead to greed? Besides, there are many examples in the Bible of otherwise godly men falling into serious sin. Noah got drunk. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all lied. David committed adultery and murder after he wrote many of the Psalms. Peter denied the Lord and later acted in hypocrisy toward the Gentile believers in Antioch. And in Romans 7, Paul shares his own struggles with sin. So he does not mean that believers cannot sin or that they are immune to temptation.
What does he mean? We just saw (5:12-21) that all people are identified either with Adam under the reign of sin and death, or with Christ under the reign of grace through righteousness. There are no other categories: Either you are in Adam or in Christ. By virtue of our physical birth, we all enter this world in Adam. His sin was imputed to us. When Adam sinned, we sinned. But when we trust in Christ, we are transferred from Adam’s headship to Christ’s headship. Just as Adam’s one sin condemned us all, so Christ’s one act of obedience on the cross justified all who receive His gracious gift of eternal life.
So Paul means that if you are in Christ, when He died on the cross, you died in Him. It is not something that you feel, but rather a fact that is true of you because God declares it to be true. If Christ our Head died, we who are His body died with Him. This is our new status or position before God. Since Christ died to sin (6:10) and we are now in Him, we died to sin. We derive the benefits of His death because we are now in Him.
In the Bible, death is not primarily cessation, but rather separation. At physical death your soul is separated from your body. When we died with Christ, we were separated from the reign of death and put under Christ’s reign of righteousness. Its reign over us was broken. As a result, Paul implies (by his rhetorical question) that we cannot continue in sin or live in it. He is not talking about committing acts of sin, but rather about living in sin as a way of life.
I understand 1 John 3:9 to be saying the same thing from a slightly different perspective: “No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” John is not saying that believers cannot sin at all, because in 1 John 1:8 he has said that if anyone claims that he has no sin is deceiving himself. And in 2:1 he says that if we sin, we have an Advocate with the Father. He means that those born of God cannot continue in their old way of life, which was characterized by sin. The new birth removes them from it.
So both John and Paul mean that those who are in Christ cannot continue in sin as a way of life. When we are saved by God’s grace, He places us in a new realm, under the reign of grace, where we now walk in the light as He is in the light (as John puts it). We now obey God and keep His commandments as our pattern or habit. So Paul says that we need to know this fact and believe it: In Christ we died to sin, so we cannot still live in it.
Romans 6:3-4a: “Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, …”
Verse 3 generates a lot of controversy. Is Paul talking about water baptism or the baptism of the Holy Spirit? If he means water baptism, is he saying that the act of baptism itself conveys these benefits? Sparing you all of the debates, I think that Paul is referring to the spiritual reality that takes place at salvation, which water baptism symbolizes.
Keep in mind that the apostles all associated saving faith with water baptism to such an extent that the concept of an unbaptized believer would have been foreign to them. When people in that day professed faith in Jesus Christ, they expressed it by being baptized in water. Paul assumes that all of the Christians in Rome had been baptized. (“All of us who have been baptized” means, “all of us believers.”) Since at that time, baptism usually followed faith in Christ rather quickly (Acts 2:41; 8:36; 9:18), the thought of distinguishing between Spirit baptism (which happens at the moment of salvation) and water baptism would not have occurred to Paul (Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], p. 307, note 6).
Also, not to be controversial, but there is no evidence in the New Testament that infant baptism was practiced, nor are there any verses to support such a practice. The entire argument for infant baptism rests on the assumption that it has replaced circumcision as the sign of the covenant. While Colossians 2:11-12 links some aspects of circumcision with baptism, those verses also specifically link faith in Christ with baptism. The clear pattern of the New Testament is that a person first believed in Christ and then expressed that faith in water baptism. In modern evangelicalism, we’ve wrongly replaced baptism with walking the aisle. But if you have believed in Christ as your Savior, you should be baptized in water to confess your faith.
What does baptism picture? The main thought is that of identification. The word clearly means, to immerse (as even Calvin admitted, The Institutes of the Christian Religion [Westminster Press], 4:15:14 & 4:15:19). It was used of people being drowned, or of ships being sunk (Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans [Apollos/Eerdmans], p. 246). To be baptized into Christ’s death means to be totally identified with Christ in His death. When He paid the penalty of death for sin, we paid the penalty in Him. When He died to sin, conquering its power, we who believe in Him died to sin and its power.
Why does Paul emphasize not only Christ’s death, but also the fact that we were buried with Him through baptism? Scholars agree that burial is mentioned because it confirms that death has occurred (Schreiner, p. 308). Generally speaking, you don’t bury a living person. To say that we were buried with Christ means, we really died with Him. Baptism by immersion pictures this when a person goes under the water. If we held them under for a few minutes, they really would die physically! Immersion pictures the spiritual reality: When we believed in Christ, we became fully identified with Him in His death and burial. We are united with Him in that historic action (6:5).
While Paul does not specifically say (which means that scholars argue about it) that coming out of the water pictures being raised up with Christ in His resurrection, it is implied. As I understand him, he uses baptism as an illustration to help us understand our union with Christ. It pictures our death, burial, and resurrection with Christ, which took place historically when Christ died, was buried, and was raised on behalf of His people whom He redeemed. It was applied to us the instant that we believed, but we express it symbolically in water baptism. Finally,
Romans 6:4b: “… so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”
Christ was raised bodily from the grave, not just spiritually. But spiritually, we were in Him, so that when He was raised in victory over sin and death, we were raised too (Col. 3:1). We will not receive our new resurrection bodies, which will be completely free from sin, until Jesus returns. But before then, the action on our part as a result of our spiritual resurrection with Christ is that we should walk in newness of life.
Paul says that Christ was raised from the dead “through the glory of the Father.” It’s an unusual expression. I would have expected him to say, “by the power of God.” While most commentators say that “glory” is used here as a synonym for “power,” Paul does say “glory,” not “power.” C. H. Spurgeon (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 27:626) points out that glory is a grander word, because it includes the display of all of the Father’s attributes in raising Christ from the dead. The word “Father” (rather than “God”) implies His great love for His Son and for us in giving up His Son to death. The wisdom of God was displayed by allowing Christ to suffer in our place before raising Him from the dead. The Father’s justice is displayed at the cross and resurrection (4:25). His faithfulness to His promise not to allow His Holy One to undergo decay (Ps. 16:10) was seen in the resurrection. And, of course, His great power was displayed there, too (Eph. 1:19-20).
As a result of our union with Christ in His resurrection, we are to walk in newness of life. This means that our new walk in Christ should be totally distinct from our life before Christ. We should develop transformed minds through God’s Word, so that our whole worldview lines up with Scripture. Our motives for why we do what we do should no longer be selfish, but rather for God’s glory. Our attitudes, especially in trials, should not be complaining, but rather thankful to God. Our emotions should be marked by joy and hope in the Lord. Our character should be developing the fruit of the Spirit. Our use of time and money should be managed in light of eternal values. And we should be walking in consistent obedience to God’s commandments, which are for our good.
The description of this newness of life as “a walk” implies a long, steady, gradual process. Paul is not talking about sinless perfection, but rather a direction of life in which we sin less and less. Over time, we should make progress in holy, obedient living as those who have been raised up with Christ.
I realize that the concept of being dead to sin and alive to God in Christ is difficult to comprehend and apply. We’ll look at it further in weeks ahead, since Paul does. But let me conclude by giving three applications based on this text:
(1) Do not presume on God’s grace as permission to sin. Many Christians stupidly (I chose that word deliberately!) think, “I can go ahead and sin and just get forgiven. After all, I’m under grace.” That is stupid because it ignores what we saw last time, that sin does not move in to help you achieve your objectives. It moves in to reign and its reign is one of death. God’s grace does not mean that He is tolerant of your sin. Grace does not excuse sloppy living. God is committed to your holiness, and if you play loose with sin, He will discipline you, perhaps severely!
(2) If you have trusted Christ, make a distinct break with your past life and declare it publicly in baptism. Becoming a Christian means burning all your bridges to your past life of sin. If you have drugs in your possession, destroy them. If you have alcohol and you are tempted to get drunk, pour it down the drain. If going to bars tempts you to drunkenness or picking up loose women, stop going there. If you have pornographic magazines, get rid of them. If Internet porn is a problem, get some system of accountability or stop using the Internet. Follow the example of the new believers in Ephesus, who burned 50,000 days’ wages worth of magic books (Acts 19:19). And then confess your new faith in water baptism.
(3) Meditate often on your union with Christ and what it means. You are now in Christ. Think about it and act accordingly. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (pp. 25 ff.) uses the example of the slaves who were freed by President Lincoln during the Civil War. His Emancipation Proclamation declared them to be free. Many of the older slaves had not known any other life. They were born slaves and had lived all their lives under a cruel master. But now they “died” to slavery. They were declared free. But they didn’t feel free. When they saw their old master coming, they may have shook in fear and even obeyed him if he gave them a command. But they didn’t have to obey him. His power over them was broken. They did not have to live under his tyranny. They could walk in newness of life.
Even so, in Christ you died to sin. You no longer have to live under its power. You don’t have to obey it. You have been raised up in Christ so that you now can walk in newness of life. Think often about your new position in Him. Our union with Christ in His death and resurrection is the foundation for separation from sin and walking in newness of life.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
I read a rather unbelievable incident where a young married man forgot that he was married. After returning from their honeymoon, the husband was three hours late getting home from work one evening because he absentmindedly had gone to his mother’s house instead of going home to his new bride (reported in “Our Daily Bread,” June, 1982). A tip for young husbands: Do not forget that you are married!
While that sort of thing is rare in the realm of marriage, it is fairly common among those who are “married” to Christ. We are joined to Him as His bride so that we are now members of His body (Eph. 5:25-33). We are identified with Him in His death and resurrection, so that the power of sin has been broken (Rom. 6:1-4). But we forget this essential truth every time that we fall into sin.
Paul is rebutting the charge that his teaching that God justifies the ungodly by grace through faith alone, apart from any merit, will lead to licentiousness (6:1-2). He is proving that our union with Jesus Christ is completely opposed to a life of continuing sin. Rather, our identification with Christ in His death and resurrection frees us from slavery to sin and allows us to walk in newness of life. But Paul knows that we’re prone to forget our new position in Christ, which is the foundation for holy living. And so he hammers it home in these verses.
Here’s Paul’s flow of thought: In 6:4 he says that our baptism pictured the spiritual union that we have with Christ in His death and resurrection, with the practical result that we might now walk in newness of life. Verse 5 supports and explains verse 4, as the opening word (“For”) shows: “For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection.”
Then in 6:6-7 Paul expounds on the first half of 6:5, showing that we have become united with Christ in His death, so that we might no longer be slaves to sin. In 6:8-10 he expounds on the second half of 6:5, showing that we shall also live with Christ. He explains the implications of Christ’s death and resurrection, so that we will understand further what our union with Him means, namely, a decisive break with sin and a new life with God. Then in 6:11 he applies these truths: “Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
I will say at the outset that this is not an easy text to grasp. The difficulty of Romans 6 & 7 was the major reason that I held off from preaching through Romans for 33 years of ministry. I wish I could say that I’ve had a breakthrough! I’ve been struggling with what Paul says here for about 45 years now, but I’m still not sure that I get it. There are all sorts of interpretive issues where commentators differ and I find much of what they say to be confusing. So I’m not so naïve as to think that this one message will make things crystal clear for you. But I hope that you will be motivated to dig deeper into these chapters on your own.
These verses are important because Paul’s aim is that we would live in victory over sin. Christ’s death and resurrection not only paid the penalty for our sin, but also provided the power that we need to overcome sin on a daily basis. So if this message leaves you somewhat confused, I urge you not to shrug your shoulders and walk away. Rather, chew on these verses like a dog with a bone, until you get the marrow of them into your soul. Paul’s idea is:
Living in light of our union with Christ is the key to overcoming sin.
To put it another way, don’t live in sin as you used to live because you aren’t the same person that you used to be. Before, you were in Adam. Now, you are in Christ. In Adam, you were dead in sin. In Christ, you are dead to sin and alive to God. So believe and act on the basis of your new identity, not your old identity.
In the first part of verse 5, Paul states the fact that we (believers) have become united with Christ in the likeness of His death. The word “if” does not express doubt; it could be translated “since.” Verses 6 & 7 explain this further: “knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.” Paul is talking about the knowledge of what God has revealed, not the knowledge that we gain by personal experience. In other words, you will never feel crucified with Christ; it is something that you must believe because God’s Word says so. Let’s try to follow Paul’s train of thought:
When we trusted in Christ as Savior, we were united to Him. The word means, literally, to be grown together with, or grafted into Christ. An older commentary (William Sanday and Arthur Headlam, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [T & T Clark], p. 157) says, “The word exactly expresses the process by which a graft becomes united with the life of a tree.” In other words, it points to our organic, living union with Christ, in which we share His resurrection life. But in the first half of verse 5 the focus is not on sharing His life, but rather in His death. We saw this in verses 3 & 4: When Christ died, we died in Him. The perfect tense in verse 5 means that this union was a past action with ongoing results.
But why does Paul say that we have become united with Him “in the likeness of His death,” not just “in His death”? While there is debate, I think that Calvin’s explanation makes sense (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 223), that Paul differentiates between Christ’s physical death and the spiritual implications of it. We have not yet died physically, as Christ did, but we are joined to Him in the spiritual benefits of His death. Our union with Christ is very close, as “united” implies, but it is not exact. Paul comments further on the implications of this union with the likeness of Christ’s death in 6:6-7 (plus in 6:9 & 10).
Paul says (6:6), “our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with …” Things get confusing here in light of other texts where Paul talks about the “old man” and the “new man” (Eph. 2:14-16; 4:22-24; Col. 3:9-11) and texts where he tells us to put to death the deeds of the flesh (Rom. 8:12-13; Col. 3:5). In the context here “the old man” represents what we were in Adam (5:12-19). We are no longer in Adam, but now we are in Christ, who is our life (Col. 3:4). So when Paul says that “our old man was crucified with Him,” he means that what we were before we were saved died with Christ. There is a complete severance between what we were under the reign of sin and death in Adam and what we have become under the reign of grace to eternal life in Christ. Our old life has ended, as “crucified” implies.
The problem is, if our old man has been crucified, then where does my strong propensity toward sin come from? Clearly, we still have an old sin nature (sometimes called “the flesh”) within us that wars against the indwelling Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:17). And Paul commands us to put off the old man and put on the new man (Eph. 4:22-24, where most commentators agree that the infinitives have imperatival force). Why do we need to put off the old man if it already has been crucified?
Reading most commentators as they try to sort this out is thoroughly confusing! I do not claim infallibility or complete understanding here! But it seems to me that Thomas Schreiner is on target when he says (Romans [Baker], p. 318),
What we have is the already-not-yet tension that informs all of Paul’s theology. The old person has been crucified with Christ and the new person (Col. 3:10) is a reality, and yet the old person still must be resisted and its desire (Eph. 4:22) thwarted. Believers must also choose to clothe themselves with the new person that is theirs in Christ.
Or, to put it another way, in Christ our old man was crucified positionally. It is a spiritual fact, just as the fact that I am raised up and seated with Christ in the heavenly places is true positionally. But in practice, I have to count it as true by believing it and resisting my indwelling old nature when it tempts me to sin. To say that the old man “was crucified” is a vivid way of saying that positionally, its power was broken. But, practically, I have to apply that truth in the daily battle against sin and temptation.
Then what does Paul mean when he says, “in order that our body of sin might be done away with”? Again, there is much confusing discussion. The Lord makes it clear that sin originates in our hearts (Mark 7:21-23). Our physical bodies are not inherently sinful, as some ascetics have maintained, so that we should deny any physical pleasure. Rather, Paul probably uses the expression, “body of sin,” “because the body is the means by which sin is concretely accomplished” (Schreiner, p. 316). Our bodies are the means by which the sins of our hearts eventually manifest themselves. The verb translated “done away with” means to “render powerless or inoperative.”
Thus when Paul says that our old man was crucified “in order that our body of sin might be done away with,” I understand him to mean that when we believe and act upon our new position in Christ, in which our old self was crucified, we will not fulfill or act out the sinful desires that tempt us. We will “no longer be slaves to sin” (6:6b). The power of sin to control us has been broken by virtue of our union with Christ.
Verse 7 adds a word of explanation, “for he who has died is freed from sin.” The literal translation is, “for he who has died has been justified from sin,” but almost all translations and commentators take it to mean “freed” in this context. Paul shifts from “we” to “he,” so he may be citing a general illustration to support verse 6. The idea is that when a person dies, obviously he’s done with sin. Since we died positionally in Christ, sin has no jurisdiction over us. We do not have to obey it any more.
While there are a lot of difficult details in these verses, Paul’s overall point is clear: In Christ, sin’s power over us has been broken. When you come to Christ, you cannot hang onto your sin with one hand while you take hold of Christ with your other hand. You must make a distinct break with the old life. As believers we have become united with Christ in His death so that we would no longer be slaves to sin, as we all were before we came to Christ. So if you claim to be a Christian and yet you are enslaved to sin, at the very least you do not understand your new position in which your old man was crucified with Christ. Paul would ask you (6:2), “How shall we who died to sin still live in it?”
Thus far we have looked at what it means to be united with Christ in the likeness of His death. But the second half of verse 5 says, “certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection.” Paul expounds on this in 6:8-10.
Again, there is a lot of debate over the exact meaning of these verses. Let me try to explain my understanding under two headings:
Some argue vigorously that Paul’s statements about being united with Christ in His resurrection and living with Him refer to the present. Other Scriptures show that we are presently raised up with Christ (Eph. 2:6; Col. 2:12; 3:1). Also, Paul’s command (6:11) to consider yourself “alive to God in Christ Jesus” lends weight to the present aspect of sharing in Christ’s resurrection.
But the problem is, Paul uses the future tense both in verse 5 and in verse 8. Those who argue that Paul is talking about our present sharing in Christ’s resurrection argue that it is future in reference to our death with Christ. But Paul could have used present tense verbs if that were his point. Instead he twice uses the future tense. Also, his words “we believe that we shall live with Him” seem to point more toward something that is not yet completely realized.
Thus while it’s true that we are presently risen with Christ and share His life, Paul’s emphasis here seems to be on the future resurrection of our bodies, when we will experience complete victory over sin (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], pp. 371, 377). So as Leon Morris puts it (The Epistle to the Romans [Apollos/Eerdmans], p. 254), “Paul is saying that the believer lives with Christ now and that this union will be even more wonderful in the life to come.”
Here’s how this works when you face temptation. Perhaps you’re tempted to use drugs or to get drunk to escape from the pressures of life. Or, you’re tempted to go back to the sexual immorality of your old life. But you realize that in Christ, you have been crucified to that corrupt way of life. You now are united to Christ in both His death and resurrection. His new life is in you. And, someday soon, you will receive a new resurrection body that cannot sin. Since that is your certain future, why would you want to sin now? As Paul rhetorically asks (6:21), “What benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death.” So knowing and believing the truth of your present position of sharing in Christ’s death and the certain promise of living forever with Him will break the power of sin in your daily life.
Verse 9 gives the reason or basis that we believe that we will share in Christ’s resurrection. “Knowing” is a causal participle (Moo, p. 378). The thought is, “We believe that we will live with Christ because we know that He is now beyond the reach of death.” His resurrection signifies that He will never die again. “Death is no longer master over Him” (6:9).
Verse 10 explains the last phrase of verse 9: “For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.” When Jesus came to this earth, He submitted Himself to the reign of sin and death in the sense that He came to bear our sins on the cross. He had no sins of His own to bear. But death was master over Him during that time because He came to die for our sins. His death on the cross was a decisive, once and for all satisfaction of God’s wrath (Heb. 7:27; 9:12; 10:10). His victory over sin and death was complete. His resurrection put all of the terrors of sin and death behind Him once and for all.
Now, “the life He lives, He lives to God.” This does not imply that His life prior to His resurrection was not lived for God. Rather, as Leon Morris explains (p. 255), “His life is beyond the reach of death and every evil. It is a life lived positively in and for the glory of God (cf. John 17:5), no longer with the negative aspect of putting away sin.”
So the thought in verses 9 & 10 is that Christ’s death and resurrection completely and finally conquered sin and death. The promise that we will one day share completely in this victory gives us the desire and power to overcome sin right now. John Piper (“Justified to Break the Power of Sin,” on desiringgod.org) explains the practical benefit of verses 9 & 10: “Sin can’t enslave a person who is utterly confident and sure and hope-filled in the infinite happiness of life with Christ in the future.”
By this point, perhaps you’re either completely confused or you’re thinking, “All right, enough of this theoretical stuff. Let’s get to the practical side of things.” Paul does that in verse 11:
It is significant that verse 11 is the first command in Romans to this point. Paul felt it necessary to lay the extensive doctrinal foundation of chapters 1-6 before he finally says, “Now live in this way.” In other words, our Christian behavior must rest on solid doctrinal knowledge. Three times in chapter 6, Paul has mentioned knowledge: (6:3), “Or do you not know …” (6:6), “knowing this …” (6:9), “knowing that Christ …” Knowing who we are in Christ is the foundation for how we are to live in Christ.
So, Paul’s first command in Romans is (6:11), “Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” “Even so” means, “Just as Christ died definitively and finally to sin, so you should count yourselves in Him to be done with sin. Just as Christ has risen from the dead and now lives in God’s presence far removed from sin, so should you live in Him, since in the future you will live forever with Him.” “Consider” is in the present tense and means, “keep on counting it to be true.” You don’t count it to be true because you feel dead to sin and alive to God, but rather because God says that it is true. And the truest thing about you is not what you feel, but what God declares to be true. Victory over sin begins with your mind, how you think.
This isn’t just a mind game, where you tell yourself over and over that it’s true until it actually becomes true. Paul isn’t saying to deny reality by thinking positive thoughts. He isn’t saying, “Visualize yourself as being dead to sin and then you’ll act that way.” Rather, he is saying, “This is the fact of who God has made you in Christ. You are no longer in Adam, alive to sin, but dead towards God. Rather, you are now in Christ Jesus [this is just Paul’s second use of that frequent phrase in Romans], dead to sin and alive to God. Think on that truth. As you think, so you will act. So consider it over and over as often as you face temptation.” Living in light of your union with Christ is the key to overcoming sin.
When she was young, Victoria, the future queen of England, was shielded from that fact so that the knowledge of it would not spoil her. When her teacher finally did let her discover for herself that she would one day rule as queen, Victoria’s response was, “Then I will be good!” Her life from that point was controlled by her future position. She would be the queen, so she acted as a queen should act. (Adapted from Warren Wiersbe, Be Rich [Victor Books], pp. 13-14.)
In the same way, the fact that we are united with Christ in His decisive death to sin and that one day we will be raised up to live with Him eternally should cause us to proclaim, “Then I will be holy.” Counting our union with Christ in His death and resurrection to be true is the key to overcoming sin.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Many of you have seen the hilarious Bob Newhart routine where he is a psychologist and a woman comes for counsel because she is afraid of being buried alive in a box. (If you haven’t seen it, watch it on You Tube when you need a good laugh.) Newhart’s counsel for her phobia, plus several other problems, consists of two words: “Stop it!” He screams it at her over and over, “Just stop it!” She tries to bring up how her mother treated her as a child, but Newhart says, “No, we don’t go there. Just stop it!”
In some ways, Paul’s command to those who are struggling with life-dominating sins sounds kind of like Bob Newhart’s counsel: “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts” (6:12). In other words, “Stop it!” Then after telling us to obey God, he gives a blanket promise (6:14a): “For sin shall not be master over you ….” It’s pretty clear: “Stop sinning and obey God because sin shall not be master over you.” Got it?
But as all of us know, overcoming stubborn, life-dominating sins is not as easy as just stopping it. Even though we often can see that these sins are having a destructive effect in our lives, we keep falling into them. So how do we stop it? How do we experience on a consistent basis the promise that sin “ain’t gonna reign no more”?
As I said last week, I’ve been struggling to understand and apply the truths of Romans 6 for 45 years now, and it’s still not easy. So I’m not suggesting in this message, “Take these three Bible verses and you’ll feel fine in the morning.” You’re going to have to grapple with these truths until they become part of the fabric of your daily thinking and practice. My aim is to try to further your understanding and help direct you on the path. But you need actively to engage with this chapter because if you don’t, your sin will destroy you. It’s a life and death battle! In a nutshell, Paul says:
Don’t let sin reign by following your lusts, but give yourself to God to live righteously under His grace.
Let’s work through these verses under four headings:
I am basing this observation on the opening word of verse 12, “Therefore.” Therefore shows that the commands in 6:12-13 rest on the truths that Paul has set forth in the first five and a half chapters of Romans. If you have not understood and personally applied those truths, it would be as futile to apply the commands of 6:12-13 as it was for the woman in Bob Newhart’s office to just stop it.
We’ve spent 32 messages in Romans so far, but let me recap Paul’s main points. First, the universal human problem is, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). Thankfully, God did not leave us under His judgment. He provided a way to preserve His justice and yet to justify sinners. He sent His own Son, Jesus Christ, to bear the penalty that we deserved. God now graciously justifies the ungodly person who does not work for salvation, but rather believes in Jesus as his or her sin-bearer, thus reconciling us to God. Formerly, we were all identified with Adam in his sin. But now, having received God’s free gift, we are united to Christ in His death to sin and resurrection life, which we will fully experience when He returns. In the meanwhile, whenever we are tempted to sin, we must “consider [ourselves] to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (6:11).
Thus, as John Murray explains (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 227), to say to a slave, “Don’t behave as a slave,” is to mock his slavery. But to say to a freed slave, “Don’t behave as a slave” is to encourage him to act in light of his new freedom. To say to a person outside of Christ, “Stop sinning” is futile. To say it to a person whom Christ has freed from sin is meaningful and helpful. The commands that Paul gives in 6:12-13 make no sense unless you are in Christ by virtue of being justified by faith alone.
Rom. 6:12-13a: “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness ….” I’ll try to explain these verses under four headings:
Paul’s command in 6:12 shows that we were on target in 6:1-11 when we concluded that being identified with Christ in His death so that we are freed from sin does not mean that we are now sinlessly perfect or that we’re immune to sin. Believers still feel strong desires (“lusts”) for sin. When sin comes knocking, we don’t automatically slam the door and say, “I’m not interested!” If that were so, Paul would not have given the command, “Do not let sin reign.” Being dead to sin is not a feeling that you will achieve someday when you are spiritually mature. It is a spiritual truth that you must believe and act on, often in opposition to your feelings and lusts. It is true by virtue of your union or identification with Jesus Christ. But that union with Christ does not eradicate the lusts of the flesh.
We tend to think of sin as a benign force that we can manage and control. “If you eat the fruit, you will be like God.” “Well, I’ve always wanted to be like God. That’s a good personal goal, isn’t it?” Satan presented sin as if it were a good thing that would assist Eve in her quest for happiness. But Paul personifies sin as an evil tyrant that will reign over you and lead to death (6:21, 23) if you let it. It’s like living with a little bit of cancer. You can’t do it, because the cancer will spread and kill you. You’ve got to eradicate it all.
In the same way, you can’t tolerate a little bit of sin or think that you can use it safely to pursue your happiness. Men, you can’t tolerate a little bit of pornography. Jesus said that if you do, you will spend eternity in hell (Matt. 5:27-30). I wouldn’t have put it so strongly. That seems to go against my theology that we’re saved by grace through faith alone. But Jesus said that if you do not cut the lust out of your life, you’ll spend eternity in hell. And Paul seems to line up with Jesus here in Romans 6 when he says that if you are a slave of sin, the outcome will be death, which is opposed to eternal life (6:20-21, 23).
On the news this week, they showed a fisherman holding a small shark that he had caught that was still alive and squirming in his hand. Suddenly, it turned and took a chunk out of his shoulder. Sin is like that shark. As long as it’s still alive in you, its aim is not to help you, but to destroy you.
Paul commands, “Do not let sin reign in your mortal body.” He adds that you should not present “the members of your body to sin.” Also, several times in chapter 7 (verses 5, 18, 23, 24) Paul makes it sound as if sin resides in our bodies.
But we need to be very careful here. An early heresy (Gnosticism) taught that the body and all matter are evil, whereas the spirit is good. This led to one of two extremes: Some treated the body harshly, denying themselves proper food, warmth, and other comforts of life. They advocated abstaining from all pleasure, including that of marital relations, as the path to spiritual growth. But others reasoned, “If my body is already evil, then it doesn’t matter what I do with it. It doesn’t touch my spirit.” So they indulged the flesh and justified it with their twisted logic.
The Bible, however, affirms that our bodies are good, that physical pleasure within the boundaries of God’s Word is to be enjoyed, and that we are to use our bodies to glorify God (Prov. 5:15-19; 1 Cor. 6:20; 10:31; 1 Tim. 4:3-4; 6:17). Harsh treatment of the body is “of no value against fleshly indulgence” (Col. 2:23).
Therefore, it is most likely that when Paul refers here to “your mortal body,” he is looking at the whole person in terms of his interaction with the world (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 383; Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], p. 323). This is supported by the parallelism in verse 13, where Paul says not to present the members of your body to sin, but in the next line says to present yourselves to God. The “members of your body” seems to be synonymous with “yourselves.” And the “lusts” of verse 12 are not limited to bodily desires, such as the desires for food and sex. They also include sins of the heart, such as envy, jealousy, anger, greed, and pride.
So Paul uses the terms “mortal body” and “members of your body” because the way these lusts of the heart manifest themselves is through our physical bodies. Leon Morris (The Epistle to the Romans [Apollos/Eerdmans], p. 257, italics his) explains, “Paul is not arguing that the body is the cause of sin, but that it is the organ through which sin manifests itself, so that believers obey it.”
Paul adds the word mortal to emphasize the fact that we all are going to die in a few short years. Sin is pleasurable for a season (Heb. 11:25), but it leads to eternal death (Rom. 6:23). The joy of being reconciled to God and the rewards of heaven are eternal. Thus it would be foolish to indulge the lusts of your mortal body for a few short years but lose the eternal joys of heaven. Rather, use your body to glorify God (1 Cor. 6:20).
“Do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness” (6:13a). The word translated instruments can refer to tools or instruments, but elsewhere in the New Testament, it always means weapons (John 18:3; Rom. 13:12; 2 Cor. 6:7; 10:4). And so most likely here Paul had in mind either giving your bodily parts over to Satan to use for weapons of unrighteousness, or giving them to God as weapons of righteousness.
The picture, then, is that the struggle against sin is mortal combat against an enemy that seeks to destroy you (Eph. 6:10-20). Bishop Lightfoot (Notes on Epistles of St. Paul [Baker], p. 297; I changed his Greek into English) put it this way: “Sin is regarded as a sovereign (do not let it reign, ver. 12), who demands the military service of subjects (that you obey, ver. 12), levies their quota of arms (weapons of unrighteousness, ver. 13), and gives them their soldier’s-pay of death (wages, ver. 23).” Picture yourself in combat with an assailant who has broken into your house. As he wrestles with you, he drops his gun. You pick it up and hand it back to him. Duh! That’s how stupid it is when you give your body to sin as a weapon for unrighteousness!
Thus, to apply these commands, you must understand and personally apply the truths of Romans 1-6:11. Also, realize that sin is a tyrant that will reign over you if you let it do so.
In Romans 6:1-11, Paul has appealed to the mind (“knowing,” 6:3, 6, 9) and to the heart (“consider,” or “reckon,” 6:11, which depends on faith, which comes from the heart, Rom. 10:10). Now (in 6:12-13) he appeals to the will. He is saying, “Stop sinning and start obeying,” but this appeal to the will rests on the knowledge of who you now are in Christ and on believing that truth when you face temptation. Then you must choose to act on it. Three thoughts:
Paul directs the command to us and he doesn’t say, “Just let go and let God.” Rather, to stop sinning you must take aggressive action to deny its attempt to rule your life. This is where “just say no” is a valid motto. “Stop it!” You can obey that command because in Christ, the power of sin has been broken.
Years ago, I read about a young man who professed to be a Christian, but he was enslaved to some sin. He had been to many counselors, and they spent hours trying to help him analyze his past and trying various techniques, but nothing had worked. He shared this tale of woe with a campus worker and finally asked, “What do you think I should do?” The campus worker replied, “I think you should stop doing it.” The young man was stunned. He said, “In all these years, no one told me to stop sinning.” He didn’t realize that that was an option!
But isn’t that what Paul is telling us when he says, “Flee immorality” (1 Cor. 6:18)? Or, “Flee from idolatry” (1 Cor. 10:14). Or, “Flee from youthful lusts” (2 Tim. 2:22). Fleeing is the opposite of hanging out with sin, let alone welcoming into your life. If movies defile you and put tempting thoughts in your brain, flee movies. If porn on the Internet tempts you, either put some big fences up so that you don’t go near the edge or flee the Internet. This isn’t rocket science!
“Present yourself to God.” The first use of that verb with regard to sin is in the present tense: “do not go on presenting.” But the second instance, with reference to God, is in the aorist tense, which leads some authors to emphasize that this is a once-for-all commitment. But Douglas Moo cautions against putting too much emphasis on the variation of verb tense here. He says (p. 385), “The aorist imperative often lacks any special force, being used simply to command that an action take place—without regard for the duration, urgency, or frequency of the action.” He suggests that since not giving ourselves to sin is constantly necessary, so giving ourselves to God as our rightful ruler must be repeated often.
The verb, present, does not have the passive meaning of yield, but the more active meaning of give in service to (Moo, p. 384, note 168). This implies that our main reason for wanting to overcome sin should not be just our own happiness, but rather the glory of the God who sent His Son to redeem us. He bought us with His blood; therefore, we must glorify Him with our bodies (1 Cor. 6:19-20). We now present ourselves to God as willing conscripts in His army for His purpose and glory. We will be happy when we give ourselves to God, but our primary aim is to glorify Him.
This is a big problem with the AA and 12-Step programs: they never dethrone self. God, “however you conceive Him to be,” is there to help you overcome your addictions so that you will be happy. But He is not presented as the Lord who loved you and bought you out of the slave-market of sin. Your motive for gaining the victory over sin should be to please the loving Lord who bought you with His blood. Give your bodily members to Him as weapons for righteousness.
Paul says (6:13b), “Present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead.” You were dead in your sins, alienated from God as His enemy. But He made you alive in Christ through the new birth. This goes back to our first point, that to apply these commands, you must first understand and apply the truth of the gospel of justification by faith alone, which Paul expounds on in chapters 1-5. You must no longer be in Adam, under the reign of sin and death, but rather be in Christ, having received new life by His grace.
Unbelievers can become more outwardly moral by self effort. But it’s like putting a tuxedo on a pig. It might look nice for a while, but you haven’t changed the pig’s nature. The first mud hole that it sees will be too tempting. To overcome the temptation, that pig needs a brand new nature. To overcome temptation on the heart level, so that it doesn’t work its way out through your bodily members, you must be alive from the dead through faith in Christ.
Thus, to apply these commands, you must understand and apply the truths of Romans 1-6:11. Sin is a tyrant that will reign over us if we let it do so. But in Christ, we now have the power to say no to sin and yes to God. Finally,
I could have devoted an entire message to verse 14, but I can only comment on it briefly. The subject of law and grace is one of the most difficult topics in all of Scripture. But Paul adds this verse to give us the encouragement and incentive to fulfill the commands of 6:12-13 (Murray, p. 228). The first part of the verse is a promise, not a command: “For sin shall not be master over you.” The second half explains the promise, “For you are not under law but under grace.”
The promise means that if you are not experiencing consistent victory over sin, either at worst you are not a genuine Christian or at best you do not understand the truths of Romans 6. While genuine Christians do fall into sin, sometimes into gross sins, they cannot remain there. They will be as unhappy in sin as a fish out of water. They will be miserable until they get right again with God. But there is no such thing as a Christian who lives consistently under the lordship of sin. Christians live under the lordship of Christ.
The explanation in the second half of 6:14 shows that grace has the power to conquer sin that the law lacks. This runs contrary to legalists who think that you’ve got to impose the law to keep people from sinning. Paul says just the opposite: the law brought the knowledge of sin (3:20; 7:7). “The Law came in so that the transgression would increase” (5:20). The Law arouses our sinful passions to bear fruit for death (7:5, 8-11). The law commands, but it contains no power to obey. But grace frees us from condemnation, motivates us by God’s undeserved love, and empowers us by His Spirit, whom He freely gives to all who trust in Christ.
When I was in high school, I was not walking very closely with the Lord. My friends were not believers and I had many temptations to get drunk or get involved in sex. But my parents loved me, trusted me, and gave me a lot of freedom. I remember thinking sometimes when I was tempted, “I can’t do that or I would hurt Mom and Dad.” That’s how God’s grace works—you want to please the One who loved you and gave Himself up for you (Gal. 2:20). How can you love the evil that put your Savior on the cross?
If you’ve never experienced God’s sin-conquering grace, He invites sinners to come to the cross and receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (5:8). When you receive God’s grace in Christ, the power of sin is broken. In Christ, you can just stop it! And you can present yourself to God as your new Master, who brought you from death to life. You can say no to sin and yes to the God who loved you and gave His Son to redeem you from your sins.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Years ago Bob Dylan wrote a song, “Gotta Serve Somebody,” (© 1979, Special Rider Music) with the refrain,
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody,
It may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.
I don’t know if Dylan was inspired by the words of Jesus or by our text, but his song certainly reflects the truth of our text. Paul says that either you are a slave of sin or you are a slave of obedience (6:16) or righteousness (6:18, 19) or God (6:22).
Unbelievers mistakenly think that they are free when they cast off God and follow their own lusts, but they are “slaves of corruption” (2 Pet. 2:19). God has freed us from sin (Rom. 6:18), but not to live as we please. Rather, He frees us from sin to make us “slaves of righteousness.” You gotta serve somebody!
C. H. Spurgeon observed (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 25:374), “Free will I have often heard of, but I have never seen it. I have met with will, and plenty of it, but it has either been led captive by sin or held in blessed bonds of grace.” So the choice is not, “Should I give up my freedom so that I can submit to God?” Rather, it is, “Should I serve sin or should I serve God?” (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 399.) You gotta serve somebody! Paul is telling us:
Either you are a slave of sin, resulting in death, or you are a slave of obedience, resulting in righteousness.
Clearly, Paul’s theme is “slavery.” The words slave or enslaved occur eight times in 6:15-23 and in every verse except 15, 21, & 23. Also, obedience, obedient, and obey occur four times. And so the issue here is, whose slave are you? Do you obey sin or God? There are no other options. Let’s work through the text under three headings:
Romans 6:15: “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!” This verse is similar in many ways, and yet different, from 6:1-2a, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be!” There Paul was responding to the possible logical conclusion to his statement (5:20), “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” The wrong conclusion would be, “So, let’s sin a lot so that we get a lot of grace!”
But in 6:15, Paul is responding to a potential critic who would abuse his statement (6:14), “you are not under law but under grace.” This critic would have said, “If we’re not under law but under grace, then we’re free to sin without any worry of condemnation!” So in this case we don’t sin so that grace may abound, but rather because grace has replaced the law. But Paul responds, as he did in verse 2, with the strongest possible condemnation: “May it never be!”
As I said last week, the subject of law and grace is one of the most difficult theological issues in the Bible and I cannot resolve all the issues here. But it has often been taken to two extremes that we must avoid. Some have feared that if we emphasize God’s grace too much, people will fall into sin and licentiousness. And so they virtually put people back under the law by emphasizing rules for what they consider to be holy living. Often these are not biblical commands, but rather conservative cultural norms or manmade rules propped up by Bible verses taken out of context. Invariably, legalists do not focus on sins of the heart, such as pride or a lack of love for God, but rather on outward “sins” that easily can be judged. The Pharisees and the Judaizers were the leading proponents of this false, superficial “spirituality” (Matt. 23; Gal. 6:13).
On the other end of the spectrum are those who have concluded, “If we’re under grace, then sin doesn’t matter.” These folks view God as a loving, tolerant, nice old guy in the sky who would never judge anyone. So they mistake grace to mean that God is not concerned about our sin. This leads to licentiousness.
It’s important to understand that God’s true grace is not the balance point between legalism and licentiousness. Rather, legalism and licentiousness are two sides of the same coin whose operating principle is the flesh. The legalist, acting in the flesh, takes pride in his religious practices. He condemns those who do not match up to his standards of righteousness, while he congratulates himself on his performance. He imagines that by keeping the law, he can commend himself to God. But he is operating in the flesh. He is not examining his heart before God. And it’s obvious that the licentious person is operating in the flesh, giving in to the lusts of the flesh and justifying it by equating grace with tolerance for sin. So both legalism and licentiousness stem from the sinful flesh.
God’s grace is opposed to both of these, not as their balance point, but as a completely different way of relating to God. As we’ve seen, preaching God’s grace always exposes us to the charge of licentiousness from the legalists. It happened to Jesus (Luke 5:29-32; Matt. 11:19) and to Paul (Rom. 3:8). It will happen to us. But those making the charge do not understand grace at all, as Paul’s strong reaction shows: “May it never be!”
If we have responded to the good news that God freely justifies the ungodly through faith alone, apart from works (Rom. 4:5), then we will hate the sin that put our Savior on the cross. We are now identified with Him in His death to sin and resurrection to new life. That new life of Christ within us manifests itself in obedience to God (1 John 3:9). As Paul shows in 6:19, lawlessness is the mark of the slave of sin. Righteousness is the mark of the one who has received God’s grace.
And so you can test yourself by this: If you think that being under grace means that you are free to sin or that you can just shrug off your sin as no big deal, you do not understand God’s grace. If, motivated by God’s love and grace in giving His Son, you now hate and fight your sin and strive to be more obedient, then you understand grace. God’s grace instructs or trains us “to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age” (Titus 2:11, 12). Paul wants to make sure that we understand that the proper result of God’s grace is to make us slaves of righteousness, not lawlessness.
Paul again appeals to knowledge, in this case the common knowledge of a general example (6:16): “Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?” In that culture, sometimes a man had to sell himself into slavery because of financial troubles. Once you did that, you were a slave of the one that you sold yourself to. You had to obey him as your master.
Paul’s point here, though, is not so much that a slave had to obey his master, but rather that the master you obey shows whose slave you are (Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans [Apollos/Eerdmans], p. 261). If you obey sin, it shows that you’re a slave of sin, headed toward eternal death. If you obey God, it shows that you’re His slave, resulting in righteousness (although Paul doesn’t directly say that we are enslaved to God until 6:22). If there is a change of masters, you obey your new master. So the master you obey shows whose slave you now are.
Why does Paul contrast being a slave of sin with being a slave of obedience? We might have expected him here to say, “a slave of God.” He uses obedience because he wants to make it clear that not being under the law does not in any way imply that we are free to sin. Being under grace means that we present ourselves as slaves for obedience to God. This obedience is not the means to salvation, but rather the result of it. Thus, while slavery to sin leads to death, slavery to obedience leads to righteousness (not, life). We are not saved by our obedience, but rather we are saved by faith that results in a life of obedience (Eph. 2:8-10).
I have a hunch that if they had to describe themselves in terms of verse 16, many professing Christians would put themselves somewhere in the middle. They would say, “I’m not really a slave of sin, but it would probably be a stretch to say that I’m a slave of obedience. I’m kind of in both camps.”
But Paul doesn’t give us that option. It’s very clear: Either Christ is your master and you obey Him or sin is your master and you obey it. There is no middle ground. You can’t keep one foot on the dock and the other foot on the boat. Either you’re a slave of obedience to Christ or you’re a slave of sin. You can’t have both Christ and sin as your master.
If that sounds extreme, keep in mind that Paul is echoing the teaching of Jesus. Jesus said (Matt. 6:24), “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” In Matthew 7:13-14, Jesus said that there are two and only two gates: the narrow gate that leads to life and the broad gate that leads to destruction. There are two types of trees: the good tree that bears good fruit and the bad tree that bears bad fruit (Matt. 7:17-19). There are two kinds of builders who build two kinds of houses: Wise builders build on the rock; foolish builders build on the sand (Matt. 7:24-27). The wise builders represent those who hear Jesus’ words and obey them. The foolish builders hear Jesus’ words but do not obey.
Thus everybody serves somebody or something. You can tell who a person serves by his behavior or actions. Those who live in sin are the slaves of sin. Those who live in obedience are the slaves of Jesus Christ. Those who are the slaves of sin are not under grace and are heading for eternal death. Those who are slaves of Christ have tasted His grace, are growing in righteousness, and are heading for eternal life. Are you a slave of sin or a slave of Christ?
How does a person move from being a slave of sin to being a slave of God and righteousness?
Romans 6:17-18: “But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.”
Paul here describes the great change that came over the Roman believers when God saved them. These changes are true of everyone whom God has saved. They are radical changes, not minor. From being slaves of sin, they became obedient from the heart to sound teaching. From being in bondage to sin, they were freed to become slaves of righteousness. Thus there was a change of lordship, from Satan’s domain of sin to God’s domain of righteousness. There was a change of thinking, so that now they submit to biblical truth. There was a change of heart, so that they are now willing and glad slaves of God; they love Him and hate their former master. There was a change of will, so that now they obey God’s standards of righteousness, not sin. Four quick thoughts:
Slaves of sin are not able to free themselves by their own efforts. In fact, slaves of sin often do not realize that they are slaves and they resent anyone telling them that they are. Jesus told the Jews who had [superficially] believed in Him (John 8:31-32), “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Their response was (8:33), “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, ‘You will become free’?”
That’s incredible! Israel had been enslaved in Egypt for 400 years. Repeatedly in their history, they had fallen under oppressive invaders (e.g., the Book of Judges). The northern tribes had fallen to Assyria. The southern tribes fell to Babylon. Later they came under the cruel reign of Antiochus Epiphanes. As they spoke, Israel was under the thumb of Rome. And yet they claimed that they had never been enslaved! But Jesus goes on to make it clear that He was talking about slavery to sin. To be freed from that cruel master, the Son would have to make them free.
In our text (6:18), Paul uses the passive verb, “freed from sin,” to show that God alone can free us. It’s not a joint project where He gives us a boost and we contribute our share. This is also seen in that Paul says (6:17), “Thanks be to God.” He did not say, “Thanks be to God, but you guys deserve some credit, too, for your part.” No, we were enslaved to sin and loving it. We hated the light because it exposed our evil deeds (John 3:19-20). So when God graciously freed us from sin, He gets all the thanks and glory. As Paul puts it (1 Cor. 1:26-31), we are saved because God chose us as foolish, weak, lowly, and despised sinners so that He might shame the world’s wise, mighty, and exalted, so that no one may boast before the Lord. Salvation is totally God’s doing, not ours.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones has a chapter in his Romans series on verse 17 plus another chapter in Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure ([Eerdmans], pp. 51-62). I can only skim the surface, so I refer you to his many excellent insights that I have gleaned from.
First, note that God changes us by bringing our minds under the teaching of His Word. Scholars debate over why Paul says “form [example, pattern] of teaching,” rather than just “teaching.” We can’t be dogmatic, but my guess from the context is that he is contrasting his teaching of the gospel of grace with the false teaching of both the legalists and the antinomians. In other words, he is referring to the kind of teaching that he has set forth in Romans to this point, and especially to the bottom line test that sound doctrine leads to godly behavior.
But God does not just change our minds to conform to sound teaching. Also, He changes our hearts. Some scholars can study the Bible in the original languages and dissect it like a biologist dissects a specimen. But the truth has not affected their hearts. But as Jonathan Edwards soundly argues in his Treatise on Religious Affections, The Works of Jonathan Edwards [Banner of Truth], 1:236), “True religion, in great part, consists in holy affections.” That is to say, God changes our hearts and our desires. We must understand the truth with our minds, but also our hearts must rejoice in and willingly embrace the truth.
The evidence of this change of mind and heart is that our wills gladly obey the truth. To be “obedient from the heart” is not grudging, outward obedience, but cheerful, inner obedience. It is obedience on the heart level, where God alone sees, not outward obedience to impress others with how spiritual we are.
You would expect Paul to say that the teaching was committed to the Christians (the old King James Bible wrongly translated it that way). But the proper translation is, “to which you were committed.” This lines up with the slavery analogy that Paul uses here. The idea is that becoming a Christian means being put under the authority of God’s Word (Moo, p. 401). We don’t sit in judgment of the Word, but the Word sits in judgment on us. A person who has come under God’s grace in Christ submits to God’s Word. John Calvin, in a rare reference to his own conversion, described it as God “subdued and brought my mind to a teachable frame” (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker reprint], preface to the Psalms, p. xl).
Verse 18 is not an exhortation (that comes in 6:19), but a statement of fact: “And having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.” Paul here sums up his argument from 6:16-17, which refutes the false charge of 6:15, that if we are not under law but under grace, we can shrug off our sin. As in verse 16, Paul makes it clear that there are two and only two options. Either you are enslaved to sin or you are enslaved to righteousness. Also, this is true of all Christians (Lloyd-Jones, Romans: The New Man [Zondervan], p. 222). It is not just true of some Christians who have had a dramatic spiritual experience to free them from sin. It is true of all who used to be in Adam, but now are in Christ. They have been freed from sin and became slaves of righteousness.
This does not mean (as Lloyd-Jones goes on to point out) that we have become sinlessly perfect. Neither does it mean that we are free from the old sin nature or that we will never be tempted by sin. Rather, it means that the power of sin over us has been broken, so that we no longer live under sin as our master. We do not obey sin as the normal course of our daily lives. Rather, we now obey righteousness. “That means,” says Lloyd-Jones (p. 225), “that we have come under the power and control and influence of righteousness.” Formerly, we served sin. We obeyed its desires and urges. But now, we serve righteousness. We obey God and His Word. The irony is that true freedom is not freedom to sin; rather, true freedom is slavery to God and His righteousness.
I intended to cover verse 19 in this message, but it will have to wait till next time. I close with a story and a question. The story is about a bazaar in a village in India. A farmer had brought in a covey of quail. Each bird had a string tied around its foot with the other end tied to a ring on an upright stick. The quail walked around and around in a circle, held captive by that string. No one wanted to buy any quail until a devout Hindu Brahman came along. His religious respect for all life and his compassion for these birds led him to ask the price of the quail. Then he said to the merchant, “I want to buy them all.” After he paid the money, he ordered the merchant, “Now, set them all free.” The merchant was surprised, but the Brahman insisted: “Cut the strings and set them all free.”
The farmer cut the strings, but the quail kept marching around and around in a circle. Finally, he had to shoo them off. But even then, they landed a short distance away and resumed marching in a circle, as they had done when they were tied to the stick.
God didn’t free you from sin so that you would keep going in circles as if you were still bound to it. He freed you from sin so that you would become a slave of obedience to Him, resulting in righteousness. You’ve gotta serve somebody. The question is: Who are you serving—sin or God?
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
If you’re a Christian, you resolutely want to win over sin so that your life will glorify your Savior, who loved you enough to go to the cross while you were still an ungrateful rebel. Sin always dishonors the Lord. A holy life glorifies Him. Sin disrupts fellowship with the Lord. A holy life allows us to enjoy sweet communion with Him. Since the aim of all Christians is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, all Christians want to win over sin.
The big question is, how do we gain consistent victory over the sin that so easily trips us up? Our text provides some solid answers to this crucial question. It’s not the complete answer, in that Paul does not mention the role of the Holy Spirit here. He will get to that in chapter 8. But he does give us some helpful strategies for the daily battle that we all face against temptation and sin.
The point of Romans 6 is to show that justification by grace through faith alone does not result in continuing sin, as Paul’s critics alleged, but rather in sanctification. From 6:15-23 Paul uses the analogy of slavery to respond to the charge that his teaching that we are not under law but under grace would lead to sin. In 6:19, he commands us to present our members as slaves to righteousness. Then (6:20-23) he gives the reasons why we should obey this command. When we were slaves of sin, we were free in regard to righteousness (6:20). But where did that get us? We had no benefit from our shameful deeds, which were only heading us toward death (6:21). But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, we gain the benefits of sanctification, with eternal life as the outcome (6:22). Verse 23 sums it up by contrasting the wages of sin, which is death, with God’s free gift of eternal life.
In these verses, Paul tells us…
To win over sin, give yourself as a slave to righteousness in view of your spiritual past, present, and future.
As we saw in 6:15-18, Paul gives two and only two options: Either you are enslaved to sin and free with regard to righteousness, resulting in death; or, you are freed from sin and enslaved to God, resulting in sanctification and eternal life. There is no middle ground. There is no place for a person who says, “Jesus is my Savior, but He isn’t my Lord.” There are two and only two masters and you must choose: Will you continue as a slave of sin (the default mode for all of us by birth)? Or, will you submit to Jesus as Lord and give yourself as a slave of righteousness?
Romans 6:19: “I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.”
Before we consider Paul’s command, what does he mean when he says that he is “speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh”? In the context, he does not seem to be rebuking his readers. Rather, he is apologizing in the middle of his extended slavery analogy. He’s saying in effect, “As frail human beings, we need analogies and illustrations of spiritual truth, but often these are imperfect.” Paul realizes that many of his readers are slaves and that slavery is an imperfect analogy, in that there are many repugnant aspects of human slavery that do not apply to our relationship with the Lord. But in other ways, it’s a useful analogy, in that God has bought us with the blood of Christ and so we belong to Him and owe Him total, unquestioning obedience.
“For” goes on to explain the valid part of the analogy, namely, that just as formerly we presented ourselves as slaves to sin, so now we should present ourselves as slaves to righteousness. “Present” repeats Paul’s command in 6:13, “present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments [weapons] of righteousness to God.” The verb “present” means “to give oneself as a servant or slave.” Douglas Moo (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 404) explains Paul’s point in 6:19: “He thus makes clear that Christians should serve righteousness with all the single-minded dedication that characterized their pre-Christian service of such ‘idols’ as self, money, lust, pleasure, and power.” Since we repeatedly gave ourselves to those false gods, so we now must repeatedly give ourselves to serve God and righteousness. (Moo, p. 385, argues that this is the force of the aorist tense here.)
Practically, there are two things to keep in mind as you learn to obey Paul’s command here. First, as we saw last time, you “gotta serve somebody,” so when you’re tempted, ask yourself, “Whose slave do I want to be?” There are only two options. Do you want to serve sin, which will drag you further and further into impurity, defilement, and ultimate destruction? Or, do you want to be a slave of God and righteousness?
If you go the slave of sin route, it heads toward death (6:21). Since Paul contrasts death with eternal life (6:23), he means that a life of enslavement to sin leads to eternal spiritual death, or hell (Rev. 20:14). Spiritual death is the justly earned wage of a life of slavery to sin. Eternal life, on the other hand, is not the wage earned by righteousness; it is God’s free gift. But believers who have received God’s free gift of eternal life are characterized by being slaves of righteousness. You can tell where they’re heading (eternal life) by their growing life of holiness (“sanctification,” 6:22). So when you’re tempted, ask yourself, “Whose slave do I want to be?”
Second, keep in mind that Paul is describing a process, not a once and for all decision that catapults you into a state of total sanctification, where sin no longer tempts you. Some wrongly teach that you should seek for a dramatic spiritual experience that will transport you beyond sin and temptation. They promise that those who experience this spiritual “secret” will be free from the battles with the flesh that the rest of us unenlightened Christians struggle with. If you will just learn the secret of “letting go and letting God,” your Christian life will be one of effortless, continual fellowship with Christ. So goes the pitch, but it is not the biblical picture. Sanctification is a lifelong process that requires a daily battle against sin and temptation.
Verse 19 shows that the process works in both directions. Either you turn down the fork in the road labeled “slaves of sin,” which leads you down into more and more impurity and lawlessness. Or you turn up the road marked “slaves of righteousness,” which causes you to grow more and more like Christ as you obey Him as your new Master. Frankly, neither path is a smooth, paved highway. Picture them both more like rough, four-wheel-drive roads, where you’re going over and around boulders and through rushing streams. But the road marked “slaves to impurity” doesn’t get you where you want to go, even after all the trouble of driving it. It leads to death. The road marked “slaves of righteousness” ends up in heaven.
This means that if you’re not moving in the direction of holiness, you need to examine whether you are truly saved. Do you love God more now than you used to? Do you hate your own sin more and more? Do you love others more, as seen in laying down your rights to serve them? Do you see the fruit of the Spirit more in your daily life? “Test yourself to see if you are in the faith” (2 Cor. 13:5a). The first step in winning over sin is to present yourself as a slave to righteousness.
To show why you should present yourself as a slave of righteousness, Paul reminds us of the other option, which we all were following (6:20-21): “For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death.”
Even if you were raised in a Christian family, there was a point in your life at which you were a slave of sin. Since the fall of Adam and Eve into sin, the entire human race is born enslaved to sin. Maybe you want to shout, “But that’s not fair! I didn’t choose to be born in sin!” But even though you were born as a slave to sin, it is not an unwilling enslavement. Unbelievers sin because they want to sin. They like sinning. Even when they know that they are addicted to drugs, alcohol, pornography, homosexuality, or whatever the sin may be, and even though they know that these sins are causing huge problems, they keep doing them because they like sinning. To be delivered from sin, God has to give you a new nature through the new birth. Otherwise, you will just keep doing what you’ve always liked doing, namely, sinning.
There seems to be a touch of humor or irony in 6:20. Those who do not want to submit to God claim that they are now free and they don’t want to give up their freedom. They protest, “I want to be free to have sex with whomever I choose! I want to be free to get drunk or use drugs! I want to be free to lust over sexy women! I don’t need religion taking away my fun and telling me how to live!” But Paul says, “Yes, such folks are free from righteousness all right! It doesn’t even blip across the radar screen to tell them which way to go! But don’t let it escape your attention that they are not free people. Rather, they are slaves of sin.”
When you gave yourself to impurity and lawlessness, it did not satisfy your needs. It only made you crave more, so you committed worse and worse sins. To feed your lust with a little bit of porn is like pouring gas on a raging fire. It doesn’t alleviate your lust; it only burns stronger. Slaves of sin do not manage their sin for their own enjoyment. Rather, it is a cruel tyrant that dominates and destroys them.
So in 6:21, Paul asks us before we yield to sin to stop and think about what benefits we got out of sin when we were its slaves. What did you gain from having sin as your master? His implied answer is, nothing at all. In fact, the evil tyrant of sin was destroying you and leading toward death. So why yield to sin now? I have read about pastors who got arrested for soliciting sex over the Internet with underage girls. What were they thinking that they would gain from that? If they had only stopped long enough to think about the “benefits” of sin, including the shame, maybe they would not have yielded to the temptation.
Before we leave verse 21, let me also say that every Christian has things from the past of which you are now ashamed. What should you do when those things pop into your mind? First, let the memory of those sins humble you so that you deal graciously with fellow sinners. You were once a slave of sin, so don’t be self-righteous and judgmental toward those who are still slaves of sin. Rather, point them to God’s abundant grace in Christ for sinners. Second, thank God for loving you in spite of your sin and for sending Christ to die for your sins. Third, be on guard against falling back into those old sins. We are not invulnerable! Once you have yielded to a sin, it will always hold a powerful attraction, even when you’re enjoying fellowship with Christ. So be on guard!
Thus to win over sin, present yourself to God as a slave to righteousness. Remember your shameful past as a slave of sin.
Romans 6:22: “But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.” There are four things to note about verse 22, but I’ll save the fourth one for verse 23, where it’s repeated.
“But now”! Those words signal the great change that God brought about when he took you from the reign of sin and death and placed you in Christ, under the reign of grace through righteousness (5:21). You were a slave of sin, but now you have been freed from sin. Paul often draws this sharp contrast between our former life and what God has done for us in Christ. In Ephesians 2:12, he describes the sad former plight of the Gentiles: They were “excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” Verse 13 shows the great change: “But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” He does the same thing in Ephesians 5:8: “For you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light.”
I read of an old black preacher who used to say, “We ain’t what we want to be. We ain’t what we gonna be. But, thank God, we ain’t what we was!” If you have met Christ as Savior, there is a huge “but now” in your life that God has made!
The command of 6:19 rests on the fact of 6:18, which is repeated in 6:22: God freed you from sin and made you a slave of righteousness in Jesus Christ. This is your new position in Christ. God did it for you through His grace and power. It is true of all Christians, not just of some who have attained a higher level of spirituality. As Paul repeatedly states (6:2-8), in Christ we all have died to sin and have been raised to newness of life. Therefore, be what you now are. Live in light of your new position in Christ.
The illustration that we considered was a man who had been born a slave and lived as a slave for over 50 years. But then President Lincoln declared all slaves to be free men. This former slave’s new position is that he is free from his old master, but now he had to live each day like a free man. It required a radical refocusing of his mind and the will to believe this new truth about himself. Even so, God has declared us to be in Christ, identified with Him in His death to sin and resurrection to new life. Our present victory over sin depends on counting that to be true each time we’re faced with temptation.
Satan often paints the picture that a life of sin is one of freedom and pleasure, whereas a life of holiness is one of bondage and misery. What a lie! A life of sin destroys fellowship with the gracious, kind, and loving Heavenly Father. Sin destroys loving human relationships, which can be the source of much comfort and encouragement. Sin tears apart generations of family members, who need each other. Sinful parents abuse their children, depriving them of the tender love and training that they need. Rebellious children cast off the wise guidance and experience of their parents. Selfish and greedy family members fight over the inheritance, tearing apart relationships for the sake of stuff that will soon perish. Sinful people abuse their bodies with alcohol, tobacco, drugs, and venereal disease. Sin is an all-purpose, all-around destroyer!
But holiness blesses those who walk in it and those around them. Holy people enjoy fellowship with the living God. Holy husbands sacrificially love their wives as Christ loved the church. They tenderly seek the blessing and benefit of their wives. Holy fathers show the grace and kindness of the Lord to their children, training them to love and follow the Lord for their own good. Holy young people walk in the ways of the Lord, avoiding the terrible scars that come from sexual immorality, drugs, alcohol, and abusive relationships. Holy church members care for one another, encouraging the fainthearted, helping the weak, being patient, kind, and loving toward one another (1 Thess. 5:14-15).
Matthew Henry, the well-known pastor and Bible commentator, was on his deathbed in 1714, at age 52. He had endured the loss of his first wife and of three children. He was relatively young. He could have complained about his early death. But he said to a friend, “You have been used to take notice of the sayings of dying men. This is mine—that a life spent in the service of God, and communion with Him, is the most comfortable and pleasant life that one can live in the present world” (Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible [Revell], p. 1:xiv). That is the benefit of being enslaved to God. When you’re tempted to sin, remember your spiritual present as a slave of God, including the benefits of a holy life.
The outcome of a present life of holiness is eternal life (6:22). Paul repeats this in 6:23, contrasting it starkly with the outcome of a life of sin: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Verse 23 begs for an entire sermon, but I’m trying to keep moving through Romans, so I’ll be brief. The sermon would note three contrasts: Working for wages versus receiving a free gift; serving sin versus serving God; and, the final outcome of death versus eternal life. The fourth point would be that God’s free gift comes to us “in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Although this verse is often (and rightly) used in evangelism, in the context here Paul uses it to show why being under grace does not lead believers to sin: Believers know that sin pays a terrible wage: death. But receiving God’s free, gracious gift results in eternal life “in Christ Jesus our Lord.” We get to spend all of eternity in the presence of our loving Lord Jesus, who gave Himself to save us from hell. So why sin?
The word “wages” was used of a soldier’s pay. Picture a cruel dictator, who doesn’t care about his infantry. They are only pawns to preserve his luxurious lifestyle in the palace, while they’re on the front lines taking bullets and shrapnel, eating horrible rations, separated from all the comforts of home. Their wage is death. That’s the wage that sin pays its servants. If you continue in a life of sin, you’ll experience hardship now and eternal punishment as your final paycheck.
But God offers a free gift: freedom from sin and a joyous life of knowing the only true God through Jesus Christ. You begin enjoying the gift right now (John 17:3), and the final paycheck when you die is eternal life with this loving and gracious God. It seems like a no-brainer doesn’t it? Do you want to go on being a slave of sin, with the final paycheck of eternal death? Or do you want to receive God’s free gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus the Lord?
So how do you win over sin? How do you experience consistent victory? First, receive the gift of eternal life. If you have never trusted in Christ, you are hopelessly, helplessly under the reign of sin and death. But Christ died and rose again to free you from sin. You must be born again in order to conquer sin.
Then, present yourself to God as a slave of righteousness. He is your new Master. You no longer have authority over your body. He does. Obey His Word. Remember your shameful past as a slave of sin before He redeemed you. Keep in mind your blessed present, enjoying all of the unfathomable riches of Christ. Look forward to your glorious spiritual future of eternal life free from all sin in the presence of the One who died to save you. You won’t be sinlessly perfect in this life, but you can grow in holiness and consistently win over sin.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
In my judgment, one of the most difficult theological issues in the Bible is that of the believer’s relationship to the law of God. Since the word law is used 19 times in Romans 7, clearly that is Paul’s theme. I was hoping that the Lord might come before I got to this chapter! I still have some time to be rescued before I get to the most difficult part! In Romans 7 Paul expounds on his statement in Romans 6:14, “For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.” In 6:15-23, he used the analogy of slavery to show that we will not sin under grace because we have become enslaved to God and righteousness. In chapter 7, he explains what it means to be free from the law and how this relates to breaking free from sin’s tyranny.
The theme in chapter 6 was sin; Paul uses that word 17 times there. In his mind, there was a direct correlation between sin and the law. In 1 Corinthians 15:56 he says, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.” So there are several parallels between chapters 6 & 7 (Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 270): Believers have died to sin (6:2) and they have died to the law (7:4). We have been freed from sin (6:18, 22) and we are released from the law (7:6). We walk in newness of life (6:4) and we serve in newness of the Spirit (7:6). Our victory over sin is tied to our union with Christ in His death and resurrection (6:8-11). Our release from the law and its sin-arousing power is because we are now joined to the crucified and risen Lord (7:4).
So if we want to gain consistent victory over sin, we have to wrestle with Romans 7 as Paul explains the purpose of God’s law and our relationship to it. His thinking was radically opposed to the common Jewish views of his day. They would have said that the law was given to make us holy, but Paul says that the Law served to arouse us to sin! In chapters 1-5 Paul shows that it is impossible to be justified by keeping the law. Here he shows that it is impossible to be sanctified by keeping the law. In fact, Paul argues that the law is actually a hindrance to sanctification (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans: The Law: Its Functions and Limits [Zondervan], p. 5).
The chapter falls into three sections. In 7:1-6, Paul shows that we are no longer married to the law. A death has taken place and now we are joined to Jesus Christ so that we might bear fruit for God. But that raises the question, “Then is the law sin?” Paul answers this in 7:7-12, showing that the law is holy and good. It is we who are the problem! When our sinful nature comes into contact with the law, it does not obey. Rather, it is aroused to sin. Then in 7:13-25, he shows the ensuing battle that sinners have with the law. This is a very difficult and controversial section, as debate rages over whether the person in view is an unbeliever or a believer. I do not want to raise your hopes that I will solve this puzzle for you, but we will try to work through it as best as we can.
In our text (7:1-6), Paul first makes a general statement about the law’s jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives (7:1). Then (7:2-3) he illustrates his point by showing that a woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. He is not giving comprehensive teaching here about divorce and remarriage. Rather, he uses an analogy to make a point: the law has jurisdiction over the living, not over the dead. If a person dies, he is no longer under the law. Then (7:4), he applies the point, showing that we died to the law through the death of Christ. We are now “remarried” to Christ so that we might bear fruit for God. Then (7:5-6) Paul explains verse 4 negatively (7:5) and positively (7:6). We need to die to the law because it aroused our sinful passions to bear fruit for death (7:5). But in Christ we have been released from bondage to the law so that we serve God in newness of the Spirit (7:6). To summarize:
Through our union with Christ, we have died to the law so that we are free to bear fruit for God in the Spirit.
Many books have been written on what it means for us not to be under the law, so I can only give some brief guidelines here. I offer one negative and three positive thoughts to clarify what Paul means when he says that we died to the law.
We need to understand that we did not die to the law so that we could live lawlessly, doing whatever we please. That was the false charge that Paul’s enemies leveled against him. But Paul makes it very clear that we died to the law so that we might be joined to Christ, under His authority. Just as a woman is under the authority of her husband (according to the Bible), so we were under the authority of God’s law. But when we died to the law, it was not so that we could become free spirits. Rather, it was so that we could now be joined to Christ as our husband.
Paul’s analogy is rather confusing if you try to make it say more than he intends. In 7:2-3, the woman’s husband dies so that she is free to remarry. But in the application (7:4), it is not the husband that dies, but rather the wife dies to the law through Christ. By implication she is raised from the dead so that she can marry Christ, who died and was raised from the dead. But Paul does not intend this to be a tight allegory, where one thing consistently represents another. Rather, he is making the main point that by being identified with Christ in His death and resurrection, we died to the law so that we’re legally free to be joined to Christ.
But, dying to the law does not mean that we no longer are obligated to keep specific moral commandments. As Paul states later (Rom. 8:4), the requirement of the law is now fulfilled in us as we walk according to the Spirit. Sometimes it is argued that the only command under the new covenant is love, since love is the fulfillment of the law (Rom. 13:8, 10; Gal. 5:14). But this is often misapplied in a simplistic way so that “love” means whatever the person wants it to mean. For example, couples argue that it is okay to have sexual relations outside of marriage because they “love” one another. But the New Testament is abundantly clear that the sexual relationship is restricted to heterosexual marriage (1 Cor. 6:9-10, 18; 7:1-9; 1 Thess. 4:2-8). Love does not mean that we are free to disregard the Bible’s moral standards.
In fact, the New Testament gives many detailed commands about love. Love speaks the truth. Love does not steal, but rather labors so as to be able to give. Love speaks wholesome, edifying words. Love is not bitter or angry. Love is kind and forgiving. Love does not engage in immorality or greed (see Eph. 4:25-5:4). Many more specific commands on other topics are given throughout the New Testament to believers who have died to the law (see Romans 12). So we would be mistaken to think that dying to the law frees us from the obligation to obey specific moral commandments. So what does it mean?
While salvation has always been by grace through faith, not by works, many who were under the Mosaic law wrongly thought that they could be right with God by keeping the law. It was true: Keep the law perfectly and you will live (Matt. 19:17; Gal. 3:12). The problem is, that system brought everyone who tried to live by it under a curse, because no one could keep the law perfectly (Gal. 3:10). As a Pharisee, Paul thought that he was blameless with regard to the law (Phil. 3:6), but at best he was “blameless” only in the sense of outward obedience to the ceremonies and rituals that the law prescribed. The truth was that in his heart, he was proud of his blameless obedience, and pride is the root of all sins before God. When he met Christ, Paul came to see that he was actually the chief of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15).
So dying to the law means that we do not approach God by an impersonal system of performance, where we try to earn right standing with Him. That is the way of virtually every religion in the world, including many that go under the name of “Christian.” The good news is that God justifies sinners by grace through faith alone and that the core of saving faith is to know Jesus Christ (Rom. 4:5; Phil. 3:2-10). And, as I said, Paul’s point in Romans 7 is not only that we are justified by grace through faith alone, but also that we are sanctified in the same way (see Col. 2:6).
Paul says (Rom. 7:6) that the law held us in bondage. It did so by putting us under a curse because of our failure to obey it perfectly (Gal. 3:10). Peter refers to the law as “a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear” (Acts 15:10). The law closes every mouth and makes us all accountable to God (Rom. 3:19). No one is able to be justified by keeping the law; rather, the law brings the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:20) and puts us under God’s wrath (Rom. 4:15). The law increased our transgressions and held us under the reign of sin and death (Rom. 5:20-21). Attempting to be right with God by law-keeping is doomed to failure. The only benefit of the law with regard to salvation is that it shows us God’s impossible standard of holiness and thus drives us to Christ as our only hope, so that we will be justified by faith (Gal. 3:24).
This is Paul’s primary focus in Romans 7:5: “For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.” In this context, being “in the flesh” means, before we were saved, before we received the Holy Spirit. As Thomas Schreiner puts it (The Law and Its Fulfillment [Baker], p. 133), “The law apart from the Spirit does not produce obedience. The law apart from the Spirit does not save but kills.”
Paul will explain this further in 7:7-11, where he says that coveting was not a problem until he read, “You shall not covet.” That commandment triggered something in him that made him covet all over the place. The problem was not with the law, which is holy, but with his sinful flesh. We can all relate to what he is saying. I wouldn’t think about walking on the grass if it weren’t for that annoying sign that says, “Do not walk on the grass.” The commandment makes me want to walk on the grass!
So the law is not the answer to our sin problem. Trying to keep the law can never reconcile us to the holy God, because we’ve all violated His law many times over. Posting a list of God’s commandments on the refrigerator and trying to keep them by our own strength won’t work, either, because the law just incites our sinful passions. It does not quench the desire to sin. The oldness of the letter was a “ministry of death” (2 Cor. 3:6, 7). We need a more powerful solution, which Paul gives in 7:4 & 6.
Paul says that we were “made to die to the law through the body of Christ” (7:4). That’s an unusual phrase, referring to Christ’s physical body. Paul is calling attention to the fact that in His human body, Jesus satisfied the demands of the law on our behalf, so that He “canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross” (Col. 2:14). So when Jesus died to the demands of the law, we died in Him. In summary, this means: We are free from the demands of the law as an impersonal system for approaching God. We are free from the condemnation of the law. The power of the law to arouse our sinful desires is broken, because being joined to Christ, we now have the Holy Spirit to give us the power to obey.
As I said, God does not free us from the law so that we can live any way that we please. Rather, He frees us from the law (7:4) so that we “might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, that we might bear fruit for God.” Restating it in a slightly different way (7:6), this release from the law enables us to “serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.” So our union with the risen Savior through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit works in us to bear fruit for God. Note six things about this union or marriage to Christ:
In verse 6, Paul uses the same contrast that we saw in 6:22, “But now.” It points to the great change from before we met Christ to afterwards. Before we met Him, we were in the flesh, enslaved to sin, and under the condemnation and power of the law. “But now we have been released from the law, having died to that by which we were bound” (7:6). If I have broken the law and am facing a prison term, but before I go to prison I die, they aren’t going to take my corpse to prison! My death released me from the power of the law. It changed everything.
Also, our death to the law freed us to be joined in marriage to the risen Christ (7:4). This implies that we have new life in Him, because Jesus doesn’t marry a corpse. We have a new relationship of love with our Bridegroom, who gave Himself on the cross to secure us as His bride. (By the way, it’s difficult as a guy to think of myself as “married” to Jesus, but think of it corporately, not individually. The biblical analogy is that the church corporately is the bride of Christ.) Our new union with Christ changes everything.
There is one thing certain about marriage: it changes you forever! Suddenly, you are not your own. You have to think about your wife before you make plans. You have to think about what pleases her. You have to take her into account in every decision that you make. You have to work at staying close in your relationship to her. But in spite of these new responsibilities, I can say with gusto that marrying Marla changed me for the good! In the same way, being joined to Jesus Christ changes everything. It gives you new responsibilities, but it transforms you decidedly for the good.
As I said, the phrase “through the body of Christ” points to the cross, where Jesus died a horrible death to secure us as His bride. He paid the price that the law demanded for our sin. “Christ … loved the church and gave Himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). So now we willingly submit to Him, not out of duty, but out of love.
Picture a woman married to a demanding, perfectionistic man. He’s the kind who takes a white glove and wipes it on the top of the door molding to see if it has been dusted. She lives in constant fear that she will not please him. But then (much to her relief) he dies. Sometime later, she meets a loving, kind, and caring man. They fall in love and get married. Now she still cleans the house and cooks the meals, but she does it joyfully out of love, not dutifully to meet the demands of an impossible tyrant.
The analogy breaks down, in that the law did not die. Rather, we died to it. But, we no longer have to strive in vain to meet its impossible demands as the grounds of our acceptance with God. Rather, Christ met those demands for us and we are joined to Him in love. We still live to please Him, but our whole motive has changed from duty that condemned us to love that accepts us.
Before, we were bound by the law, but now we are released from its condemnation and domination (7:6). The picture is that of a prisoner who has been set free. I’ve never been in prison, but I got a feel for what it must be like when I was in boot camp. We were in captivity in every sense of the word. The Coast Guard determined our schedule, our activities, what we wore, how we looked, and what we ate. Boot camp was on an island in the Oakland Bay. From our upstairs barracks window, I could see cars stuck in rush hour traffic out on the Oakland freeway. I thought, “Those drivers are probably grumbling about the traffic, but if they only knew how free they are to be able to drive their own car wherever they want to go, they’d quit complaining!” Before Christ, we were bound by the law, but now we’re free.
The reason we are joined to Christ is so “that we might bear fruit for God” (7:4). When you compare that to 7:6, “so that we serve in newness of the Spirit,” it probably refers to the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23), or “the fruit of the Light,” which is “all goodness and righteousness and truth, trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord” (Eph. 5:9-10). If you’re not bearing fruit for God, you are not fulfilling the purpose for which He saved you.
The law was impotent to help us obey, but Christ gives us the Holy Spirit to indwell us and empower us to overcome sin. To be under the law is to be “in the flesh” (7:5), which has no motivation or power to overcome sin. But the Spirit enables us to put to death the deeds of the body, so that we will live (8:13; Gal. 5:16-23).
I mentioned at the outset that being free from the law does not mean that we are free to disobey the moral commands of Scripture. But I mention it again as we close, because it is so often misunderstood or ignored. The word “serve” (7:6) is the same Greek word translated “enslaved to God” (6:22). So Christ frees us from the law to which we were bound, but not to do as we please. We’re freed from the law so that we can be enslaved to God in the newness of the Spirit. Being a slave of righteousness is true freedom!
Martyn Lloyd-Jones (p. 84) says, “You are either a Christian or not a Christian; you cannot be partly Christian. You are either ‘dead’ or ‘alive’; you are either ‘born’ or ‘not born’. Becoming a Christian is not a gradual process; there is nothing indeterminate about it; we either are, or we are not Christian.”
If you’re not a Christian, you are under the condemnation of the law. But if you put your trust in Christ, who bore the curse of the law, you are released from the law and joined to a loving husband so that you can bear fruit for God. That’s even better than the best of earthly marriages can be!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Almost a quarter century ago, philosopher Allan Bloom published his best-selling The Closing of the American Mind [Simon & Schuster, 1987]. He began (p. 25):
There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative. If this belief is put to the test, one can count on the students’ reaction: they will be uncomprehending. That anyone should regard the proposition as not self-evident astonishes them, as though he were calling into question 2 + 2 = 4. These are things you don’t think about.
The chief virtue that this relativism seeks to inculcate is tolerance or openness. The main enemy of tolerance is the person who thinks that he has the truth or is right in his views. This only “led to wars, persecutions, slavery, xenophobia, racism, and chauvinism. The point,” says Bloom (p. 26), “is not to correct the mistakes and really be right; rather it is not to think you are right at all.”
Bloom later (p. 67) reports his students’ reaction to his question, “Who do you think is evil?” They immediately respond, “Hitler.” They rarely mention Stalin. A few in the early 80’s mentioned Nixon, but by the time Bloom wrote the book, Nixon was being rehabilitated. Bloom comments (ibid.),
And there it stops. They have no idea of evil; they doubt its existence. Hitler is just another abstraction, an item to fill up an empty category. Although they live in a world in which the most terrible deeds are being performed and they see brutal crime in the streets, they turn aside. Perhaps they believe that evil deeds are performed by persons who, if they got the proper therapy, would not do them again—that there are evil deeds, not evil people.
I cite Bloom because the worldview of the young people that he observed a quarter century ago is now pervasive in our society. And the worldly relativism that minimizes or even eliminates the concept of sin is not just “out there.” It has flooded into the church. Popular megachurches thrive by making the church “a safe place” for everyone, where no one will be judged and where various types of immorality are relabeled as personal preferences. The “gospel” gets retooled as a way that Jesus can help you succeed and reach your personal goals. If you want your church to grow, you should never mention anything negative, like sin. Rather, tell people how much God loves them because they are so lovable. Build their self-esteem, but never suggest that they are sinners!
But if we are not sinners, then we do not need a Savior who died to bear the penalty of our sin. More than a century ago, Charles Spurgeon lamented (C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, The Early Years [Banner of Truth], p. 54), “Too many think lightly of sin, and therefore think lightly of the Saviour.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones observed (Romans: The Law: Its Functions and Limits [Zondervan], p. 151), “The biblical doctrine of sin is absolutely crucial to an understanding of the biblical doctrine of salvation. Whatever we may think, we cannot be right and clear about the way of salvation unless we are right and clear about sin.” And since Romans 7 is one of the most penetrating analyses of sin in all of Scripture, we need to understand Paul’s thought here.
In our text, Paul defends the integrity and righteousness of God’s law against critics who argued that Paul’s teaching implied that the law is sin. “May it never be,” he exclaims (7:7). He exonerates God’s law as holy, righteous, and good (7:12), while showing why God gave the law:
God gave His law to convict us of our sin and bring us to the end of ourselves so that we would flee to Christ for salvation.
Our innate self-righteousness is so entrenched that until the law strips us of it and convicts us of our sin, we will not cast ourselves totally upon Christ. Our culture adds to this by telling us that we’re not sinners. We’re not worms, for goodness sake! We’re pretty good folks. We may want to bring Jesus into our lives as a useful coach or helper in our self-improvement program. But to trust Him as our Savior, we have to see the depth of our sin as God’s law exposes it for what it is. That’s what Paul describes here.
We come here to one of the most difficult and controversial sections of Romans. In verses 7-25, Paul dramatically shifts to the first person singular, dropping it again in chapter 8. In 7:7-13, he uses the past tense, but then in 7:14-25 he shifts to the present tense. Scholars debate whether Paul is speaking autobiographically or not. At the crux of this debate is when Paul possibly could have been “alive apart from the law” (7:9). There is also much controversy over whether verses 14-25 describe Paul before he was saved, Paul as a new believer, or Paul as a mature believer. So it’s a very difficult passage, with competent, godly scholars in every camp. I do not claim infallibility as we proceed (not that I ever do)!
Paul’s main concern in this chapter is not to share his personal experience, but rather to exonerate God’s law from any hint of being evil. He uses his own experience (as I understand it) to show how the law functions to bring conviction of sin, but also how it is powerless to deliver us from sin’s grip. Rather, it drives us to Christ, who alone has the power to save (7:25); and to the indwelling Holy Spirit, who gives us the power to overcome sin (8:2-4). So, let’s try to work through these verses.
Romans 7:7: “What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’”
Paul is responding to the charge that critics would bring in reaction to 7:5: “For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.” The Jews believed that God gave the law to give us life and make us holy, but Paul claimed that the Law aroused us to sin, resulting in death. So now he answers this charge: “Is the Law sin?”
After strongly rejecting that slur against his teaching, Paul argues that the law functions to reveal our sin to us. He uses as a personal example the tenth commandment against coveting. This shows that by “the law” Paul mainly had in mind the Ten Commandments as the embodiment of God’s requirements for holy living. Probably he picked the tenth commandment because it is the only command that explicitly condemns evil on the heart level. Jesus pointed out that the commands against murder and adultery (and, by implication, all of the commands) go deeper than the outward action. If you’re angry at your brother, you have violated the command against murder. If you lust in your heart over a woman, you have committed adultery in God’s sight (Matt. 5:21-30). But the command against coveting explicitly goes right to the heart. Coveting concerns your heart’s desires, whether you ever act on those desires or not.
When Paul says, “I would not have come to know sin except through the Law,” he does not mean that he (or others) do not know sin at all apart from the law. He has already said (2:14-15) that Gentiles who do not have the law have the “work of the Law written in their hearts.” People sinned from Adam until Moses, even though they did not have the written law (5:12-14).
What Paul means is that the law, especially the tenth commandment focusing on the inward desires, nailed him so that he came to know sin as sin against God. Before his conversion, outwardly Paul was a self-righteous Pharisee. He thought that all of his deeds commended him to God. With regard to the law, he saw himself as “blameless” (Phil. 3:6). But when the Holy Spirit brought the tenth commandment about coveting home to his conscience, Paul realized that he had violated God’s holy law. At that point, he came to know sin. The commandment made it explicit: “Paul, you are a sinner!”
Like Paul before his conversion, most people think that they are basically good. Sure, they know they have their faults. Who doesn’t? They’re not perfect, but they are good. They excuse even their bad sins, just as Paul excused his violent persecution of the church. After all, it was justified because it was for a good cause.
So guys excuse a little pornography because, “After all, everyone looks at that stuff and I’m not hurting anyone. Besides, I’ve never cheated on my wife.” And they excuse their violent temper because that person had it coming and, “Hey, I didn’t hurt him; I just told him off!” People excuse all manner of sin and still think of themselves as basically good people because they have not come to know God’s law, especially the law as it confronts our evil desires. At the heart of coveting is the enthronement of self as lord.
Spurgeon (“The Soul’s Great Crisis,” Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 61:425) compares the sinner who thinks that he is basically good, but won’t look at God’s law, to a man who thinks he is rich and lives in a lavish manner, but refuses to look at his books. The guy lives in style. When he gets into a financial bind, he takes out a loan, and when that one comes due, he’ll meet it with another loan. He says he is all right and he convinces himself that he is all right. At the moment he’s living as if he’s all right. But does he ever get out his accounts and take stock of his real condition? No, that’s boring. We all know where that will end—the man will go bankrupt.
In the same way, Spurgeon says, we may convince ourselves that we are right with God by brushing over our faults as no big deal. We live as if we’re good people; all is well. But if we don’t examine our true condition in light of God’s law, we’re heading for eternal bankruptcy. The law reveals our sin. But Paul goes further:
Romans 7:8: “But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law, sin is dead.”
Paul personifies sin as an active force that uses the law to provoke us to commit acts of sin. By sin, Paul means sin as a principle and power, not just acts of sin (Lloyd-Jones, p. 120). He repeats the phrase again (7:11), “sin, taking opportunity through the commandment.” Opportunity was a word used for a military base of operations from which the army launched its campaigns. So sin takes God’s holy commandments and uses them to tempt us to violate those commands. It stirs up the rebel in us and makes us want to assert our right to do as we please.
James Boice (Romans: The Reign of Grace [Baker], pp. 742-743) tells a story from when he was in sixth grade. The school principal came into his classroom just before lunch and said that he had heard that some students had been bringing firecrackers to school. He went on to warn about the dangers of firecrackers and to say that anyone caught with firecrackers at school would be expelled. Well, Boice didn’t own any firecrackers and he hadn’t even thought about firecrackers. But when you get to thinking about firecrackers, it’s an intriguing subject. He then remembered that one of his friends had some.
So during his lunch break, he and a friend went by this other friend’s house, got a firecracker and returned to school. They went into a cloakroom and planned to light it and pinch it out before it exploded. But the lit fuse burned the fingers of the boy holding it. He dropped it and it exploded with a horrific bang, echoing in that old building with its high ceilings, marble floors, and plaster walls. Before the boys could stagger out of the cloakroom, the principal was out of his office, down the hall, and standing there to greet them. As Boice later sat in the principal’s office with his parents, he remembers the principal saying over and over, “I had just told them not to bring any firecrackers to school. I just can’t believe it.”
But that’s how sin operates in the hearts of rebels. It takes God’s good and right commandments and entices us to violate them. Sometimes when you read about others sinning or you see it on TV or in a movie, you think, “I’ll bet that would be fun!” You know that God forbids it, but probably He just wants to deprive you of some fun. Besides, what will it hurt to try it once? It can’t be all that bad. And, I can always get forgiven later. So our sin nature springboards off the commandment to provoke us to sin.
What does Paul mean when he says, “For apart from the Law sin is dead”? Since the fall, everyone is born in sin and is prone to sin. Before the flood, before God gave the law to Moses, the world was so sinful that we read (Gen. 6:5), “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” So how can Paul say, “apart from the Law sin is dead”?
He must have meant, “Sin was comparatively dead; as far as his awareness was concerned it was dead” (Lloyd-Jones, p. 135). In other words, before God brought the law to bear on Paul’s conscience, as far as he knew, he wasn’t in sin. He saw himself as a good person. The law had not yet revived the sin that lay dormant in his heart. Apart from the law, sin seems to be dead as far as the sinner is concerned. Paul traces the process further:
Romans 7:9-11: “I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died; and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me; for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.” (I will have to deal with the deceptive aspect of sin in our next study.)
What does Paul mean when he says that he was “once alive apart from the Law”? This is the same apostle who said that before salvation we all were dead in our sins (Eph. 2:1). How could he once be alive? And when was Paul ever “apart from the Law”? He was raised from his youth up in the strictest traditions of Judaism (Acts 22:3; 26:4-5; Phil. 3:5). And, when did sin “kill” him?
As with every verse in this text, there are many opinions. Some say that verse 9 refers to Adam, since he is the only one of whom it rightly could be said that he was once alive apart from the law. Others take it to refer to Israel before the law was given. But most likely, Paul is speaking in a relative sense about his own perception of himself. Once, he thought that he was alive and doing quite well in God’s sight. He saw himself as blameless with regard to the righteousness of the law (Phil. 3:6). Like the Pharisee in Jesus’ story, he would have prayed (Luke 18:11-12), “God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.” In that sense, Paul saw himself as once alive apart from the law. He was “apart from the law” in the sense that it had not yet bore down on his conscience to convict him on the heart level.
But then “the commandment came”—“You shall not covet.” He had memorized that commandment as a child. He had recited it many times. But the Holy Spirit had not nailed him with it. Lloyd-Jones (p. 134) illustrates this with the experience that we’ve all had, where we’ve read a verse many, many times, but we’ve skipped right over it and kept going. It didn’t say anything to us. But then suddenly, it hits you. You see it as you’ve never seen it before. The commandment came to you.
Then what happens? “Sin became alive and I died” (7:9). At first, Paul thought that he was alive and sin was dead. But then, God’s law hit him and he suddenly realized that his sin was very much alive and he was dead. He saw that he was not right with God, as he formerly had thought. Rather, he was alienated from God and under His judgment. He had thought that he would get into heaven because he was a zealous Jew, and even a notch above other Jews, because he was a Pharisee. But now he realized that he was a blasphemer, a persecutor of God’s church, a violent aggressor, and the chief of sinners (1 Tim. 1:13, 15).
The commandment promised life (7:10) to all who keep it (Lev. 18:5; Ezek. 20:11). Paul thought that he had been keeping it blamelessly. But God shot the arrow of the commandment, “You shall not covet.” It hit Paul in the heart and killed him. Spurgeon (61:427) says, “What died in Paul was that which ought never to have lived. It was that great ‘I’ in Paul … that ‘I’ that used to say, ‘I thank thee that I am not like other men’—that ‘I’ that folded its arms in satisfied security—that ‘I’ that bent its knee in prayer, but never bowed down the heart in penitence—that ‘I’ died.”
Spurgeon goes on (pp. 427-428) to show several other respects in which Paul died. He died in that he saw he was condemned to die. He stood guilty before God. He died in that all his hopes from his past life died. His good works that he had been relying on came crashing down as worthless. He died in that all his hopes as to the future died. He realized that if his salvation depended on his future keeping the law, he was doomed. His past showed that he would be sure to break it again in the future. And, he died in that all his powers seemed to die. Formerly, he thought that he could keep the law just fine by his own strength. But now he saw that every thought, word, and desire that did not meet God’s holy standard would condemn him. And so all his hope died. He felt condemned. The rope was around his neck, as Spurgeon says elsewhere (Autobiography, 1:54).
Can you identify with Paul’s experience? Has God’s holy law hit home to your conscience so that you died to all self-righteousness? Has the law killed all your hopes that your good works will get you into heaven? If so, that’s a good thing, because Jesus didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance (Luke 5:32). When you see God’s holy standard and how miserably you have violated it over and over, you then see your need for a Savior. And the best news ever is that Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners (1 Tim. 1:15)!
James Boice (p. 746) tells of a time when John Gerstner, who was then retired from teaching church history at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, was at a church preaching from Romans. He expounded on the law and used it to expose sin. After the service, a woman came up to him. She held up her hand with her index finger and thumb about a half-inch apart and she said, “Dr. Gerstner, you make me feel this big.”
Dr. Gerstner replied, “But madam, that’s too big. That’s much too big. Don’t you know that that much self-righteousness will take you to hell?”
God gave His law to strip us of all self-righteousness and to convict us of our sin so that we would flee to Christ to save us. Make sure that your hope for eternal life is in Christ alone!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
In 1973, psychiatrist Karl Menninger, founder of the famous Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, wrote a best-seller titled, Whatever Became of Sin? [Bantam Books]. I didn’t read that book, but the title, especially coming from a psychiatrist, who to my knowledge was not a Christian, is significant. Menninger realized almost 40 years ago that the concept of sin was vanishing from our culture. He argued (as summarized by James Boice, Romans: The Reign of Grace [Baker], 2:747),
In the lifetimes of many of us, sin has been redefined: first, as crime—that is, as transgression of the law of man rather than transgression of the law of God—and second, as symptoms. Since “symptoms” are caused by things external to the individual, they are seen as effects for which the offender is not responsible. Thus it happened that sin against God has been redefined (and dismissed) as the unfortunate effects of bad circumstances. And no one is to blame.
We now view many behaviors that the Bible calls “sin” as psychological or emotional issues for which therapy, not repentance, is the solution. I’ve read polls that show that even among evangelical Christians, many do not view premarital sex or homosexual behavior as sin. Churches offer anger management classes (not anger repentance classes) or groups to help you overcome your “addictions” (not sins). Sin has become a disease that we treat therapeutically, not a behavior for which we’re responsible.
Christians regularly watch Hollywood’s latest movies that are rife with filthy language, sexual scenes, and violence, without any concern that they are disobeying Scripture, which commands (Eph. 5:3-4), “But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints; and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.” So Dr. Menninger was quite right to ask, “Whatever became of sin?”
In our text, Paul is defending himself against critics who alleged that he taught that the law is sin. Paul has been teaching that if you try to gain right standing with God by keeping the law, you are doomed to fail. The law was not given to make us right before God. To the contrary, “through the Law comes the knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20). “The Law brings about wrath” (4:15). “The Law came in so that the transgression would increase” (5:20). And so Paul shows (7:4) that through our union with Christ, we died to the law in order that we might bear fruit for God. We have been released from the law so that now “we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter” (7:6).
Paul knew that critics would react to this teaching by accusing him of saying that the law is sin. His response is (7:7), “May it never be!” The problem is not with the law. Rather, the problem is our sin. When you mix God’s holy law with our sin, it produces negative results, much like mixing two incompatible chemicals.
Verses 11 & 12 wrap up Paul’s argument that the law is not the problem; rather, sin is the problem. As we saw last time, he personifies sin as an active force. Verse 13 serves as a hinge verse, restating the argument from 7:7-12 while also introducing 7:14-25. We can sum up his thought in 7:11-13:
God’s law reveals the holiness of His commandments and the utter sinfulness of sin so that we will hate our sin.
Paul concludes (7:12), “So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.”
By “the Law,” Paul means the law as a whole. When he repeats, “the commandment,” he may be referring to the tenth commandment against coveting that he has just mentioned (7:7), or to the moral commands. But he means that the law as a whole and every single part of it is “holy and righteous and good.” He piles up these terms to emphasize his point (in 7:7) that the law is not in any way sinful. The reason that the law is holy, righteous, and good is that it was given to us by God who is holy, righteous, and good.
God’s law is holy. God’s holiness means that He is altogether separate from us and separate from sin. Christ’s aim for His church is that “she would be holy and blameless” (Eph. 5:27). Applied to us, God’s holy commandments show us how to live separately from this evil world, in a manner pleasing to the Lord.
That God’s law is righteous means that it is right or just. God Himself is the standard of what is right. Moses says of God (Deut. 32:4), “For all His ways are just; a God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is He.” If we violate God’s moral commands, we are wrong because God is always right. His standards are not relative, changing with the culture or over time. We can’t persuade Him to bend His righteous commands to fit what we may think is right.
God’s commandments are also good because they come from God who is always good. As with righteousness, God is the final standard of what is good (Luke 18:19). This means that all of God’s commandments are for our good. To violate His commands is to bring trouble and hardship on ourselves. If we want to live the truly “good life,” then we must follow God’s good commands.
Since as new covenant believers we are not under the Law of Moses, we may wonder, “Which of the Old Testament commands apply to us? Are we obligated to keep the Ten Commandments, since Paul calls them a ‘ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones’” (2 Cor. 3:7)?
In the sense that the Ten Commandments serve as a summary of the two great commandments, to love God and love others, they are valid and binding for today. Also, all of the Ten Commandments, except for the Sabbath command, are repeated in the New Testament. The Sabbath command, as I understand it, was fulfilled in Christ (Heb. 4:1-11; Rom. 14:5; Col. 2:16). The exhortation to us is not to forsake assembling together (Heb. 10:25), but we are not under that command in the legal sense of the Old Testament. (See my message, “God’s Day of Rest,” from Gen. 2:1-3, 12/17/95, on the church website for my further thoughts on this.)
So Paul wants us to be clear that God’s law is holy, righteous, and good. Being under grace does not mean living in a lawless manner (1 John 3:4; 1 Cor. 9:21).
Paul concludes (7:13c), “so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.” As C. H. Spurgeon put it (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 59:469), “[The law] was not the cure of the disease, much less the creator of it, but it was the revealer of the disease that lurked in the constitution of man.” He goes on to show that when Paul wanted to come up with a word to describe how bad sin is, he didn’t call it exceedingly black or horrible or deadly. Rather, when he wanted to find the very worst word, he called sin by its own name—it is exceedingly sinful. There is nothing as evil as sin. God gave His law for our good (Deut. 10:13), and so when we deliberately throw it off and trample it under foot, that law exposes the utter sinfulness of our sin in at least four ways:
When God gave Adam and Eve the command not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that command was for their good, to keep them from the consequence of death (Gen. 2:16-17). We can compare it to parents who tell their little children not to run into a busy street. That command is not to deprive the children of fun, but to protect them from death. So when we sin, we rebel against the God who is loving and kind towards us. He is never mean, harsh, or cruel. Rather, sin (as Spurgeon put it in another sermon) is the monster that this verse drags to light (ibid., 19:73). We need to see sin for what it is, rebellion against our loving and kind Heavenly Father.
Sin takes the good law and turns it into an instrument of death. It would be like taking a scalpel and using it to murder someone. Is the scalpel bad? No! The scalpel is a good and useful tool in the hands of a skilled physician. The sinner who used the scalpel to murder someone is the culprit. Sin takes God’s holy commandments and uses them to kill us. (Paul mentions “death” or “killed” in 7:9, 10, 11, & 13.) He means that the law brings us under God’s righteous, eternal condemnation because we have deliberately violated it over and over. So we should fight against our sin with as much effort as we would struggle against an intruder who broke into our house and was attempting to murder us.
As Paul said (4:15), “Where there is no law, there also is no violation.” This is not to say that people did not sin before the law (5:13-14), but rather to say that the law heightens the sinfulness of sin by showing that we are deliberately going against what God has commanded for our good. Our conscience may nag at us that something is wrong. But when we read the explicit command in the Bible and then go against it, we’re just thumbing our nose at God. We’re saying, “God, You don’t know what is best for me! I know better than You do, and I’m going my own way.” The commandment shows sin to be utterly sinful.
In his book and film, “Peace Child,” missionary Don Richardson told about the wicked practice of the Sawi tribe before he brought the gospel to them. They extolled deception as a virtue. They would lure an outsider into their midst as a friend, who didn’t suspect their treachery. They would treat him as a king and feed him well, but they were literally fattening him for the slaughter. At the opportune time, when the victim thought that the Sawi tribal leaders were his friends, they would sadistically smile as they killed him, and then they would eat him. And so when Richardson first told them the story of Jesus, they thought that Judas was the real hero! He used deception to kill Jesus. In the same way, sin is utterly sinful because it uses deception to kill us.
In two other places (2 Cor. 11:3; 1 Tim. 2:14) Paul uses the same verb, “deceived” (Rom. 7:11) to describe the serpent’s deception of Eve in the garden. One commentator (C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [T. & T. Clark], 1:352-353) shows three ways that the serpent deceived Eve. First, he distorted and misrepresented God’s commandment by drawing attention only to the negative part of it and ignoring the positive. Second, he made her believe that God would not punish disobedience with death, as He had warned. Third, he used the very commandment itself to insinuate doubts about God’s good will and to suggest the possibility that she and Adam could assert themselves in opposition to God. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Romans: The Law: Its Functions and Limits [Zondervan], pp. 155-160) lists nine ways that sin deceives us. I’ve incorporated his list into my own list of 15 ways that sin deceives us. I don’t expect you to remember all of these, but by piling them up without much comment, I want you to see how dangerous of an enemy sin really is.
This was the downfall of the Pharisees. They thought that they were keeping all of God’s commandments, but Jesus rebuked them because their hearts were far from God (Mark 7:6-7; Matt. 23:25). Sin deceives us so that we congratulate ourselves for our outward obedience to God, but all the while our hearts are corrupt. “Sure, I look at some porn, but at least I’ve never cheated on my wife.” “Sure, I’m bitter over what he did to me, but I haven’t killed him.” But God looks on the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Heb. 4:12).
We wrongly conclude, “I’ve failed again and again, so there is no hope for me. I might as well just give in and go on sinning.”
Sin tells us that it doesn’t matter whether or not we are holy. It says, “Don’t worry about your sin. It’s not hurting anyone. Besides, you can always get forgiven later.”
This is such a common ploy that you would think that we’d see right through it. But it works over and over again. “An affair will bring happiness, but being faithful to your marriage vows will make you miserable.” Related to this is the next form of deception:
I’ve known Christians who walk away from their marriages with the excuse, “I deserve some happiness in my life. My marriage has only brought me misery. How can this new relationship be wrong when it makes me so happy?” That’s the defense of a well-known Christian singer who divorced her husband and married another singer who divorced his wife. I recently read an article that tried to convince the readers that this sinful behavior was all right, because now she and her new husband are so happy. But what about the biblical command to be holy?
Satan lied to Eve (Gen. 3:4), “You surely will not die!” God would not be so mean as to impose such harsh consequences for such a minor thing as eating a piece of fruit, would He? God is loving and gracious; He won’t punish your sin!
This may have been what led to David’s downfall. He was the king—didn’t that give him some extra privileges? He had written many psalms. He had fought and won many battles. Didn’t he deserve a “break”? Several years ago, a well known pastor was exposed when it came out that he “relieved the stress” of his ministry responsibilities by going to a homosexual prostitute! Talk about being deceived!
It is not adultery; it’s an affair or a fling. It’s not perversion; it’s being gay. It’s not stealing; it’s just taking what the company owes me but doesn’t pay me. I’m not angry; I just have a short fuse. It’s not gossip; I just wanted to share a prayer concern.
We look around at the world and conclude that yielding to temptation is normal. The weirdoes are those holy people who obey God. Or, we think, “I’ll bet that they’re no different than I am. They probably engage in some secret sins, but they’re hypocrites. At least I’m honest about who I am.”
When I used to paint houses, the home owner would walk in and make a big deal about the smell of the paint. But I was so used to it that I didn’t even notice. The prophet Hosea chided “Ephraim,” or Israel (Hos.7:9): “Gray hairs are sprinkled on him, yet he does not know it.” Can you imagine someone going gray without being aware of it? But the prophet was using this humorous analogy to show how we drift spiritually without being aware of how far off course we really are. The first time you watch a sex scene in a movie, it shocks you. But after you’ve seen such filth a few dozen times, you just shrug it off as no big deal. When you first hear profanity, it jars you. But after being around it a while, you don’t even wince and you may even toss off a bad word or two yourself without being aware of it.
Sin gets us to believe that God and His law are unreasonable, impossible, and unjust. “Does He expect me to be perfect? Why doesn’t He give me a break now and then? He must not care about me or He wouldn’t give such unreasonable commands!”
“You’re smart enough to figure out what is best for you. You’re able to determine right and wrong without putting yourself under God’s legalistic standards. Think for yourself!”
“God’s moral standards are holding you back from reaching your full potential! Use the brain that God gave you! You don’t have to be restricted by that outdated book, the Bible!”
“You’ve only had sex with your marriage partner? How boring! You go to church every Sunday? How restrictive! What a way to mess up your weekend!”
The psalmist says that sin flatters us in our own eyes (Ps. 36:2). It makes us think that we’re not so bad because we compare our relatively “minor faults” with the really bad things that others do. By comparison, we’re not so bad. But the standard is not what others do or what we do, but what God’s Word commands.
Thus God’s law reveals the holiness and goodness of His commands, along with the utter sinfulness of sin. What should our response be?
I am inferring this, since Paul doesn’t state it directly here, although he does go on (7:14-25) to show how much he hates his own propensity towards sin. But the Bible is clear: “Hate evil, you who love the Lord” (Ps. 97:10a). And we’re not just supposed to hate the evil in others, but first and foremost, we need to hate our own sin. Take the log out of your own eye first (Matt. 7:5). It was Paul’s hatred of his own sin that caused him to cry out (Rom. 7:24), “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?”
Do you hate your own sin? Do you hate it enough to stop making excuses for it and to give serious thought and effort as to how not to sin? Sin is ugly, ugly, ugly! To watch a believer fall into sin is like watching a dog licking up its own vomit (2 Pet. 2:22). God’s Word shows us how walk in the light so that we do not fall into the mire of sin. Love the Word! Read it! Memorize it! Obey it! Don’t let sin kill you. Rather, hate your sin enough to kill it!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
We come now to one of the most difficult passages to interpret in the Book of Romans. With the exception of certain prophetic texts, there are not many other passages in Scripture where there is such widespread difference of opinion among godly scholars as there is for Romans 7:14-25. Is Paul describing his own experience here? If so, is it his experience before he was saved, his experience as an immature believer, or his experience as a mature believer? Since Paul is in the midst of teaching us how to overcome sin in our daily experience, it’s an important text to understand. But we can’t apply it correctly until we first understand it correctly.
In this message, I want to give an overview of the various views and their main arguments. In subsequent messages I’ll work through the text in more detail. When you come to a text where so many godly men differ, it’s important to be gracious towards those who differ and acknowledge that there is no neat, tidy view that answers all the difficulties. Each view has its strengths and weaknesses, and so you have to pick which weaknesses you’re willing to live with in the view that you adopt. If someone claims to have solved all the problems, he is blind to the weaknesses of his view. If we could solve all the difficulties, then everyone would agree.
Also, when you come to a difficult text, it’s important to interpret it in light of other texts that are more clear. We need to try to harmonize and integrate this text into the flow of Paul’s unambiguous teaching elsewhere. And, as always, we need to confess our lack of understanding to the Lord and ask Him to give us insight through the Holy Spirit so that we will grow in godliness. Our aim is not just to solve the interpretive puzzle, but to become more like Jesus Christ.
The main problem that we have to grapple with here is that some statements make it sound as if Paul were not a believer, whereas other statements make it sound as if he were a believer. Among those who argue that Paul is describing the experience of an unbeliever, some say that it is the experience of a Jew under the law. Some say that it describes a man under deep conviction of sin just before his conversion. Among those who argue that it describes a believer, some argue that he is talking about the normal experience of a mature Christian, whereas others say that he is describing the experience of a new or very immature believer.
Some argue that Paul is not speaking autobiographically here, but it seems to me that he is describing himself here. He uses “I” 24 times in 7:14-25, plus “me,” “my,” or “myself” 14 times. While Paul could be using this as a literary device, the most obvious way to take it is that he is speaking of his own experience. Obviously his experience is representative of the experience of all who have struggled against sin. But we’re learning through Paul’s experience.
Also, we need to keep in mind that Paul’s main purpose is not to share this as an interesting story, but rather to establish the holiness and integrity of the law, while at the same time to show the law’s inability to deliver us from sin. To have consistent victory over sin, we must learn to rely moment by moment on the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, which Paul explains in chapter 8.
With that as a background, let me walk you through some of the arguments for the various views. There are a number of variants within each view which we will not have time to delve into.
This was the position of the early church fathers in the first three centuries of Christianity. Augustine held this view earlier in his Christian life, but later argued that it refers to believers. John Wesley and many in the Arminian camp hold to this view. Here are the strongest arguments for this view:
This is the strongest argument for this position. In 7:14, Paul laments, “I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.” But in 6:14, he stated as a matter of fact, “For sin shall not be master over you.” He also stated (6:17-18), “But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.” He reinforces this in 6:22, “But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.”
Also, in 6:2, Paul said, “How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” But in 7:25b he says that with his flesh he is serving (the word means, “to serve as a slave”) the law of sin. In 6:6, he says that we were crucified with Christ so that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. But in 7:24 he laments, “Who will set me free from the body of this death?” In 7:18 Paul says, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.” How could a man indwelled by the Holy Spirit say such a thing? In 7:23 he adds that he is “a prisoner of the law of sin.” And, how could a believer who has already been redeemed by Christ cry out (7:24), “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?”
So the descriptions of our new position in Christ as believers in chapter 6 are totally at odds with these statements of the wretched man in chapter 7. He must still be an unbeliever.
Almost everyone agrees that 7:7-13 describes Paul as an unbeliever. If 7:14 shifts to his experience as a believer, you would expect a disjunctive word, such as “but.” Instead, Paul uses “for,” which indicates that he is explaining further his experience as an unbeliever. This is further substantiated by his immediately stating that he is “of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.” This goes back to 7:5, where Paul describes his experience as an unbeliever as being “in the flesh.”
Also, some argue that our text describes further the experience of 7:5, of the unbeliever in the flesh, whereas 8:1-17 picks up on 7:6, which describes the newness of serving in the Spirit. Also, there is the dramatic shift between the miserable experience of 7:14-25 and the “now” of 8:1 and the experience of victory that follows. Douglas Moo (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], pp. 442-451) argues that Paul presents his experience as a representative Jewish unbeliever under the law to show that the law is impotent to save anyone from their sin, thus reinforcing the argument of 7:1-13. He also is persuaded by the contrasts mentioned under the first argument.
Paul makes it clear (in 8:9) that every believer is indwelled with the Holy Spirit. If you do not have the Holy Spirit, you do not belong to Christ. Since there is a glaring absence of any mention of the Spirit in 7:14-25, as contrasted with at least 17 references to the Spirit in chapter 8, chapter 7 must describe an unbeliever.
Elsewhere Paul makes it clear that all believers struggle with sin, but that’s not what he describes in these verses. His experience in 7:14-25 is not just a struggle, but one of repeated failure, defeat, and inability to obey God. This is descriptive of an unbeliever.
There are some variations of the view that these verses describe an unbeliever. Martyn Lloyd-Jones argues for the position (also held by Godet and the Pietists, Francke and Bengel), that Paul is describing the experience of a Jew who is under deep conviction of sin, but not yet reborn. Thomas Schreiner (Romans [Baker], p. 390) argues that “Paul does not intend to distinguish believers from unbelievers in this text.” Rather, “Paul reflects on whether the law has the ability to transform human beings, concluding that it does not.” So Schreiner says that the passage could be describing either unbelievers or believers. Stuart Briscoe (The Communicator’s Commentary [Word], p. 147), somewhat in line with Schreiner, holds that “Paul is relating the struggles he had with the law of God before he knew Christ and which he continues to have since coming into an experience of the risen Lord.”
This was the view of Augustine later in life, as already mentioned. It is also the view of Luther, Calvin, and most of the Reformers, along with Reformed men down through the centuries, such as John Owen, Charles Hodge, John Murray, James Boice, J. I. Packer, John Piper, and others. Here are the main arguments to support the view that Paul is describing the experience of a mature believer. (John Piper gives ten arguments in favor of this view, but I can only list a few.)
As I’ve noted, Paul makes a very obvious shift from past tense verbs in 7:7-13 to present tense verbs in 7:14-25. The most natural way to understand this is that Paul is here describing his ongoing struggle against sin when he wrote this letter.
In Philippians 3 and in Galatians 1, along with a couple of places in Acts, Paul portrays himself before conversion as a self-satisfied Jew, bent on persecuting the church. There is no record that he went through an intense inward conflict such as that described here.
He says (7:22), “For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man.” He is seeking to obey the law, not just outwardly, but with the “inner man” (7:15-20, 22). Unbelievers may put on an outward show of obedience, but their hearts are far from God (Matt. 23; Mark 7:6-13). Unbelievers do not seek after God (Rom. 3:11) or desire to please Him (8:8). His heartfelt cry, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” sounds like the cry of a man who yearns for God and the new resurrection body, which will be free from sin. The closer a man draws to God, the more he sees the corruption of his old nature and the more he desires to be free from all inclination to sin.
Unbelievers only live in the flesh, but believers have a new nature and the indwelling Holy Spirit that war against the flesh (Gal. 5:17). Every Christian who is honest acknowledges this inner struggle against sin that goes on throughout life. Paul’s lament (7:18), “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh,” indicates that there is more to Paul than just flesh. He has a new inner man that longs for God and His holiness, although he has not yet attained it.
There are more arguments for each side and each side has arguments to rebut the arguments of the other side. For sake of time, I cannot go through each of these. Rather, I will now give you the correct view (yeah, sure!). As I said, there are strengths and weaknesses with every view, so we have to pick a view that seems most to harmonize with other Scriptures and to have the fewest problems. I actually was pushed toward this view by reading Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ volume on Romans 7 where he argues that these verses describe a Jew under intense conviction of sin, just prior to conversion. (He would not be happy that his argument pushed me in this direction!)
Let me begin by acknowledging that the main weakness of this view is Paul’s use of the present tense. It sounds as if Paul is speaking of his current experience, not of a past experience that he had as a new believer. But Paul could be using the present tense as a vivid way of sharing his experiences as a new believer. For reasons that I will share in a moment, I cannot accept that Paul is describing his experience as a mature believer.
Also, I want to distance myself from what is called the Keswick teaching, popularized by Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret, Watchman Nee’s The Normal Christian Life and Ian Thomas’ The Saving Life of Christ. These and other books of this persuasion teach that Romans 7 describes a “carnal” Christian who has not yet learned the secret of the “exchanged life.” When you learn the secret, “not I, but Christ,” you break through into the experience of Romans 8. It is sometimes pictured as moving from the wilderness to the Promised Land. This teaching gives the impression that once you break into the Romans 8 experience, the Christian life becomes an effortless, struggle-free, sin-free life. You never worry, you’re never ruffled by trials, and you experience perpetual joy and close fellowship with the Lord. These books convey that if you’re struggling against sin, you haven’t learned the secret of letting go and letting God. That is not my understanding of the biblical Christian life!
I understand the Christian life to be an ongoing, lifelong struggle against the world, the flesh, and the devil. We never arrive at a place in this life where sin no longer tempts us, where trials are not a difficult burden, and where we have attained sinless perfection. Jesus Himself cried out to God with loud crying and tears (Heb. 5:7). Paul was burdened so much that he despaired of life itself (2 Cor. 1:8). He describes his Christian life as a fight, not an effortless rest (2 Tim. 4:7). The author of Hebrews commends his readers in their striving against sin, and encourages them to submit to the difficult discipline of the Lord that for the moment does not seem joyful, but sorrowful (Heb. 12:4-11). So I’m not saying that in moving from Romans 7 to Romans 8, life becomes an effortless, ecstatic experience of perpetual victory. Even mature believers fall into sin on occasions and they always fall far short of perfection.
This means that there is always going to be some degree of the struggle expressed in Romans 7 in the Christian life, even in Romans 8. In that, I agree with those who argue that this is the experience of a mature Christian. As we grow to know God and His ways more deeply, we will always be painfully aware of how far short we fall. We will always lament our propensity toward living in the flesh and yielding to the sin that so easily besets us. There will always be the battle between the two natures. I do not agree with those who say that believers only have the new nature, or that we only sin occasionally. It is a daily battle with many setbacks.
But I disagree with those who argue that Romans 7 describes the “normal” Christian life. The man in Romans 7 is not just struggling against sin, which every Christian must do all through life, but he is consistently defeated by sin. He describes himself as “sold into bondage to sin” (7:14). He is “not practicing” what he would like to do, but is doing the very thing he hates (7:15). He wills to do good, but he does not do it (7:18). He practices the very evil that he does not want to do (7:19). He describes himself as a prisoner of the law of sin (7:23). These descriptions are contrary to 1 John 3:9, which says that believers cannot continue to sin as a normal way of life. Believers do sin, but they do not live in perpetual defeat to sin as Paul here describes. Mature believers do not continue practicing sin or living in slavery to it.
I’m sensitive to the argument that in light of chapter 6, no believer could say that he is “sold into bondage to sin” and “a prisoner of the law of sin.” As I said, that is the strongest argument that this is an unbeliever. But an unbeliever would not experience this intense hatred of his sin and inner desire to be free from it. And a mature believer would not describe himself as being in bondage to sin. Thus I think that Paul is describing his experience as a new believer, before he understood that he had died to the law and been joined in marriage to Christ and before he learned to walk by means of the Holy Spirit.
Since Paul before his conversion was a legalistic Pharisee, it’s not likely that immediately after his conversion he understood that he was dead to the law or that he now could live by the power of the Holy Spirit. He probably began his Christian experience by striving to obey the law in the flesh. After a time of trying and failing and trying again and failing again, he finally broke through to realize, “Sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace” (6:14). He came to understand that since he was identified with Christ in His death, he was now free from the law, so that now he could serve in newness of the Spirit (7:4, 6). He grew to understand his new identity in Christ. He realized the glorious truth, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (8:1). But it probably took him a while, perhaps a few years, to work through all of this both theologically and practically in terms of his daily experience. My understanding is that he is sharing those early struggles in Romans 7:14-25.
I’ll go back and work through these verses in more detail in coming messages. But for now, let me leave you with a few practical issues to think about.
First, if you do not hate your sin and struggle against it, you need to examine whether you are saved. Those who have experienced the new birth hate their sin and they desperately want to have victory over it. If you shrug off your sin as no big deal, it is not a sign that the Holy Spirit is dwelling in you. A life of ongoing repentance is the mark of the new birth.
Second, if you have trusted Christ but are defeated often by sin, so that you feel in bondage to it, there is hope for deliverance. Your defeats do not necessarily mean that you are not born again. At the same time, you need to realize how serious your sins are and that God did not save you so that you would live a defeated life. He has provided the Word, the indwelling Holy Spirit, and the body of Christ to help every Christian gain consistent victory over sin, beginning on the thought level. We will never be sinless in this life, but we should be sinning less as we grow to maturity in Christ. If you learn to walk in the Spirit, you will not carry out the desire of the flesh (Gal. 5:16).
So wherever you’re at spiritually, I want to offer you genuine hope in the Lord. If you are not saved, cry out to God: “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Rom. 10:13). If you are defeated by sin, so was none other than the apostle Paul. But he learned to live in consistent victory in Christ, and so can you! Romans 8 will help point the way.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Have you ever felt like you were on a merry-go-round of sin, but you couldn’t figure out how to get off even though you wanted to? In that sense, it isn’t a merry-go-round, but a miserable-go-round! You hate going around and around, but you don’t know how to get off the stupid thing.
That’s what Paul describes in Romans 7:14-20 about his spiritual experience: he hates what he is doing, but he can’t stop doing it. He knows that God gave us the law; it’s spiritual and good; it’s the right thing to do. The problem is, he can’t do it. He doesn’t have the power to get off the merry-go-round of sin.
But the problem we face in trying to understand Paul (as I explained at length last week) is that it’s difficult to determine whether he is talking here about his experience before salvation or after he was saved. Some of his statements sound as if he was an unbeliever, but other statements sound as if he was a believer. And, if it refers to his experience as a believer, how then do his words about being in bondage to sin (7:14) square with what he has said in chapter 6 about being freed from sin?
My understanding is that Paul is describing his experience as an immature believer, before he came to understand that he was no longer under the law and that he could experience consistent victory over sin by relying on the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. I hold this view because Paul makes some statements that an unbeliever could not make. He loves God’s law and wants to keep it from the heart (7:22). He hates his own sin.
But he also makes some statements that a mature believer could not make. He is not merely describing the ongoing struggle against sin that all believers experience, but rather an experience of ongoing defeat. He was habitually practicing the very evil that he hated (7:15, 19). This does not square with a person who walks by means of the Spirit and thus does not fulfill the desires of the flesh (Gal. 5:16). It does not line up with 1 John 3:9 (and 2:3-6), that those born of God do not practice sin.
It’s reasonable to assume that after his conversion, Paul did not instantly understand his new position of being dead to the law and united to Christ (Rom. 7:1-4) or how to walk in dependence on the indwelling Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:4, 13). So I believe that he is describing his own frustrating experience as a new believer, before he learned these truths. And, as I also said, Paul’s main point in the context is to show that God’s law is holy, righteous, and good, but it is not able to deliver us from the power of sin.
As I also explained, I agree that the Christian life is never free from the struggles that Paul describes here. We have to do battle against indwelling sin as long as we live. But Paul is not merely describing a struggle here. Rather, he is talking about a life of consistent defeat. He’s not just describing an ongoing battle, but a losing ongoing battle! I contend that this is not the normal Christian life of a mature believer.
Rather, as we grow to understand and live in light of our new identity in Christ and to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit, we can experience consistent victory over sin. We will never be sinless, but we will sin less as we grow. Also, as we grow we will come to see more and more of our inward corruption and more and more of God’s holiness, so that we lament our propensity toward sin and long for our new resurrection bodies. But we will not yield to our sinful desires as often as we did as new believers. So that is my approach to these verses.
Several commentators (F. Godet, Commentary on Romans [Kregel], p. 282, is the earliest that I could find) point out the cyclical structure of Romans 7:14-25. Each cycle begins with a fact, then gives the proof of it, and a conclusion:
First cycle (7:14-17):
Fact (7:14): “For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of flesh….”
Proof: (7:15-16): “For what I am doing, I do not understand….”
Conclusion: (7:17): “So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.”
Second cycle (7:18-20):
Fact: (7:18): “For I know that nothing good dwells in me….”
Proof (7:18b-19): “For the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not….”
Conclusion (7:20): “But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.”
Third cycle (7:21-25):
Fact (7:21): “I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.”
Proof (7:22-23): “For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in … my body….”
Conclusion (7:25): “So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but … with my flesh the law of sin.”
The second and third cycles in many ways repeat the first cycle, which is why I’m describing Paul’s experience here as being on a merry-go-round of sin. He’s doing the same thing over and over, in spite of his good intentions to the contrary. He wants to stop, but he can’t. And so the overall feeling is one of powerlessness. He knows that he’s doing wrong and he wants to please God, but he’s not able to do so. Sin gets the upper hand again and again.
In this message, I will look at the first two cycles (7:14-17, 18-20), which teach us:
After the new birth, immature believers often experience a frustrating cycle of being defeated by sin because they yield to the old nature.
I’m not saying that once you understand the truths of Romans 8, you will never suffer bouts of being defeated by sin. Romans 8 does not propel you into a life of effortless, struggle-free spiritual victory. The Christian life is a continual battle and there are setbacks and at times overwhelming failures. But I do contend that Romans 7, with its perpetual defeat, pictures an immature believer, whereas Romans 8 gives us the key to consistent victory. This means that if Romans 7 describes your life right now more than Romans 8 does, there is hope! Paul was once where you’re at now. His frustrating experience teaches us three things:
In Romans 6:6, Paul says that “our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.” In light of that, some, such as John MacArthur, teach (The MacArthur Study Bible NASB [Nelson Bibles], p. 1670), “The believer does not have two competing natures, the old and the new; but one new nature that is still incarcerated in unredeemed flesh.” As highly as I respect John MacArthur, I strongly disagree with that statement. I think it is unhelpful and dangerous, because it minimizes the spiritual danger that resides in every believer. I don’t care whether you call it the old nature, the flesh, or indwelling sin. But there resides in every believer a strong propensity toward sin that wars against the new nature that we received through the new birth.
Then how do I explain Romans 6:6? It reflects our new position in Christ, which we must count as true in the daily battle against sin. Paul often portrays the tension between our position and our practice in the Christian life. In Colossians 3:9-10, he says that as believers we have “laid aside the old self with its evil practices and have put on the new self….” But in the parallel in Ephesians 4:22-24, he commands us (almost all commentators take the infinitives as imperatives) to “lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit …” and “put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.” If we have already laid aside the old and put on the new, why does he command us to do it? The answer is, positionally it is true. But practically, we must count it as true and live in light of it.
You find the same tension between Romans 6, which emphasizes that we have died with Christ, and Romans 8:13, which commands us to put to death the deeds of the flesh. Or, in Colossians 3:3, Paul says that we have died with Christ, but in 3:5 he commands us to put to death (literal translation) the members of our earthly body with regard to various sins. We’re dead, so we need to live like it by putting our flesh to death.
So the point is, conversion does not eradicate the strong desires of the flesh or work to improve the flesh. The old man is “being corrupted according to the lusts of deceit” (Eph. 4:22). It won’t get better over time. You may have been a believer for 50 years, but you still must put off the flesh on a daily basis. That’s why the godly George Muller used to pray as an elderly man, “Lord, don’t let me become a wicked old man!” He knew that in him, that is, in his flesh, dwells nothing good (Rom. 7:18).
Again, while there is much controversy, with some saying that these verses describe unbelievers, while others argue that they reflect Paul’s experience as a mature believer, I contend that they describe an immature believer who is still yielding to his old nature. He has not yet learned to put on his new identity in Christ and to walk by means of the indwelling Holy Spirit, who gives us the power to resist the lusts of the flesh (Gal. 5:16).
There has been a lot of confusion because of some popular teaching that Christians may be divided into those that are “carnal” and those that are “spiritual.” This teaching was popularized through the Scofield Reference Bible, Lewis Sperry Chafer’s He That is Spiritual, and Campus Crusade for Christ’s “Holy Spirit” booklet. Purportedly based on 1 Corinthians 2 & 3, the teaching is that you can legitimately be a Christian through a decision to invite Christ into your life as Savior, but you’ve not yet chosen to let Him be Lord of your life. So you live with self on the throne until you learn to yield to the Holy Spirit. After that, you bounce back and forth between “carnal” and “spiritual,” depending on who is on the throne: self or the Lord.
But Scripture does not present the option of accepting Christ as your Savior, but not as your Lord. And you don’t bounce back and forth between being carnal or spiritual. Granted, there is a lifetime of growth involved in yielding every area of life and every thought to Christ. But if you are not seeking to obey Christ in every area of life, you need to examine whether He has changed your heart. All who are born of God strive to please God in every way. (See Ernest Reisinger’s booklet, What Should We Think of the Carnal Christian? [Banner of Truth], for more on this.)
It is better to say that Christians, like humans, grow through various stages: infancy, youth, and adulthood (see 1 John 2:12-14). Paul addresses the Corinthians as “infants in Christ,” who needed milk, not meat, because they were still fleshly (1 Cor. 3:1-3). Just as human babies must grow from milk to solid food, and from being fed to learning to feed themselves, and from being carried to crawling to walking, and in many more areas, the same is true spiritually. Newer believers usually yield more often to the old nature (the flesh or indwelling sin) than more mature believers do. Maturity involves learning to reckon yourself as dead to sin and alive to God in Christ. And it involves learning by the Spirit to put to death the deeds of the flesh (Rom. 8:13).
Here, Paul gives us a glimpse of his losing battle against sin as a babe in Christ, which he calls being “sold into bondage to sin” (7:14). Note six things about this enslavement to sin:
Romans 7 stands in such stark contrast to the truths of Romans 6 that many have concluded that it describes an unbeliever. If it were not for the inner struggle, you’d look at Paul’s behavior and conclude that he is not a believer. He is in bondage to sin. He does not obey God’s law, but rather does the opposite. In other words, Paul knew that he was living in disobedience to God. But internally, this war was raging, because he knew that his behavior did not match what he was supposed to be and what he desperately wanted to be.
This means that living in continual defeat to sin does not necessarily mean that you are not saved. But if you are saved, you can’t live contentedly in sin. You will hate what you’re doing and you will fight it desperately until you gain the victory. Spiritual complacency is not a good sign! Even young believers experience this intense internal conflict.
Jonathan Edwards argued forcefully in his A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (in The Works of Jonathan Edwards [Banner of Truth] 1:236), “True religion, in great part, consists in holy affections.” In other words, when God saves us, He gives us new holy desires. Edwards argues (1:239, italics his), “So holy desire, exercised in longings, hungerings, and thirstings after God and holiness, is often mentioned in Scripture as an important part of true religion.”
We see that here. Paul wants to obey God’s law and do what is right, but he’s failing. He confesses that God’s law is good, but he’s not able to obey it. His desires for holiness are evidence that God has imparted new life to him, but his inability to do what God requires is causing this inner turmoil. If you know that you’re disobeying God, but you just shrug it off, it may mean that you’re not born again. Those born of God’s Spirit are in turmoil when they disobey Him.
“For what I am doing, I do not understand” (7:15). By “understand,” Paul may mean that he does not approve of what he is doing (C. E. B. Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans [ICC, T. & T. Clark], 1:358). Or, he may mean that he does not fully comprehend the depths of sin that are still in his heart (Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], p. 373). But it’s obvious that he is a confused man. He doesn’t understand his own behavior. Sin always clouds our minds and causes us not to think clearly.
Paul agrees with the Law, confessing that it is good (7:16). Even though he is defeated by sin, he still recognizes that God’s ways are right and his own ways are wrong. He isn’t disputing with the law, as if it were unfair or even wrong.
Paul concludes the first section (7:17), “So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.” We need to be careful not to fall into error over verses 17 and 20, which say essentially the same thing. Paul is not saying, “I’m not responsible for my sin. I’m just a helpless victim. I didn’t do it; sin did it!” Rather, he is acknowledging the powerful inner struggle that takes place in every believer. He’s personifying sin not as an honored guest or a paying tenant, but as an uninvited squatter who is difficult to eject (Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 293). But since Paul commits the sin, he is responsible for doing it. And he is acknowledging that when he sins, he is acting against his new identity in Christ, which is his true new person. As new creatures in Christ, we are responsible to consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ (Rom. 6:11).
You can resist sin outwardly by sheer will-power, but it will keep wearing away in your inner man until it wins. In other words, outward morality is not enough. The Pharisees were outwardly moral, but Jesus nailed them for their hypocrisy and the evil that was in their hearts (Matt. 23). You have to judge sin on the thought level. It is so powerful that Jesus graphically portrayed dealing with it as cutting off your hand or plucking out your eye (Matt. 5:29-30). To live in consistent victory over indwelling sin, we need nothing less than the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. We all tend to minimize our sin, excusing it as no big deal. But these verses should show us that we’re dealing with a powerful force that is out to control and destroy us. We need more than will-power.
Thus, we all have a battle within due to the existence of the new man and the old in the same person. If we yield to the old man (the flesh, indwelling sin), it will dominate and enslave us.
In large part, verses 18-20 are a repeat of verses 14-17. Paul is explaining further the conclusion of verse 17, and his conclusion in verse 20 is almost identical with his conclusion in verse 17. He’s on the merry-go-round and can’t figure out how to get off. The repetition serves to drive home the facts that sin is more powerful than human will power, that the flesh is corrupt, and that if we let it, the old nature will dominate the new, even against our desires to the contrary. So we need nothing less than the very power of God to overcome the power of indwelling sin.
There are no answers to this huge problem of indwelling sin in Romans 7:14-25, except for the brief exclamation of hope in verse 25, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” The answers come in chapter 8.
But in one way there is an answer here: Sometimes God lets us come to the end of ourselves so that we will be driven to trust in Him alone. By our proud fallen nature, we’re prone to trust in ourselves, first for salvation, and then for sanctification. God has to show us that we cannot save ourselves by our own righteousness or good deeds. God only saves sinners who cast themselves upon His mercy in Christ. And He has to show us that we cannot conquer sin by our own will-power and effort. If we could, we’d boast in our holiness! Peter had to learn that painful lesson by denying the Lord. We have to learn it by going through the Romans 7 merry-go-round of resolve and failure, until we learn that the victory is not in us; it’s in the Lord.
My friend, Bob Deffinbaugh, who is a pastor in the Dallas area, put it this way (bible.org/seriespage/war-within-romans-714-25): “The problem with many Christians is not their despair, like that of Paul, but their lack of it.” He goes on to point out that until we come to the end of ourselves in utter despair, we will not come to Christ, because we think that we don’t really need Him. Until we see the magnitude of our sin problem in the inner person, we’ll assure ourselves that it’s under control because we’re outwardly moral. The first step to get off the merry-go-round of sin is to cry out (7:24), “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?” Thankfully, the answer is clear: God will set us free through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
I recently saw a bumper sticker with the peace symbol around the border. It showed two children with their arms around each other. The caption was, “All the arms we need.” I said to Marla, “What planet do these people live on?” When we dwell on the new earth, when all sin is completely eradicated, we won’t need arms to defend ourselves. But as long as sin is in this world, we need arms not only to hug one another, but also to fight against enemies that seek to destroy us. As unpleasant as it is, the reality of life in this fallen world includes conflict.
That’s also true in the Christian life. We all want peaceful lives. Perhaps you came to Christ because someone told you that in Him, you would find peace. That’s true. In Christ, we experience peace with God (Rom. 5:1). Christ is the basis for peace between believers (Eph. 2:14). As much as is possible, we are to be at peace with all people (Rom. 12:18). And, in Christ we come to know a sense of inner peace, even in the face of tribulation, that we lacked before (John 16:33).
But while the Christian life is one of peace, it’s also one of constant warfare. As we serve Christ and seek to extend His kingdom, we’re at war with the evil powers of darkness (Eph. 6:10-20). We’re engaged in the battle between God’s truth and the lies of Satan that captivate the minds of the unbelieving (2 Cor. 10:3-5). And, as every Christian knows, there is a fierce inner battle that goes on between the flesh and the spirit, the old man and the new (Gal. 5:17). If we do not learn how to overcome the strong inner urge to gratify the flesh, sin will take us captive and enslave us. Paul describes this war within in Romans 7:14-25.
As I explained in the previous two messages, some godly scholars understand these verses to be a description of Paul as an unbelieving Jew, striving but failing to keep God’s law. Others argue that Paul is describing the ongoing battle that he was experiencing as he wrote. Even mature believers have to fight this battle against indwelling sin as long as they live.
While I agree that mature believers must fight a continual battle against indwelling sin (the flesh or the old sin nature), I disagree that such a description adequately explains these verses. Paul is not just describing a battle here, but a losing battle. He describes himself as (7:14), “I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.” He is not practicing what he would like to do, but rather was doing the very thing he hated (7:15, 18, 19). He was a prisoner of the law of sin (7:23). As I explained (in the last message), he was on the merry-go-round of sin and he couldn’t get off.
We looked at the first two cycles (7:14-17, 18-20) of sin and defeat. Now we come to the third time around the merry-go-round, which follows the same three-fold progression: Fact, proof, and conclusion:
Fact (7:21): “I find then the principle that evil is present in me ….”
Proof (7:22-23): “For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in my members, waging war…”
Conclusion (7:25): “So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.”
I reject the view that Paul is describing his experience as an unbeliever because he says things that are not true of unbelievers. I reject the view that he was writing primarily about his struggle as a mature believer because while mature believers struggle with sin and sometimes lose the battle, they do not live in perpetual defeat and bondage to sin.
I contend that these verses primarily describe an immature believer who has not yet come to understand that he is no longer under the law, but under grace. He has not yet learned to rely on the indwelling Holy Spirit to overcome the lusts of the flesh. (There is no mention of the Spirit here, but much is said of the Spirit in chapter 8.) But at the same time, the war that Paul describes here does go on, even for mature believers. The difference is that while sin is winning the war in chapter 7, Paul through the Holy Spirit is winning against sin in chapter 8. While we can never in this life obey God’s law perfectly, we can learn to obey God consistently. We do not have to yield repeatedly to sin, which is the frustrating cycle that Paul describes here. This third cycle teaches us:
To win the war within, we must understand the magnitude of the inner conflict so that in despair we cry out to God for deliverance.
In 7:24, Paul cries out in despair, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” His exclamation in 7:25 gives us a ray of hope, followed by a summary of the war within: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.” Chapter 8 goes on to unfold the deliverance that God gives us over sin through the indwelling Holy Spirit. I see three lessons in our text:
The Christian life is a constant battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil. Here the focus is on the flesh. “I find” implies that this was a discovery that came to Paul after some painful failures. He discovered this truth in the school of hard knocks. Even though Paul had experienced a dramatic conversion, it didn’t immediately result in a life of consistent victory over sin. And so he portrays here the two combatants in this battle. We can picture them as boxers:
Paul uses several terms here to describe the evil within. While they have different nuances, they basically describe the same thing: “the law that evil is present in me” (7:21); “a different law … waging war” (7:23); “the law of sin” (7:23, 25); “the body of this death” (7:24); and, “my flesh” (7:25). All of these terms refer to the old man and its method of operation. The old man is not eradicated at conversion, but continues to be corrupted according to the lusts of deceit (Eph. 4:22). As we saw last time, positionally the old man was crucified with Christ, in order that our body of sin might be done away with (Rom. 6:6). But practically, we have to reckon this to be true in our daily experience by putting it off (Rom. 6:11; Eph. 4:22-24). If we don’t learn to do this, the old man will make us prisoners to the law of sin (7:23). Note how the old man operates:
The word translated “principle” (NASB, 7:21) is literally, “law.” Some commentators argue that it refers to God’s law (as it does in 7:22 & 25), so that in 7:21 the sense is, “I find then that in reference to [God’s] law, evil is present in me .…” While that is possible, the fact that Paul specifies “the law of God” in 7:22 indicates that he is distinguishing it from the law that he has just mentioned in 7:21.
So he is probably using “law” ironically in 7:21, both to compare and contrast the law of sin with God’s law. In this sense, it rules us and with authority tells us how to live (although wrongly!). It promises rewards if we obey it: “You’ll be happier and more fulfilled if you experience the pleasure of this sin.” It threatens us with penalties if we do not obey it: “You’ll miss out on all the fun if you don’t do what I say.” So indwelling sin is powerful. It operates as a law, commanding us, threatening us, and enticing us. (I am indebted to Kris Lundgaard, The Enemy Within [P & R Publishing], pp. 23-26 for some of these insights about the law of sin.)
Paul says (7:23), “But I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war ….” The war that the old man wages is a guerilla war. It doesn’t wear red coats and come marching towards you in formation, so that you can see it coming. It uses snipers and land mines and hidden roadside bombs and civilians posing as friends when really they’re enemies. In other words, sin is subtle and cunning. It lures you into traps where you get ambushed. And it’s relentless. If it loses one battle, it doesn’t pack up and go home, conceding defeat. It keeps coming at you until it brings you down.
This law operates “in the members of my body” (7:23). Paul laments “the body of this death” (7:24), which refers to his physical body that is under the curse of death. He contrasts the law of sin with “the law of my mind” (7:23).
We need to be careful here or we could fall into an error that became prevalent in the early church. Gnosticism taught that the body is inherently evil, whereas the spirit is good. This led to two different extremes. Some said that since the body is evil, we must treat it harshly by depriving ourselves of food, comfort, and physical pleasure. This is asceticism, which Paul strongly condemns (Col. 2:16-23). The other extreme was that some said that since the body is evil anyway, you might as well indulge it. What the body does is unrelated to the spirit. So you could indulge in sexual immorality, but at the same time claim that your spirit was not in sin.
Since Paul elsewhere clearly denounces these errors, we would be mistaken to take his teaching here in that way. Rather, he is saying that the law of sin works through his physical body and manifests itself in evil deeds. But it takes his entire person captive (7:23, “making me a prisoner”). In this sense, by his members, Paul means his flesh (7:18), which is the old sin nature. Temptation always begins in our minds, but it appeals to and works its way out through our bodies. Thus one strategy against sin is to make it your aim always to glorify God with your body (1 Cor. 6:20).
Sin uses reason, however faulty, to appeal to us. Satan reasoned with Eve that God surely would not impose the death penalty for eating a little piece of fruit. He also used faulty reasoning to get her to doubt God’s goodness in imposing the command. The fall brought our minds as well as our bodies into captivity to sin.
But in addition to reason, temptation always appeals to our feelings. Leon Morris (The Epistle to the Romans [Apollos/Eerdmans, p. 294) refers to it as “the compulsion to do evil.” It’s not purely rational. In fact, sin is usually irrational. If we were to stop and think about the consequences both for us and for others, we’d resist the temptation. Don Kistler pointed out the irrationality of sin when he astutely observed (in “Why Read the Puritans Today?” referring to Jeremiah Burroughs’ thesis in The Evil of Evils), “Sin is worse than suffering; but people will do everything they can to avoid suffering, but almost nothing to avoid sin.”
So, in the first corner, we have the reigning champion that has dominated the human race ever since the fall: the old man.
Paul wants to do good (7:21). He says (7:22), “For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man.” He says that with his mind he is serving the law of God (7:25). This must refer to the mind of a regenerate man. So by the inner man and my mind, Paul is referring to the new man, which through the new birth “has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth” (Eph. 4:24). Leon Morris (p. 295) calls this “the real Paul.” F. F. Bruce (Romans [IVP/Eerdmans], rev. ed., p. 146) identifies it as “the ‘new nature’ in Christ that is daily being renewed in the Creator’s image.” He adds (ibid.), “In light of 8:7-8 it is difficult to view the speaker here as other than a believer.”
One of the marks of the new birth is that God gives you new desires. You have a new love for Christ, who gave Himself on the cross for you. You love God’s Word and desire it like a newborn babe desires his mother’s milk (1 Pet. 2:2). You long to be holy, just as Jesus is holy. You hate your own sin. You love to be with God’s people and talk about the things of God. And yet, at the same time, you know that in your flesh there is still a strong desire to do evil. In new believers, the desires of the old nature (the reigning champion) often win out over the new desires of the new nature (the new challenger) until the new believer learns how to fight.
That’s the picture of Paul here. He has a new nature that joyfully concurs with God’s law in the inner man, but he’s still dominated by the old nature. Unbelievers do not have two natures warring against each other and they do not joyfully love God’s law in their hearts. But mature believers have learned to put on the new man and put off the old, so that they experience consistent victory over sin. But before we begin to see consistent victory, we often experience frustrating defeats because of the power of the reigning champion, the old man. Let’s examine what deliverance from the old nature looks like:
In addition to Paul’s dramatic use of the present tense, one strong argument that he is describing mature believers here is that even mature believers identify with the struggle pictured here. Even after we’ve learned to overcome temptation on a consistent basis and after we’ve walked in obedience to the Lord for years, we still find ourselves sinning. We lash out in anger at our loved ones. We act selfishly with no regard for others. We see a seductive woman and lust floods into our thoughts.
But I do not see Paul describing here a lack of perfection, but rather a lack of obedience. He is not doing what he knows to be right. He is practicing what he knows to be wrong. He is failing completely. I agree with Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Romans: The Law: Its Functions and Limits [Zondervan], p. 222), who argues that Paul’s cry of anguish (in 7:24) is not caused by the fact that he is in conflict against his old nature, but rather by his persistent defeat in yielding to that old nature (7:23). So let me make three observations to try to picture what deliverance looks like:
In this life, I will never love God as completely as I should, with my entire heart, soul, mind, and strength. I will never love others as much as I love myself (Mark 12:30-31). I will always fall short of these commands. But a lack of perfection is not the same as persistent disobedience. As a new creature in Christ, by God’s Spirit, I can choose to love God by spending time with Him each day in His Word and in prayer, by gathering with His people to worship Him each week, and by honoring Him with the money He entrusts to me. I can love my wife, my children, and others in a self-sacrificing manner. The deliverance that Paul is crying out for (in 7:24) may include the perfection that will come when we get our resurrection bodies. But he wants to be freed from his present enslavement to sin (7:23). He wants to obey God consistently, even if such obedience can never be perfect in this life.
There is an irony in the Christian life: As you walk more consistently in obedience to God and grow closer to the light of His holy presence, you see all the more how dirty you really are. When Isaiah saw God in His holiness, he immediately saw how sinful he was (Isa. 6:5). Paul’s cry here may have stemmed partly from this awareness of his sinful imperfection. In that sense, it’s a cry that we will continually echo as we grow in Christ.
But it seems to me that Lloyd-Jones is right when he connects Paul’s cry in this context mainly with his disobedience and defeat, not just with his imperfection (7:24 follows 7:23). Yet at the same time, growing to know Christ and obey Him more always leads to a greater awareness of how sinful you still are. Deliverance from sin’s power does not eliminate this tension of how far short you fall.
After Paul’s jubilant exclamation (7:25), you’d expect him to move on to talk about victory over sin. But instead, he summarizes the war he has just described, in which with his mind he serves the law of God, but with his flesh, the law of sin. It leaves you with the feeling that sin is still consistently winning. Victory doesn’t come until chapter 8. Bishop Lightfoot (Notes on Epistles of St. Paul [Baker], p. 305) says that while Paul’s thanksgiving is out of place, he can’t endure to leave the difficulty unsolved, so he gives the solution parenthetically, even though it interrupts his argument.
But while the struggle against sin is a lifelong battle, when we do learn that we can’t win it in our own strength and when we learn to walk in the Spirit, we can experience consistent victory, which is the flavor of chapter 8. But even when we walk in the Spirit, the daily struggle against sin goes on. The war within of chapter 7 is never eradicated in this life, but the difference is, chapter 7 pictures persistent defeat, whereas chapter 8 pictures consistent triumph and victory, even in the face of severe trials. By God’s grace, we can put the defeat of chapter 7 in the past and experience the consistent victory of chapter 8.
As I cited my friend Bob Deffinbaugh last week, the problem with many Christians is not their despair, like that of Paul, but their lack of it. They don’t feel the anguish of their persistent disobedience. They avoid the struggle, often by minimizing their sin as a “personality quirk” or as “just being human.” They excuse it as normal: “Everyone has his faults.”
But you will not gain consistent victory over sin until you first see God’s holy standard and realize how often you’re disobeying that standard. You must also realize, often through repeated failures, that you cannot obey God in your own strength. Then, in despair, you cry out, “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?” As you search God’s Word for answers, you learn that “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death” (8:2). You learn to walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit (8:4). You begin to experience consistent victory over sin in your daily walk, beginning on the thought level.
Dwight Eisenhower once said, “War is a terrible thing. But if you’re going to get into it, you’ve got to get into it all the way.” Underestimating the power of the enemy is a sure way to lose. The war within will be with us as long as we live in these fallen bodies. It is winnable, not perfectly or permanently, but consistently. But we can’t be half-hearted. If we fully engage the battle using God’s resources, we can consistently win!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
We come to a chapter that has often been called either the greatest or one of the greatest chapters in the Bible (James Boice, Romans [Baker], 2:781; Martyn Lloyd Jones, Romans: The Law: Its Functions and Limits [Zondervan], p. 258). The Swiss commentator Godet pointed out that it begins with “no condemnation” and ends with “no separation.” Another commentator (C. A. Fox) added that in between there is “no defeat” (cited by Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 299).
Personally, I’ve come to Romans 8 again and again when I’ve been discouraged or depressed. I don’t see how you can read Romans 8 and remain down. If you struggle with guilt, read Romans 8. If you struggle with sin, read Romans 8. If you’re going through trials, read Romans 8. If you don’t know how to pray, read Romans 8. If you’re struggling with assurance of your salvation, read Romans 8. Interestingly, while the flavor of Romans 8 is exhortation, there is not a single command in the chapter. The German Pietist Philipp Spener said that if the Bible were a ring and Romans its precious stone, chapter 8 would be “the sparkling point of the jewel” (F. Godet, Commentary on Romans [Kregel], p. 295).
There is a noticeable shift from Romans 7 to Romans 8. In chapter 7, “I” is frequent, the law is prominent, and sin is dominant. In chapter 8, the Holy Spirit is frequent (18x, more than any other NT chapter), God’s grace and persevering love are prominent, and victory over sin is dominant. There are several ways to outline the chapter; here is one:
1. Justification and sanctification: God’s salvation through Christ and His indwelling Spirit give us life to overcome judgment and sin (8:1-13).
2. Adoption: God’s Spirit assures us of our adoption as His children and heirs (8:14-17).
3. Glorification: Although we (and all creation) now suffer, God will bring us to final glory (8:18-30).
A. Our present sufferings do not compare to our future glory (8:18-25).
B. In our weakness, the Spirit intercedes for us (8:26-27).
C. God will work all things together for our good, because His sovereign purpose for His elect will bring us to glory (8:28-30).
4. Assurance: No attack or hardship can separate God’s elect from His great love (8:31-39).
With that as an overview of the chapter, let’s zero in on 8:1-4, where Paul deals with two very practical issues: guilt and sin. As we saw in chapter 7, believers fight an inner war. With the new man in Christ, they joyfully concur with the holy commandments of God’s law. But, with the old man (the flesh, or indwelling sin), they are prone to be held captive by the law of sin. As I explained, I understand Romans 7:14-25 to refer primarily to immature believers who have not learned of their new identity in Christ. They do not yet reckon themselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ. They have not yet learned to rely on the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit to put to death the deeds of the flesh. They’re living like unbelievers. So sin and guilt are a major problem for them.
Even though mature believers experience consistent victory over sin, they still struggle daily against the flesh and occasionally lose the battle. So they must understand how to deal with guilt and how to overcome temptation. When we do sin as Christians, the enemy comes in to stir up doubts about our salvation: “How do you know that your sins are all forgiven? True Christians don’t do what you just did! You’re hopeless! You might as well admit your hypocrisy in claiming to be a Christian and quit trying to be holy.” It is to those practical issues that Paul directs these opening verses:
God has graciously set free from sin’s penalty and power all who are in Christ Jesus.
Although these are wonderful verses, they’re not easy to interpret. So godly commentators and pastors disagree over many details in the text. Some see verses 1 & 3 as pertaining to justification, with verses 2 & 4 applying to sanctification. But as I’ve wrestled with the flow of thought, I think that Paul is dealing with justification through most of this paragraph, but brings in sanctification at the end to answer his critics who accused him of promoting licentiousness. Note that verses 2 & 3 both begin with “for.” In verse 2, Paul explains what he said in verse 1, which clearly deals with justification. Thus I understand verse 2 primarily to explain justification. Verse 3 explains further verse 2. The first half of verse 4 gives the result of justification (in 8:1-3). Then the last half of verse 4 describes those who have been justified: They do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. Verses 5-11 explain the differences between those in the flesh and those in the Spirit, which is applied to believers in verses 12-13.
There are three stages in Paul’s thought:
Romans 8:1: “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” If you have not memorized that simple verse, do it! You will need it over and over again, every time you sin. By the way, the King James Version wrongly includes the phrase from verse 4, “who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” That rightly belongs at the end of verse 4, but it was probably inserted after verse 1 by a copyist who was worried that the bold statement of verse 1 as it stands would lead readers into licentiousness. But it lacks sufficient manuscript support. Verse 1 ends with the wonderful phrase that Paul uses so often, “in Christ Jesus.”
There are four words or phrases that we must understand to grasp the truth of verse 1: “Therefore”; “no condemnation”; “now”; and, “in Christ Jesus.”
“Therefore”: It is not immediately obvious what Paul refers to with “therefore.” Some think that it refers to his exclamation in 7:25, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” But the intervening summary at the end of that verse makes the connection unclear. Probably, Paul is going back to the entire argument of justification by faith that has dominated the letter from 3:21 onward. But there are two more definite connections. The word “condemnation” (in Greek) only occurs elsewhere in the New Testament in Romans 5:16 & 18, where Paul argued that just as condemnation came to the entire human race through Adam’s sin, so God’s free gift of justification came to us through Jesus Christ. Just as we were under condemnation in Adam, so now we are in Christ, justified by His grace.
Also, in Romans 7:6, Paul said, “But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.” He seems to be picking up that truth and elaborating on it here. So “therefore” goes back to sum up the great truth of the gospel of justification by faith alone through God’s grace alone in Christ alone that Paul has laid out earlier in this letter.
“No condemnation”: “No” is emphatic and means, “not any,” or “not one.” “Condemnation” is a legal or forensic term that “includes both the sentence and the execution of the sentence” (Morris, p. 300). In Adam, we all stand before God as guilty and condemned to eternal punishment (5:16, 18). We’re on death row, awaiting the execution of the guilty verdict that has been passed. If we died in that condition, we would pass into eternal separation from God, the second death. But since Christ bore the punishment that we deserved, in Him we are set free so that we stand before God justified and acquitted, with all charges dismissed.
This raises the practical question, “As a believer should I feel guilty when I sin?” If there is no condemnation, should we refuse to feel guilty when we disobey God? I would argue that properly understood, believers should feel guilty when they sin. The guilt stems from the fact that I have violated God’s holy Word. I have disobeyed my loving heavenly Father. Rather than loving my Savior, who went to the cross on my behalf, I have loved the sin that put Him there. Feelings of guilt that lead to genuine sorrow and repentance when I disobey God are appropriate.
On the other hand, I should not feel the guilt of condemnation that stems from the accuser’s false charge: “True Christians don’t do what you did. You’re not even a Christian!” If I mourn over my sin and am repentant before God over it, then I must accept His forgiveness and answer the accuser with the blood of the Lamb and the word of my testimony that I trust in Jesus (Rev. 12:10-11; Zech. 3:1-5). To put it another way, the guilt that I feel when I sin is relational, as a child to my Father. It is not forensic, as a criminal before the judge.
The third word is “now”: This refers to the great change that came about in salvation history when God sent His own Son to bear our sins on the cross. Now that Christ has come, we no longer need to bring the blood of sacrificial animals over and over again to atone for our sins. Once for all, Jesus offered Himself as the perfect and final sacrifice (Heb. 10:1-18). But personally, it also applies to the time since you put your trust in Christ as your sin-bearer. Since He bore the full wrath of God, which you deserved, and your trust is in Him, not in any good works of your own, now you stand before God with no condemnation. Even when you sin, you stand before God as His child, not as a guilty criminal. Now should bring you great relief every day, especially when you sin.
Finally, this great blessing of no condemnation is not for everyone. Rather, it is for those who are “in Christ Jesus.” As we saw (in 5:12-21; 6:1-11), there are only two categories of people: Those who are in Adam; and, those who are in Christ. Those who are in Adam are under God’s just condemnation and face His awful wrath for all their sins. Those who are in Christ have been clothed with His righteousness. His death paid the penalty for all of their sins, so that God can be both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (3:26). So, as one writer put it, “The unbeliever has his judgment day before him, but the believer in Christ has his judgment day behind him” (Marcus Rainsford, cited by W. H. Griffith Thomas, St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 205).
And so it’s no trivial question to ask, “Are you in Christ Jesus?” Have you fled to Christ as your only refuge from God’s judgment? When God destroyed the world through the flood, the only thing that mattered was, were you on the ark? You may have thought that you were a decent person, but if you weren’t on the ark, you perished. You may not have believed that God was going to judge the whole earth, but your not believing it didn’t change the fact. God brought that terrible judgment and the only ones who were saved were those who heeded His warning and got on board the ark. Have you “gotten on board” with Jesus Christ? If you’re in Him, you’re safe from the judgment to come. If you’re trusting in your own ability to swim, you’re under condemnation!
Romans 8:2: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.” “For” explains how it is that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Before Christ, you were under the law of sin and of death. This refers to the strong principle or authority of sin that dominated your life as an unbeliever. Unchecked, that life under sin’s domination was leading you toward death. As I explained in the messages on 7:14-25, I believe it also explains the experience of an immature believer, who has not yet learned to live under the new law of the Spirit of life in Christ (7:23, 25). So in that sense, Romans 8:2 has a secondary application to sanctification, or the process of growing in holiness. Believers are now freed from sin’s domination by the new principle or power of the Spirit of life.
But I think that verse 2 refers primarily to the new life that the Holy Spirit gives to us in regeneration. Jesus told the religious Nicodemus (John 3:6-7), “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’” He also said (John 6:63), “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”
Religion, no matter how conscientiously we follow it, cannot deliver anyone from the power of sin and death. All the good deeds in the world will not set you free from the law of sin and death. To be set free, you need new life imparted by God’s Spirit. Along with this new life comes complete justification from all your sins (8:1). But also, this new life means that you are now dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus (6:11). The new law of life in the Spirit frees you from the old law in which sin held you down, just as the law of aerodynamics frees a heavy plane from the law of gravity.
So I understand verse 2 as primarily referring to the new life that the Spirit gives in regeneration. That new life comes to us “in Christ Jesus” and frees us from “the law of sin and of death.” But of course this new life in the Spirit works after regeneration by giving us the power to overcome sin in daily life. Sin still tries to hold us down, but the life that comes from the indwelling Spirit gives us the power to soar above sin and the resulting death.
Romans 8:3-4a: “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, …” As Paul has stated, the law brought God’s wrath and resulted in increased sin (4:15; 5:20). The problem wasn’t with the law, which is holy, righteous, and good (7:12). The problem was with our flesh (7:13, 25). The law did not provide the power to keep it, and so was weak through the flesh. Apart from God’s intervention, the law only served to condemn us.
But, thankfully, God intervened! He sent His own Son. Salvation is completely from the Lord. God’s sending His Son implies the pre-existence of the Son. Did you notice the Trinity in our text? God the Father sent Jesus Christ His Son to offer Himself for our sins, so that the Holy Spirit could provide us with new life. God is one God who exists eternally in three distinct persons, each of whom is fully God. The word own is emphatic and shows us God’s great love for us: He sent none other than His own Son (5:8).
When Jesus came, He took on “the likeness of sinful flesh.” There is a fine balance here. Jesus did not come in sinful flesh, in that He was without sin. If He had been born in sin, He would have had to die for His own sin. He did not come in the likeness of flesh, which would mean that He was not truly human. This was the early church heresy known as Docetism. They claimed that Jesus only appeared to be a man. But Jesus came in the likeness of sinful flesh. His body was a real human body, so that He could die for human sins. But He was also sinless, so that He could be the Lamb without blemish, dying as a substitute for sinners.
Also, He died “as an offering for sin.” The literal Greek phrase is, for sin, which may mean, “to deal with the sin problem.” But it is also a technical phrase in the LXX, where in 44 out of 54 occurrences it refers to a sacrifice for sin (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 480, note 48). The result of Christ’s sacrificial death was that “He condemned sin in the flesh.” The phrase might better be rendered, “in the flesh, He condemned sin” (Morris, p. 303). This means that by His sacrificial death, offering His body on the cross, Jesus paid the penalty for our sin. His death was substitutionary—in our place. He died the death that we deserve so that we could be set free from the law of sin and death.
But there is debate over what the next phrase means (8:4a): “so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, …” Many scholars whom I respect (e.g., Thomas Schreiner, F. F. Bruce, John Piper, Martyn Lloyd-Jones) understand this to refer to the obedience of Christians who walk by the Spirit. The Holy Spirit enables them to obey God’s law. Thus it refers to sanctification.
Others (John Calvin, Charles Hodge, Douglas Moo) point out that even with the Spirit’s power, no believer fulfills the righteous requirement of the law. If you keep the entire law, but stumble in one point, you are guilty of it all (James 2:10). Only Christ completely fulfilled the law by His perfect obedience and sacrificial death. Thus I think that the first part of verse 4 refers to Christ’s perfect righteousness applied to our account through faith. This is the doctrine of justification by faith alone in Christ alone.
But critics have always alleged that that doctrine will lead to licentiousness (Rom. 3:8). If God counts us as totally righteous apart from our good works, then we can sin all we want, so that grace might abound. Paul’s strong response to that charge is (6:1), “May it never be!” Here he counters it by adding the last phrase of verse 4 and then expanding on it in 8:5-13:
Romans 8:4b: “who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Justification (8:1-4a) is the necessary foundation and motivating cause of sanctification (8:4b). Justification frees us from sin’s penalty; sanctification frees us from sin’s power. Because God has forgiven all our sins through Christ’s death and because He has imparted new life to us through the Holy Spirit, we now do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Walk implies steady, gradual progress along a path toward a goal. In this life, we will never walk in perfect obedience. Only Jesus did that and His perfect righteousness is credited to our account so that we stand before God with no condemnation. But as we learn to walk daily in the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, we will make progress in obedience to God’s Word. We will grow in holiness. Our lives will increasingly be distinguished by the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). Salvation by grace through faith alone always results in a life of walking in good works (Eph. 2:8-10).
I leave you with two questions: (1) Are you in Christ Jesus through faith in His blood, shed for the remission of your sins? If so, you can enjoy the assurance that there is now no condemnation for you, because you are in Christ Jesus.
(2) Are you walking according to the Spirit, not according to the flesh? Each day, do you yield to the Holy Spirit and rely on His power, so that His fruit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Gal. 5:22-23)—are growing in you? Christ died and the Spirit gave you new life to set you free from the law of sin and of death.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
In Faith Works ([Word Publishing], p. 127) John MacArthur tells about reading a book which told about a pastor who had been sent to prison for robbing 14 banks to finance his encounters with prostitutes! The author of this book was fully convinced that this pastor was a true Christian and so he wrote the book to explore how such a thing could be possible. MacArthur writes, “Call me old-fashioned, but I think it is fair to raise the question of whether someone who regularly robs banks to pay for illicit sex is truly saved!” Yes!
In recent years several polls have shown disturbing beliefs and behaviors among those who profess to be evangelical Christians. For example, a Pew Forum poll indicated that 57 percent of evangelical church attenders believe many religions can lead to eternal life (in Arizona Daily Sun [06/24/2008]). Other surveys show that only 9 percent of teens and 32 percent of adults who claim to be born again believe in moral absolutes (Barna Update, 2/12/2002). That means that over 90 percent of “born again” teens and two-thirds of “born again” adults do not believe in moral absolutes!
These shocking numbers may be explained in part by a lack of solid biblical preaching in evangelical churches. But beneath this lack of solid preaching is a basic misunderstanding about the nature of the gospel. We have wrongly assumed that when someone makes a decision to accept Christ as Savior or prays a prayer to invite Jesus into his heart, he is saved. We wrongly think that someone can accept Jesus as his Savior, but not yield to Him as Lord. Or we mistakenly assume that all who profess Jesus as Lord, especially those who serve Him, will go to heaven. But Jesus made it clear that only those who obey Him can expect to be welcomed into heaven (Matt. 7:21-27).
The Bible is clear that salvation is a matter of God’s imparting new life to a person who was dead in his sins. And such new life always manifests itself in changed belief and behavior. This is not to say that those who are truly born again cannot fall into gross sins. But it is to say that they cannot live complacently in sin. While growth in godliness is a lifelong process, there is such growth in the lives of all who have been born of the Spirit.
In Romans 8:1-4, Paul gives assurance that if we are in Christ, we will not be condemned at the judgment. Jesus paid the penalty we deserved on the cross. If we have trusted in His shed blood, the Holy Spirit who gives life has set us free from the law of sin and of death. Paul concludes that section (8:4b) by describing those who have been justified by faith: they “do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
Now he explains (“for”) why some walk according to the flesh and others walk according to the Spirit: It is due to their nature. Their spiritual nature of being either “according to the flesh” or “according to the Spirit” determines their spiritual behavior of walking according to the flesh or the Spirit. In 8:5-8, he mainly describes those who are “according to the flesh.” In 8:9-11 he focuses on those who are “in the Spirit.” Griffith Thomas (St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 208) summarizes the flow of thought: “Hence, as in verses 1-4, the Apostle has shown that until and unless a man is justified he cannot possibly be holy, so now, in verses 5-11, he will show that if a man is not holy he cannot possibly have been justified.” In other words, justification is always the necessary foundation for sanctification. And sanctification is always the evidence of justification.
So Paul paints a picture of these two distinct groups: those according to the flesh; and, those according to the Spirit. We can apply his point by saying,
Since there are only two groups of people with two very different destinies, make sure that you are“according to the Spirit,” not the flesh.
Romans 8:5: “For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.”
It’s important to understand that Paul is not writing here about two types of Christians, but rather about how non-Christians differ from true Christians. While it’s true that immature believers may yet live in accordance with the flesh (as I believe 7:14-25 describes), and even mature believers at times yield to the flesh (Rom. 8:12; Gal. 5:17), that is not what Paul is describing here. Here, “those who are according to the flesh” describes the spiritual condition of unbelievers. They are characterized by death (8:6). “Those who are according to the Spirit” describes believers, who are characterized by life and peace (8:6). The nature of each group determines their present behavior and their final destiny.
There is a popular but mistaken view that there are two optional tracks for the Christian life. If you’re prone toward masochism, you can sign up for the discipleship track. Under this plan, you give up everything to follow Christ. You have to deny yourself and take up your cross daily. You will suffer hardship, sacrifice, and perhaps even martyrdom. You have to give the control of all of your material assets to Christ. You may be required to take the gospel to a foreign culture, where you’ll live in difficult and perhaps dangerous circumstances. But, your rewards in heaven will be great. This discipleship track is for the super-committed.
The other track, the “cultural Christian track,” is for the rest of us more “ordinary” believers. Under this plan, you can accept Jesus as your Savior (to make sure that you’ll go to heaven), but also pursue your dreams for success and personal fulfillment in this life. You get the best of both worlds without needing to be gung ho, like those on the discipleship track. You can enjoy the fellowship of a good evangelical church and pursue the American dream at the same time. Just drop something in the offering plate once in a while to pay your dues. Once in a while you can volunteer to help out at the church, when it fits in with your busy schedule. Don’t be too hard on yourself about obedience to the Bible. After all, we’re all human. God is gracious and He understands your weaknesses. So accept yourself and don’t think that you have to be all-out for Jesus. That’s just for the fanatics on the discipleship track.
But Jesus made it clear that there is only one track for the Christian life (Mark 8:34-38):
And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”
It’s pretty clear that Jesus is talking about eternal life or eternal condemnation. If you want eternal life, you must die to self and follow Jesus. In Paul’s language, that describes a person who is “according to the Spirit.” The other track describes those who are “according to the flesh.” These are the only two groups in the world when it comes to eternal life or eternal death.
Paul describes the mindset of those who are according to the flesh as “the things of the flesh” (8:5). This mindset is death (8:6); it is hostile toward God, not subject to God’s law (8:7), and not pleasing to God (8:8). On the other hand, the mindset of those who are according to the Spirit is “the things of the Spirit” (8:5). This mindset is life and peace (8:6). By implication, since it is the opposite of the mindset of the flesh, the mindset of those who are according to the Spirit is friendly toward God, subject to His law, and pleasing to Him.
To be “according to” the flesh means to live under the flesh, to make it your rule, or to obey it. To live “according to” the Spirit means to be “ruled and determined by His awakening, regenerating, illuminating presence; characterized by the fact that He dwells in [us]” (H. C. G. Moule, The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans [Cambridge, 1903], p. 141). Let’s look at the two mindsets:
“Flesh” in the Bible can be used in different ways, depending on the context. It may refer to our human bodies with no moral connotations at all (2 Cor. 10:3; Gal. 2:20; 4:13). It may refer to the weakness of human life as temporal (1 Pet. 2:24). Or it may refer to the sinfulness of human nature after the fall, as expressed in the deeds of the flesh (Gal. 5:16-21). These deeds include sins that we might categorize as sensual (immorality, impurity, drunkenness); but they also include worshiping false gods, strife, jealousy, and anger. So to live according to the flesh is to live independently of God, in dependence on oneself, with self at the center. The fleshly person may be outwardly moral, but his motives and goals are for his own glory or gain or comfort, without regard for the glory of God or the good of others.
Paul makes it clear that being “according to the flesh” has to do with our mindset, or how we think. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Romans: The Sons of God [Zondervan], p. 5) explains, “The term includes not only thought and understanding, it includes the affections, the emotions, the desires and the objects of pursuit.” That non-Christians set their minds on the things of the flesh not only means that they think about them occasionally, he says, “but that these are the things which they think of most of all; these are the things of which they think habitually, the trend or the bent of their thinking is toward them.”
To set one’s mind on the things of the flesh is much the same as when John says (1 John 2:15-16), “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.” Loving the world or setting one’s mind on the things of the flesh means to live for the temporal things that the world values, in disregard of God and eternity.
The things of the Spirit are the truths revealed to us in God’s Word concerning who He is, who we are, the great salvation that He has provided in Christ, and how we should live in light of that salvation (1 Cor. 2:6-13). To set your mind on the things of the Spirit does not mean that you go around with your head in the clouds, detached from everyday matters. It does not mean that you must join a monastery and spend hours every day in meditation and prayer. It does not mean that you do not get your hands dirty with mundane things like work, paying bills, cleaning the house, fixing meals, mowing your lawn, or reading the newspaper.
Rather, to set your mind on the things of the Spirit means to relate all of life to God and His Word. God has seen fit in His Word to tell us how to have our sins forgiven and to have eternal life through faith in Christ. That is the most important thing, because you could die at any moment and stand before God. That is why Paul says (Col. 3:1-4),
Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.
So to set your mind on the things of the Spirit means especially to think often about matters of salvation. It means to worship God and commune with Him.
But the Bible also tells us a lot about many practical, down-to-earth matters. In the context of Colossians 3, Paul goes on to talk about sex, greed, anger, abusive speech, and truthfulness. He gives practical commands regarding relationships, marriage, child-rearing, and work. In other places, the Bible says a lot about how to manage money, how to deal with trials, how to relate to civil authorities, and many other practical matters. So to repeat, to set your mind on the things of the Spirit means to relate all of life to God and His Word. It means to develop a biblical worldview, where you think about and process all of life through the lens of the Bible.
At the heart of this process is how you think. In an article on the Greek noun, phronema, which occurs only in Romans 8 (translated “the mind set”), J. Goetzmann points out that there can be no such thing as neutral thinking. We’re always aiming at something. He adds (The New International Dictionary of New Testament Words [Zondervan], ed. by Colin Brown, 2:617):
This passage makes it abundantly clear that the way one thinks is intimately related to the way one lives, whether in Christ, in the Spirit and by faith, or alternatively in the flesh, in sin and in spiritual death. A man’s thinking and striving cannot be seen in isolation from the overall direction of his life; the latter will be reflected in the aims which he sets himself.
In Colossians 3, Paul commands us to set our minds on the things above, but in Romans 8 he describes believers as those who set their minds on the things of the Spirit. While it’s a lifelong process that involves growth, we need to ask ourselves honestly, “Does this describe me? Do I set my mind on the things of the Spirit or on the things of the flesh? Which direction am I heading?”
I’ll give you a clue: If you spend more of your spare time watching television or playing video games or on your computer than you spend reading the Bible, reading Christian books, fellowshipping with other believers, or serving the Lord in some capacity, you’re probably not heading in the right direction. I’m not saying that every spare minute should be spent on spiritual activities. We all need some down time. We all have chores to do. But if you’re not making a concerted, consistent effort to develop a biblical mindset, something is seriously wrong.
Thus there are two and only two groups of people in the world: Unbelievers who live under the domination of the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. Believers who live under the domination of the Holy Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. From there, things get even more serious:
Romans 8:6: “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.”
Paul is describing the current spiritual state of each group, which explains (“for”) why the first group sets their minds on the things of the flesh and the second group sets their minds on the things of the Spirit. The first group is dominated by the flesh because they are spiritually dead. The second group is dominated by the Holy Spirit because He has given them life and peace with God.
But the scary part is this: If those who are dead in their sins continue in that state until they die physically, they will continue throughout eternity in the awful condition of separation from God, under the penalty of His just wrath. The Bible calls this the second death and it is spent in the lake of fire (Rev. 20:14). The next verse (Rev. 20:15) adds, “And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”
This state of eternal spiritual death does not mean that those in hell are annihilated or cease to exist. That would be a blessing for them! But the Bible is clear that eternal spiritual death means enduring conscious torment forever (Mark 9:43-48; Luke 16:16-31; Rev. 14:10-11). These frightening truths come to us from the Lord Jesus Himself and from John, the apostle of love. If we reject this truth, we are not following Jesus.
The good news is, if you have been given new life through the Holy Spirit, although your physical body will die (Rom. 8:10), God will resurrect your body (8:11) and you will enjoy life and peace with Him and with all the saints throughout eternity. The moment your physical body dies, your spirit goes immediately into the presence of the Lord (2 Cor. 5:6-8; Acts 7:59; Luke 23:43).
Death is never a pretty picture. The mortician can make up a corpse to look its best, but we all know, that person is dead. And death is the spiritual picture of all who are outside of Jesus Christ. In Ephesians 2:1, Paul writes, “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins.” He repeats (Eph. 2:5), “Even when we were dead in our transgressions, [God] made us alive together with Christ ….” The unbeliever may be a good person. He may give generously to charity and devote himself to good deeds. But if he has not been born again by the life-giving Spirit, he is spiritually dead.
But the one who has been born again has life and peace. The life is called eternal life because it is indestructible. It cannot be taken away by any evil force (Rom. 8:33-39). It joins us in living union with Jesus Christ, who once and for all conquered death and who lives and reigns forever. Peace means that we now have peace with God because our sins have been completely forgiven: “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1). “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). Even in the midst of life’s trials, we enjoy peace in Christ (John 16:33).
The application of our text is obvious: Make sure that you have new life through God’s Spirit and that you are not living according to the flesh! Don’t deceive yourself by thinking, “I’m one of those worldly or carnal Christians, but I’m going to heaven because I prayed a prayer to ask Jesus into my heart.” The issue is, do you have life and peace with God through the Spirit? Do you set your mind on the things of the Spirit? If not, repent and cry out to God to give you new life! If you’re sure that you’ve been born again, but you’re drifting into the things of the flesh or world, the solution is the same: Repent and don’t rest until your mind and focus are on the things of the Spirit.
Sit down and evaluate your schedule. Do you remember the “big rocks” illustration? A professor came in with a large jar filled to the brim with big rocks. He asked the class, “Is the jar full?” “Yes,” they responded. He poured in some pea gravel and shook it down through the cracks. “Is it full now?” They weren’t so sure. He poured in some sand. Then he added water. The point of the illustration is, if you don’t put the big rocks in first you won’t be able to fit them in at all. Schedule your priorities or they will get crowded out by the urgent but trivial. Your biggest rock is your relationship with God. Set your mind on the things of the Spirit!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Once in a while people ask why I do not give altar calls, where I invite people to come forward to indicate that they want to receive Christ as Savior and Lord. Due to the influence of Billy Graham and other popular evangelists, many think that if you don’t give an altar call, you have not properly preached the gospel.
The short answer to why I do not give altar calls is that there is no biblical example or command to do so. I assume that Jesus and the apostles, as recorded in the Gospels and Acts, preached the gospel. While they often called on people to repent and believe in Christ (as I also do), there is no indication that they ever invited them to raise their hands or get out of their seats and come forward. That method of evangelism came into vogue in the early 19th century and was later popularized by Charles Finney, who held to some seriously heretical views of human nature. Iain Murray, who chronicles this in Revival and Revivalism [Banner of Truth], says regarding altar calls (p. 186), “Nobody, at first, claimed to regard it as a means of conversion. But very soon, and inevitably, answering the call to the altar came to be confused with being converted.”
Murray shows the damaging effects of “revivalism,” the evangelistic method that emphasizes some external action that the sinner can do to be saved. Gospel preaching that brings sinners to despair over their inability to do anything, driving them to trust in Christ alone, may bring true revival. At the root of the problem (and the longer answer for why I don’t do altar calls) is the biblical understanding of the spiritual condition of unbelievers and the nature of true conversion, which is Paul’s subject in our text.
Charles Spurgeon, who was used of God to bring thousands to genuine conversion through his preaching, understood this even early in his ministry. In a sermon in 1860, when he was only 24, Spurgeon said that the doctrine which leaves salvation up to something that man does exalts the flesh and dishonors God. He labels that view as Arminian. He explained (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 6:259, also cited by Iain Murray, The Forgotten Spurgeon [Banner of Truth], pp. 87-88, italics Spurgeon’s):
What the Arminian wants to do is to arouse man’s activity; what we want to do is to kill it once for all, to show him that he is lost and ruined, and that his activities are not now at all equal to the work of conversion; that he must look upward. They seek to make the man stand up; we seek to bring him down, and make him feel that there he lies in the hand of God, and that his business is to submit himself to God, and cry aloud, “Lord, save or we perish.” We hold that man is never so near grace as when he begins to feel that he can do nothing at all. When he says, “I can pray, I can believe, I can do this, and I can do the other,” marks of self-sufficiency and arrogance are on his brow.
He goes on to emphasize that you cannot be saved unless God saves you. And so he urges sinners, not to come forward, not to look to their own prayers or faith, but to cry out to God to draw them to Christ by His grace. Only God can take away a sinner’s heart of stone and give a heart of flesh that loves Him. And if anyone complains that he cannot repent or believe, Spurgeon says, these, too, are gifts from God. Cry out to Him to have mercy and save you. Salvation is totally from the Lord, not from us, or we would boast, even about our own repentance and faith!
The frequent result of an emphasis on doing something, such as coming forward, to receive Christ is that it promotes false conversions and gives false assurance to those who did it that they are saved because they went forward or prayed a prayer (Murray, Revival, p. 243). But such a decision alone is no evidence of the new birth. As Paul makes clear in Romans 8, the genuine result of being saved is that we walk according to the Spirit, not the flesh (8:4).
In 8:5, Paul sets forth the contrast between these two groups: “For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.” To be “according to the flesh” means to live under the domination of the flesh and to obey its dictates. It is to live with a self-centered, not a God-centered focus. Another way of saying it is that such people are “in the flesh” (8:8); they live in the sphere of the flesh. Such people may believe in God and be very religious, but they live to please themselves. Godet (Commentary on Romans [Kregel], p. 303) calls the flesh, “the life of the I for itself.” Those in the flesh do not set their minds on the things of the Spirit, which are the truths revealed to us in God’s Word. (See last week’s message for more on 8:5-6.)
In 8:6, Paul explains that the reason those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh is that they are spiritually dead: “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.” Then, in 8:7-8, he explains further why the mind set on the flesh is spiritually dead and headed toward eternal death: because it is hostile toward God, not subject to His law, and displeasing to Him. These verses reveal Paul’s insight into the unbelieving mind:
The mind set on the flesh is spiritually dead and thus an enemy of God because it does not and cannot submit to Him or please Him.
Note three things:
Romans 8:6a: “For the mind set on the flesh is death ….” In our last study we saw that outside of Christ, everyone is spiritually dead, and so I only mention this in passing since it’s the foundation for verse 7. To be spiritually dead means to be separated from God and the eternal life that only He can give. In Ephesians (2:1, 5) Paul says that we all were dead in our sins before God graciously imparted new life to us. And if we die in that state of spiritual death, we enter into what the Bible calls “the second death,” eternal separation from God (Rev. 20:14, 15).
Some try to avoid the implications of what it means to be spiritually dead by saying, “It’s only a metaphor and you can’t press it too far.” But the metaphor was not chosen without reason and it does convey something important (which I’ll say more on in a moment), namely, that sinners are spiritually unable to seek God or please Him. Spiritually dead people are cut off from understanding the things of the Spirit, including the gospel (1 Cor. 2:14; 2 Cor. 4:4-6). This is the natural condition of every person (except Jesus) descended from Adam since the fall.
Romans 8:7a: “Because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God.” Paul uses the same word (“hostile”) to describe a deed of the flesh (Gal. 5:20) and the perpetual hostility between Jews and Gentiles (Eph. 2:14, 16). It is the opposite of love. Unbelievers do not love God; they hate Him. He is their enemy.
Perhaps you’re thinking, “But I know many unbelievers who don’t hate God. They don’t have anything against Him.” But the Bible draws a line: Either you are a God-lover because He has saved you from your sins; or, you’re a God-hater because you do not want Him to rule over you. Unbelievers may be religious, but invariably, it’s religion as they like it. They pick and choose the kind of “God” that suits their preferences. They come to God on their own terms, by their own good works, and they “use” Him for their own selfish purposes.
So unbelievers are not spiritually neutral. They may be indifferent toward God, but that’s often the worst form of hatred. Spurgeon (MTP, 32:20-21; I’m paraphrasing somewhat) illustrates this by supposing that someone wrote you a letter, but you paid no attention to it. “When did it come?” “Last Monday.” “Have you read it?” “Oh no, I don’t bother to read his letters.” “You’ve had a good many of them, then?” “Oh yes, hundreds of them.” “What have you done with them?” “I haven’t done anything with them. I leave them alone and don’t bother to read them.”
“When you did read one of his letters, what was it about?” “Well, it was about wishing to be at peace with me, and desiring to do me good. He spoke of my being in great danger, and said that he would help me; and of my being poor, and he offered to make me rich.” “He talked like that and yet you’ve never read any more of his letters? You must hate that person very much!” Indifference toward this kind and merciful God is to hate Him.
Also, unbelievers often think that a holy God is too strict and foreboding. They prefer a God who is more cuddly and user-friendly. They think that God’s justice in judging sinners is too severe. They protest, “Sure, I’ve got my faults. But God shouldn’t judge me for being imperfect. That’s not fair!” They think that God’s truth is too inflexible. They wish He would be more tolerant, as they are. They say, “I believe that as long as a person is sincere and does his best, he will go to heaven.” And they even think that God’s mercy through the cross is offensive, because it implies that they cannot save themselves by their own good works (Charles Simeon, Expository Outlines of the Whole Bible [Zondervan], XV:203, suggests the thoughts I developed in this paragraph.) But all of this puts the person who sets his mind on the flesh at odds with God.
You should always be careful before you make an enemy, especially if that enemy is much stronger and smarter than you are! But the problem is, we all are born at enmity with God. You would think that everyone would be scrambling to figure out how to become God’s friend and end the hostility. But instead, unbelievers brazenly defy God and disobey His law. They boastfully oppose God’s truth as revealed in His Word, asserting that they know more about spiritual matters than He does! They remake God in their own image. I’ve even heard of professing Christians who say, “My God isn’t a God of judgment; He’s a God of love!” Okay, but then your “God” isn’t the God of the Bible!
By way of contrast, those who set their minds on the Spirit (believers in Christ) are not God-haters, but God-lovers. We seek to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We love the Savior, who left the glory of heaven to suffer and die on the cross in our place. We don’t want to do anything to hinder the fellowship that we now enjoy with Him because of His grace.
So Paul shows that the mind set on the flesh is not spiritually neutral. Rather, it is separated from God (dead) and actively opposed to Him as His enemy. Also,
Romans 8:7b: “for it does not subject itself to the law of God.” God’s law reveals who He is and how He commands us to live. While we’re not under the law of Moses (Rom. 6:14), we are under the law of Christ (1 Cor. 9:21). We are subject to the two great commandments, to love God with our entire being and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matt. 22:37-40; Rom. 13:9). The New Testament gives many specific commands about how we are to live as believers in Christ. But the unbelieving mind does not subject itself to God’s Word. Its mindset is, “I love my self and its will first and most” (H. C. G. Moule, The Epistle to the Romans [Christian Literature Crusade], pp. 213-214).
Unbelievers often say that they do not believe because of intellectual reasons: “Give me enough proof and I’ll believe.” “If I saw a real miracle, then I’d believe.” Or, “If God would speak to me from heaven, I’d believe.” But God has given sufficient evidence through creation (Rom. 1:18-20) and through the biblical witness to Jesus Christ. But unbelievers suppress the truth in unrighteousness because they do not want to submit to God. The root of unbelief is not intellectual; it’s moral. They do not want God to rule over them. They do not want to obey His Word.
By implied contrast, those whose minds are set on the Spirit do submit to God’s Word. John Calvin describes his own conversion from Catholicism by saying, “God by a sudden conversion subdued and brought my mind to a teachable frame” (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], preface to the Psalms, p. xl). A good test of whether your mind is set on the flesh or on the Spirit is, “Do I have a teachable heart in submission to God’s Word?” The test of having a teachable heart comes when you encounter some of the difficult doctrines in Scripture, such as the Trinity, hell, predestination, and handling trials. Do you fight God regarding these truths, or do you submit to Him?
Speaking of difficult doctrines, this leads us to a difficult truth which many who profess to know Christ do not accept:
Paul does not stop by saying that those who are in the flesh do not submit to God’s law. He goes further by saying that they are not even able to do so, adding (8:8), “and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” Cannot is a word of inability. It goes back to the matter of a sinner’s fallen nature in Adam, which is incapable of obeying God or pleasing Him. Just as a pig is free to act in line with its pig nature, but not in line with a human nature, so fallen sinners are free to act in line with the flesh, but not in line with the Holy Spirit, whom they do not possess.
But many who contend for so-called “free will” argue that God has given all people the ability to choose salvation. This is called “prevenient grace.” I don’t have time to go into the arguments for this doctrine, but they are biblically weak. (For a full refutation of this idea, see Thomas Schreiner, “Does Scripture Teach Prevenient Grace in the Wesleyan Sense?” in Still Sovereign [Baker], ed. by Thomas Schreiner and Bruce Ware, pp. 229-246.)
Suffice it to say that elsewhere Paul also teaches human inability to respond to the gospel apart from God’s gracious enabling power. That is clear from his reference to sinners as dead in their sins (Eph. 2:1-5) and as being blinded by Satan (2 Cor. 4:4). Dead people cannot choose to live. Blind people cannot choose to see. Paul also says that the natural man cannot understand the things of the Spirit of God, which includes the message of the cross, which he says is foolishness to the natural man (1 Cor. 2:14; cf. 1:18-30).
Jesus also taught that no one can come to Him unless the Father grants it and draws him (John 6:44, 65). He pointedly asked the skeptical Jews (John 8:43), “Why do you not understand what I am saying?” He answered His own question, “It is because you cannot hear My word.” Obviously they could hear what He was saying, but they lacked the spiritual ability to hear with obedience.
And since those in the flesh cannot please God and faith pleases God (Heb. 11:6), sinners cannot believe in Jesus Christ for salvation by their own free will, apart from God’s special saving grace. The fallen human will is not free; it’s in bondage. This means that in the order of salvation, regeneration precedes faith. God must impart life to dead sinners so that they can believe the gospel (John 1:13; and, note the Greek verb tenses in 1 John 5:1).
The frequent response to this biblical truth is, “That’s not fair! God commands sinners to repent and believe, but they aren’t capable of repenting and believing unless He grants it!” First, I would say, be careful about accusing the Sovereign of the universe of being unfair (Rom. 9:11-20). God would be perfectly fair to send us all to hell with no opportunity to receive His mercy. Second, let me share a story that speaks to this issue (in Murray, Revival, pp. 373-374). During the 1840’s at a time of revival in Savannah, Georgia, a young man complained to Pastor B. M. Palmer:
“You preachers are the most contradictory men in the world; you say and you unsay, just as it pleases you, without the least pretension to consistency. Why you said in your sermon that sinners were perfectly helpless in themselves—utterly unable to repent or believe and then turned round and said they would all be damned if they did not.”
Pastor Palmer decided that it would be best to reply in an off-hand or seemingly indifferent way, so he said:
“Well, my dear [friend], there is no use in our quarreling over this matter; either you can or you cannot. If you can, all I have to say is that I hope you will just go and do it.”
Pastor Palmer did not raise his eyes from his writing, which he continued to do as he spoke, so he did not know what effect his words had until after a moment’s silence he heard a choking cry, along with the words, “I have been trying my best for three whole days and cannot.” “Ah,” responded Palmer, raising his eyes and putting down his pen, “that puts a different face upon it; we will go then and tell the difficulty straight to God.” He then reports:
We knelt down and I prayed as though this was the first time in human history that this trouble had ever arisen; that here was a soul in the most desperate extremity, which must believe or perish, and hopelessly unable of itself, to do it; that, consequently it was just the case for divine interposition; and pleading most earnestly for the fulfillment of the divine promise. Upon rising I offered not one single word of comfort or advice … So I left my friend in his powerlessness in the hands of God, as the only helper. In a short time he came through the struggle, rejoicing in the hope of eternal life.
The unbelieving mind is spiritually dead and hostile toward God. It does not and cannot submit to God or please Him. This means that salvation is not a matter of the human will, but rather of God’s imparting new life to those who are spiritually dead (John 1:12-13). This means that salvation is not even a joint project between God and sinners. Rather, salvation is of the Lord (1 Cor. 1:30; Jonah 2:9). Since salvation is completely God’s doing, He gets all the glory (Eph. 1:3-12). Two brief applications:
*These truths have important implications for how we share the gospel. Don’t get overly enmeshed in intellectual debates about evolution or the existence of God or the problem of suffering and evil. Rather, zero in on the person’s rebellion and refusal to submit to God. And, while you should be as cogent as possible, salvation is not a matter of convincing someone with persuasive arguments. Rather, it is a matter of God’s opening blind eyes and changing hardened hearts. So pray as you share that God would grant repentance and saving faith (Acts 11:18; Phil. 1:29)!
*These truths pertain to how we evaluate ourselves. Am I reconciled to God as His friend or am I hostile toward Him? Do I subject myself to God’s Word? Do I seek to please Him with my thoughts, my words, and my deeds? Is my mind set on the Spirit, not on the flesh? May God grant that these evidences of His grace would be growing in each of us!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
The most important question that you ever need to answer is, “Do I belong to Christ?” If you belong to Christ, all of God’s promises are “yes” for you in Him (2 Cor. 1:20). If you belong to Christ, you are reconciled to God, your sins are all forgiven, you can enjoy fellowship with Him every day, and you know that if you were to die today, you would be with the Lord in the glory of heaven forever.
So, do you belong to Christ? You may say, “Yes, I invited Jesus into my heart at Vacation Bible School when I was a child.” I’m glad to hear that, but do you belong to Christ? “Yes, I prayed the sinner’s prayer after a campus worker shared the Four Spiritual Laws with me in college.” That’s fine, but do you belong to Christ? “Yes, the worker told me that if I prayed that prayer, I could be assured that I’m going to heaven.” Really? Where does the Bible say that praying a prayer will get you into heaven? You need to make sure that you belong to Christ based on what the Bible says.
One of Paul’s main reasons for writing Romans 8 was to give assurance to us who believe in Jesus Christ that we belong to Him for time and eternity. He begins with the most wonderful statement imaginable (Rom. 8:1), “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Then he explains (8:2), “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.” The new life that the Holy Spirit imparts frees you from the condemnation that resulted from your sin. Jesus, God’s eternal Son, bore the penalty that the law demanded, so that its requirement of perfect righteousness is met in Him (8:3-4a). This is what Paul has earlier called “justification.”
Then Paul describes those who have been justified (8:4b): [they] “do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” He goes on to describe this contrast further. Those who have not been justified are “according to the flesh” (8:5a). They “set their minds on the things of the flesh.” Those who have been justified are “according to the Spirit.” They “set their minds on the things of the Spirit.” He explains further why this is so (8:6): “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.” Those who have not been justified are in a state of spiritual death or separation from God. Those who have been justified enjoy new life (from the Spirit of life, 8:2) and peace with God.
Then (8:7-8) he explains further the unbelieving mind, which is set on the flesh: It “is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” Those in the flesh are spiritually incapable even of trusting in Christ for salvation because of their innate rebellion against Him. For them to be saved, God’s Spirit must raise them from spiritual death to life.
Now (8:9-11), Paul turns to those who have experienced the new birth and explains (8:9), “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” But perhaps you are concerned for a loved one who died or troubled over the inevitable fact that you are going to die. Does this mean that you do not have new life in Christ? No, Paul goes on to explain (8:10) that although your physical body will die, the Spirit has given you life because you are righteous in Christ. And, although your body will die, the same God who raised Jesus from the dead will one day resurrect your mortal body through His Spirit who dwells in you (8:11). But, all of this depends on the matter, “Do you belong to Christ?” Paul is saying:
If God’s Spirit dwells in you, you belong to Christ; and though your physical body will die, God will raise your body from the dead.
When we trusted Christ as Savior and Lord, we changed realms from living “according to the flesh” to living “according to the Spirit.” We used to be “in the flesh,” living under its ruling influence. Now we live “in the Spirit,” under His rule and the Spirit lives in us.
C. H. Spurgeon (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 19:529) calls verse 9 “one of the most solemn texts in the whole Bible.” He says, “It is so sweeping: it deals with us all…. And it deals with the most important point about us, for to belong to Christ is the most essential thing for time and eternity.” Thus,
As we have seen, Paul divides all people into just two categories: Those who are “in the flesh” and those “in the Spirit.” There is no category for so-called “carnal” Christians, who claim that Jesus is their Savior, but not their Lord. While the process of bringing every area of life under the lordship of Christ is lifelong, every true Christian is involved in that process. If the direction of your life is not, “Jesus, You are my Lord and I submit all of myself that I am aware of to You,” then you are not a Christian in the vital sense of that word. You are in the flesh, hostile toward God, and not subject to His Word (8:7).
Being a Christian is not a matter of going to church or believing certain doctrines of the Christian faith or trying to live by certain moral standards. Of course, true Christians do all of those things, but the vital thing is that the Holy Spirit has caused you to be born again. Jesus said this very plainly to Nicodemus, a Pharisee and ruler of the Jews. Talk about going to church—this man went to the temple to pray several times a day. He never skipped a religious observance to go fishing! Talk about believing in certain doctrines—he had memorized large portions of the Hebrew Scriptures. Talk about morality—this man was scrupulous about keeping the Ten Commandments.
But Jesus’ opening words to him were (John 3:3), “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” He went on to say (John 3:7), “Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’” Peter spoke of the same thing (1 Pet. 1:3): “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (see, also James 1:18; Titus 3:4-6). So when we are born again, the Holy Spirit imparts new life to us and takes up residence in us. Thus it is a matter of spiritual life or death to have the Spirit of God dwelling in you or not.
Some Pentecostal groups teach that you must receive the Holy Spirit subsequent to salvation. They base this on a misinterpretation of Acts 19:2, where Paul encounters some disciples of John the Baptist and asks, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” When they reply no, Paul explains some things, prays for them, and they receive the Holy Spirit. But it’s important to understand that Acts is a transitional book from the age of the Law, when the Spirit was only given to some and could be withdrawn (Ps. 51:11) to the age of the promised Holy Spirit, who permanently indwells all who are born again (John 7:39; 14:17; 1 Cor. 12:13). Romans 8:9 makes it clear that if you have been born again, you have the Holy Spirit dwelling in you. If you don’t have the Spirit, you do not belong to Christ.
This does not mean that we should not ask for a deeper experience of the Spirit’s presence and power. We must yield more and more of ourselves to the Spirit’s control as we become aware of areas that we have not given to Him. We are commanded to walk by means of the Spirit (Gal. 5:16) and to be filled with (or controlled by) the Spirit (Eph. 5:18). But if you have been born again and your trust is in Christ as Savior and Lord, you do not need to receive the Holy Spirit. He dwells in every believer.
Paul states it negatively (8:9b), “But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” Think about the opposite: If you have the Spirit, you do belong to Christ. He bought you with His blood. You are not your own; you are His slave. In 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Paul also combines the idea of the indwelling Holy Spirit and belonging to Christ: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.”
I can’t help but think that the church would be very different if everyone would live daily in the reality of the truth, “I am not my own; I now belong to Christ.” My tongue is not my own to use to yell at my family when I’m upset. I must use it to glorify Christ. My eyes are not my own, to look lustfully at women. I must use my eyes to glorify Christ. My money is not my own to use as I please. I must use it to glorify Christ. My time is not my own to squander on frivolous pursuits. I need to use it to serve and glorify Christ. It’s a life-transforming principle! The mark of being a Christian is, the Spirit dwells in you and you now belong to Christ.
By the way, note how Paul interchanges terms in these verses. The Holy Spirit is called “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (8:2) because He imparts new life to us in Christ. In 8:9 He is called “the Spirit of God,” indicating that He is God and that He carries out God’s purposes. He is called “the Spirit of Christ” because Christ sent Him to the church when He returned to the Father. His role is to glorify Christ (John 16:14). When He was on the earth, Jesus lived in the power of the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:1). He is also called “the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead” (8:11) to emphasize that if He dwells in us, God will through the Spirit resurrect our bodies.
Also, Paul moves easily from the Spirit dwelling in us to Christ dwelling in us. Douglas Moo (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 491) explains, “What this means is not that Christ and the Spirit are equated or interchangeable, but that Christ and the Spirit are so closely related in communicating to believers the benefits of salvation that Paul can move from one to the other almost unconsciously.” Thomas Schreiner points out (Romans [Baker], p. 414), “Texts like these provided the raw materials from which the church later hammered out the doctrine of the Trinity.”
Thus it is absolutely vital to have the Spirit of God dwelling in you, because if you do not, you do not belong to Christ. But how can you know whether or not the Spirit indwells you? Is it a warm feeling inside of you or a tingling sensation? A woman once told me that she knew that the Spirit was in our church because when she came in the building her hands tingled. I wanted to suggest that she get a check-up with a neurologist!
After speaking to Nicodemus about the new birth, Jesus drew an analogy between the effects of the wind and the effects of the Holy Spirit. We can’t see the wind, but we can see its effects. When a piece of paper blows by, you do not assume that it is flying on its own like a bird. You assume that the wind is blowing it. So it is with the Spirit. You can’t see the Spirit, but you can see His effects.
In Romans 8, Paul shows a number of things that the Spirit does. He sets you free from the law of sin and of death (8:2). He gives new life and peace with God (8:6). The Spirit will raise our mortal bodies (8:11); He enables us to kill our sin (8:13); testifies to us that we are God’s children (8:16); and, helps us to pray (8:26). And, by way of implied contrast (8:7-8), the Spirit reconciles us to God and enables us to submit to His Word and to please Him.
I can’t comment much and this list is not comprehensive, but here is one negative and nine positive marks by which you can tell if the Spirit dwells in you:
I must point this out because some Pentecostal denominations claim that speaking in tongues is the sign that you have the Holy Spirit. But this is contrary to Paul’s statement that all do not have the gift of tongues (1 Cor. 12:30). It’s debatable whether or not the gift of tongues is valid for today. But if it is valid, it must be translatable language, not babble. You cannot interpret or translate babble. It’s just nonsense syllables. Language has definable structure and vocabulary. The biblical gift of tongues is the miraculous ability to speak in a language that you have not learned so that a speaker of that language could understand you. But most of what is called tongues today is just nonsense syllables. Non-Christians have experienced the same phenomena, obviously without the power of the Holy Spirit. Positively,
You may not remember the exact time or place, but you know that the Spirit of God has changed your heart from being a God-hater to being a God-lover. He changed you from trusting in your own good works to trusting in Christ alone.
Jesus calls Him “the Spirit of truth” (John 14:17; 15:26). He inspired the writers of Scripture (2 Pet. 1:21; 2 Tim. 3:16). He helps us to understand the many riches that God gives us through the written Word (1 Cor. 2:10-16).
Fruit takes time, but it should be evident that you are growing in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23).
He is the Holy Spirit. He works to make us holy (set apart from this evil world), beginning on the thought level (1 Cor. 6:11, 19; 2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 14:17; 1 Thess. 4:7-8).
Acts 1:8: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses….” The Book of Acts is the story of the early church bearing witness of Jesus and the resurrection through the Spirit’s power.
So the point of verse 9 is, if you belong to Christ, you have the Holy Spirit indwelling you. But, if He is the Spirit of life (8:2), then why do believers die?
Romans 8:10: “And if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.” By “body,” Paul means the physical body. “Dead because of sin” means that our bodies are still under the curse of death as a result of the fall (5:12; 6:23). We all die physically because Adam sinned. Death remains as the penalty on the human race until Christ’s work is consummated (Rom. 8:23; 1 Cor. 15:26).
Commentators and translators are divided over whether “spirit” refers to the human spirit (NASB) or to the Holy Spirit (ESV, NIV, NKJV). (The original Greek did not use capital letters.) It’s difficult to decide, as there are good arguments for both. If it refers to the human spirit, the sense is, your spirit is alive because you are righteous in Christ. This seems to complement the contrast with the dead human body. But the word Paul uses is not “alive,” but “life.” This fits better with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of life (8:2). The sense then would be, as Thomas Schreiner explains (p. 415), “The presence of the Spirit demonstrates that believers will not be saddled with their weak and corruptible bodies forever. The Spirit is a life-giving Spirit and will overcome death through the resurrection of the body.” The reason that the Spirit is life to us is that we are righteous in Christ through justification.
The instant we die physically, our spirit goes to be with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:6-8; Luke 23:43), while our bodies decompose. But the instant Jesus returns, God will give us new resurrection bodies, which will be suited for the new heavens and earth, in which righteousness dwells (2 Pet. 3:13; 1 Cor. 15:12-57).
Jesus is the prototype. His resurrection body is a physical body, but it is not subject to disease or death. The God who raised Jesus from the dead (Eph. 1:19-20) will also raise our bodies from the grave at the moment that Jesus returns (1 Cor. 15:50-57). Whether a person was burned at the stake, died at sea and was eaten by sharks, was blown to bits by an explosion, or decomposed in a grave, God will resurrect those bodies in a recognizable but new, indestructible body. And so we shall always be with the Lord.
In 1986, I was preaching through 1 Corinthians and I came to 15:19: “If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.” That verse jarred me. I asked myself, “Is that true of me? Can I say that if there is no heaven, you should feel sorry for the stupid way that I’m living my life?” I live in America and enjoy a very comfortable lifestyle. I have a wonderful wife. At that time, my children were still at home and a great source of joy for me. Now they’ve given me the joy of ten grandchildren. But that verse caused me to put my focus more on heaven.
Without Christ, life is grim and futile. As the bumper sticker says, “Life is tough and then you die.” Even if you make it to 100, so what? But if you belong to Christ, no matter when you die you have the certain hope that the God who raised Jesus from the dead will raise you through His Spirit who dwells in you.
Near the end of his life, D. L. Moody said, “Soon you will read in the newspaper that I am dead. Don’t believe it for a moment. I will be more alive than ever before” (cited by Randy Alcorn, Heaven [Tyndale], p. 31). And so I can’t urge you strongly enough to make sure you can answer “yes” to the question, “Do you belong to Christ?”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
You’ve probably seen the bumper sticker that says, “Kill your TV!” That may be wise advice, but the apostle Paul gives us even wiser counsel in our text: Kill your sin! It’s a concept that we don’t hear much about any more. But it used to be a widely understood approach to sanctification. The Puritans called it “the mortification of sin.” In our times, to be mortified means to be embarrassed, but the word really means to be killed. The Puritans all knew that we are engaged in mortal combat with an enemy that lurks within: the flesh (or the old man, or indwelling sin). Either you kill it every day or it will kill you.
Back in the 1980’s I was at Campus Crusade’s Arrowhead Springs headquarters, when I ran into my former church history professor, Dr. John Hannah. I asked him, “What’s the best book that you’ve read on the spiritual life?” Without hesitation he replied, “John Owen’s, Temptation and Sin.” Since Dr. Hannah is both a godly man and widely read, I thought, “I need to read that book.”
It is the first half of volume 6 in Owen’s Works [Banner of Truth]. He writes over 300 pages on just about every imaginable aspect of what it means to mortify indwelling sin. I also discovered that Owen, who lived in the 1600’s, wrote in what J. I. Packer calls “lumbering Latinized idiom” (A Quest for Godliness [Crossway Books], p. 16). In other words, he’s not very easy to follow! But, like mining for gold, the reward is worth the effort.
Thankfully, there are some easier to read versions of Owen’s great work. One is, Sin & Temptation, abridged and edited by James M. Houston [Multnomah Press, 1983]. A shorter one is, What Every Christian Needs to Know, prepared by A. Swanson [Grace Publications, 1998]. Also, Kelly Kapic and Justin Taylor have come out with a recent edition [Crossway, 2006]. Philip Graham Ryken, the president of Wheaton College, endorses it by saying, “John Owen is a spiritual surgeon with the rare skill to cut away the cancer of sin and bring gospel healing to the sinner’s soul. Apart from the Bible, I have found his writings to be the best books ever written to help me stop sinning the same old sins.” I can only scratch the surface on this topic today. If you want to go deeper, get Owen and dig in.
Paul here explains further and applies what he wrote in 8:6, “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.” The death in 8:13, like that of 8:6, is not physical death, which we all must face, but spiritual death, eternal separation from God. In other words, Paul is saying,
Kill your sin or it will kill you!
He is saying here what he says in Galatians 6:8, “For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” There are only two ways to live, with only two outcomes: To live according to the flesh ends in eternal death; to live according to the Spirit ends with eternal life. Charles Simeon (Expository Outlines of the Whole Bible [Zondervan], 15:269) put it, “Either sin must be our enemy, or God will.” So this is serious business!
To understand and apply these verses, consider three points:
Romans 8:12: “So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—” Paul breaks off in mid-sentence, leaving us to supply the implied second half, that we are under obligation to the Lord. He bought us with His blood, so that now we belong to Him (3:24, 25; 8:9). His Spirit now dwells in us. It follows, “So then, brethren, we are under obligation ….”
Paul expresses the negative, “not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.” The flesh is our old nature or old man that we are born with by virtue of our being “in Adam” (5:12-21). To live “according to the flesh” means to live under the domination of the flesh, according to its desires, which are self-centered, opposed to God, and not subject to His Word (8:7). Those who live habitually according to the flesh (or “in the flesh”) are not truly born again.
But the fact that Paul addresses this obligation to believers (“brethren”) means that we still have the flesh dwelling in us, trying to gain dominance over us. Everett Harrison (Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. by Frank Gaebelein [Zondervan], 10:92) says, “It is tremendously important to grasp the import of v. 12, because it teaches beyond all question that the believer still has the sinful nature within himself, despite having been crucified with Christ. The flesh has not been eradicated.” Bishop Moule put it (The Epistle to the Romans [Christian Literature Crusade], p. 221), “Say what some men will, we are never for an hour here below exempt from elements and conditions of evil residing not merely around us but within us.”
Some teach, based on Romans 6:6, that the old nature or the flesh was eradicated because it was crucified with Christ. In my estimation, they are greatly minimizing the danger of the monster that dwells within the hearts of even the godliest saints. It’s never beneficial to minimize a great danger! If an enemy is threatening to kill you and you ignore it, he will succeed! If you live under the dominance of this enemy, you will die. But Paul says that we have no obligation or debt to the flesh. What good did it ever do us? What favors has it done? None! We owe it nothing.
But by implication, we owe God everything! He loved us while we were yet sinners (5:8). He sent His own Son to bear the awful penalty of our sin, so that we no longer fear condemnation (8:1). We now belong to Him and we owe it all to His grace, not to anything that we have done. So to kill your sin, remember your obligation, not to the flesh, but to the Lord.
Romans 8:13a: “for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die….” Or, as the ESV puts it, “you will die.” The literal Greek is, “you are about to die.” While the expression is equivalent to a future tense, it implies that there is still time to repent and avert the horrific consequence. Paul is saying two things:
Death is a strong word, in stark contrast to the life promised to those who set their minds on the things of the Spirit and who by the Spirit put to death the deeds of the body (8:6, 13). Note that Paul did not say, “If you don’t kill your sins, you’ll lose some rewards in heaven.” He wants us to view this as mortal combat: Either you kill your sin or your sin will kill you, not just with an early death, but with eternal death!
Paul says the same thing in Colossians 3. After stating that we have died with Christ and been raised up in Him, he draws a conclusion (Col. 3:5-8, NASB marginal reading): “Therefore, put to death the members which are upon the earth to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them. But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth.”
In these warnings, Paul is following Jesus, who in the context of warning about mental lust said (Matt. 5:29-30), “If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.” (See also, Matthew 18:8-9.) Jesus does not mean literally to tear out your eye or cut off your hand. That wouldn’t solve the root problem. But He is warning that if we do not get radical in killing our sin, we will spend eternity in hell!
Maybe you’re thinking, “If Christians are saved by grace, not by works, and are eternally secure, how can Jesus and Paul both say that if we don’t kill our sin, we’ll end up in hell?”
The New Testament has frequent warnings to those who profess to know Christ, but show no evidence of it. Perhaps the most frightening is Jesus’ warning (Matt. 7:21-23), “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’” Those who truly know Christ live in obedience to Him, which means that they kill their sin. False believers may serve in ministry, but they do not kill their sin.
John Piper (“How to Kill Sin,” Pt. 1, on DesiringGod.org) explains, “Putting to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit – the daily practice of killing sin in your life – is the result of being justified and the evidence that you are justified by faith alone apart from works of the law.” He adds, “If you are not at odds with sin, you are not at home with Jesus, not because being at odds with sin makes you at home with Jesus, but because being at home with Jesus makes you at odds with sin.”
James Boice (Romans: The Reign of Grace [Baker], 2:826) puts it bluntly, “Paul is saying that if you live like a non-Christian, dominated by your sinful nature rather than living according to the Holy Spirit, you will perish like a non-Christian—because you are a non-Christian.” A life of unchecked sin leads to eternal death.
Sin always destroys lives, both for time and eternity. It always dangles the promise of happiness, fulfillment, and satisfaction before the victim, but it is only bait to lure him into the trap, which leads to eternal death. Burn Paul’s words into your brain, “If you are living according to the flesh, you will die”!
But Satan tries to get us to minimize the serious nature of our sin, so that we excuse it as no big deal, tolerate it as normal, or even re-package it as a good thing. I’ve heard Christians say things like, “I’ve lived with this angry, nagging wife for years. It’s impossible to please her. But now I’ve met a wonderful woman at work who treats me right. Don’t I deserve a little happiness after what I’ve had to endure?” And so he justifies his adultery and divorce.
Or, as I said, some Christians argue that as believers we’re never to view ourselves as sinners, but only as saints who occasionally sin. They camp on verses like Romans 6:6, which says that our old man was crucified with Christ so that our body of sin might be done away with. They insist that they are dead to sin, so they don’t fight against it. But that is to minimize the deadly enemy.
Some years ago, the French aristocrat Baron Richard d’Arcy kept a two-year-old lion in his home as a pet. One night in June, 1977, the Baron tried to make his pet go into the bathroom, where it usually spent the night. But the lion refused to go, leaped on its master, and in minutes, had clawed him to death.
Indwelling sin is like that lion. It may be nice at first, but at some point it turns on you and the result is never pretty. Kill your sin or it will kill you! But, how do we do it?
Romans 8:13b, “but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” This is a daily process that will not end until you are with Jesus. As Christ’s words about plucking out your eye or cutting off your hand imply, it’s not painless. But we’ve got to keep at it as long as we live in this body of sin. John Owen (The Works of John Owen: Temptation and Sin [Banner of Truth], 6:11) put it, “When sin lets us alone we may let sin alone.”
But what does Paul mean when he says, “But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body…”? Let’s take it phrase by phrase. First, “by the Spirit” means to rely on the Holy Spirit, or to trust in His power. The Holy Spirit is not a tool that we use, but a Person whom we trust. There is a mystery in that we are responsible to trust and obey and yet it is the Spirit who gives us the power to trust and obey.
Paul puts it together in Philippians 2:12-13, “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” (See, also Rom. 15:18; 1 Cor. 15:10.) We are not passive, but neither do we obey by sheer will power or determination. Matthew Henry (Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible [Revell], 6:418) says, “We cannot do it without the Spirit working it in us, and the Spirit will not do it without our doing our endeavor.” Ironically, one of the fruits of the Spirit is self-control. When we rely on the Spirit, He gives us the power to control ourselves, which includes killing our sin.
By “putting to death,” Paul means cutting off sin before it goes anywhere. We must take whatever radical action is necessary to separate ourselves from sin. He explained how this works in chapter 6, where he said that when we believed in Christ, we were baptized into His death (6:2, 3). We died with Him when He died to sin. That’s our new position, but we have to act on it. Thus, Paul exhorts (6:11), “Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” In other words, be what you are.
Why does Paul say “deeds of the body,” not “of the flesh”? Some commentators insist that the difference is significant, while others say that it is mainly a variation of style. Paul has used “body” to refer to the “body of sin” (6:6), “the mortal body” where sin should not reign (6:12), and the “body of this death” (7:24). He also refers to “the members of your body,” which we are not to present to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but rather to God as instruments of righteousness (6:13).
So if there is a difference here, he is focusing on the body as the instrument through which the sinful deeds of the flesh are expressed. Until Jesus returns, we live in a body that is still prone toward sin. Sin is sin even on the thought level, before it ever displays itself through the body (Mark 7:20-23). But if we kill it on the thought level, it will not become a deed of the body. Sins that are expressed through the body are always worse than sins of the mind, because they damage others and bring dishonor to God. Thus we must put to death the deeds of the body by cutting them off in the mind before they are expressed openly.
To make this as practical as I can, let me give seven steps to kill your sin. I could come up with more, but I hope that these help. I’m assuming that you have experienced the new birth, so that the Spirit of God now dwells in you (8:9).
Paul writes (1 Tim. 4:7), “Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness.” You must decide, “My aim is to become a man or woman of God, so that my life glorifies the God who saved me.” In light of that purpose, make plans not to sin. Usually, we fall into patterns of living that set us up for sinning. Study yourself and work out a plan to cut off any opportunity for sin. If you’re easily tempted to pornography, set up safeguards and accountability to keep you away from the temptation. If you’re tempted to drunkenness or drugs, stay away from people or places where you could fall. Discipline implies going against your immediate feelings and impulses for a higher goal. Just as an athlete who wants to win avoids certain foods even though they taste good and works out when he doesn’t feel like it, so a Christian who purposes to be godly disciplines himself for that goal.
You can knock the fruit off the tree, but if you don’t want it to grow, you’ve got to cut the tree down at the roots (Owen, p. 30). Sin begins on the heart or thought level. If you cut it off there, it will not go any farther. No one commits adultery without first thinking about it. So when lust, greed, selfishness, or pride pop into your mind, cut the thought off right there. Don’t entertain it.
This is the mysterious balance that I mentioned: You trust God, but you also take action. God says (Ps. 50:15), “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me.” But the Spirit also inspired Paul to write (1 Cor. 6:18), “Flee immorality.” “Flee youthful lusts” (2 Tim. 2:22). Pray and flee!
The “things of the Spirit” refers to the many wonderful truths and promises of God revealed to us in His Word (1 Cor. 2:9-13).
As has often been said, “Either sin will keep you from the Word or the Word will keep you from sin” (Ps. 119:9, 11). Jesus defeated Satan by quoting the Word (Matt. 4:1-11). Meditate on and memorize the Word, because you won’t always have a Bible and concordance handy when temptation hits.
The motive for killing sin is that the Son of God loved me and gave Himself up for me (Gal. 2:20), thus I want to honor and glorify Him. The motive for killing sin should not primarily be to rid yourself of a frustrating problem that is disrupting your life: “My anger or my drinking is causing problems in my marriage, so I want to kill these sins.” Rather, it should be, “My anger or my drinking is dishonoring to God, who gave His Son for me, so I want to kill these sins.”
“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16). A walk is a step by step process that takes you toward a goal. If you fall, get up and keep walking.
You’ve probably heard about or seen the movie about the young man who was hiking in Utah when a boulder fell and pinned his arm between it and the canyon wall. He was trapped like that for an agonizing week. He finally realized that he must cut off his arm or he would die there. So he did that gruesome deed and he is alive today.
You’ve got to do that with your sin. If you don’t kill it, it will kill you. The indwelling Holy Spirit will give you the power to kill your sin as you walk in dependence on Him.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Assurance of salvation is a problem in two opposite ways. Some think that they are saved when in reality they are not. When it is too late to repent, they will hear the shocking words, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness” (Matt. 7:23). They thought that they had saving faith, but they were mistaken. So they have false assurance.
Others are truly saved, but they wrestle with doubts about their salvation. Their uncertainty causes them a lot of anxiety and grief. They’re like insecure children who live in an unloving home with a mean father who threatens to disown them. They miss out on the joy of experiencing the Heavenly Father’s love. They are unable to come to God with the assurance that He will welcome them into His loving arms. They need true assurance.
Romans 8 is all about assurance of salvation. If you are walking in the flesh but think that you are saved, this chapter will jar you into examining your heart. Only those who walk according to the Spirit can have true assurance that they belong to Christ. One ministry of the Holy Spirit is to assure us that we are His children.
In the New Testament, assurance rests on three pillars. First, have you abandoned all trust in your own good works so that you’re trusting in Christ alone for right standing before God? If you answer yes, then the question arises, “How do you know that your faith is genuine saving faith?”
That leads to the second pillar: If your faith is genuine, then you possess new life in Christ and that new life always manifests itself in changed thinking and behavior. There will be evidence in your life that God has changed your heart. You love God and desire to love Him more. You want to please Him by a life of obedience to His Word. You hunger to feed on His Word. You’re growing in godly character and behavior, as summed up by the fruit of the Spirit.
The third pillar is the inner witness of the Holy Spirit, who testifies that we are children of God (8:16). Although some would dispute any subjective element in this, it seems to me that this is a subjective, experiential matter. But, as I will explain, it is based on the objective promises of the gospel as revealed in God’s Word. In our text, Paul is giving us the signs of true assurance:
If the Spirit is leading us to kill our sin and confirming to us the promises of the gospel, then we can be assured that we are children of God.
Note two main things:
Romans 8:14: “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” It is important to note the first word of that sentence: “For.” Paul is explaining verse 13 and showing how it applies to the matter of assurance. In the context, he is not talking about how the Spirit may lead you to go to one college or another or to one career or another. Rather, Paul is saying that if the Holy Spirit is leading you to put to death the sinful deeds of the body (8:13), it is evidence that you are a child of God.
No one who is living according to the flesh kills his sin on the heart level. Some legalists or ascetics may control their sin outwardly, so that they can look good to others (Gal. 6:12-13). But they are filled with pride about their performance. They don’t kill their sin to glorify God, but to glorify self. But here Paul is saying that if the Spirit is leading you to kill your sin on the thought or heart level out of a desire to please and glorify the God who saved you, that is evidence that you are His child. To be led by the Spirit of God means to have the whole direction of your life determined by the Spirit, so that His fruit is growing in your life (Gal. 5:18-23).
Note that the verb is passive: “led by the Spirit of God.” As Thomas Schreiner (Romans [Baker], p. 422) explains, this “suggests that the Spirit is the primary agent in Christian obedience, that it is his work in believers that accounts for their obedience. Although this does not exclude the need for believers to follow the Spirit, it emphasizes that any human obedience is the result of the Spirit’s work.” John Murray (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 295) expresses the balance: “The activity of the believer is the evidence of the Spirit’s activity and the activity of the Spirit is the cause of the believer’s activity.” This is the mystery that we saw in verse 13, where by the Spirit we kill our sin. God gives the power but we must take action to obey.
So Paul’s point in 8:14 is that if the Spirit of God is leading us to kill our sin, then we can be assured that we are “sons of God.” Some commentators see significance in the fact that Paul changes from “sons” (8:14, 15) to “children” (8:16, 17), but I agree with the majority who say that there is no significant difference. But it is significant that this is the first time in Romans that Paul mentions this wonderful truth, that we are children of God. We have been born into God’s family through the Spirit who imparts new life to us (8:2, 6, 10). And, we have been adopted into God’s family as His chosen heirs (8:15, 17).
Charles Hodge (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 265) points out three implications of being “sons” of God: (1) There is similarity of disposition, character, or nature. After commanding us to love our enemies, Jesus explains (Matt. 5:45), “so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” Sons reflect the character of their father because they share his nature. (2) “Sons” are the objects of special affection (Rom. 9:26; 2 Cor. 6:18). I love all children, but I have a special love for my own children. God has a special love for His chosen children (John 13:1; 14:21). (3) “Sons” have a title to some peculiar dignity or advantage. They are heirs of the riches of their father (Rom. 8:17). They have special access to his presence that others lack. If the President is greeting a crowd, the Secret Service will prevent unknown children from breaking through the barrier and running up to the President. But his own children can be right at his side.
We could probably come up with many more privileges that are ours because we are God’s children. Paul’s first point is that if we are killing our sin on a daily basis, that didn’t come from us. It is an indication that the Spirit is leading and governing our lives. John Piper puts it (“The Spirit-Led Are the Sons of God,” on DesiringGod.org), “When you fight sin by trusting in Christ as superior to what sin offers, you are being led by the Spirit.” And that is a sign that we are sons and daughters of God.
Paul goes on to explain some of the implications of 8:14. First (8:15), he shows that the gospel has given us the Spirit of adoption as God’s sons so that we are on intimate, childlike terms with the Father. Then (8:16) he shows how the Spirit confirms the gospel promises to us through His inner witness. He follows (8:17a) by showing the implication, that if we are God’s children, then we are heirs of God and fellow-heirs with Christ. Then in 8:17b he responds to an anticipated objection: If we are God’s beloved children, then why does He allow us to suffer? This theme runs like a thread through the rest of the chapter. I originally planned to cover 8:17 in this message, but it will have to wait until next time.
Romans 8:15: “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’”
There is a difficult interpretive matter in this verse that we need to tackle before we apply it: How should we understand the two “spirits”? Some (such as the NASB) take both to refer to the human spirit in the sense of an inner attitude or disposition. But in light of the context, where the Holy Spirit is prominent and the parallel in Galatians 4:6, which clearly refers to the Holy Spirit, most understand the second reference in Romans 8:15 to refer to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of adoption. The Spirit brings us into this relationship as adopted sons of God.
But what about the first “spirit”? It could refer to the human spirit of unbelievers, in the sense that people are in slavery to sin and in fear of God’s judgment. But not all unbelievers fear God’s judgment. Or it could refer to the general spirit of those who were under the Law, which was a yoke of bondage that brought condemnation and fear of judgment (Acts 15:10; Gal. 4:7, 21-31).
But many argue that it is unlikely that Paul uses “spirit” to refer to both the human spirit and the Holy Spirit in the same verse. If it refers to the Holy Spirit, it may refer to way that He worked during the era of the Law (similar to the second view above). Others apply it more specifically to the work of the Spirit when He uses the Law to bring conviction of sin just prior to conversion (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans: The Sons of God [Zondervan]. Pp. 197-205). And still others contend that Paul is saying, negatively, that the Spirit we receive at salvation is not a Spirit of bondage, but a Spirit of adoption. Because of Galatians 4, I think that Paul is referring to the human spirit of bondage and fear that the Law brought (Heb. 12:18-24). By way of contrast, the Holy Spirit now transforms us from slaves to sons through adoption.
There are two ways that the New Testament speaks about our becoming sons of God: through the new birth and through adoption. Adoption is relatively rare, occurring only three other times with reference to Christians (Rom. 8:23; [9:4, the Jews]; Gal. 4:5; Eph. 1:5). The last reference attributes our adoption to God’s predestining us “according to the kind intention of His will.” Like justification, adoption refers to a legal transaction that results in a change of status. Leon Morris (The Epistle to the Romans [Apollos/Eerdmans], p. 315) says, “It signifies being granted the full rights and privileges of sonship in a family to which one does not belong by nature.”
William Barclay (The Letter to the Romans [Westminster Press], rev. ed., p. 106) explains the consequences of adoption in Roman society, from which Paul borrowed this concept:
(i) The adopted person lost all rights in his old family and gained all the rights of a legitimate son in his new family. In the most binding legal way, he got a new father. (ii) It followed that he became heir to his new father’s estate. Even if other sons were afterwards born, it did not affect his rights. He was inalienably co-heir with them. (iii) In law, the old life of the adopted person was completely wiped out; for instance, all debts were cancelled. He was regarded as a new person entering into a new life with which the past had nothing to do. (iv) In the eyes of the law he was absolutely the son of his new father.
When the Holy Spirit enables us to believe in Christ and to understand our new standing as adopted sons of God, all of these privileges apply to us and result in a great change in us. We have a new legal status before God, but also we have a new relationship with God as Father. Paul says that the result of our adoption is that by the Spirit we cry out, “Abba! Father!” “Cry out” is an emotional word, used about 40 times in the Psalms (LXX) for crying out to God in urgent prayer (e.g., Ps. 3:4; 18:6). God’s adopted children often cry out to Him as their Father when they are in need.
“Abba! Father!” combines the Aramaic and the Greek words for Father. Jesus addressed the Father in this way in Mark 14:36 as He prayed in the Garden just prior to His arrest. He taught His followers to pray to God as “Our Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 6:9). When Paul applies “Abba! Father!” to us as God’s adopted children, it means that we can draw near to God in our distress or time of need with the same sense of intimacy and assurance of being heard that Jesus had!
James Boice (Romans: The Reign of Grace [Baker], 2:841) points out that in the Old Testament, father was used of God only 14 times and never in a personal sense. In Jesus’ time, God’s name was so reverenced that the Jews would not even pronounce it. They would substitute “Lord” instead of “Yahweh” when they came to it in the Scriptures. But Jesus always addressed God as Father, except for when He cried out on the cross as He bore our sins (Mark 15:34), “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?” And, astoundingly, He taught us to pray, “Our Father.”
Some have picked up on Abba by addressing God in prayer as “Daddy,” since it was the word that little children used in Aramaic to address their daddies. I confess that I’m a bit uncomfortable with that because Jesus adds that we should acknowledge that our Father is in heaven and that His name is to be hallowed, or set apart as holy. In other words, while Father or Abba connotes intimacy and dependency, we must also remember as we draw near that He is the sovereign of the universe and that His name is holy. So we should come to Him as a little child does to his father, knowing that He loves us and that He delights to meet our needs. But we also must come before Him reverently.
J. I. Packer has a wonderful chapter in Knowing God [IVP], pp. 181-208), “Sons of God,” on the subject of our adoption as children of the Father. He writes (p. 182),
You sum up the whole of New Testament teaching in a single phrase, if you speak of it as a revelation of the Fatherhood of the holy Creator. In the same way, you sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one’s holy Father. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. “Father” is the Christian name for God.
So the Spirit assures us by confirming the promises of the gospel to us, teaching us through the Word that we are God’s adopted children and that, as such, we can cry out to Him in any need as our loving Father, knowing that He cares for us.
Romans 8:16: “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.” There is some debate here as to the meaning of the verb. Strictly interpreted, it means “to testify or bear witness with.” Thus, there would be two witnesses, our spirit and the Holy Spirit. Many reputable commentators understand it in this way, but I confess that I do not understand how my spirit bears witness to me apart from the Spirit’s bearing witness.
But the verb can also mean “to bear witness to.” C. E. B. Cranfield (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [T. & T. Clark], p. 403, italics his) asks a pertinent question, “But what standing has our spirit in this matter? Of itself it surely has no right at all to testify to our being sons of God.” And so I understand this to mean that the Holy Spirit confirms to our spirit the promises of the gospel. It is an immediate and direct inner sense that the gospel is true and that it is true in my life.
If you believe personally in the truth of the gospel, where did that faith come from? It didn’t originate in you. “The natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised” (1 Cor. 2:14). “There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God” (Rom. 3:11). To understand and believe in the gospel requires a supernatural work of God’s Spirit in your heart. When you say, both at the point of conversion and many times in the years afterward, “Yes, I do believe in Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord,” that is the inner witness of the Spirit to your spirit that you are God’s child.
When you’re feeling guilty and condemned because of your sins and you read, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1) and something inside of you exclaims, “Thank God!” where does that inner sense of joy come from? It is the Holy Spirit testifying to your spirit that you are a child of God.
Or, maybe you’re feeling all alone and wondering if anyone cares for you or is concerned about your problems and you read that you can cast all your cares on God, because He cares for you (1 Pet. 5:7). As you read that promise, your spirit is buoyed up with renewed hope in the Lord. Where did that hope come from? It is the Spirit of God testifying to your spirit that you are God’s child.
On one occasion many years ago in California I was going through the most difficult time of my then 14 years of ministry. An associate was spreading half-truths (or, half-lies) about me, causing a lot of problems in the ministry there. Many were criticizing my preaching. I was very discouraged. One night as I was about to get into bed, out of nowhere, the reference, Acts 18:9-10 popped into my head. I had not been reading in Acts recently. There was no human explanation for why that reference came to mind.
I grabbed a Bible that was on the nightstand and opened to Acts 18 and read how Paul was afraid during his ministry in Corinth. The Lord appeared to him in a vision and said, “Do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent; for I am with you, and no man will attack you in order to harm you, for I have many people in this city.” It was the Lord’s word to me, to go on preaching the truth and not be concerned about my critics. It was the Spirit’s witness to my spirit that I am a child of God.
Are you a child of God? Are you sure that you’re a child of God? How can anyone be sure? First, have you abandoned all trust in your own good works and trusted in Christ alone to save you from God’s judgment? That is the main source of assurance. But, how can you know if your faith is genuine? Is the Holy Spirit governing your life so that you fight against and kill your sin every day? Is the Holy Spirit confirming to you the wonderful truth that God has adopted you into His family? Part of that confirmation is that you often find yourself crying out to the Father for help and grace in your time of need. And the Spirit repeatedly confirms to you the many promises that God gives to His children. You can sing (author, Carolina Sandell-Berg),
More secure is no one ever
Than the loved ones of the Savior
Not yon star on high abiding
Nor the bird in home nest hiding.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Adoption is a beautiful thing to behold. I often look around at this congregation and see families that have adopted children from other countries and think about where those kids would be if they had not been adopted into a loving family. They had no family to love them or provide for their needs. They had no caring dad or mom to listen to their problems or put their arms around them and assure them that things would be all right. Many of them were malnourished and sick. They had no instruction even about basic matters in life such as hygiene, let alone spiritual instruction.
Then one day a couple with love and kindness in their eyes chose them and went through all of the legal and financial matters necessary to bring that needy child into their home. For the first time in their lives, those kids heard prayers and felt kisses before drifting off to sleep. When they awoke frightened or sick in the night, they had the comfort of loving parents to calm their fears or nurse them back to health. They had nutritious meals and nice clothing. They learned what it was like to be a part of a loving, caring family where God is worshiped, His Word is read, and needs are brought before His gracious throne in prayer.
The Bible uses adoption as a picture of what God has done for us. We were dirty, diseased, impoverished street urchins, with no one to care for us. We were not there as helpless victims, but rather because of our deliberate rebellion against God. But one day He showed up at the cardboard shack that we were sleeping in and in love chose us to be in His family. He cleaned us up, removed our rags, clothed us in the righteousness of Christ, fed us with the nourishing truth of His Word, and guided us in His paths of righteousness and wisdom. He brought us into His family, where we have brothers and sisters to share our burdens and our joys. And He made us His heirs, so that throughout eternity we will enjoy the unfathomable riches of Christ.
But these wonderful truths raise a question: If we are God’s beloved children, then why does He allow us to suffer? As an earthly parent, I did everything that I could to protect my children from suffering and to alleviate their pain, whether physical or emotional. If God is an all-powerful and all-loving Father, then why doesn’t He do the same with His children? While many books have been written to deal with that issue, Paul here and through the rest of the chapter shows that our suffering is not at odds with God’s love for us as His children. Just as our Savior had to suffer first and then enter His glory (Luke 24:26), so too, our path to glory goes through the valley of suffering.
Romans 8:17 is transitional: it sums up what Paul has been saying and it introduces what he will go on to say. Spurgeon (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 51:541) describes Paul’s style here as building a sort of Jacob’s ladder that takes us up from one step to the next. First (8:14) he says that all who are being led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God. We saw that in the context this does not refer to the Spirit’s leading us in matters of guidance about life’s choices, but rather to the Spirit’s leading us to kill our sin. If the Holy Spirit is prompting and enabling you to fight against and kill your sin, it’s an evidence that should assure you that you are a child of God.
The next step up the ladder is that if you are a child of God, then you are an heir. Then he goes higher—you are an heir of God Himself and a joint-heir with Christ. The uppermost rung of the ladder is that we will be glorified with Him. Spurgeon applies this by saying (51:542) that every grace we receive should lead us to seek after something higher still. We should never be complacent or think that we have arrived spiritually. We should seek to be filled more and more with all the fullness of God.
With that as an introduction, let’s explore some of the riches of our text. I’m convinced that Paul does not just want us to think about these things intellectually and walk away saying, “That’s interesting!” Rather, he wants us to feel emotionally the wonderful grace and love of being an adopted child of God and all of the glorious riches that God has stored up for us in eternity so that we can joyfully persevere in our present sufferings. He is saying,
As God’s adopted children, we are His heirs and fellow-heirs with Christ, which includes suffering now and future glory.
As we saw (8:15), we “have received a Spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba, Father!’” As I explained, “spirit” should be capitalized, referring to the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the seal or pledge of our inheritance as adopted children of God (Eph. 1:13-14).
In a wonderful chapter in Knowing God (“Sons of God” [IVP], pp. 181-208), J. I. Packer says (p. 187) that adoption is the highest privilege that the gospel offers, even higher than the blessing of justification, because it brings us into a richer relationship with God as our loving Father. He goes on to say (p. 190, italics his) that “the entire Christian life has to be understood in terms of it” [adoption]. He illustrates from the Sermon on the Mount (pp. 190-193) how adoption is the basis of Christian conduct, as we imitate the Father. It’s at the root of glorifying the Father, as people see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven. It’s at the heart of pleasing the Father, who sees our hearts, rather than being hypocrites who practice our righteousness before men. Adoption is the basis of Christian prayer, since Jesus taught us to pray, “Our Father who is in heaven.” Adoption is also the basis of a life of faith, as we trust the Father to provide for our needs.
Then (pp. 194-207) Packer elaborates on how adoption gives us the deepest insights into five other matters: (1) It shows us the greatness of God’s grace and love; (2) the glory of the Christian hope; (3) the ministry of the Holy Spirit; (4) the meaning and motives of what the Puritans called “gospel holiness”; and, (5) the clue we need to see our way through the problem of assurance.
Does the doctrine of God’s gracious adoption of you as His child make your heart well up with thanksgiving and joy as you realize what the Father has done for you? He picked you out of the gutter of sin, cleaned you up, clothed you with the perfect righteousness of Christ, and lovingly brought you into His family as His child, where you enjoy the inexhaustible riches of His grace, both now and for all eternity! Meditate on that truth every day and it will give you strength to resist sin and grace to endure trials.
But, make sure that you are His child! The Bible is clear that by nature because of our sin we all are children of wrath, not children of God (Eph. 2:3). How do we become children of God? Paul explains (Gal. 3:26), “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” Instead of trusting in yourself or your good works to get into heaven, trust in Christ, who died to pay the penalty of sin for everyone who believes in Him. And lest you boast in your faith, keep in mind that salvation is totally from the Lord. As Paul writes (Eph. 1:5-6), “In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.”
If by God’s grace through faith in Christ you are a child of God, then it follows:
Have you ever daydreamed about what it might be like to be an heir of a wealthy family, like the Rockefeller’s or the Kennedy’s or the Getty’s? From what I’ve read, many of those heirs are not happy people. They fight and take each other to court, trying to grab or protect their portion of the inheritance. But as children of God, the Creator and Lord of the entire universe, we never need to fear that someone else will get our portion. God is “abounding in riches for all who call upon Him” (Rom. 10:12). Note four things about our inheritance as God’s children:
“And if children, heirs also, heirs of God…” At the very least, this means that we will receive all that God has promised to us as His children. But it probably also means that God Himself is our inheritance. This truth was taught in the Old Testament. When Israel conquered the land of Canaan, it was divided up among the various tribes. But the priestly tribe of Levi got no land, because “the Lord is their inheritance, as He promised them” (Deut. 18:2; Josh. 13:33). Do you suppose that any of the Levites looked with envy at the other tribes and their fertile pastures and grumbled, “Where’s my inheritance?” And when they were told, “The Lord God of Israel is your inheritance,” they complained, “Bummer, I’d rather have some land!” I hope not!
The psalmist knew the joy of having God as his inheritance. For a while, he was envious of the wicked as he saw their prosperity. But then he got his bearings and realized that they would die and face God’s judgment. So he affirmed (Ps. 73:25-26), “Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
The prophet Jeremiah also knew this wonderful truth. He had witnessed the awful destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, along with the slaughter of many of his people and the deportation into slavery of many others. It was far, far worse than the 9-11 tragedy in our country. In the midst of his grief, he affirmed (Lam. 3:22-24), “The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘Therefore I have hope in Him.’”
If God Himself is our inheritance, then our salvation is secure because He is eternal and unchangeable and His promises never fail. The reason we have Him for our inheritance is because He first chose us and predestined us to adoption as His children.
Hebrews 1:2 declares, “In these last days [God] has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.” “All things” is fairly comprehensive! Paul puts it this way as he rebuked the bickering Corinthians (1 Cor. 3:21-23), “For all things belong to you, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come; all things belong to you, and you belong to Christ; and Christ belongs to God.”
Again, if we are co-heirs with Christ, our inheritance is secure because there is absolutely no doubt that Jesus will inherit all that the Father has ordained to give Him. In Psalm 2, the nations rage against God and seek to throw off the lordship of His anointed king. But God, who sits in the heavens, scoffs at these proud earthly kings. And then Messiah responds (Ps. 2:7-8), “I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord; He said to Me, ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance, and the very ends of the earth as Your possession.’” It is certain that Jesus will inherit all that the Father has promised to Him. And since we are fellow heirs with Christ, our inheritance is secure. Our right to the riches of heaven is not because of anything in us, but because we are in Christ. But, what does our inheritance look like?
In Ephesians 3:8, Paul describes his ministry as “to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ.” I preached an entire message on that verse when we worked through Ephesians, so I can only refer you to it now. But in Ephesians 2:7, Paul says, “So that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” It’s going to take the ages and ages of eternity to reveal to us all that God has prepared for us and given to us in Christ!
These riches include our being heirs of the world. In Romans 4:13, Paul said, “For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants (lit., “seed”) that he would be heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith.” Abraham did not inherit the world in his lifetime. The only piece of real estate he owned was the burial cave of Machpelah. But God has promised a new city whose architect and builder is God (Heb. 11:10). Abraham was looking for that heavenly city (Heb. 11:16), and since we are fellow heirs with Christ, who is the seed of Abraham, we will inherit the new heavens and earth with Him.
Also, we are heirs of the kingdom of God. James 2:5 declares, “Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?”
And, included with these promises, we are heirs of eternal life, which is the joy of knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent (John 17:3). In Titus 3:4-7, Paul exults, “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” Wow!
I’ve already mentioned the fourth truth about our inheritance:
In Galatians 3:29, Paul says, “And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants [lit., “seed”], heirs according to promise.” Who made the promise? God, who cannot lie, did! Then in Hebrews 6:17-18 we read, “In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.” The two unchangeable things were God’s word of promise and His oath when He swore by Himself to Abraham, “I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you” (Heb. 6:14). God wants us who are His children to know that our inheritance is “imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you” (1 Pet. 1:4). It’s absolutely certain.
But, then, why does God allow His children to suffer now?
Paul adds (Rom. 8:17b), “if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.” After meditating on all of the glories of being children of God and heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, the mention of suffering hits us out of nowhere. Why does Paul throw that in here? Well, Paul was a realistic pastor who wanted his people to apply these glorious truths about our future inheritance to the present reality of life in a fallen and hurting world.
Paul himself suffered terribly (2 Cor. 11:23-29). He knew that many of his readers were suffering, some more than others. Some were being persecuted for the sake of the gospel. Some had lost loved ones to martyrdom. But all of God’s children go through trials from the world, the flesh, and the devil. We all go through trials in our families, trials with other people, trials at work (or with being out of work), trials because of our sins and the sins of others against us, health problems, disappointments, heartaches, and grief.
But, why does God allow His children to suffer? I can’t be comprehensive, because the Bible contains much on this subject. But, first, if Jesus, God’s beloved Son in whom He was well-pleased, had to suffer before entering His glory (Luke 24:26), then why would we expect to be exempt? The popular teaching that it is God’s will for His children all to be healthy and wealthy and that we need to claim it by faith is heresy! Have you ever noticed that none of the false teachers proclaiming this nonsense are over 100 and going strong? They’re deceiving people for the sake of their own sordid gain.
Also, if Jesus Himself, who was sinless, learned obedience through the things that He suffered (Heb. 5:8), then why would we think that there is an easier course for us? God disciplines all of His children so that we might share His holiness (Heb. 12:5-11). Furthermore, as Philip Melancthon put it, “Where there are no cares, there will generally be no prayers” (cited by J. C. Ryle, “Are You an Heir?” in A New Birth [Old Paths Gospel Press], p. 241). Or, as Paul put it (2 Cor. 1:9), “Indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead.” Trials drive us to dependence on God. They purify the dross from our lives. They produce perseverance, proven character, and hope (Rom. 5:3). They keep us from loving this world more than we should. And, they fix our hope on eternity (2 Cor. 4:16-18).
Paul here says that we will be glorified with Christ. Our adoption is a present reality, but there is still a future fulfillment of it, when we receive our new resurrection bodies (Rom. 8:23) and we will be in the presence of the Lord forever (1 Thess. 4:13-18).
J. C. Ryle (ibid., pp. 224-228) whets our appetite for this future glory by asking a series of questions and then expounding on the perfections of heaven. “Is knowledge pleasant to us now?” In heaven, we shall know all things and there will be no disagreements among believers. “Is holiness pleasant to us now?” Is sin causing us trouble now? In heaven there will be no sin! “Is rest pleasant to us now?” Are we often weary and faint? In heaven we will enjoy God’s perfect rest. “Is service pleasant to us now?” We will serve God perfectly in heaven, without any of our present limitations. “Is satisfaction pleasant to us now?” In heaven, our joy will be perfect and permanent. “Is communion with the saints pleasant now?” In heaven, we will enjoy perfect fellowship with God’s people. “Is communion with Christ pleasant to us now?” In heaven, we will see His face and our fellowship will never be broken by our sin.
How does this apply to us now? In many ways, but consider this illustration from John Newton, the converted slave-trader turned pastor and hymn-writer (cited by John Piper, “Children, Heirs, and Fellow Sufferers,” on DesiringGod.org):
Suppose a man was going to New York to take possession of a large estate, and his [carriage] should break down a mile before he got to the city, which obliged him to walk the rest of the way; what a fool we should think him, if we saw him ringing his hands, and blubbering out all the remaining mile, “My [carriage] is broken! My [carriage] is broken!” (Richard Cecil, Memoirs of the Rev. John Newton, in The Works of the Rev. John Newton, Vol. 1 [Banner of Truth], p. 108.)
Your carriage may be broken, but keep going—there’s a rich inheritance and eternal glory just ahead!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
“Mom, why are there mosquitoes that give people malaria? Why are there germs that make us sick?”
“Mom, I saw on the news a bad flood that killed a lot of people. Why are there floods and earthquakes and hurricanes and tornadoes? Why are there famines where people starve to death?”
“Mom, why did my friend at school get cancer and die? Why did Grandma get sick and die?”
“Mom, why do people set off bombs to blow up other people? Why do people do bad things to hurt each other?”
Maybe your kids have asked you questions like these. Probably you’ve wrestled with them yourself. Some become agnostics or atheists because they cannot come up with satisfactory answers to the question of how a loving, all-powerful God can allow the terrible suffering that is in the world. Since none of us are exempt from suffering and death, it’s important that we understand what the Bible teaches on this difficult topic.
Philosophers, theologians, pastors, and others have written scores of books on the subject. Some of these books are helpful, while some are heretical. Job, the oldest book on the Bible, is devoted to this problem. And in our text, Paul gives part of the biblical perspective that we need to persevere through the suffering that we surely will encounter. It’s not comprehensive, but it is helpful and practical if we will struggle to understand and practice what the apostle teaches us here. He’s saying,
To persevere in present sufferings with hope, keep your eyes on the future glory that God has promised us.
Maybe right off you’re thinking, “That just sounds like ‘pie in the sky when you die.’” As I’ve often said, my response is, “Yes, you are going to die. Would you like pie with that or no pie?” The statistics are not fuzzy: We all are going to die (unless Jesus returns in our lifetimes). Materialists argue that when you die, that’s it—your body decomposes and your soul ceases to exist, just like an animal. Paul deals with that mistaken view in his defense of the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15), where he says that if the dead are not raised, then eat and drink, because tomorrow you may die. But if Jesus was raised, then the dead will be raised. And if the dead are raised, then we should “be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that [our] toil is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Cor. 15:58).
In our text, Paul wants us to understand two certainties and a practical conclusion that flows from them: First, the present time is marked by sufferings because of man’s fall into sin. Second, the future will be marked by glory for believers as God fulfills all His promises to us. The practical conclusion is, if we keep our eyes on the future promised glory, then we can endure present sufferings with perseverance and hope.
Paul mentions “the sufferings of this present time” (8:18). He was not referring to an especially difficult period in history, but to the entire present age. The whole history of creation since the fall is marked by suffering. The history of nations is marked by struggles and catastrophes—wars, natural disasters, internal conflicts, power struggles, and crimes. The history of individuals is also in large part a history of trials—the trials of growing up, figuring out what to do with your life, whom you will marry, rearing children, working through struggles in your marriage, providing for your needs, growing old and facing declining health and death.
But, why? Why do we suffer? How should we as Christians think about these difficult matters? Four observations:
Romans 8:19-22: “For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.”
Paul personifies creation groaning as it anxiously awaits the culmination of salvation for God’s people, because that will trigger the release from corruption to which all creation has been subject since Adam and Eve fell into sin. At that time, God’s judgment on Adam included a judgment on creation (Gen. 3:17b-18a): “Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you ….”
Not only the botanical world, but also the animal world, came under the curse. In either the millennial kingdom or in the new heavens and new earth (depending on your view of prophecy), Isaiah (11:6-9) gives us this vision:
And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little boy will lead them. Also the cow and the bear will graze, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den. They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
Isaiah pictures in poetic language a vision of a restored creation, where there will not be any violence or death. We’ve watched the magnificent DVD series “Planet Earth,” which has a spectacular scene in slow motion of a great white shark leaping out of the ocean, grabbing a seal in its mouth, and plunging again beneath the water to consume its meal. In another stunning scene filmed at night, a group of lions bring down an elephant for their next meal. Such movies portray this as the natural order of the world, in which the fittest survive by preying on the weaker species.
But the Bible teaches that this is not natural. Violence and death, even in the animal kingdom, are the result of the curse on man’s sin. Death was not a part of the original creation, which God pronounced as good. And in the future, when believers receive the full redemption that has been promised in Christ, all of creation will be restored at least to its original state, if not to an even greater level of glory.
Two observations before we move on: First, this text assumes that God is the creator of all that is. It did not evolve by chance or random mutations over billions of years. Right out of the starting gate the Bible presents God as the creator (Gen. 1:1), “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” It doesn’t put it up for debate or discussion. It hits you before you can duck with the fact that God miraculously created all that is by the word of His power. Psalm 33:6, 9 declares, “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of His mouth all their host…. For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.” The psalmist sandwiches his practical application between these verses (33:8): “Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.” God alone is the rightful Lord of creation and Lord of your life. The fact of creation should make you bow in wonder and worship before Him (see, also, John 1:1-3; Heb. 1:2; 11:3).
Second, even though the creation is fallen, it still bears witness to the majesty and glory of the Creator. David marveled (Ps. 19:1), “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.” Here in Flagstaff at 7,000 feet elevation, with the city’s efforts at restricting light pollution, we often can see what David must have seen in those dark Judean skies. The Milky Way stretches across the sky. The constellations beam their light from trillions of miles away. Sometimes with binoculars, I have located Andromeda galaxy, 2.5 million light years away, with one trillion stars. It makes you feel properly small and God properly big!
Last weekend, Marla and I went to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Standing on the rim and gazing at the vastness of that great geologic wonder always takes your breath away. Every evening a large group of visitors gathers on the patio of the North Rim Lodge to watch the spectacle in the sky. The sunsets are gorgeous and we watched lightning from the thunderstorms across the canyon. But, sadly, I would guess that very few of those watching this spectacular show even gave a passing thought toward the greatness and glory of the Creator! But those of us who know Him should revel in His creation. If the fallen creation is this beautiful, just think how spectacular the new heavens and earth will be!
So the first observation from these verses is that all creation suffers because of man’s fall into sin. It is presently enslaved to corruption and death. But, also,
This needs to be stated because, as I mentioned in our last study, there is a pervasive false teaching that God wants every Christian to be healthy and wealthy. They say, “If you’re sick or poor, then you need to claim your healing or your wealth by faith.” Those who teach these lies are preying on people’s greed and their natural longing to be in good health. But as I also said, I’ve never seen one of these false teachers live to be 120. They all succumb to disease and death at about the same age as the rest of us. Do not follow their teaching!
Paul himself suffered terribly. When he got saved, the Lord told Ananias the prophet whom He sent to open Paul’s eyes (Acts 9:16), “for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake.” Paul often mentions the trials that he endured, which would have driven most of us to despair (see 2 Cor. 11:23-28).
Our Lord Himself was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief (Isa. 53:3). He came to this world of suffering to bear our sins through His own suffering and death. So why should we think that somehow we will be exempt from suffering? In the sovereign purposes of God, some suffer more and some suffer less. But none are exempt. It’s a part of living in this fallen world. This leads to a third observation:
Note Paul’s opening phrase (8:18), “For I consider ….” The word means to reckon, think about, consider, or ponder. In other words, this paragraph is the result of Paul’s careful, biblical thinking about suffering. It’s important to think biblically about suffering because when it clobbers you or those you love, you will be engulfed by a wave of powerful emotions. I’m not suggesting that you should suppress or deny your emotions, but I am saying that you need to process them through the grid of biblical truth, so that you are not devastated by your trials.
Peter indicates that it is especially in a time of trials that the devil prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking to devour us. But we must resist him by being firm in our faith and by understanding the biblical perspective on trials (1 Pet. 5:8-10). In 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, Paul does not deny that believers grieve when they lose loved ones, but he does say that in light of the promise of the Lord’s coming and the resurrection of our bodies, we should not grieve as those who have no hope.
The Bible gives us far more perspective on suffering than I can comment on briefly here. As you read it, ask God to instill His wisdom in your heart for how to handle suffering. But here in our text, Paul wants us to think about four things: First, our present sufferings are relatively short compared to our eternal sharing in the glory of God. Second, the weight of our present trials is like a feather on the scale, which can’t compare with the tons of gold of the glory that will be revealed to us. He expresses the same thought in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18,
Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
A third thing to think about to endure present, temporary suffering for future glory is that our future glory with God is absolutely certain. God has promised it and He cannot lie. Christ promised to return in power and glory to bring final redemption to His people and to judge His enemies. Either He was mistaken or it is our certain future. And in the rest of the chapter Paul unfolds a fourth reason that we need to think biblically about suffering, namely, that God is using it to conform us to the image of Christ. Not even torture or martyrdom can separate us from His great love (8:35-39). There is a fourth observation from our text:
Often people observe the terrible suffering in the world and doubt God’s love or His power. The argument is especially emotional when we consider little children suffering physical or sexual abuse or the horrible effects of war or natural disasters. We think, “It’s one thing if wicked people suffer such things, but how could a God of love and power allow these precious little children to suffer such things?”
But Paul shows that such things stem directly from man’s fall into sin. As we saw in chapter 5, when Adam sinned, the whole human race sinned in him. If you say, “That’s not fair,” you’re on dangerous ground, to accuse the Sovereign God of being unfair! And you’re arrogantly implying that you would have done better than Adam did, so you don’t deserve to be penalized for his sin. So you’d best not accuse God of being unfair for imposing suffering on the human race because of sin.
Pastor John Piper (“Subjected to Futility in Hope,” part 1, on DesiringGod.org) points out that if you think that somehow the suffering in this world is out of proportion to what is deserved, then you do not grasp the infinite holiness of God or the unspeakable outrage of sin against this holy God. God’s judgment on the entire creation as seen in all of history’s horrible tragedies reveals how horrific our sin is to Him. Piper adds, “But in fact the point of our miseries, our futility, our corruption, our groaning is to teach us the horror of sin. And the preciousness of redemption and hope.” Thank God, He sent the Savior!
But the fact of terrible suffering does not undermine the fact that God has a plan and that He will accomplish His plan. Paul says that the creation was subjected to futility “in hope” (8:20). He also uses the analogy of birth pains (8:22). The outcome of birth pains is the hope of new life. And even so, God is moving history toward a goal that includes our future glory:
I can’t elaborate due to time constraints, but I want to include this in this message to convey Paul’s flow of thought. God’s final purpose both for fallen creation and for His adopted children is the glory of complete salvation. Note four things about this glory:
J. B. Phillips (The New Testament in Modern English [Geoffrey Bles], p. 324) paraphrases 8:19, “The whole creation is on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of the sons of God coming into their own.” In Colossians 3:4, Paul says, “When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.” In 2 Thessalonians 2:14, he says, “It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (See, also, Heb. 2:10; 1 John 3:2.)
“Glory” is a hard concept to get your brain around, but it includes all of God’s promises to bestow on us the “unfathomable riches of Christ” (Eph. 3:8). Streets of gold and gates of pearl and mansions prepared for us are limited analogies that say, “You can’t imagine how wonderful it will be!”
The new heavens and earth will probably be even more glorious than the Garden of Eden was. With new, glorified bodies we will live on a new earth and enjoy God’s creation as it was before sin entered this world.
“Freedom of the glory of the children of God” (8:21) means at the very least, freedom from sin. We now enjoy the privileges of being God’s adopted children (8:15-16), but we haven’t yet come into our full inheritance, which includes the redemption of our body (8:23). Now, by God’s Spirit, we are able not to sin; but in glory we will not be able to sin. Hallelujah!
The indwelling Holy Spirit gives us a taste of what it will be like to be holy, as Jesus is holy. But we’re still living in these fallen bodies that are prone to temptation and sin, with all of its terrible consequences. But the Holy Spirit is the promise that God will not abandon us to our sin. He’s the down payment that signals that God will complete the purchase. The practical conclusion follows:
Paul anticipates us thinking, “But, I can’t see this future glory.” His reply is, “Yes, that’s the very nature of hope.” If you can see it all, then it’s not hope. Our salvation includes hope because we don’t receive it all in this life. The hope of our salvation is not uncertain, as when we say, “I hope it doesn’t rain on my picnic tomorrow.” Rather, it is absolutely certain because of the many promises of God, who cannot lie. But we hope for it because we have not yet received all that has been promised. So Paul concludes (8:25), “But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.” The key to persevering in suffering with hope is to keep your eyes on the promised future glory.
If you’ve ever watched your favorite team play in the Super Bowl, you were anxious as the game progressed, especially if it was close. If your team fumbled or threw an interception, you groaned because you didn’t know the outcome. You hoped they would win, but your hope was uncertain. Maybe you even got depressed when they were far behind.
But if your team came from behind and won in the last seconds of the game and later you watched a replay of the game, your whole attitude was different. You didn’t despair when they fumbled or fell behind, because you knew how it all would turn out. Knowing the certainty of the future glory gave you hope to persevere through the setbacks.
If we become anxious or depressed in trials and lose hope, it’s because we’ve forgotten the absolutely certain outcome: Future glory forever with Christ! Yes, there is present suffering because we live in a fallen world. But God has promised future glory. Keeping that in view will enable you to persevere any suffering with hope.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
In a message at the 2011 Desiring God Pastor’s Conference, Francis Chan told of many answers to prayer that he has received. He said that for those who know the living God, this should be the norm. We should have such frequent answers to our prayers that we’re surprised when an occasional one goes unanswered.
If you can relate to what Chan was saying, perhaps you should be the one giving this message on prayer, because to be honest, my experience is almost the opposite of Francis Chan’s. I don’t keep detailed records, but I seem to strike out in prayer so often that it’s a big deal when I connect for a hit. My batting average wouldn’t get me into the minor leagues, much less the majors! So maybe before you ask me to pray for you, you should shop around!
Seriously, I need all the help I can get to learn how to pray rightly. And so our text, while it has some puzzling details, overall is a great encouragement. Paul is saying,
Knowing that the Holy Spirit tenderly prays for us in our weakness should encourage us to pray.
Paul Miller, who also spoke at the same Desiring God conference, estimates from surveys that he has taken at his prayer seminars that about 90 percent of evangelicals do not have a meaningful daily prayer life. (I would encourage you to listen to his message and read his helpful book, A Praying Life [NavPress].) If you find prayer to be difficult, then Romans 8:26-27 should encourage you.
Douglas Moo (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 526) summarizes Paul’s thought in these verses:
Paul is saying … that our failure to know God’s will and consequent inability to petition God specifically and assuredly is met by God’s Spirit, who himself expresses to God those intercessory petitions that perfectly match the will of God. When we do not know what to pray for—yes, even when we pray for things that are not best for us—we need not despair, for we can depend on the Spirit’s ministry of perfect intercession “on our behalf.”
As I said, Paul’s overall intent is clear: He wants to encourage us, especially when we feel our own weakness, because the Holy Spirit is praying for us. Even though we do not know how to pray as we should, we should be encouraged to keep praying. But there are a number of details in these verses that are difficult to understand. I’ll try to explain them as best as I can as we work through the text and hope that the explanatory detours do not distract from the overall encouragement for your prayer life.
The first difficulty is to determine what “In the same way” refers to. Some authors connect it to the theme of “groaning.” In 8:22, the whole creation groans; in 8:23, we ourselves groan as we wait for the completion of our adoption as God’s children. So, “in the same way,” the Holy Spirit “intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”
Others say that “in the same way” links 8:26-27 with the other references to the Holy Spirit in chapter 8 (2, 4, 5, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, & 16). “In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weakness” (8:26).
Still others argue that the connection is with hope. We can be encouraged in our trials because of the hope of future glory (8:18-25); in the same way, we can be encouraged in our weakness by the Spirit’s intercession for us (8:26-27). I am inclined to either the second or third view. Either Paul is connecting 8:26-27 with all the other references to the Spirit in this chapter, or he is linking it with the encouragement and hope of 8:18-25. But either way, he wants us to feel encouraged by the fact that the Spirit is praying for us, so that we will be encouraged to keep praying. Note two things:
Sometimes a small pronoun in the Bible can make a lot of difference. Paul did not write, “… the Spirit also helps your weakness,” but rather, “the Spirit also helps our weakness.” Paul did not set himself on a pedestal as an example of spiritual strength. Rather, he included himself with us as one who was weak. A main reason that we do not pray as frequently or as fervently as we should is that we do not recognize how weak we really are. If we knew ourselves to be weak, we would constantly be coming to the Lord and crying out for His strength. Jesus did not say, “Without Me, you can get along with all of the everyday stuff. But when you get hit with something really big, call on Me.” Rather, He said (John 15:5), “… apart from Me, you can do nothing.”
We tend to look at the spiritual giants in the Bible and think, “Wow, they were strong!” Look at Elijah! What a guy! He called down fire on his sacrifice and then slaughtered 400 prophets of Baal. Twice he called down fire to consume a commander and fifty armed men who were sent to arrest him. Don’t mess with Elijah! And yet James (5:17) tells us, “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed ….” Elijah was weak, just like we are. But he prayed to the God who is strong.
Or, consider Moses. He stood up to the most powerful monarch in the world by calling down miraculous plagues on him and his kingdom. He parted the Red Sea so that the Israelites could pass through on dry ground and then he brought the sea back over the heads of the pursuing Egyptian army. He brought water from a rock in the barren desert. At his word, the ground opened up and swallowed alive those who challenged his leadership. He seemed to be a rock of spiritual strength! And yet in the mournful Psalm 90, he laments the frailty and shortness of life. The psalm ends with his pathetic plea (Ps. 90:17), “Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us; and confirm for us the work of our hands; yes, confirm the work of our hands.” I’ve often thought, “If Moses needed to beg God to confirm his labors, how much more do I!” Moses was aware of his own weakness, which is why he prayed.
Or, look at the Lord Jesus Himself. He alone lived a sinless life on this wicked earth. He boldly confronted the religious leaders without fearing their threats. He overturned their money tables and pronounced woes on their hypocrisy. If anyone seemed to be strong, it was Jesus. And yet He said (John 5:19), “The Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing.” He often slipped away to the wilderness for prayer (Luke 5:16). In His humanity, Jesus knew that He must depend on the Father for all things. He is a model for us of praying at all times and for all things (Luke 18:1). Our weakness should cause us to cry out to God in prayer.
Hudson Taylor said (source unknown), “All God’s giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on God being with them.” We fail to pray because we think that we’re strong enough to handle life without God. It’s encouraging here in Romans 8:26 that God doesn’t confront us or condemn us for being weak. Rather, He sends His Spirit to help us in our weakness.
So, if you say, “I don’t have the strength to resist the temptation to look at porn,” then flee to Jesus in your weakness. Cry out to Him for deliverance. “But, I don’t have the strength to overcome my angry temper.” The next time you’re about to explode, run to Jesus. Every time you feel your weakness and inability, call out to Jesus. But, maybe you’re thinking, “But that’s the problem—I’m not strong in prayer.” Paul says that…
Part of the weakness that Paul refers to is weakness in prayer: “for we do not know how to pray as we should.” Again, I’m glad he said we, not you. Paul himself didn’t know how to pray as he should. He gives us a glimpse into this in 2 Corinthians 12. He tells about his own experience of being caught up into Paradise where he heard inexpressible words, which he was not permitted to speak. Because of that great revelation, to keep Paul from exalting himself, God gave him what he calls “a thorn in the flesh.” We can speculate on what this was, but the bottom line is, no one knows for sure because the Bible doesn’t tell us.
But Paul says that three times he implored the Lord to take away this affliction. But the Lord replied (2 Cor. 12:9), “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Paul concluded (2 Cor. 12:9b-10), “Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Paul didn’t know what he should pray for in that trial. And that’s the sense of Romans 8:26. He is not talking about the method or technique of praying, but rather the content. Paul wrestled with the same thing in Philippians 1:22-24, where he couldn’t decide whether to pray that the Lord would take him home, which was Paul’s desire, or preserve his life for further ministry. Moses entreated the Lord to let him enter the Promised Land, but that was not God’s will (Deut. 3:25-26). Elijah, man of prayer that he was, asked the Lord to take his life (1 Kings 19:4). Even Jesus, in His humanity, prayed that if possible, the Father might allow Him to escape from the cross, if it would be God’s will (Matt. 26:36-46). The point is, we’re all weak in many areas, including prayer. We often don’t know how to pray as we should. But, thankfully, God doesn’t leave us to ourselves:
Romans 8:26b-27: “The Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” Again, while many of the details are difficult to understand, Paul’s overall intent is to encourage us with the fact that God has not left us alone in our weakness. Rather, His Spirit helps us by praying for us. I’ll try to explain this with five observations:
The Holy Spirit is a person, not an impersonal force. He helps us in our weakness by praying for us, which an impersonal force cannot do. God is one God who exists eternally as three distinct persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Deut. 6:4; James 2:19; Matt. 28:19). The fact that the Spirit prays for us shows that He is distinct from the Father, to whom He prays. Also, the Father knows perfectly the mind of the Spirit and the Spirit prays perfectly in accord with the will of the Father. The Holy Spirit indwells everyone who belongs to Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:9). And so His ministry of prayer comes from within us, while Jesus’ ministry of intercession (8:34) takes place at the right hand of the Father.
The word “helps” occurs only here and in one other place in the New Testament. The meaning is, someone is carrying a heavy load and another person comes alongside to take the other end and bear the burden with him. The other use of “help” is in Luke 10:40, where Jesus is in the home of Mary and Martha. Mary was sitting at Jesus’ feet, but Martha was distracted with all her preparations. Finally, she burst out, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.” She wanted her sister to help bear the burden of preparing and serving the meal.
The word implies that the Holy Spirit doesn’t do everything, while we sit back and do nothing. Rather, we are to keep praying and, if appropriate, keep working or obeying or whatever the Bible may tell us to do about our situation. But as we pray, the Spirit says, “Let Me grab the other end. Let me help you by picking up your burden and taking it before the Father’s throne. I know what to pray for when you don’t.” So the Spirit helps us by praying for us in our weakness. What an encouragement!
“The Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” What does this mean? We don’t have anything to compare it with, since this is the only reference to such a thing in Scripture. But, first, we can say with certainty that it does not refer to speaking in tongues, as some argue. That subject is totally foreign to the context here. Also, if speaking in tongues is a valid gift today, it is only for some, whereas the ministry of the Spirit in verse 26 is for all believers.
As you can predict, there are differing views of what this phrase means. Some argue that since it is inconceivable that God would groan, this must refer to our groans, which the Spirit translates into specific requests before the Father (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans: The Final Perseverance of the Saints [Zondervan], pp. 135-136). In line with this, Thomas Schreiner (Romans [Baker], pp. 445-446) understands it to refer to groanings that originate from the Spirit, but are experienced by believers. The Spirit burdens us with inexpressible longings to know and do the will of God. He then takes those burdens to the Father in an articulate form on our behalf.
Others argue that the wording of the sentence implies that these are the groans of the Spirit Himself, of which we are not aware. John MacArthur puts it (The MacArthur Study Bible [Thomas Nelson], p. 1676), these groans refer to, “Divine articulations within the Trinity that cannot be expressed in words, but carry profound appeals for the welfare of every believer.”
While I’m not dogmatic (and I did not find any commentators who suggested this), my understanding is that the Spirit’s groaning on our behalf is an anthropomorphism, or more correctly, an anthropopathism, which is to attribute human emotions to God. For example, when the Bible says that God repents or changes His mind, it is speaking from a human point of view. To us, it seems as if God changed His mind, although His counsel is fixed from all eternity (1 Sam. 15:11, 29). In one of the most outrageous anthropomorphisms in the Bible, the psalmist compares God to a warrior who awakes from being drunk (Ps. 78:65)! Obviously, God is not sleeping off a hangover when He does not answer our prayers, but that’s how the psalmist portrays Him.
So here, I suggest that Paul pictures the Holy Spirit groaning on our behalf to convey that He takes up our needs at the deepest emotional level and conveys our hurts and cares to the Father’s throne, all in line with the will of God. This should encourage us to pour out our hearts before Him (Ps. 62:8).
Romans 8:27: “And He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” “He who searches the hearts” most likely refers to the Father. Paul’s point is, if the Father understands all human hearts, then He must know the unspoken groans of the Holy Spirit on our behalf. In other words, the Spirit takes our deepest feelings and unexpressed needs to the Father, who understands everything perfectly. Nothing leaves God scratching His head, wondering what our real needs are.
Since God searches and knows every heart, our prayers should come from the heart. You can impress others with spiritual-sounding prayers, but those prayers don’t impress God. Pour out your heart honestly to Him. But maybe you’re thinking, “But what if my prayers are not in line with God’s will?”
The last phrase of 8:27 seems to say that the Holy Spirit makes corrections for any misdirected prayers that we make by praying for us according to the will of God. Part of our weakness in prayer is that we’re not able to know God’s sovereign will, in the sense of His decree, until after it has happened. We can know His moral will, as revealed in Scripture. We should never pray for anything contrary to Scripture. You don’t need to pray about whether you should marry an unbeliever or have sexual relations outside of marriage or whether you should steal to meet your financial needs. Those things are always wrong.
But there is a mystery here that we cannot fully understand. Samson’s parents rightly exhorted him not to marry a Philistine woman. But they did not know that God wanted to use Samson’s wrong desires to bring judgment on the Philistines (Judges 14:1-4). Jeremiah was right to pray that God would spare His people from the Babylonians for His name’s sake. But God’s sovereign will in that situation was to judge them (Jer. 14:19-15:2). Or, Satan demanded permission to sift Peter like wheat by tempting him to deny Christ. If I had heard that demand, I would have prayed that God would keep Peter from sinning. But Jesus, who knew the will of God perfectly, did not pray that Peter would not sin, but rather that his faith would not totally fail and that after he was restored, he would strengthen his brothers (Luke 22:31-32).
So I understand Paul’s point to be that we should pray according to God’s will as best as we can, but if God’s decreed will differs from our prayers, the Spirit will correct our requests to line up with God’s sovereign will. And so even if to us it seems that our requests are denied, in God’s sovereign plan, they will be answered.
One well-known example of this is that Augustine’s godly mother, Monica, prayed for years for the salvation of her wayward son. He told her that he was going to move to Italy. She prayed that he would not go, because she thought that he would be led into further sin there. But he went and got saved there. The Spirit took her deepest desire, re-directed it before God’s throne, and her son got saved and became the most influential theologian for the next one thousand years.
So while there are difficult details in these verses, the bottom line is pretty clear: We should be encouraged to pray. We won’t fully understand the mystery of prayer in this life, but we know that the Lord commands us to pray. He has ordained prayer as the means through which we cooperate with Him in bringing about His sovereign will. He encourages us with the truth that the Holy Spirit, who dwells in us, tenderly takes our prayers and directs them according to God’s will before His throne. Here are three final applications:
*Don’t let the fact that you don’t know how to pray as you should discourage you from praying. Paul didn’t know how to pray as he should, but he told us to “pray at all times in the Spirit” (Eph. 6:18). So keep at it even when you don’t understand it.
*Don’t let the fact that prayer isn’t easy discourage you from praying. Paul told the Colossians (4:12) that Epaphras was “always laboring earnestly for [them] in his prayers.” Prayer is often hard work. It isn’t easy. But keep working at it. Finally,
*Don’t let the fact that your prayers don’t seem to be answered keep you from praying. Make sure that to the best of your understanding you are praying in accord with God’s will. But if you are praying unknowingly for something that is not His will, you can trust that the Spirit will take your prayers and line them up with God’s perfect will. This gracious truth, that the Holy Spirit tenderly prays for us in our weakness, should cause us to persevere in prayer, especially in times of trial.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
One of the most helpful things that you can learn with regard to your Christian life is how to handle the trials that inevitably will come your way. Jesus explained that there are some who receive the word with joy, but their faith is only temporary. When affliction or persecution because of the word hits them, immediately they fall away (Matt. 13:20-21). They didn’t expect affliction or understand how to handle it. They signed up for success, not suffering. They wanted prosperity, not persecution. So they fell away when the trials hit. It is especially in times of suffering that Satan, whom Peter describes as a roaring lion, seeks to devour you (1 Pet. 5:8-10). So it is essential for your spiritual survival that you know and apply what the Bible teaches about trials.
Romans 8:28 is one of the most familiar verses on this subject. The NASB reads, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” Due to a textual variant, the ESV translates it slightly differently and, I think, more accurately: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” But either way the sense is the same. All things don’t just happen to work out for good on their own. Rather, God providentially works all things together for good for His people according to His purpose.
But while Romans 8:28 is a source of great comfort when it is properly understood, it is often misunderstood and misapplied. Some think that it teaches a Pollyanna positive outlook on life, that everything will turn out for our happiness in this life. But this denies or greatly minimizes the reality of suffering and evil. It insensitively says to those who are suffering: “Don’t worry, be happy, your loss isn’t really so bad.” But the verse isn’t saying that.
Sometimes well-meaning Christians recite Romans 8:28 to a person in the throes of grief, trying to help or comfort. But at the moment of loss, the grieving person mostly needs your presence and your help with practical matters. Later, if need be, you may be able to help him understand and apply this verse. But it will help us all to weather suffering better if we understand this verse before the storm hits.
In the context, Paul has given us encouragement and hope with the truth that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that will be revealed to us (8:18-25). He has also encouraged us with the truth that the Holy Spirit is helping us in our weakness by praying for us according to the will of God (8:26-27). But that raises the question, “If the Spirit is praying for the saints according to the will of God, then why do we suffer? Why are we persecuted, sometimes to death? Can such suffering be according to God’s will?” In response, Paul affirms,
God works all things together for good for those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose.
Note the contrast between (8:26), “for we do not know how to pray as we should,” and (8:28), “we know that God causes all things to work together for good….” In our weakness, we often do not know what to pray for, but we can know, even in such times, that our sovereign God is working all things together for our ultimate good. Paul goes on to explain how this is so in 8:29-30. Douglas Moo (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 530) paraphrases the flow of thought in 8:28-30 as follows:
“We know that all things are working for good for those of us who love God; and we know this is so because we who love God are also those who have been summoned by God to enter into relationship with him, a summons that is in accordance with God’s purpose to mold us into the image of Christ and to glorify us.”
To understand and apply this verse, we need to think through four truths:
This truth is foundational to the truth of Romans 8:28. If God doesn’t have a purpose, then He couldn’t work all things according to that purpose. Or, if He has a purpose, but He’s not able to pull it off, then your trials might be sabotaging His purpose. A heretical view held by some professing evangelicals called Open Theism argues that God is not sovereign over the terrible things that happen in the world. They’re trying to get God off the hook for suffering, but they rob Romans 8:28 of its comfort for us in times of suffering. We must affirm three things about God’s purpose:
If a man is going to do anything of significance—build a house, found a company, or take a trip—he has a purpose and a plan to accomplish that purpose. It’s unthinkable that the Sovereign God created the universe with no purpose or no plan to achieve that purpose. But we don’t need to infer this by logic; the Bible often affirms that God has a purpose that can’t be thwarted.
In the oldest book of the Bible, after all his suffering, Job replies to the Lord (42:2), “I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.” In Isaiah 14:24, with regard to the eventual downfall of Israel’s enemy, Assyria, the prophet states, “The Lord of hosts has sworn saying, ‘Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened, and just as I have planned so it will stand.”
Later, regarding God’s purpose to raise up Cyrus to free Israel from captivity, Isaiah (46:10-11) cites the Lord as saying, “For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, ‘My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure’; calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of My purpose from a far country. Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, surely I will do it.”
Or, in Ephesians, after stating how God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world and predestined us to adoption as sons (1:4, 5), Paul adds (1:11), “In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.” (See, also, Eph. 3:11.)
Thus God has an eternal purpose to glorify Himself by saving a people through His grace, so that Christ would be preeminent in all things. And nothing can thwart His purpose. This means that…
After speaking of God as the almighty Creator, who spoke the universe into existence, the psalmist adds (Ps. 33:10-11), “The Lord nullifies the counsel of the nations; He frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart from generation to generation.” So, rather than sinful people frustrating God’s purpose, God frustrates their purpose!
This truth is all through the Bible, but let me give you two examples. Genesis 37-50 unfolds the moving story of Joseph and his brothers. Their father Jacob favored Joseph, which caused his brothers to hate him. They sold him into slavery in Egypt and lied to their father that a wild beast had killed him. In the providence of God, Joseph rose from prison to the position of second in command to Pharaoh. In that role, he was able to save his extended family during a long famine. He later explained to them (Gen. 50:20), “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.” Joseph’s brothers’ sin could not thwart God’s greater purpose for His people.
The New Testament tells of the greatest evil that has ever been committed, when sinful men crucified the sinless Son of God. But did these evil men, acting under Satan’s influence, thwart God’s plan? In Acts 4:27-28 we read the prayer of the early church when they faced persecution: “For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.” The wicked men were responsible for their sin, but their sin fulfilled rather than thwarted God’s plan.
This means that no sinful person can thwart God’s purpose or plan for your life. The sinful mate who left you for another woman didn’t ruin God’s plan for your life. The drunk driver who killed your loved ones can’t frustrate God’s purpose for their lives or your life. The evil person at work who lied about you and got you wrongfully fired didn’t divert God’s purpose for your life. But maybe you’re thinking, “But, what about free will? God gave everyone free will, didn’t He? Couldn’t these people mess up God’s plan by their free will?”
I don’t like the term “free will,” because it’s misleading. No one has perfectly free will. You were not free to choose when or in what country you were born, to whom you were born, what gender you were born, or what genetic traits you were born with. All of those factors, which greatly influence your choices, were determined apart from your will. If you had been born to a Muslim family in Afghanistan 500 years ago, you would not have been “free” to choose Christ because you never would have heard of Him. And even if a missionary had come to your village and preached the gospel (and survived!), there would have been tremendous social pressure to keep you from turning against your family by believing in Christ. The will is not totally “free.”
In addition, as we’ve seen all through Romans, you were born “in Adam,” with a fallen sin nature. You did not seek for God because you hated Him. You were not able to submit to God’s holy law, but rather suppressed the truth in unrighteousness. Sin has blinded all of us toward the things of God. As Charles Wesley put it, our will is “fast bound in sin and nature’s night.”
But this invokes the question, “If God is absolutely sovereign and our will is not totally free, then are we puppets or robots? Aren’t we free to make choices for which we are responsible?” The Bible is clear that God is sovereign and people make choices for which they are responsible. We must affirm both. But the point is, no choice of the worst sinner, even of a man like Hitler, can thwart God’s purpose to save and glorify His people. Romans 8:28 only works if God has an eternal purpose that He is able to accomplish in spite of sinful people and their so-called “free will.”
In 2 Timothy 1:9, Paul says that God “has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.” In our text, Paul describes those for whom God works all things together for good as “those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.”
Note that Romans 8:28 does not promise that all things work together for good for all people. It is not a verse for universal optimism. For those who hate God and are not called according to His purpose, the future holds condemnation and eternal punishment, if they do not repent. So the promise that God will work all things together for good is only for His elect, whom He purposes to save. Paul describes them in two ways:
This is the human side of things, although God is behind it. None of us would love God if He had not first loved us (1 John 4:19; Eph. 2:3-7). But when we heard the gospel, that in love God gave His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him has eternal life (John 3:16), we responded in faith so that now we love Him. He changed our hearts from being hostile toward God to wanting to please Him because we love Him.
Also, loving God (in Rom. 8:28) is not a condition, but a description. In other words, Paul is not saying that as long as you really love God, He will work everything together for good for you, but if your love for God grows cold, He won’t work everything for good. That wouldn’t be much comfort! Although at times our love for God may need reviving (Rev. 2:4-5), it can still be said of every true Christian that we do love God. It’s the bent of our lives.
Paul only refers to our love for God in three other places (1 Cor. 2:9; 8:3; Eph. 6:24). So you have to ask, why did he mention it here? Perhaps he mentions it here in the context of trials because at such times we need to affirm our love for God. During trials the devil tempts us to doubt God’s love for us. We need to be reminded not only that God loves us, but also that because He gave His Son for us, we now love Him. He is our chief treasure.
Also, in a time of persecution, love for God (and His love for us) is the one thing that can’t be taken from us. This evil world can deprive us of our possessions. It can torture us and kill our bodies. But it can’t take our chief treasure. As Psalm 73:25-26 puts it, “Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” So those who have tasted God’s love through the gospel love Him. They are the ones for whom God is working all things together for good.
This is the same group that loves God, but described from God’s point of view. Paul adds this description so that no one will mistakenly think that his own love for God is the primary thing. Rather, our love for God stems from His sovereign calling us. As Bishop Moule put it (Romans [Christian Literature Crusade], p. 237), “Not one link in the chain of actual Redemption is of our forging—or the whole would indeed be fragile.”
In the New Testament epistles, call (or, calling) always refers to God’s effectual call, which accomplishes His purpose. The Westminster Shorter Catechism (Answer 31) states, “Effectual calling is the work of God’s Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel.” When God effectually calls us to salvation, He does not drag us kicking and screaming, against our will. Rather, when we come to Christ, we come freely because He has made us willing by His grace (John 6:37).
How can you know whether God has called you? When you heard the gospel, that Christ died for sinners and that God offers forgiveness of sins and eternal life to all who believe in Christ, did you believe? Did you come to Jesus? Did God change your heart? Before, you didn’t love God, but now you do. Before you didn’t care about the Bible, but now you treasure it as God’s very word. Before, you loved your sin and made excuses for it, but now you hate it and fight against it. If so, then be assured that God is working all things together for good for you. But, what does that mean? Are we supposed to view tragedies in our lives as good?
“All things” includes the good things that God gives us, but it also includes “the sufferings of this present time” (8:18), as well as tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, and sword (8:35). It includes big catastrophes—tornadoes, tsunamis, wars, plane crashes, and terrible accidents. But it also includes the relatively minor frustrations of life—daily hassles, problems at work, car trouble, traffic jams, relational problems, and discouraging situations.
Does it include our sins? Hear me carefully: “Yes, in the sense that our sins cannot thwart God’s ultimate purpose of being glorified in our salvation and sanctification.” But, we should never sin with the thought, “God will work it together for good for me.” As David’s sin with Bathsheba shows, sin always results in terrible consequences for us and for others. But if we have sinned and we repent and submit to God’s loving discipline, He can use our sin to teach us not to trust in ourselves, as He did with Peter after his denials of Christ.
We need to be clear that the bad things that happen to us are not good in and of themselves. We shouldn’t call them good or pretend that they’re good. They’re difficult. If someone sinned against us, he did us evil (Gen. 50:20). The death of a loved one is hard. But in His gracious providence, God will work these terrible things together for our good as we submit to Him and trust in Him. He uses them to show us His grace and love in ways that we otherwise would not have known. He deepens our faith in ways that we never would have learned, except for the trial. In all of it, He is working for our ultimate good, to conform us to the image of His Son, who learned obedience through the things that He suffered (Rom. 8:29; Heb. 5:8). Though we may carry heartaches to our graves, we know that an incomparable glory awaits us for all eternity. The bottom line is:
Paul doesn’t say, “and we feel,” or, “and we hope,” in the sense of uncertainty, but rather, “and we know.” Why can we know that God is working all things together for our good? Because He has an eternal purpose that includes our salvation and He will accomplish that purpose. He has predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son, and nothing can thwart His sovereign will.
Some say that the doctrine of God’s sovereign election is just divisive, impractical theology that we should avoid, because it upsets people. But God didn’t inspire Paul to write this to upset us! This truth is intensely practical, especially when you face trials. Whether it’s a minor irritation at work or a major, life-changing catastrophe, you can trust God to use it in His sovereign purpose to conform you to the image of Christ. There is no comfort in the view that God is not sovereign over the terrible things that happen to us. But there is great comfort in knowing that the sovereign God is working all things together for good for His people.
In a message on Romans 8:28 that he gave at the 2010 Desiring God National Conference, Randy Alcorn mentioned Scott and Janet Willis, who were driving behind a truck when a piece of metal flew off the truck and punctured their gas tank, causing their minivan to explode. They escaped, but six of their children burned to death in the inferno. Alcorn interviewed them 14 years later and they both affirmed that in spite of their great loss, God’s goodness and sovereignty are now more precious to them than before.
He also mentioned Joni Eareckson Tada, who was paralyzed from the neck down in a diving accident at age 17. Because of that accident, she has had a powerful ministry with disabled people. But now, in her sixties, she has breast cancer. She told Randy, “I’ve had a ministry to disabled people for many years. But now I have a ministry to people with cancer!” Do you believe that God is working all your trials together for your ultimate good and for the good of those to whom He has called you to serve?
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Last week I had an email from some guy in Nigeria who wanted to give me $14 million. All I had to do was send him my bank account numbers and he would deposit the money. If I had counted on that promise as true and reorganized my life around the hope that I would receive that money, you’d rightly question my sanity. If we’re going to bank our lives on such promises, we’d better make sure that they’re true.
So how can you know that Paul’s promise in Romans 8:28, that “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose,” is true? That verse explains why as believers we can endure present sufferings with hope in the future glory that is to be revealed to us (8:18), namely, because we know that God will work it all together for our ultimate, eternal good.
But, what if that promise is about as likely as the one from the guy in Nigeria to give me $14 million? You can only bank your life on Romans 8:28 if you know for certain that it’s true. So in 8:29-30 Paul explains why (“For”) you can know that verse 28 is true:
We know that God works all things together for good for us because our salvation is part of His eternal purpose to glorify His Son.
Verse 29 specifies what “good” in 8:28 means. The “good” that God is working toward through all our trials is that we be conformed to the image of His Son. But the ultimate reason that God is working all things together to conform us to the image of Jesus Christ is not about us. It may shock you to hear this, but God didn’t save you to make much about you. Rather, He saved you so that Christ would be the firstborn among many brethren. God saved you so that you will make much about His Son. Our salvation is all about the supremacy of Jesus Christ.
And since our salvation is bound up with God’s eternal purpose to make much of Jesus Christ, it’s secure. If His purpose to glorify Christ could fail, then our salvation could fail. But if His purpose to make Jesus the firstborn among many brethren is sure, then our salvation is sure. And that means that you can build your life on the promise of Romans 8:28, that God is working all the trials in your life, great or small, together for your ultimate good.
Verses 29 & 30, plus 8:33 and much of chapter 9, plunge us into some deep doctrines that have caused a lot of confusion and controversy: foreknowledge, predestination, effectual calling, and election. It’s important to approach these truths by remembering that Paul didn’t write Romans as a textbook for theologians to write difficult treatises about and seminary students to debate.
Rather, his aim was pastoral and practical. Romans was aimed at common people in the church of Rome, some of whom were uneducated slaves. Paul wanted to give these saints the understanding of God and His salvation that they would need to be comforted and filled with hope in the midst of some very difficult trials. Some of them would face severe persecution and even martyrdom. How could they not only endure, but “overwhelmingly conquer” (8:37) through such things? How could they trust God and believe in His love when terrible trials happened to them? Paul wanted them (and us) to know that we can bank our lives on the fact that God is working all of these things together for good for us because our salvation is part of His eternal purpose to exalt His Son. Since He will not fail to accomplish that purpose, our salvation is secure.
How shocking is this? I thought that God loves me and has a wonderful plan for my life. He does, but that’s not the main reason that He sent His Son to die on the cross. But, doesn’t God want me to be happy? Yes, but my happiness isn’t the final goal. God sent His Son to save us and to make us happy in Him so that our lives will glorify Him, not only in this life, but through all eternity. As John Piper often says, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”
Here Paul says that our salvation, which results in our being conformed to the image of His Son, is “so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren.” This does not mean that Jesus as God’s Son had a beginning or that there was a time when He was not. The main idea of “the firstborn” in that culture was that he had supremacy or preeminence over his brothers. The firstborn son inherited special rights and privileges.
In Colossians 1:15, Paul calls Jesus “the firstborn of all creation.” This does not mean that Jesus was created first (as the Jehovah’s Witnesses claim) because He existed before creation and He created all things, as Paul specifically explains in the next verse (Col. 1:16; see, also, John 1:3; Heb. 1:2). And in Colossians 1:17, Paul says that Christ “is before all things,” where the meaning is that He pre-existed all things. By “the firstborn of all creation,” Paul means that Jesus Christ has supremacy over all creation as its rightful Lord because He made it.
Paul goes on to say (Col. 1:18), “He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He himself will come to have first place in everything.” Jesus is the sovereign over the church, which has its origin in Him. His resurrection was the first of its kind. Others, like Lazarus, were raised from the dead, but they died again. But Jesus’ resurrection was the first in which the resurrected person received a new, indestructible body, which is a prototype of the bodies that we will receive. When we receive those new bodies, we will forever be singing the praises of Jesus, who died for us, whom God highly exalted (Phil. 2:9-11). God’s purpose, which He will achieve, is that Jesus will be the firstborn, supreme over all.
But Paul adds that Jesus will be the firstborn “among many brethren.” Charles Spurgeon (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 18:189-191) waxes eloquent on this for three pages of fine print in a way that I cannot, but let me summarize his insights. He says (18:189), “First, God predestinates us to be like Jesus that his dear Son might be the first of a new order of beings, elevated above all other creatures, and nearer to God than any other existences.” He goes on to explain that we will be closer to God than the angels are, because we are His sons and daughters.
Second (18:190), Spurgeon says, “The object of grace is that there may be some in heaven with whom Christ can hold brotherly converse.” The Lord saved us so that we can have fellowship with Him, not only for time, but also for all eternity. Spurgeon adds (18:191), “What bliss to know that he who is ‘very God of very God,’ and sits on the eternal throne, is also of the same nature with ourselves, our kinsman, who is not ashamed even amidst the royalties of glory to call us brethren.”
Third, Spurgeon explains (18:191), “God was so well pleased with His Son, and saw such beauties in him, that he determined to multiply his image.” We will be conformed to the image of His Son. This implies that Jesus, the second Adam, succeeded where the first Adam failed (Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], p. 454). God created man to bear His image, but that image was defaced when Adam sinned. But throughout eternity, the perfect image of God will be restored and reflected in us who are in Christ, whom God predestined “to adoption as sons,” “to the praise of the glory of His grace” (Eph. 1:5, 6). So the important (and very practical) point to see is that God’s eternal purpose is not ultimately about us, but rather about the preeminence of Jesus Christ.
We must see our salvation in the context of God’s greater purpose to glorify His Son, a purpose that can’t fail because God is the author of it. God is the active subject in all of the verbs in Romans 8:29-30: He foreknew; He predestined; He called; He justified; and, He glorified. Leon Morris (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 332) observes, “Paul is saying that God is the author of our salvation, and that from beginning to end. We are not to think that God can take action only when we graciously give him permission. Paul is saying that God initiates the whole process.” In other words, God wouldn’t leave His eternal purpose to glorify His Son in the hands of fickle sinners. Rather, He takes the initiative and insures that the complete process cannot fail.
There are five links in what has been called “the golden chain of redemption”: foreknew; predestined; called; justified; and, glorified. But we can only look at the first two (in 8:29) today.
This is the key term to understand, since it begins the entire process. But, unfortunately, there has been a lot of misunderstanding and controversy over the meaning of the word.
Some say that it means that God knows everything in advance (which is true) and thus God foreknew who would believe in Jesus and He predestined these to salvation. Some who hold this view say that God predestined individuals based on foreseeing their faith, while others say that it’s a group thing. God predestined the church as a group to salvation, but it’s up to the free will of individuals to join that group. But in either case, the process is triggered not by God’s sovereign choice, but rather by God’s knowledge of the choices that people would make by their own free will. Thus the initiative in salvation rests with man, not with God, except that God sent Jesus to make salvation available to all.
But there are huge problems with this interpretation. First, the theology behind that view is at odds with all of Scripture, including the context here. It would mean that God made up His eternal purpose based on what sinners would choose to do, rather than on what God would do. Thus it makes man sovereign, not God. Salvation would not be according to God’s call according to His purpose (8:28), but rather according to man’s will.
But God didn’t look down through history and see that Paul would choose to believe in Him, and say, “Whew! I’m so glad that Paul chose Me, because he will make a good apostle. Because he chose Me, I’ll make him one of the elect.” Read the story of Paul’s conversion and see if that interpretation fits! It is clear that God chose to save Paul because God had a sovereign purpose for Paul’s life (Gal. 1:15). If foreknowledge only means that God knew in advance who would believe, and thus He elected them, then He did not purpose to save a people for His glory. He just saw how the parade would go and jumped to the front of the parade. But the Bible is clear that God determined the parade route. As Everett Harrison puts it (Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. by Frank Gaebelein [Zondervan], 10:98), “We are called according to purpose, not according to foreknowledge, hence foreknowledge is included in the electing purpose.”
Also, the view that “foreknowledge” simply means that God knew in advance who would choose Him goes against what Paul said in Romans 3:10-18, that no one seeks for God. “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:8), which includes faith in Christ (Heb. 11:6). So if it were a matter of God foreseeing what men would do, He would see that none would believe.
The Bible repeatedly shows that all of salvation, including the spiritual understanding, repentance, and faith that accompany salvation, is God’s gift (Phil. 1:29; Eph. 2:8-9; Acts 11:18; 16:14; 2 Cor. 4:4-6; 1 Cor. 2:14; 2 Tim. 2:25, etc.). Grace is unmerited favor; if it were conditioned on our faith, it would be based on some good in us. If we could take credit for our spiritual insight or repentance or faith, we would have reason to boast over those who are not saved. So to say that “foreknow” means that God foresaw who, of their own free will, would choose to believe in Jesus, goes against the entire biblical theology of salvation.
A second reason to reject that interpretation is the biblical usage of this word. Granted, there are two times when men are the subject that the verb means “to know in advance” (Acts 26:5; 2 Pet. 3:17). But when God is the subject, to foreknow means to choose or determine before, often with the sense of, “enter into a relationship with before” (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 532). It means that before time began, God chose to set His love on some, whom He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. He isn’t said here to foreknow what people will do, but rather to foreknow the people themselves.
In Romans 11:2, with reference to the Jews, Paul says, “God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew.” In Amos 3:2 (ESV) God says to Israel, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth.” God obviously knows everyone, but He chose to set His love on Israel. In Jeremiah 1:5, the Lord tells the prophet, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.” There are many other references where the word “know” means to choose, especially with a view to entering into a relationship with the person (Gen. 18:19; Deut. 7:6-8; Ps. 1:6; Jer. 1:5; Hos. 13:5; 1 Cor. 8:3; Gal. 4:9). God knows in advance everyone who has ever lived; but some He chooses to foreknow in love. That is the meaning in Romans 8:29.
When God is the subject, foreknowledge has the implication of foreordaining or choosing. Geoffrey Bromiley explains (Evangelical Dictionary of Theology [Baker], p. 420), “What [God] knows, he does not know merely as information. He is no mere spectator. What he foreknows he ordains. He wills it.” In this sense, Peter (1 Pet. 1:20) says of Christ, “For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world….” In Acts 2:23, Peter says of Jesus, “This Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.” He doesn’t mean that God just knew in advance that Jesus, of His own free will, would offer Himself as the sacrifice for our sins. Rather, God chose and ordained Jesus for that role before the foundation of the world.
The same is true of biblical prophecy: God doesn’t just foreknow how history will happen to turn out and then report it to us. Rather, He ordains how history will turn out. If God only knows in advance how things will turn out, but He didn’t ordain it, then He would not be sovereign.
I thought it necessary to take so long on this because it is so often explained as if God just knew who would choose to believe in Christ and elected them to salvation based on their choice. But it is inconceivable that God would leave His eternal purpose of glorifying His Son through saving a people who would be conformed to His image up to the fickle choices of sinful people!
Those who argue that “foreknowledge” does not mean to foreordain contend that if it did, the word “predestinate” would then be unnecessary. But as we’ve seen, Peter uses the two words together (Acts 2:23) and there is a nuance of difference. To foreknow connotes God choosing to set His love on certain individuals, while to predestine indicates the aim of God’s distinguishing love. It means that God determined in advance to save these people and conform them to the image of His Son, so that He would have supremacy over many brethren.
Many stumble over the doctrine of predestination, but at its heart, it is really a matter of letting God be God. Ichabod Spencer (A Pastor’s Sketches [Solid Ground Christian Books], 1:244), a 19th century pastor in Brooklyn, recorded a lengthy conversation that he had with a young man who had not yet believed in Christ, but was hung up over predestination. Spencer told him, “When you are entirely willing that God should be God, election will trouble you no longer.”
He goes on to explain to this young man that if God had not planned what He would do before He acted, He would be most unwise. If He created the universe with no plan or purpose, or ruled it haphazardly, according to whim, He would not be the all-wise God. Thus, Spencer says (p. 245), “Predestination is God’s eternal purpose to rule his universe just as he does rule it.” God’s decrees are “his wise, holy, and eternal purposes, wherein he has determined beforehand what he will do, and how he will do it” (p. 246). He points out to the young man that God didn’t ask his advice before He made these plans. And so, he says, “Just consent to let God be God.”
Spencer (pp. 236-238) points out three reasons that the Bible emphasizes the doctrine of predestination. First, it teaches us “the character of God—His grandeur, wisdom, and incomprehensibility.” It should cause us to bow in wonder and praise before Him. As Paul says in Ephesians 1:5-6, the fact that He predestined us to adoption as sons is “to the praise of the glory of His grace.”
Second, predestination represses “the audacity of the wicked.” It shows them that in spite of their evil schemes, they cannot thwart God’s eternal purposes. They can kill His Son, but they are only doing what His hand and His “purpose predestined to occur” (Acts 4:27-28).
Third, the main purpose of this doctrine is “to comfort God’s people.” In all our weaknesses and sins, we might despair of our salvation. How will we ever be conformed to the image of God’s holy Son? Answer: God predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son, so it will happen! If we know that God began the good work of salvation within us, by giving us eternal life, then we know that He will perfect His work (Phil. 1:6). Through Jesus the Father will bring many sons to glory (Heb. 2:10-11). Properly understood, predestination will not lead us to kick back and think, “My sins don’t matter because God will eventually conform me to Christ.” Rather, it will motivate us to fight against our sins and to perfect holiness in the fear of God (2 Cor. 7:1).
Being conformed to the image of Christ means primarily to be progressively molded into the character of Christ in your heart. Of course, this inner transformation is seen in our outward behavior. But it begins in the heart (Matt. 6:1-18; Mark 7:21-23). We will not be perfectly conformed to the image of Christ until we see Him (1 John 3:2), but if we have experienced God’s saving grace, we should be growing in purity and obedience (1 John 3:3-10). The fruit of the Spirit should be increasingly evident in us.
The truth that God set His love on us and predestined us to become conformed to the image of His Son means that our salvation does not rest on our performance. Rather, God called us and saved us in connection with His eternal purpose to glorify Christ. Thus our salvation is secure. Nothing can separate us from God’s great love (Rom. 8:38-39). No one can snatch us from the Father’s strong hand (John 10:29).
It also means that the promise of Romans 8:28, that God causes all things to work together for our good, is solid. It’s not like the promise of the guy in Nigeria to send you $14 million. You can bank your life on God’s promise according to His purpose. Whether it’s the minor frustrations and problems of daily life or the major catastrophes, we can trust that God will use them in the process of conforming us to the image of Christ. That is your destiny as one who is called according to His purpose!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Throughout history, controversy has raged over the question of whether Christians can lose their salvation. In fact, in this church before I came (19 years ago), there was a difference of opinion among the leadership on that issue. If all the texts in the Bible were clearly on one side or the other, there would be no controversy. But there are texts that seem to support each side. I can’t deal with these difficult texts in this message. If you’re interested, Martyn Lloyd-Jones spends over 100 pages on many of them (Romans: The Final Perseverance of the Saints [Zondervan], pp. 263-366).
When you come to any difficult passage in Scripture, here are a few guidelines: Interpret the more difficult text in light of clearer texts. Also, consider each text in its context and in light of the purpose and flow of thought of the author. And, interpret individual texts in light of the overall teaching of Scripture on a subject, comparing Scripture with Scripture.
When it comes to the security of our salvation, I believe that the clear, unambiguous passages of Scripture come down strongly on the side that if God has saved us, He will keep us to all eternity. It’s easier to explain the texts that seem to say that you can lose your salvation in light of the clear texts that say you cannot, rather than vice versa. And, as our text here shows, the security of our salvation (or the final perseverance of the saints) flows out of Paul’s overall doctrine of salvation. Paul is showing that our salvation from start to finish is from the Lord and so it can never fail:
Our salvation is secure because God originated it, He effected it, and He will complete it.
These verses reveal our past, present, and future. Before the foundation of the world, God planned our salvation: He foreknew and predestined us to salvation. As a result of these sovereign decisions, at some point in our lives, He effectually called us and justified us, so that now He is working to conform us to the image of His Son. In the future, we will be glorified, fully conformed to Christ, who will be preeminent over all. The entire process comes from God and is sustained by Him. It’s all designed for His glory. If His sovereign purpose for the glory and supremacy of Jesus Christ is certain, then our future glory with Christ is certain.
Also, as I said last time, it’s important to understand that Paul’s purpose in writing these deep truths is pastoral and practical. He didn’t write about predestination to spawn arguments and debates. He wrote these things to comfort believers in Rome who either were facing persecution or probably would face it in the near future. They, like us, also had plenty of other trials in life that could have caused them to stumble if they hadn’t handled them from God’s perspective. And so Paul wants us to know that “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (8:28).
As I also pointed out last time, that promise is only good if it’s true. How can we know that it’s true? How can we know that God will really work all our trials together for our good? Paul explains why in 8:29-30, where he shows us what “good” means, namely, that we will ultimately be conformed to the image of Christ and be glorified with Him.
But, how can we know that that is true? We know that it’s true because God’s purpose is certain. His purpose goes back to His decree before the foundation of the world to save a people for His glory. It reaches forward to our glorification in the ages to come, when we will be perfectly sanctified and not able to sin. It’s essential to see that salvation from first to last is totally of the Lord. If any part of it is due to us, it’s in jeopardy. If you’re saved, it’s because God determined to save you and planned it from start to finish. As I cited Bishop Moule (in my message on Romans 8:28, Romans [Christian Literature Crusade], p. 237), “Not one link in the chain of actual Redemption is of our forging—or the whole would indeed be fragile.”
There are two parts to this, which I covered in more detail in our last study. So here I’m just reviewing.
This is the meaning of “foreknow” (8:29). It does not mean that God looked down through history, saw who would believe in Him, and decided to predestine those people to salvation. That would make God’s eternal purpose depend on the fickle will of sinful men. It would make man sovereign, not God. It goes against the many Scriptures that show that apart from God’s initiative, none seek Him. It would give sinners reason to boast. And, it goes against the meaning of the word as used in other verses, where it means that God foreordained to set His love on someone so as to enter into a relationship with him.
Also, in Romans 8:29-30, God is the subject of all the verbs. He is taking the action. And the action of His foreknowledge is not simply that He knew in advance what people would do. In that sense, He foreknows everyone. Rather, He chose to set His love on some and He predestined these to salvation. If you want specific references and a more thorough defense of that interpretation, I refer you to the previous message. Paul’s point in saying that God foreknew us is that He originated our salvation by choosing to set His love on us before the foundation of the world.
Again, to review, predestination is God’s purpose and plan to rule His universe as He determined. Just as a man who builds a house follows a predetermined plan, so God predetermined His purpose and plan for history. Thankfully, our salvation is a part of God’s plan to glorify Himself through His Son, who will have first place in everything (Col. 1:18). As Paul writes (Eph. 1:11), “In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.” If we want God to promise salvation, then we must be content to let Him predestine it, because predestination is His determination and commitment to fulfill His promises (Ichabod Spencer, A Pastor’s Sketches [Solid Ground Christian Books], 1:250).
Also, we saw that our salvation is not primarily about us or our happiness, although we will be supremely happy throughout eternity. Rather, God predetermined to save us so that His Son “would be the firstborn among many brethren” (8:29). That means that Christ will have supremacy over all the redeemed, whom He is pleased to be associated with as His brothers and sisters.
God would not have left His eternal purpose of glorifying His Son up to the so-called “free will” of sinful people! If our salvation is bound up with God’s purpose of exalting His Son, then it’s a sure thing. God predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son so that He will be the firstborn, preeminent over all. God will not fail in that purpose. The security of our salvation rests on God’s ability to fulfill His predetermined purpose.
So “foreknew” and “predestined” are the first two links in this divine chain of redemption. They took place before the foundation of the world. The next two links take place in time:
By “effected it,” I mean that He made it happen in our experience. Paul mentions two aspects of this.
We studied this briefly in 8:28, where Paul refers to us as “those who are called according to His purpose.” Called (or calling) is used in two senses in the New Testament. First, the general call of the gospel goes out to all people. Jesus mentioned this when He said (Matt. 22:14), “Many are called, but few are chosen.” He issued a general call when He said (Mark 1:15), “Repent and believe in the gospel.” Or, when He said (Matt. 11:28), “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” This general call is genuine on God’s part, but it is not effectual because of the hardened hearts of the fallen human race (John 3:19-20). Those who refuse the gospel call will be without excuse on judgment day.
But in the New Testament epistles, call (or, calling) is always used of God’s effectual call. It always accomplishes God’s purpose of giving life to the spiritually dead so that they respond to the call. Spurgeon somewhere compares the general call to sheet lightning that lights up the night sky, but doesn’t hit anything specific. But the effectual call is like the lightning bolt that hits its target.
We see an example of God’s effectual call in Jesus’ calling Lazarus from the tomb. Remember, Jesus had just said (John 11:25-26), “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.” The raising of Lazarus that followed was an unforgettable illustration of Jesus’ power to call the spiritually dead to spiritual life. When Jesus called, “Lazarus, come forth,” He imparted life with the call, so that Lazarus responded. God’s word is powerful to create new life (John 5:24-26; James 1:18).
Paul refers to the same truth (2 Cor. 4:4) when he says that Satan, “the god of this world, has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” How can such spiritually blind people ever see? Paul explains (4:6), “For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” God’s word powerfully imparts light and life to all whom He calls to salvation. His effectual call cannot fail or be thwarted by our fallen, sinful wills. As Jesus said (John 6:37), “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me….”
God’s effectual call always comes through His general call. In other words, the gospel is preached or proclaimed to all. Some shrug it off or perhaps angrily resist it. Some, I might add, respond superficially by praying the sinner’s prayer or going forward after an altar call. For a while, it looks as if they’ve been converted. But they’re like the seed sown on the rocky ground that springs up quickly, but has no root. They may respond to the general call because they want God to help them out of a problem situation. But when suffering comes and their problems grow worse, they fall away. Or, they’re like the seed sown on the thorny ground, where the worries of life or the deceitfulness of riches choke out the word so that it does not bear fruit (Matt. 13:20-22).
But in the elect, God’s effectual call comes with power so that they are quickened from spiritual death to life. Their eyes are opened to the glory of Christ and what He did on the cross. They respond in faith and repentance. The difference between the two responses hinges on God’s effectually calling those whom He predestined to salvation.
“These whom He called, He also justified.” We studied this in Romans 3 & 4, so I will not spend much time on it here. There we saw that we are justified by God’s grace alone through faith in Christ alone (Rom. 3:24, 26, 28, 30). To justify means to declare righteous. Based on Christ’s paying the penalty we deserved, God declares righteous all who trust in Him. John Stott explains (The Cross of Christ [IVP], p. 190), “When God justifies sinners, he is not declaring bad people to be good, or saying that they are not sinners after all; he is pronouncing them legally righteous, free from any liability to the broken law, because he himself in his Son has borne the penalty of their law-breaking.” Our faith does not in any way merit justification; rather faith is the channel through which it is received as God’s free gift.
Paul does not mention faith in Romans 8:30 because he is emphasizing that salvation is from the Lord from start to finish. If we were to fill in the blanks, God’s effectual call to salvation results in spiritual life or regeneration. The first evidence of new life is faith in Christ, through which the sinner is justified. Those who are justified by faith inevitably begin to grow in holiness, which is called sanctification. Paul does not mention sanctification directly in this five-fold chain for the same reason he does not mention faith, namely, because we play a part in our sanctification and Paul is emphasizing that salvation is totally from the Lord. But, Paul alludes to sanctification in 8:29 when he mentions becoming “conformed to the image of His Son.” And, sanctification is implicit in “glorification,” which refers to our final state of total sanctification.
So Paul argues that our salvation is secure because in the past, God originated it. In time, He effected it, or brought it to pass.
This is summed up by “glorified,” which Paul puts in the past tense to show that it’s as good as done, because God has predestined it to occur in line with His purpose. In Romans 5:2, Paul stated, “We exult in hope of the glory of God.” The same focus is reflected in 8:18, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Consider two aspects of this:
To be glorified means that we will be completely conformed to the image of Christ, free from all sin and positively like Christ in His holy character. We will not become “gods,” as some false teachers proclaim. But in our character, we will be like Christ.
But, when does glorification take place? There is a sense in which the process begins at salvation, when we begin to be transformed into the image of God’s Son “from glory to glory” (2 Cor. 3:18). But we will never be completely sanctified in this lifetime (Phil. 3:13-14). There is another sense in which we will be glorified when we die and our spirits go to be with the Lord. At that point, we are free from all sin.
But the full sense of our glorification will not occur until Jesus Christ returns and our bodies are resurrected (Rom. 8:19-22). In Philippians 3:20-21, Paul states, “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.” Or, as 1 John 3:2 states, “We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.” The glorious return of Christ will result in the instant, permanent glorification of all believers living and dead, as we all receive our new glorified bodies.
Jesus will be the firstborn, the preeminent One, among many brethren as the Father through Him brings many sons to glory (Heb. 2:10-17). Paul refers to the second coming as the time “when He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day” (2 Thess. 1:10). He adds (2 Thess. 2:14), “It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” So the culmination of the gospel is that Christ will be glorified by our sharing His glory. He will be the firstborn, the preeminent One among many brethren. If God’s purpose to glorify His Son is sure, then our final glorification is secure.
These truths are wonderfully assuring, but they also raise a number of questions. I can only quickly touch on five questions here, but I hope to deal more thoroughly with these and other questions that will come up as we keep working through Romans.
Question 1: If God only set His love on some and predestined only these to salvation, then does He not love everyone in the world?
Answer: While God so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him will be saved (John 3:16), there is a sense in which He has a special love for His chosen bride, the church: “Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). I love all my sisters in Christ, but I have a special love for my bride, Marla, that sets her apart unto me.
Question 2: If God is only going to save those whom He has predestined to salvation, does prayer for the lost do any good?
Answer: Prayer is part of the means that God uses to save His elect (2 Thess. 3:1; 1 Tim. 2:1-4). We can’t know in advance whom God has chosen, but when people respond to the gospel with faith, resulting in changed lives, we know that God chose them for salvation (1 Thess. 1:2-6; 2 Thess. 2:13). Before they respond, we should pray that God will open their hearts to the gospel (Acts 16:14).
Question 3: If God is going to save all whom He has predestined, then why should we evangelize?
Answer: Evangelism, like prayer, is God’s ordained means for saving His elect (Acts 13:46-48; Rom. 10:14-15). We know that there will be some in heaven from every tongue, tribe, and nation (Rev. 5:9-10). So we should proclaim the gospel to all nations, knowing that God will use it to save His elect.
Question 4: If salvation is totally of the Lord, then is there anything that an unbeliever can do to be saved? What if he’s not elect?
Answer: While all of salvation, including the repentance and faith to be saved, is of the Lord, He commands us to repent and believe the gospel (Mark 1:15). The Bible exhorts sinners (Isa. 55:6-7), “Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the Lord, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” Paul (Rom. 10:13) cites the promise of Joel 2:32, “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Since “faith comes from hearing and hearing from the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17), those who have not trusted in Christ are responsible to hear the gospel preached and to read the Bible to learn how to be saved. There is a mystery here, in that sinners are unable and unwilling to seek God unless God is first drawing them to Christ (John 6:44, 65; Rom. 3:10-18). But at the same time they are responsible to repent and believe in Christ. They can’t blame God for not calling them.
Question 5: If our salvation is totally secure, won’t that lead to loose, careless living?
Answer: Paul’s critics accused him of this (Rom. 3:8). But the truth is that a proper understanding of God’s grace will motivate us to know Him better (Phil. 3:8-14), to grow in holiness (2 Cor. 6:16-7:1), and to serve God more fervently (1 Cor.
Every good parent wants his children to feel secure in his love. Our heavenly Father wants you to know that your salvation is secure because He originated it by setting His love on you and predestining you to salvation before the foundation of the world. He effected it by calling you to salvation and justifying you when He brought you to faith in Christ. He will bring it to completion when Christ returns and you are eternally glorified with Him. Your salvation is secure because it is bound up with God’s eternal purpose of glorifying His beloved Son.
Discuss further the five questions in the conclusion, along with appropriate Scripture references:
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
A main question that I wrestle with as I study the Bible is, “So what?” What difference is this text supposed to make in my life and in others’ lives? Sometimes, that question is difficult to answer. I’m currently reading through 1 Chronicles, which begins with nine chapters of genealogies. Why did God put that into Scripture? I can’t deal with that here, but when we study the Bible we always need to ask: “So what?”
Paul raises that question in Romans 8:31 with reference to the wonderful truths that he has just unfolded in 8:28-30: “What then shall we say to these things?” Many scholars say that “these things” refers back to everything Paul has written so far in Romans about the gospel of justification by faith alone, and that may be so. But it seems to me that his question in 8:31 refers especially to the great truths that Paul has just enunciated in 8:28-30:
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.
As we’ve seen, verses 29-30 explain verse 28. The reason that all things work together for good for God’s people is that our salvation from first to last is from the Lord. He originated it before the foundation of the world by choosing to set His love on us and by predestining us to be conformed to the image of His Son. At a point in our lives, He called us and justified us. And He will bring our salvation to completion when we share His glory at His second coming. And this entire process is secure because it isn’t ultimately about us, but about Jesus Christ being the firstborn (= having preeminence) among many brethren. If God’s purpose to glorify His Son is secure, then our salvation is secure.
Paul then especially focuses on these wonderful truths when he asks, “What then shall we say to these things?” His answer is that God is for us, which is proved by the amazing demonstration of His love when He gave His Son to die for us on the cross.
These verses have widespread application to all our needs. But in the context, Paul is especially focused on how we as believers can endure opposition and hardship for the sake of the gospel. Note Paul’s repeated questions: “Who is against us?” (8:31); “Who will bring a charge against God’s elect?” (8:33); “Who is the one who condemns?” (8:34); and, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” (8:35). He is applying the truths of 8:28-30 to how we can stand firm in the face of opposition and hardship for the sake of the gospel.
That’s a topic that most of us know very little about firsthand. Maybe you’ve been ridiculed by family or friends or a university professor because of your faith in Christ. Maybe you’ve been discriminated against at work because you’re a Christian. But probably none of us have been thrown into prison or had our homes burned down or our families or our lives threatened or harmed because of our faith. That may soon change, as our religious freedom is under strong attack. Jesus predicted that His message would cause families to be divided against one another and even betray one another to death (Matt. 10:21-22; 34-38). So we need to be prepared to endure opposition so that we stand firm for the gospel. Paul is saying,
To endure opposition, focus on God’s great love as seen in His gift of His own Son.
Sometimes verse 32 is yanked out of context and misapplied: “God promises to freely give us all things! Do you need a nicer house or a new car? Claim it by faith in this verse! Guys, do you want a successful career and a supermodel wife who wants to bear your children and keep house and make delicious meals for you every night? Claim it all by faith!”
But that is not what verse 32 promises! The context is, “Do you want to endure faithfully tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, and sword for Jesus’ sake (8:35)? God, who loved you so much that He sent His own Son to die for your sins, will give you the grace and strength that you need to bear up under every trial for the sake of the gospel. God, who has done the most for you by giving His own Son, will help you endure every trial that you go through for Christ’s sake. Because of His great love for you, He will bring you safely to glory. Paul applies three great truths to help us persevere:
“What then shall we say to these things?” (8:31a). I get the impression that Paul was stunned and awed by the truths that he has just spelled out in 8:28-30. It’s staggering that God chose to save us before we were born, that He called us out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Pet. 2:9), that He justified us apart from any works on our part, and that our future glorification with Him is a done deal (past tense, “glorified”)!
So the question is, “What then will you say to these things?” Will you say, “Predestination is just a controversial doctrine that doesn’t relate to my life”? Or, “That’s nice, but it doesn’t relate to my advancement in my career”? If you can just shrug off the glorious truths of 8:28-30, something is seriously wrong with your heart before God! Our response should be as Isaac Watts expressed it (“When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”), “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my soul, my all.”
“If God is for us, who is against us?” (8:31b). As many commentators point out, “if” does not indicate uncertainty about God’s favor. It could legitimately be translated, “Since God is for us, who is against us?” In light of the fact that God foreknew us, predestined us, called us, justified us, and glorified us, we know that He is for us. And, if God is for us, then who can be against us? To be against us would be to go against God Himself!
Paul is not denying the reality of strong opposition. In 8:35 he mentions tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, and sword. In 8:36 he cites Psalm 44:22, “For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” In Ephesians 6:10-13 he mentions that we are wrestling against powerful spiritual forces of darkness in heavenly places. So he does not mean that we do not have any opponents, but rather that anyone who comes against us when we are standing for the truth of the gospel is actually going against God Himself. They may succeed in taking our lives (Matt. 10:28), but God will glorify us and judge those against us who do not repent.
But, how do we really know that God is for us? After all, some of the greatest atrocities in history have been justified because the perpetrator thought that God was on his side. Incredibly, Adolf Hitler interpreted the Japanese slaughter of Americans at Pearl Harbor as a sign that God was on his side as he exterminated the Jews (Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer [Thomas Nelson], pp. 390-391)!
But, on the other side of things, Jacob thought that the difficult circumstances in his life were all against him, which was far from the truth. He needed to know what Joseph knew, that although Jacob’s other sons meant these things for evil, God meant them for good (see Gen. 42:36; 50:20). Here are three steps to work through to evaluate your critics:
First, make sure that God is for you. Either God is for you or He is against you. He isn’t neutral! And if God is against you, then who can be for you? God is the worst conceivable enemy to have in the entire universe! And if you’re not in Christ then you’re under God’s righteous wrath and headed for eternal judgment (Rom. 1:18-32; 2:5). So make sure that your hope for escaping God’s judgment does not lie in your own good works, but only in Christ’s death on your behalf. Make sure that you’re standing for the gospel.
Second, examine your heart by asking whether God could be using the opponent or critic to get you to deal with some blind spot, shortcoming, or sin. In other words, don’t quickly blow off a critic by saying, “God is for me, so this critic is on Satan’s side.” Even if your opponent is motivated by selfishness or sin, God may be using him to get you to deal with an area in your life that needs attention. I’ve found that if more than one critic says the same thing, even if their attitude is wrong, I probably need to listen to their criticism.
Third, after you have honestly taken the first two steps, don’t take the attacks against you personally. If you’re catching flak because you’re standing for the truth, first make sure that you are doing so with gentleness, graciousness, and humility. If to the best of your ability you are, then your critic is probably opposing God and His Word of truth, not you. You’re just the messenger. Pray that God will use your gracious, loving response to bring the critic to repentance and faith (2 Tim. 2:24-26).
Also, before we leave verse 31, make sure that you apply the truth that God is for you to yourself, especially in times of failure, discouragement, or sin. Maybe you had a mean father who constantly put you down and when you messed up, he would backhand you in the face or beat you with a belt. Maybe now you’ve messed up as a Christian and you’re afraid that God is going to act like your dad did. You need to know that God never does anything that is against you. He will discipline you, perhaps severely, but it is always out of love so that you might share His holiness (Heb. 12:5-12). God never acts in a way to tear you down or reject you. He always acts in love, for your good, even when He corrects you.
So the first truth is that God’s sovereignty in saving us demands a response of worship and submission. The second truth, that God is for us in the gospel, means that we must evaluate all opposition and difficulties in light of His love and grace.
This is the wonderful promise of 8:32: “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?” Paul’s happy logic is, “God did the greatest thing imaginable when He gave His own Son for us on the cross. So don’t you think that He will graciously give you lesser things that you need?” As I said, this is not a prosperity gospel, where God promises to fulfill your greed or lusts. As verse 36 indicates, you may follow Jesus and get slaughtered!
Rather, verse 32 promises that God will give you the grace that you need to endure opposition and persecution when you stand for the gospel. Beyond that, it also applies in the sense of 2 Peter 1:3, that God “has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.” The Puritan, John Flavel, put it this way (cited by John Piper, Future Grace, [Multnomah Publishers], p. 117): “Surely if he would not spare this own Son one stroke, one tear, one groan, one sigh, one circumstance of misery, it can never be imagined that ever he should, after this, deny or withhold from his people, for whose sakes all this was suffered, any mercies, any comforts, any privilege, spiritual or temporal, which is good for them.” Note first:
The Greek word for “spared” is used in the LXX of Genesis 22:12 (& 16), when God tells Abraham, “I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld [“spared”] your son, your only son, from Me.” With Abraham, God intervened at the last moment and provided the ram for the sacrifice, so that Isaac was spared. But that emotional drama was the closest earthly picture that we have of what the Father went through in sending His eternal Son from heaven to bear the horrors of the cross on our behalf. Note four things about Christ’s death:
God delivered over His own Son for us. There is a sense in which Judas delivered up Jesus to die (John 18:5, Greek). Also, the Jewish leaders delivered up Jesus to Pilate (Matt. 27:2). The people of Jerusalem also delivered up Jesus (Acts 3:13). Pilate delivered up Jesus to death (Mark 15:15). Paul also stated that Jesus was “delivered over because of our transgressions” (Rom. 4:25), so we delivered Him up to death. Paul says that Jesus “gave Himself up for me” (Gal. 2:20, same Greek word). As Jesus said, He laid down His life on His own initiative (John 10:18).
But behind all of these causes, it was the Father who delivered over His own Son for us all! Isaiah predicted this in his great prophecy when he said that Christ would be “smitten of God” (Isa. 53:4). “The Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him” (53:6). “But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief” (53:10). Or, as Peter put it (Acts 2:23), “This Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.” It was God’s eternal purpose to glorify Himself by sending His Son to bear our sins. The cross glorifies God’s absolute righteousness and justice, in that He demanded that the penalty for our sin be paid in full. It also glorifies His great love, in that He gave His beloved Son, in whom He was well pleased.
He gave Jesus “for us all.” He died in our place, taking the punishment that we deserved (Isa. 53:4-6, 8, 10). Paul says that God made Him to be sin on our behalf (2 Cor. 5:21). Because Jesus paid the penalty, we can justly be declared righteous at His expense.
God delivered Him over “for us all.” Who is the “all” here? In the context, it is those whom God foreknew, predestined, called, justified, and glorified (8:29-30). It is those whom God is for (8:31). It is “God’s elect,” whom He justified (8:33). It is those for whom Christ is now interceding (8:34). Note that all whom God foreknew, He predestined. All whom He predestined, He called. All whom He called, He justified. All whom He justified, He glorified. No one falls through the cracks.
Christ did not die in the hope that maybe some would decide to respond to His offer and be saved. God is not in heaven, wringing His hands in desperation, saying, “I’ve done all that I can do. The rest is up to them. Please, someone respond!” Rather, Christ died effectually to save all whom the Father predestined to save. He died so that “of all that [the Father] has given Me, I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day” (John 6:39). Or as Jesus prayed just prior to the cross (John 17:1-2), “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life.” A few verses later (John 17:9) He prayed, “I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours.” Jesus laid down His life for His sheep (John 10:11, 14, 15, 26-28). Christ “loved the church and gave Himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25).
Most modern translations leave out a small Greek particle in 8:32 that the lexicon translates, “who did not spare even His own Son” (A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, Walter Bauer, William Arndt, F. W. Gingrich, & Frederick Danker [University of Chicago Press], 2nd ed., p. 152). “His own Son” emphasizes that Jesus is the unique Son of God in a way that we are not and never can be. We are God’s adopted sons by the new birth, but Jesus is the eternal Son of God. The Father and the Son enjoyed unbroken love in the Trinity from all eternity (John 17:24).
Thus for the Father to send “even His own Son,” and not to spare Him when it came to pouring out on Him the full measure of His wrath for our sakes, shows His great love for us. Parents often spare their children by not inflicting the full punishment on them for some wrong. Judges spare criminals when they impose a light sentence in view of mitigating circumstances. But God did not spare even His own Son, who became a curse for us (Gal. 3:13). Because Jesus bore God’s awful wrath against our sin, we now face no condemnation when we stand before Him (Rom. 8:1). Thus,
Do you see Paul’s logic? If God did the unimaginably greatest thing possible for us by not sparing His own Son, then won’t He do that which is far less demanding? Again, this doesn’t mean that He will give you a mansion, a fancy new car, a supermodel wife, and a successful career. The context deals with enduring opposition for the sake of the gospel. Paul means that when you face opposition or hardship for the sake of the gospel, through Christ God will give you all that you need to conquer overwhelmingly (8:37) as He brings you to share in Christ’s glory.
Thus the only reasonable response is that which Paul mentions in Philippians 3:8, to count all other things as loss “in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” I confess that my sufferings for Christ are mere trifles compared with what our brothers and sisters around the world are enduring. I’ve had to endure some criticism and slander. Big deal! A few have tried to get me fired, but so far no one has tried to kill me.
A recent Vision Beyond Borders newsletter told of a brother in an unnamed, closed Buddhist country in southeast Asia who is committed to take the gospel to every Buddhist monastery in that country. Several years ago, he and a friend were headed to a village to share the gospel when they offered a ride to a woman walking along the road. She invited them into her home for a meal. After dinner, they showed the Jesus film to her and some neighbors she invited over. Some of the neighbors called the police and this evangelist went to prison for seven months.
After he was released, he excitedly reported, “You’ll never guess what God did. He allowed us to go to prison to bring the gospel to the prisoners! We shared the gospel with 180 prisoners, led 20 to faith in Jesus Christ, and baptized 8 in prison.” One of the converted prisoners has now led 11 men to Christ in that prison. Later, he was arrested again and had many opportunities to witness, including sharing the gospel with the prison warden. He said that he feels that God has given him a prison ministry.
Where is your ministry? Have you encountered any opposition in it? If you stand for the truth of the gospel, even if you do so with grace and love, you will probably encounter opposition. You can joyfully endure it by focusing on God’s love as seen in His giving even His own Son to die for your sins.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Some years ago, a cartoon pictured a psychologist talking to a patient. “Mr. Figby,” he said, “I think I can explain your feelings of guilt. You’re guilty!”
While we may chuckle at the cartoon, it hits a nerve. Before God, we’re all guilty of violating His two great commandments, which sum up all of His commandments. We all have failed to love God with our entire being. What is worse, we’ve even deliberately shoved Him aside and replaced Him with things as our “gods.” And because we’re selfish, we have failed to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. And so we all have true moral guilt before the holy God of the universe.
How do you deal with your guilt? Many suppress or deny it. Others try to excuse their guilt by thinking, “I have my faults, but I’m a basically good person. I’ve never deliberately hurt anyone.” But however we may try to get rid of our guilty feelings, there is still the stubborn fact that we stand truly guilty of sin before God, who knows every wrong thought, word, and deed that we’ve done.
God’s answer for our guilt is the cross of Jesus Christ, where He bore the punishment that we deserve. As God in human flesh, His sacrifice satisfied God’s holy wrath against our sin, so that God could be both “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26). Because He paid our debt, Paul proclaimed (8:1), “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
But even though Paul has made this wonderful truth crystal clear, he knew that guilt can be a stubborn, nagging problem even for believers. The Swiss commentator, F. Godet (Commentary on Romans [Kregel], p. 330), suggests that as Paul wrote these verses, he may have been remembering the cries of the believers whom he had dragged out of their homes and thrown in prison when he was persecuting the church. Perhaps he could still see Stephen just before he died, with his head bloodied from the stones, crying out (Acts 7:60), “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” Whether Paul was thinking of those shameful events from his past or not, he knew that even those who have trusted in Christ for salvation often have to wrestle with guilt, whether from distant or recent sins.
Guilty Christians are not joyous Christians. They cannot enjoy close fellowship with the Savior. They cannot be bold in witness. They cannot confidently disciple others. They usually end up living as hypocrites, putting up a front in fear that the truth about their sin will be exposed.
And so as he applies the benefits of the gospel that he has summed up in 8:29-30, Paul asks two parallel questions: “Who will bring a charge against God’s elect?” And, “Who is the one who condemns?” In answering those questions he doesn’t tell us anything that he hasn’t already said. But he wants to hammer home God’s answer to guilt one more time so that we will know how to win the battle when guilt attacks.
God’s answer to guilt is that He justifies His elect through Christ’s mediation on our behalf.
First, let’s think about who charges us with guilt.
All of us have heard unbelievers complain, “The church is full of hypocrites!” The answer is, “Yes, but what will you do with the claims of Christ?” We’re all prone to put on a false front so that people do not see what we’re really like. Sometimes, we may not deliberately deceive others, but at the same time, we don’t correct their misconceptions in our favor. “Pastor, what a man of prayer you are!” I should correct you by saying, “I struggle and often fail to be faithful in prayer!” If I don’t, I’m guilty of hypocrisy.
Unbelievers also frequently accuse us of intolerance and self-righteousness. We’re close-minded. We’re judgmental. We think that we’re right and everyone else is wrong. We say that our way is the only way to heaven. Often, of course, the charges are merely a smokescreen so that the unbeliever can dodge the truth. But, sometimes the charges are true and inwardly we wince in guilt.
“Satan” means adversary. “Devil” literally means “one who throws things against you.” He is called (Rev. 12:10), “the accuser of the brethren,” “who accuses them before our God day and night.” Job 1 & 2 gives us an example, where Satan accuses Job before the Lord of being righteous only so that he will enjoy God’s blessing and protection. There is another example in Zechariah 3:1, “Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him.” It goes on to say how Joshua was clothed with filthy garments: he was guilty as charged!
There is debate over whether Satan can inject accusatory or evil thoughts into our minds, or whether these thoughts originate within us. It seems to me that his role as accuser implies that somehow he is able to remind us of our guilt. Sometimes, you just can’t shake off those feelings, even after you’ve repented and confessed the sin to the Lord. At such times, it’s not the Holy Spirit convicting you, in that you have responded to His conviction by repentance. Rather, you’re under attack from the accuser of the brethren. You need to know how to put him to flight.
Someone has called the conscience a faults alarm: It goes off to let us know our faults. The conscience by itself is not a reliable guide. Sometimes it may be overly sensitive. Some with a weak conscience feel guilty over things that the Bible doesn’t even label as sins, producing false guilt (1 Cor. 8:7-12). Or, sometimes a believer agonizes over something that is a sin, but he blows it way out of proportion.
On the other hand, some have calloused, insensitive, or seared consciences (Eph. 4:17-19; 1 Tim. 4:2). This person feels no guilt even though he is disobeying the clear commands of God’s Word. In some cases such people are ignorant of God’s commandments. For example, I’ve known professing Christians who are engaging in sexual relations outside of marriage, but they feel no twinge of guilt. Their consciences are insensitive or untrained.
The Bible teaches that it’s important to maintain a good conscience before the Lord (Acts 24:16; 1 Tim. 1:5, 19). If the Bible calls something a sin, so should we. If the Bible does not call it a sin, we do not need to either. But even mature believers, who have biblically-sensitive consciences, will have times when their consciences say, “You’re guilty. You sinned.” Maybe we did something that we know to be wrong or we didn’t do what we know to be right. How do we answer these charges?
To correct some common errors, I begin with a point from other Scriptures. Then we’ll look at three lines of defense that Paul sets forth.
Some argue that since God has forgiven all our sins and removed our guilt at the cross, we should never feel guilty (even if we’ve sinned) or confess our sins or ask God for forgiveness. It’s a done deal, so we should just shrug it off and move on.
I believe that such teaching is out of balance. While it’s true that our eternal standing before God is secure through the blood of Christ, at the same time, if we love the Savior who gave Himself for us on the cross, when we grieve Him by sinning, we should feel grief that prompts us to confess our sin, ask His forgiveness, and turn from the sin. It’s not a matter of our standing before God, but rather of our relationship with Him.
For example if I sin against my earthly father, I’m still his son; I know that he won’t disown me. But my sin has strained our relationship. I need to confess my sin, ask his forgiveness, and seek to restore the relationship. It’s the same with the heavenly Father. Although He will never disown me as His blood-bought son, if I sin, I need to be restored in my relationship with Him. I need to be forgiven relationally. I need my conscience to be cleansed by Jesus’ blood. That takes place when I repent, confess my sin, and ask His forgiveness (John 13:10; 1 John 1:7, 9).
Be careful! Even as believers, we’re prone to respond to our guilt by blaming others, or by denying, excusing, or covering up our sin. One of the most common marital problems to overcome is for a couple to stop blaming each other or excusing their own sins and for each one to confess his or her sins and to ask forgiveness from their mate. Also, one of the most common mistakes that Christian parents make is not to humble themselves and ask forgiveness of their children when they sin against them. If you don’t do that, your kids will see your hypocrisy and it will turn them off to the faith. Teach them verbally and by your example that when we sin as believers, we ask God’s forgiveness and we ask forgiveness from the one we sinned against.
Also, if you sin against an unbeliever, you’ll be prone to cover it up or ignore it so that he won’t think badly about you or about the Savior. But if you don’t own up to your sin, he will rightly think that you’re a hypocrite. When you as a Christian sin against an unbeliever, go to him, acknowledge your sin, and humbly ask his forgiveness. Do not try to use the occasion to witness to him. Just confess your sin and make restitution if it’s appropriate. That will be an adequate witness.
This point is from other Scriptures, not from our text, but I wanted to clarify it because I encounter so much confusion on it. In our text, Paul sets forth three answers to the charges of guilt and condemnation (B, C, and D below):
“Who will bring a charge against God’s elect?” Why did Paul say that? Why didn’t he say, “Who will bring a charge against believers in Christ?” Why did he bring up election?
Paul emphasized election because when you’re feeling guilty over your sin, you’re prone to doubt your faith in Christ. “Maybe I’m not a believer. How could a true believer do what I just did?” If salvation rests on your faith or your choice of Christ, then it’s really going to be shaky when you sin. If the accuser can get you to focus on your feeble faith, he can condemn you.
But “God’s elect” means that the root cause of your salvation is that God chose you. Yes, you chose to believe in Christ, but the reason you did so is that He first chose you. If He had not done so, you would have happily gone on in your sin. Election does not mean, as many try to explain it away, that God foresaw that you would believe and chose you on that basis. If that were so, then it would not be according to grace, but according to something good in you, namely, your faith. Your faith would be a work that you originated and could take credit for (Rom. 11:6; Eph. 2:8-9).
Knowing that you’re saved because God first chose you in spite of your sin is essential in battling guilt. It means that no one can produce new evidence to get God to change His mind and disown you, because He chose you before the foundation of the world, knowing all about your sins that you would commit both before and after He saved you.
But, maybe you’re wondering, “How can I know that I’m elect? Maybe my sin shows that I’m not one of the elect.” It’s true that a lifestyle of disobedience and sin should make you question whether your calling and election are sure (2 Pet. 1:9-11). “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:3-4). John is describing a habitually disobedient way of life (1 John 3:7-10). God’s elect cannot be content living in sin.
Ask yourself these questions: Has God changed my heart? Has He shown me my sin and guilt and my desperate need for the Savior, so that I have abandoned all trust in my own good works to save me? Has He given me faith to believe in Christ as my only hope for heaven? Has He given me a love for Him and His Word and a hatred of sin? Am I growing in conformity to Christ? While we all have room to grow in these things, this should be the direction of our lives if we are one of God’s elect.
Paul does not mention here that we are justified by faith. Rather, in answer to the charges against God’s elect, he emphasizes God’s action (8:33b): “God is the one who justifies.” To learn how God justifies us, we need to go back to chapters 3 & 4, where Paul shows that we are justified by faith, apart from works. Romans 4:5: “But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.”
Paul’s argument in Romans 8:33 is in legal language. God alone is the supreme and final judge of the universe. If He condemns you, you’re eternally condemned! If He acquits you, you’re eternally acquitted! So it’s essential to make sure that God is for you (8:31)! No one can go above God’s head to change His decision to justify the sinner who has faith in Jesus. If God has justified you, you’re justified! He’s the Supreme Court of all Supreme Courts!
Also, as we’ve seen, there is nothing meritorious in us to deserve being justified. God justifies the ungodly, not pretty good people. We are truly guilty and deserve to be condemned, but Jesus paid the penalty that we deserved. The cause of our faith that justified us was not because we were brilliant enough to figure it out or because we had an inclination toward God. Rather, our justification is rooted in God’s sovereign election. Because He chose us and justified us, we can answer any charges against us.
But maybe the enemy keeps hounding us. He keeps pointing his accusing finger, saying, “You’re not a Christian. You’re condemned!” So Paul gives another decisive answer to guilt:
Romans 8:34b: “Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.” I considered taking an entire message on this, but I’m going to hit it briefly and hope that for most of you, this is just a review. Verse 34 gives the theological reason why God can justify sinners, namely, the work of Christ as Savior and Mediator. Paul mentions four aspects of Christ’s mediation on our behalf:
Paul doesn’t add, “for our sins” here, which he has already covered (3:25; 5:6-9; 8:32). He states only that Christ died and was raised to put the focus on Him. Again, there is no security and no defense against guilt when you focus on yourself or even on your faith. Your focus must be on God who has chosen and justified you, and on Christ who died and was raised bodily from the dead. We see the same emphasis on God’s role in salvation in Zechariah 3, where Satan accuses Joshua, who was guilty. The Lord said to Satan (Zech. 3:2), “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! Indeed, the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?”
Paul’s point in Romans 8:34 is that it would be absurd for Jesus, who came to earth to be the sacrifice for the sins of God’s elect, to condemn the very ones He died for! So when the enemy accuses you, point to the cross. “And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb…” (Rev. 12:11).
Here, Paul simply adds, “yes, rather who was raised.” But as he stated (Rom. 4:25), He “was raised because of our justification.” Christ’s death satisfied God’s justice, thus providing the basis for our justification. But His resurrection was God’s stamp of approval, showing that God accepted Christ’s death as payment for our sins. Paul staked everything in the Christian faith on the bodily resurrection of Jesus (1 Cor. 15:17): “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.” When you struggle with doubts or with guilt, go back to the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. It is a solid place to stand.
“The right hand of God” is figurative language to say that Jesus is now far above all rule and authority. He is over every power in heaven and on earth (Ps. 110:1; Eph. 1:20; 1 Pet. 3:22). This means that no one, not even Satan, can challenge Christ’s rule or His decisions, including His decision to pluck you as a brand from the burning in spite of your sin.
John Calvin (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 325) says that Paul adds this so that we will not be terrified by the majesty of Christ’s absolute authority at the right hand of God. His purpose in that place of authority is not to condemn us, but to support us by His prayers, especially when we stumble and sin.
There are two helpful examples of this in the Bible. The first is when Jesus tells Peter that Satan has demanded permission to sift him like wheat, and then adds (Luke 22:32), “but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” The other is Christ’s wonderful prayer in John 17, just before the cross, where He prays for His disciples and He even prays for us, who would believe through their witness. For us, Jesus’ throne at the right hand of the Father is not a throne of judgment, but rather a throne of grace, where we are invited to find mercy and grace to help with all our needs (Heb. 4:16). But even when we feel too ashamed to pray because of our sin and guilt, we can be assured that Jesus is there praying for us!
In John Bunyan’s autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, he tells how he went through several years of wrestling with his guilty conscience. He shares this helpful and practical insight (The Works of John Bunyan [Baker], 1:35-36, paragraph 229):
But one day, as I was passing in the field, and that too with some dashes in my conscience, fearing lest yet all was not right, suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul, Thy righteousness is in heaven; and I … saw, with the eyes of my soul, Jesus Christ at God’s right hand; there, I say, as my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was a-doing, God could not say of me, He wants [lacks] my righteousness, for that was just before him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse; for my righteousness was Jesus Christ himself, the same yesterday, and today, and forever.
Bunyan saw that God’s answer to guilt does not lie with us, but with God and Christ alone. If God has chosen you and justified you through the effective mediation of the crucified, risen, exalted, and praying Savior, then you can answer any charge against you. If God, the sovereign Judge of all has said (8:1), “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” then you are not condemned!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Our text, which is the summit of Romans 1-8, and perhaps the summit of the entire Bible, extols the eternal, unchangeable, unfathomable (Eph. 3:19), life-transforming love of God for us in Christ Jesus our Lord. James Boice (Romans: The Reign of Grace [Baker], 2:983) uses the analogy of a mountain climber, tied to his guide with a rope. Though the route is treacherous and he often slips, he doesn’t fall to his death because of the rope. Christ is our guide who never slips and the rope that ties us securely to Him is His great love for us, as seen in the cross.
No truth will transform your life more than God’s gracious love for you in Christ. To the extent that you understand it, feel it, and live daily with a deep sense of its reality, you will live in victory over temptation and sin and be able joyfully to persevere through trials. And so Paul brings us onto the summit of God’s love by asking and answering his sixth and seventh rhetorical questions:
(1) “What then shall we say to these things?” (8:31a)
(2) “If God is for us, who is against us?” (8:31b)
(3) “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?” (8:32)
(4) “Who will bring a charge against God’s elect?” (8:33a)
(5) “God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns?” (8:33b-34a)
(6) “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” (8:35a)
(7) “Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” (8:35b)
Then Paul cites Psalm 44:22 to show that enduring trials and even death for Christ’s sake is nothing new for God’s people: “For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” Then he boldly affirms (8:37), “But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.” He concludes (8:38-39) with his firm conviction that absolutely nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” To sum up:
God’s great love for us in Christ Jesus our Lord enables us to be more than conquerors through every trial for His sake.
As I mentioned in a previous message, Paul is not writing these wonderful truths so that we can feel more secure as we pursue the American dream. Rather, he was writing to those who were suffering hardship, persecution, and even martyrdom because of their commitment to Christ and the gospel. Paul is equipping us with the knowledge that we need not only to persevere through trials for Christ’s sake, but to overwhelmingly conquer in all these difficulties.
Paul was not writing as a speculative theologian. His words here serve as a mini-biography, in that he had already suffered all of these trials (2 Cor. 11:23-29), except the sword (which he later would add to his résumé!). While we may not have to face martyrdom, we will face many trials and death, if Christ does not return. So we need to understand and apply Paul’s words about how God’s love enables us to be more than conquerors through every trial that we face for His sake. Four thoughts:
As we’ve seen, in the context Paul roots our salvation in God’s loving choice of us according to His plan before He made the world (see also, Eph. 1:4-5). At a point in our lives, He called us according to His purpose to conform us to the image of His Son, so that He would have the preeminence (8:28-29). In fact, He loved us so much that He delivered up His own Son for us on the cross (8:32). Since God did all of this for us while we were yet sinners (Rom. 5:8), His love for us is not conditioned on our worthiness or our performance. We can’t earn or deserve His love. Rather, it stems from His very nature, “for God is love” (1 John 4:8).
But, perhaps you’re wondering about Jesus’ words (John 14:21), “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” That sounds as if God’s love is conditioned by our love for Him. How does that harmonize with God’s unconditional love for us while we were yet sinners?
Both John and Paul are clear that God’s love for us as sinners is at the root of why He sent Christ to die for us: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son….” (John 3:16). “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).
But in John 14, Jesus is teaching those who already have responded to God’s love that a close relationship with God is reciprocal. Our obedience to Christ reflects our love for Him. And we will only experience the love of the Father and the Son as we obey Him. But when we as believers fall into sin, God’s eternal, unchanging love that sought us and bought us out of the slave market of sin is our safety net of security. If He saved us while we were yet sinners, knowing full well that we would sin after He saved us, then we can trust that He will not cast us off as His children, even when we disobey. He will discipline us as a loving Father (Heb. 12:5-11), but our sin will not cause Him to diminish His love for us. This is one practical value of the doctrine of election.
Verse 35 assumes that there are enemies that will try to separate us from the love of Christ. Paul may use the personal pronoun, who, to parallel his earlier questions (8:31b, 33, 34). Or, he may be personifying the trials that he goes on to enumerate, which seem like personal enemies trying to separate us from God’s love. As Satan did with Job, he uses terrible trials to try to get us to doubt God’s love. But Paul is showing that no matter how difficult the trial, even to the point of martyrdom, God’s love for us is a rock solid foundation. Whatever the trial, by faith, not by feelings, we must come back to God’s love for us in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Let’s look at Paul’s list: First, he mentions tribulation, a general word for difficult trials. It has the nuance of pressure from without. Jesus used this word when He said (John 16:33), “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” Paul used it when he taught new believers (Acts 14:22), “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”
Distress has the nuance of a narrow or confined place. It may point to the inward feelings that we battle when we go through tribulations. R. C. Trench (Synonyms of the New Testament [Eerdmans], p. 202) illustrates tribulation by an old English method of execution, where a prisoner had increasingly heavy weights placed on his chest until he was crushed to death. He illustrates distress by another ancient form of punishment, where prisoners were put into cages or cells where they did not have room to stand, sit, or lie at full length. We have already encountered both words in Romans 2:9, where Paul describes the eternal punishment of the wicked as “tribulation and distress.” But in our text he is saying that believers often suffer trials from without or within because of Christ.
Persecution literally means to pursue someone to harm him. It refers to the verbal or physical abuse that we suffer because of Christ. Jesus said (Matt. 5:11-12), “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Paul promised (2 Tim. 3:12), “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” While God has so far spared most of us in America from physical persecution for our faith, that is not so with thousands of our brothers and sisters in other countries who are being tortured and killed for their faith. We may yet see the same here.
Famine and nakedness both point to extreme poverty and deprivation, especially (in this context) because of our commitment to Christ. In some countries, if you’re a Christian you can’t get a job to provide for your family’s basic needs. And in some places, famine is a reality that believers suffer. Again, it could happen here.
Peril means “danger.” Paul uses this word eight times in 2 Corinthians 11:26 to describe the many dangers that he had faced in his labors for Christ. Sword refers to execution or death, which Paul finally suffered for his faith. The quote from Psalm 44:22 (8:36) shows that it is for the Lord’s sake that His people suffer martyrdom. The world just considers believers as “sheep to be slaughtered.” And it shows, as I said, that such suffering is nothing new. God’s people have experienced it down through the centuries.
Thus it is not correct to think that because you’re a child of God, He will protect you from trials. You may think, “But I was serving the Lord! Why didn’t He protect me?” But read the Bible and read church history. In His sovereign purpose, God often allows His faithful servants to be persecuted unto death. He even has a specific number of martyrs who must die before He brings final judgment on the wicked (Rev. 6:10-11)! Those who teach that if you have enough faith God will heal all your diseases and give you a pile of money to live in luxury are false teachers. By faith God delivers some, but by the same faith, others are destitute or tortured or sawn in two (Heb. 11:33-39).
As if his list in 8:35 were not enough, Paul adds a series of contrasts to reinforce his conviction that absolutely nothing can separate us from God’s love (8:38-39): “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” As J. I. Packer points out (Knowing God [IVP], pp. 251-252), Paul here is countering our fears.
First, neither death nor life can separate us from God’s love. If Christ has saved you, death ushers you into His presence (Phil. 1:23; 2 Cor. 5:8). While we do not receive our resurrection bodies until Christ returns (Rom. 8:23; 1 Cor. 15:50-54), the moment we die our spirits go to be with the Lord. There is no such thing as “soul sleep.” As Jesus told the repentant thief on the cross (Luke 23:43), “Today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”
At first, it may seem strange that Paul says that life cannot separate us from God’s love. But life can be a bigger threat than death. In the parable of the sower (Luke 8:14), Jesus identifies the thorny ground as “the worries and riches and pleasures of this life,” which choke out the word so that it does not bear fruit. Paul laments the desertion of Demas, who “loved this present world” (2 Tim. 4:10). C. H. Spurgeon commented on our text (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 42:558), “I am not so much afraid of dying as I am of sinning; that is ten times worse than death.” But as God’s children, if we fall into sin or worldliness, His love will discipline and restore us. Life cannot permanently separate us from God’s love.
Then Paul mentions neither angels, nor principalities. Some argue that angels here must refer to fallen angels, since the holy angels would never try to separate us from God’s love. But I think they miss the point. Paul is citing extreme contrasts to show that absolutely nothing can separate us from God’s love. In Galatians 1:8, Paul says that even if an angel from heaven preaches a gospel contrary to the gospel that Paul had preached, he is to be accursed. It’s not possible that an angel from heaven would do that, but Paul is stating an extreme hypothetical situation to make his point. So in our text, he is saying that there are no spiritual powers, good or bad, that could possibly separate us from God’s love.
Neither things present, nor things to come, could refer either to our present circumstances as contrasted with things that will happen to us before we die. Or, it could refer to things in the present age as contrasted with the age to come. But either way, Paul is referring to everything that can possibly happen to us. No bad circumstance now or in the future can separate us from God’s great love.
The King James Version follows a textual variant that moves powers from the end of verse 38 to join it with angels and principalities, but it seems to be a copyist’s attempt to arrange the terms in a more logical order. The best manuscripts put it at the end of the verse. Powers most likely refers to spiritual powers, not to miracles. It’s not clear why Paul felt the need to add it, since he’s already mentioned angels and principalities, or why he put it by itself at the end of the verse, when he groups everything else in pairs.
Neither height nor depth has been variously explained, but it probably means that nothing in heaven or in hell can separate us from God’s love (C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [T. & T. Clark], 1:443). Or, it may have a spatial connotation: However high or low you go, you can’t get away from God’s love (see Ps. 139). It’s everywhere!
Then, as if Paul were afraid that he had missed something, he throws in a catch-all: nor any other created thing. He is saying, “Name anything that you can conceive of. God will work it together for good for His saints, and so it cannot separate us from His love.”
But, all of the terrible things that Paul has listed certainly don’t feel like God’s love when they happen to us. So how can we really know that these terrible trials cannot separate us from His love? To make it personal, how can I know that He loves me when I go through horrible suffering or perhaps even face martyrdom?
Paul points us to the cross in two ways. First, in 8:37 he says that “we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.” He uses the aorist (past) tense, not the present. This points us back to the greatest demonstration of love ever given, where the Father delivered over His beloved Son on our behalf (John 3:16). Second, in 8:39 Paul says that the love of God “is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The cross shows the love of the Son of God, who willingly laid down His life for us (John 10:18; 15:13).
William R. Newell (Romans Verse by Verse [Moody Press], p. 344) has an interesting insight on Paul’s use of the past tense. He says that the devil hates this “past tense gospel,” because the word of the cross is the power of God. Then he adds (italics his), “Let a preacher be continually saying, ‘God loves you, Christ loves you,’ and he and his congregation will by and by be losing sight both of their sinnerhood and of the substitutionary atonement of the cross, where the love of God and of Christ was once for all and supremely set forth,—and in righteous display!”
You will not experience God’s great love until you come as a guilty sinner to the cross and trust in God’s provision for your sin in the death of His Son. Or, to put it another way, you will not know God’s great love unless Jesus Christ is your Lord. There is no group plan of salvation that you can get by joining the church or growing up in a Christian family. It must be personal for you, as it was for Paul, who wrote, “I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Gal. 2:20).
Thus God’s great love for us is not diminished or terminated by our failures, shortcomings, or sins, since it is rooted in God’s choice of us before the foundation of the world. His love is not threatened or undermined by the worst adversities or trials imaginable. The greatest proof of His love was at the cross. Finally,
I’m focusing here on 8:37, “But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.” Throughout eternity, we will discover “the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:7). But we begin to taste His grace and love now through the cross. And to the extent that we know the love of Christ at the cross now, we not only can persevere through trials, but overwhelmingly conquer in them.
Several fine expositors suggest numerous ways in which we are more than conquerors in Christ (Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, 13:283-285; Boice, 2:992-997; Newell, pp. 343-344. I can’t develop these without a separate message.) But I’ll just mention one insight from Alexander Maclaren (Expositions of Holy Scripture [Baker], on Rom. 8:37, p. 206), who asks, “Has the world helped me to lay hold of Christ? Then I have conquered it. Has the world loosened my grasp upon Him? Then it has conquered me.” He adds (p. 207), “The worst of all afflictions is a wasted affliction, and they are all wasted unless they teach us more of the reality and the blessedness of the love of Jesus Christ.”
So the way to conquer overwhelmingly is to stay focused on God’s great love as seen in the cross of Christ, who suffered and died so that you can live with Him in heaven forever.
In Knowing God (p. 115), Dr. Packer applies his chapter, “The Love of God,” by asking some convicting questions:
Why do I ever grumble and show discontent and resentment at the circumstances in which God has placed me?
Why am I ever distrustful, fearful, or depressed?
Why do I ever allow myself to grow cool, formal, and half-hearted in the service of the God who loves me so?
Why do I ever allow my loyalties to be divided, so that God has not all my heart?
… Could an observer learn from the quality and degree of love that I show to others—my wife … husband … family … neighbors … people at church … people at work—anything at all about the greatness of God’s love to me?
Martyn Lloyd-Jones (The Unsearchable Riches of Christ [Baker], p. 219) wrote, “Indeed, our chief defect as Christians is that we fail to realize Christ’s love to us.” He added (p. 223), “How important it is that we should meditate upon this love and contemplate it! It is because we fail to do so that we tend to think at times that He has forgotten us, or that He has left us.”
To grow in God’s love, I would encourage you to do three things: (1) Meditate often on the cross, where God demonstrated “His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). (2) Read the Bible, especially the Psalms, to see how God’s saints processed their trials through the grid of God’s love. (3) Read Christian biographies, especially missionary biographies, to see how God’s people have more than conquered through Christ’s love as they have suffered for the gospel. May we all overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
I need to begin by letting you know that this is a difficult sermon for me to preach because I fall so far short of the example of Paul’s deep burden for lost souls that we see here. I can’t fathom ever making a statement like Paul makes here, that he would be willing to be eternally damned if it would result in the salvation of his countrymen, the Jews! C. H. Spurgeon (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 24:410-411) reported how John Bunyan said “that he often felt while preaching that he could give his own salvation for the salvation of his hearers.” Then Spurgeon stuck the knife in: “And I pity the man who has not felt the same.”
Well, Spurgeon would pity me! For many years I’ve had on my prayer list that God would give me a deeper burden for the lost. I pray often for lost people to come to salvation. I try to preach the gospel faithfully. But I don’t understand how anyone could say what Paul says here. You hear about people giving up a kidney for someone who needs a donor, which is a noble sacrifice. But giving up your eternal salvation! To be honest, I’m just not there! So I’ve got a lot of room to grow! Maybe you do, too.
The mood of Romans shifts dramatically in chapter 9. Paul ends chapter 8 rejoicing in the glorious fact that absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. But then he abruptly shifts gears, telling of his great sorrow and unceasing grief, even to the point of wishing that he could be separated from Christ, on account of the sad spiritual condition of the Jews. In spite of their great spiritual privileges, for the most part they were alienated from their Messiah.
This abrupt change of mood signals that we’re moving into a new section of Romans that runs from chapter 9 through chapter 11. It’s a difficult section in many ways. Some of it is difficult to understand and even if you understand it, some of it is difficult to accept. Romans 9 is one of the strongest statements on the sovereignty of God in the Bible, and many struggle with that doctrine. They don’t like what it seems to imply with regard to human “free will.” And so they try to explain away Paul’s strong statements in this chapter. Others get so carried away with God’s sovereignty that they end up practically denying human responsibility. But the Bible is clear that sinners are responsible to repent and believe in Christ. But when they do repent and believe, it is totally due to God’s sovereign grace, so that none may boast.
But it may surprise you to hear that God’s sovereignty is not the main theme of Romans 9. Rather, Paul brings up that topic to support the main theme. Here’s why Romans 9-11 is crucial to the argument of Romans and to your life: In Romans 8, Paul has given us the wonderful, reassuring truth that all whom God foreknew (“decided beforehand to enter into a relationship with”) and predestined to salvation will be saved and glorified for all eternity, so that Jesus will have the preeminence. He ends the chapter with the strong assurance that absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of God.
But if you know anything about the Old Testament, that raises a huge problem. The Old Testament is clear that the Jews were God’s chosen people (Deut. 7:6; 14:2). God promised to bless them and to bless all nations through them. But when Paul wrote Romans, most of the Jews were rejecting Jesus as their Messiah. And many of them were also persecuting those (like Paul) who claimed that Jesus was their Messiah.
So the problem is: In light of the Jews’ rejection of Christ, has God’s purpose to bless the Jews failed? And, if God’s purpose for them failed, then how do we know that His purpose to save us will succeed? How do we know that nothing can separate us as His chosen people from His love in Christ, when in fact the Jews are separated from Christ? That question governs Romans 9-11.
Here’s Paul’s flow of thought: In 9:1-5, he affirms his heartfelt concern for the salvation of the Jews. He does so in part because many Jews accused Paul of abandoning his own people for the sake of the despised Gentiles. Paul affirms also the privileged spiritual position of the Jews.
But this raises the question (9:6), “Has the word of God then failed?” Paul’s answer (9:6-13) is, “No, because God has always worked through a remnant according to His sovereign choice.” He chose Isaac, not Ishmael (9:6-9). Then He chose Jacob, not Esau (9:10-13). But this raises the question (9:14), “Is God then unfair?” Paul answers (9:15-18) by asserting God’s sovereign right to show mercy to whom He desires and to harden whom He desires.
But this raises the further question (9:19), “If God is totally sovereign, then how can He find fault with anyone, because who can resist His will?” Paul answers by saying, in effect (9:20-24), “Who do you think you are to question the Sovereign of the universe, whose glorious purpose is far bigger than you imagine!” Then (9:25-29), he backs up what he has just said with Old Testament Scripture to show that he isn’t making this up. He ends the chapter (9:30-33) by showing why Israel failed to receive the promise, while the Gentiles did receive it.
Next (10:1-4) he says that the Jews were zealous to establish their own righteousness, but they missed Christ, who “is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (10:4). Salvation is available to all who will believe (10:5-13). But in spite of God’s invitation, Israel has largely rejected it, while many Gentiles have accepted it, as the Old Testament affirms (10:14-21).
Does this mean that God has permanently rejected the Jews (11:1)? No, just as God in the past worked through a remnant, so He is doing now (11:2-10). But, this is not the final picture, since God has promised a glorious future for Israel. Their present rejection of the gospel has opened the door to the Gentiles, to make Israel jealous (11:11-16). But the Gentiles need to be careful not to become proud. If God broke off Israel for their unbelief, He could do the same with the Gentiles (11:17-24). In fact, He will again show mercy to Israel, so that “all Israel will be saved” (11:25-32). Thinking about God’s sovereign mercy over the course of history causes Paul to erupt in a final burst of praise for God’s unfathomable wisdom (11:33-36).
With that as a preview, let’s focus on 9:1-5, where Paul shows us his heart for the lost. The lesson is:
We should be burdened for the salvation of lost souls because the love of Christ and the love of God’s truth impel us.
You may say, “I don’t see any mention of the love of Christ in 9:1-3.” But for three reasons I believe that this was behind Paul’s burden for his lost kinsmen. First, he has just finished (8:35-39) extolling “the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The gracious love that Paul had received while he was yet a sinner (5:8) impelled him to want his countrymen to experience that same love.
Second, in 1 Corinthians 11:1 Paul tells us to imitate him just as he imitated Christ, and it was Christ’s love that moved Him to lay down His life for His sheep (John 3:16; 10:11-15). Paul’s hypothetical willingness to be damned if it meant the salvation of the Jews reflects Christ’s actual willingness to bear the wrath of God so that His sheep would be saved.
Third, in 2 Corinthians 5:14, in an evangelistic context, Paul states, “For the love of Christ controls us….” Thus, Christ’s love that reached down to us in our sin should impel us to reach out to other sinners with the good news that if they will trust in Christ, He will save them. Note four things:
Paul has just exuberantly told of God’s great love for us in Christ, but now he tells of his “great sorrow and unceasing grief.” He wasn’t bi-polar, going from a super-high to a super-low! Rather, he was “as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Cor. 6:10). It’s possible to be both sorrowful and yet rejoicing at the same time. It’s interesting that the shortest verse in the English New Testament is John 11:35, “Jesus wept.” The shortest verse in the Greek New Testament is 1 Thessalonians 5:16, “Rejoice always.”
If I focused on the sad condition of lost people to the extent that I had only great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart, I would be very depressed. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. I wouldn’t reflect the joy of the Lord. On the other hand, if I were so filled with the joy of my salvation that I never felt any sorrow or grief for the lost, I would be very self-centered and calloused. I need both the joy of salvation that moves me to want others to know the same joy, along with sorrow over the sad condition of the lost, so that I reach out to them with kindness and compassion.
This is not to say that we should not cross social, cultural, linguistic, or national barriers to share the good news. How will such people hear unless someone goes to tell them (10:14-15)? After all, Paul the Pharisaical Jew was called to be the apostle to the Gentiles. But it is to say that God has given us a natural affinity with some around us. Paul the Jew had a great burden for his fellow Jews. Cross that natural bridge to share the good news with your “kinsmen according to the flesh.”
Pastor Tom Mercer (Oikos: Your World Delivered [Professional Press], revised as 8 to 15: The World is Smaller Than You Think; oikos is the Greek word for “household”) says that each of us has 8 to 15 people that God has placed in our relational world. Through us He wants to get the gospel to these people. Identify those 8-15 people in your life, begin to pray for them, and ask God for opportunities to show His love and grace to them either in deed or word.
But, maybe some of those 8 to 15 people have hurt you or treated you badly. What then?
Who persecuted Paul just about everywhere he went? The Jews! Who was Paul most burdened for? The Jews! I could understand if he had said, “Let them go to hell! They deserve it!” But instead, his heart’s desire and prayer for them was for their salvation (10:1).
I’m not saying that if you’ve been physically or sexually abused you should put yourself in a situation that would expose you to further abuse. That would be unwise. But I am saying that you should pray often for the salvation of those who hurt you. Maybe you won’t be the one to share the gospel with them, but you can pray that God will bring someone into their lives to lead them to Christ. And, if you do have contact, you can respond to any verbal abuse or meanness with the kindness and love of Christ.
I didn’t originate that phrase, but it captures a truth that oozes out of verse 3, where Paul says that he could wish himself accursed and separated from Christ for the sake of his fellow Jews. That is such a radical statement that Paul felt the need to say (9:1), “I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit ….” Some of his Jewish enemies thought that Paul had forsaken his Jewish heritage for the sake of the despised Gentiles. But before God, Paul testifies that he had such deep concern for the Jews that he would be willing to give up his salvation if it meant that they could be saved!
As I said, I can’t imagine saying such a thing! How should we understand it? Without going into various interpretations, I think that Paul is speaking hypothetically. He has just said that it’s impossible for anything to separate us from God’s love. But here he’s trying to convey how deeply he was burdened for the salvation of the Jews. C. E. B. Cranfield (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [T & T Clark International], pp. 456-457) translates, “For I would pray (were it permissible for me so to pray and if the fulfillment of such a prayer could benefit them)….” Paul knew that such a prayer was not permissible and would not result in the salvation of the Jews. But he’s showing us how much he cared about the salvation of his lost kinsmen, the Jews.
It’s hard to square Paul’s compassion for all the Jews with Exodus 33:19, which he cites in 9:15, where God tells Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” That statement implies that God does not have compassion on everyone, as the subsequent plagues on the Egyptians showed. But the difference is, God is God and we’re not God! He is free to show mercy to some and to harden others (9:18). But we need to show compassion to all, knowing that God will use the display of His love through us to save those who believe and to judge those who refuse to believe.
So pray that the love of Christ will control you to such an extent that you show His love even to those who mistreat you, who deserve His judgment. Ask Him to give you a burden for the lost. But, we need to focus briefly on 9:4-5:
Again, you may wonder, “Where do you see the love of God’s truth in these verses?” To give due credit, I got this insight from Douglas Moo (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 560). Paul desperately wanted to see the Jews saved not only because of his love for them, but also because he loved the truth of God’s promises to them. He didn’t want people to think that the word of God had failed (9:6). Three observations:
Even beyond Paul’s compassion for his fellow Jews was his zeal for God’s glory, which is the driving force of chapters 9-11. These chapters are a defense of God’s word and His glory against a serious problem that seemingly could undermine His ability to fulfill His promises, namely, the widespread unbelief of the Jews. God’s main purpose for creating the world was not to save souls, but to display His infinite glory. That should be our motive as we bear witness of Christ.
The Jews had unique spiritual privileges, but they were lost. Great spiritual privileges will not save anyone unless they respond to these privileges. The Jews’ rejection of Christ shows that salvation is not just a matter of considering the evidence and making a rational decision to choose God. The fallen human heart is spiritually dead (Rom. 3:10-18; 8:6-8). The difficulty with many lost people is that they trust in their religious privileges, not in the Savior. What a tragedy to be religiously zealous, but lost! Salvation is not a matter of spiritual privilege alone, but rather of God’s sovereign grace that imparts life to dead sinners.
Paul lists nine spiritual privileges that God gave to the Jews. First, they were Israelites. The name focuses on the descendants of Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. Moo (p. 561) says that it “suggests a people chosen by God to belong to him in a special way and to be the vessels of his plan of salvation for the world.”
Second, they had the adoption as sons (Exod. 4:22; Jer. 31:9; Hos. 11:1). This does not mean that all Jews were saved; rather, it refers to God’s adoption of the nation.
Third, they had the glory. This refers to God’s glory being displayed in their midst on numerous occasions (Exod. 16:10; 40:34; 1 Kings 8:10-11). What an amazing privilege!
Fourth, they had the covenants that God made with Abraham, Moses, David, plus, perhaps, the New Covenant (Gen. 12:1-3; Exod.24:7-8; Ps. nter into such covenants with any other nation.
Fifth, they received the law (Exod. 20:1-17), which told them how to live in a manner pleasing to God.
Sixth, they received God’s pattern of temple service. God revealed the various feasts and sacrifices that Israel was to observe.
Seventh, they received God’s promises, which covers all of God’s covenant blessings.
Eighth, they were descended from the fathers of the Jewish faith, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Finally, they were the race that brought the Christ according to the flesh into the world.
This applies to you if you were raised in a Christian home and grew up in the church. Do you realize how privileged you are? There are billions of people in this world who are “separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12). But your great spiritual privileges will become great spiritual liabilities that will testify against you at the judgment if you do not repent of your sins and trust in Christ.
There is also an application for those of us who have responded to God’s grace: Don’t assume that just because someone you know is a lifelong church member or grew up in a Christian home that he is saved. As great a privilege as it is to be exposed to these truths, each person must repent and believe for these privileges to become blessings. Make sure that your family or friends who grew up in the church truly know Christ as Savior and Lord.
Paul ends verse 5, “the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.” There is debate over how to translate and punctuate that verse, because the original Greek did not have punctuation. Some argue that because it is uncharacteristic of Paul directly to call Christ “God,” the last phrase must be a separate benediction referring to God the Father.
But there are solid grammatical, logical, and biblical reasons to accept this as a direct statement of Christ’s deity. It balances the affirmation of His humanity in the preceding phrase. The Greek word order favors it. A joyful doxology seems out of place here and would be an abrupt change of subject. The early Fathers, whose native language was Greek, understood it this way. And, there are other texts where Paul clearly refers to Jesus as God (Phil. 2:9-11; Eph. 1:20-22; Col. 2:9; 2 Thess. 1:12; Titus 1:3-4; 2:13; Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 350).
The gospel is not, “Believe in Jesus however you may conceive Him to be.” Rather, it is, “Believe in the Lord Jesus revealed in Scripture, who is eternal God in human flesh, who offered Himself as the sacrifice for our sins, who was raised bodily from the dead.” The Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses claim to believe in Jesus, but their “Jesus” is not the eternal Son of God. Salvation depends on believing in Jesus as Lord, which means, “God.”
Are you burdened for the salvation of lost souls? If you’re anything like me, you have to answer honestly, “Not as much as I should be.” Frankly, I may never be burdened to the degree that Paul was, where I would be willing to forfeit my salvation if it meant the salvation of lost souls.
But ask God to give you a burden for the lost. Pray for the lost, especially those you have frequent contact with. When God gives the opportunity, share the gospel with the lost. Pray for missionaries and give so that they can take the gospel to those who have never heard about Christ. And, perhaps some of you will sense that God is calling you to cross cultural and linguistic barriers to take the gospel to the lost. The love of Christ and the love of God’s truth should impel us to have a burden for lost souls.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
We come now to a section of Scripture that Dr. James Boice called “the most difficult portion of the entire Bible, more difficult even than those very confusing sections in Daniel, Revelation, and other books that deal with prophecy” (Romans: God and History [Baker], 3:1051). In my judgment, biblical prophecy is more difficult than Romans 9 to understand, but Romans 9 is more difficult to accept and joyfully submit to. And joyfully submitting to Romans 9 is the key to benefitting spiritually from the truth taught here.
Romans 9 is hard for many believers to submit to because it probably will change your view of who God is, and many want God to be someone other than whom the Bible reveals Him to be. They want God to be an equal-opportunity Savior, who loves everyone just the same. They want Him to be what they consider “fair,” giving everyone an equal chance to be saved. And they want that salvation, at least in some small way, to be linked to something in us. They want to think, “God loves me because in spite of my faults, I’m really a loveable person.” Or, “The reason I’m saved is because I chose God. The decision was up to me and I made the wise choice! My salvation in part is due to me.”
But in Romans 9, Paul shows that God has not granted salvation equally to all people. He has always made choices, not only between nations, but also between individuals. He has not given everyone an equal chance to be saved. And, Paul states that when God saves someone, it has absolutely nothing to do with anything good in that person. Rather, it depends totally on God’s purpose according to His choice (9:11). He adds (9:16), “So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.” And, to squash the idea that God has mercy equally on everyone, Paul adds (9:18), “So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.”
That’s not hard to understand, but you probably find it hard joyfully to submit to. Some of you may think, “I can accept that because it’s in the Bible, but I don’t like it!” So you submit to it like you submit to eating broccoli, because you know that it’s good for you. But you don’t especially like it.
Why do I say that you need to submit joyfully to the truth of Romans 9? There are at least three reasons. First, this is God’s revelation of who He is, and we should not only grudgingly accept who He is, but also rejoice in who He is. He is the only totally perfect and glorious Being in the universe. The more that we see Him in His glorious beauty, the more we should rejoice.
Second, we should rejoice in these truths about God because Jesus did. There is only one place in the gospels where it says that Jesus “rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit” (Luke 10:21). The truth that made Him rejoice greatly was that the Father, whom He calls “Lord of heaven and earth,” had hidden the truth of knowing Him from the wise and had revealed it to babes. Jesus said that the only ones who can know the Father are those to whom the Son wills to reveal Him (see Luke 10:21-22). If that truth of the Father and the Son revealing themselves to some, but not to others, doesn’t make you rejoice, then you aren’t rejoicing in what Jesus rejoiced in.
Third, these truths should make you rejoice because Paul is using them to explain why your salvation is secure and certain. The problem that he is addressing in Romans 9-11 is: If God’s promises to bless the Jews are certain, then why are most Jews rejecting Christ? Does their rejection of Jesus mean that God’s promises can fail? And if His promises to Israel failed, then maybe the wonderful promise of Romans 8—that nothing can separate us from His love—could fail. So Paul is arguing why God’s word cannot fail:
God’s word cannot fail because He always accomplishes His purpose through His free choice of a remnant according to His grace.
Before we work through Paul’s argument in our text, I want to show you from other Scriptures that for God’s word of promise not to fail, He must be the all-powerful sovereign who always accomplishes His purpose. In other words, if you want God’s promises to hold true, you must let God be God. That sounds reasonable on the surface, but there are many believers who fight against it. Maybe some of you will want to fight what I say today and in the next few messages. But my prayer is that, while the effect may not take hold by the end of this sermon, hopefully as you wrestle to understand these deep truths, you will come out on the other side rejoicing in them!
For God to be able always to keep His promises, He must be absolutely sovereign. If He purposes something, but can’t actually pull it off, then His purpose is uncertain. If Satan and the demons or some evil, powerful human, might mess up God’s purpose, then He is not totally sovereign and you can’t trust His purpose.
Or, to put it another way, if God has relinquished control over the course of history to the “free will” of man, then history may not turn out exactly as God planned. For God’s promise to hold true that absolutely nothing can separate us from His love, God has to be able to carry out His sovereign purpose in spite of all attempts of Satan and wicked sinners to thwart it. God’s sovereignty means that He is free to plan, to choose, and to carry out His plan, and no one is able to thwart that plan. Here are just a few Scriptures that teach this:
Job 23:13: “But He is unique and who can turn Him? And what His soul desires, that He does.”
Job 42:2: “I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.”
Psalm 22:28: “For the kingdom is the Lord’s and He rules over the nations.”
Psalm 33:10-11: “The Lord nullifies the counsel of the nations; He frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart from generation to generation.”
Psalm 103:19: “The Lord has established His throne in the heavens, and His sovereignty rules over all.”
Psalm 115:3: “But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases.”
Daniel 4:34-35: “For His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, but He does according to His will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth; and no one can ward off His hand or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’”
Isaiah 46:9-10: “For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, ‘My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure.’” (See, also, Isa. 45:1-7.)
Eph. 1:10b-11: “In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.”
These are just a few of dozens of verses that show that God is the absolute sovereign over His creation, including the angelic and human parts of creation. Satan is powerful, but he cannot thwart God’s purpose for even a second, and in the end he will accomplish God’s purpose and then be thrown into the lake of fire. Rebellious, powerful monarchs cannot thwart God’s purpose by persecuting His church. In the end, they will only be pawns to accomplish His purpose and then face eternal judgment.
In light of these many verses, it’s puzzling why many professing Christians argue that God has relinquished His sovereignty to the will of man. They picture God in heaven, wringing His hands, saying, “I’ve done everything that I can do to provide salvation, but now it’s up to them to choose Me. Oh, how I wish that they would believe!” They’re saying that God’s purpose in sending His Son to the cross has been frustrated by human sin. But as A. W. Pink rightly stated (The Sovereignty of God [The Banner of Truth Trust], p. 21, italics his), “To declare that the Creator’s original plan has been frustrated by sin, is to dethrone God.”
The biblical truth that God is absolutely sovereign, which means that He always accomplishes His purpose, should cause you to rejoice, because it means that His promise concerning His love for you in Christ cannot fail. Let’s trace Paul’s argument in our text:
Paul states the proposition in 9:6a: “But it is not as though the word of God has failed.” Then he explains this by a principle: “For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel.” This confronted the proud Jewish notion that all Jews would go to heaven by virtue of their physical birth as Jews. Then Paul proves the principle with two illustrations. First (9:7-9) he shows that not all of Abraham’s descendants were his true children, but only those who were “children of the promise” through Isaac. Ishmael and his descendants were “children of the flesh” (9:8).
But Paul’s Jewish critics might have said, “Granted, Ishmael was not a child of the promise because his mother was Hagar, the Egyptian maid.” So, Paul gives a second illustration to prove his point (9:10-13): The descendants of Isaac, Jacob and Esau, were born of the same mother and father at the same time. But God chose Jacob and rejected Esau while they were still in the womb, before either of them had done good or bad. God’s reason for doing this was (9:11), “so that His purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works, but because of Him who calls.” Paul backs up his point with two Old Testament references, “The older will serve the younger” (Gen. 25:23); and, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” (Mal. 1:2b-3a). He is proving that God’s word to Israel has not failed, because God always accomplishes His purpose through His free choice of a remnant according to His grace.
Before I explain this phrase by phrase, I need to respond to two common attempts to dodge Paul’s teaching here. First, some claim that in Romans 9 Paul is not dealing with God’s choice of some for salvation, but rather for service. But, Paul’s deep grief (9:1-5) was over the fact that most of his fellow Jews were not saved, not that they were not serving God. The terms that Paul uses in our text show that salvation is the issue (Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], pp. 496-497). “Children of God” and “children of the promise” (9:8) invariably refer to salvation (Rom. 8:16, 21; Phil. 2:15; Gal. 4:28). “To call” (9:11) always refers to God’s effectual call to salvation.
Another argument is that Paul is talking here about nations, not about individuals. Somehow, this is supposed to soften the “unpleasant” notion that God chooses individuals to salvation. But if God chose Israel as a nation, but did not choose any other nation (Deut. 7:7-8; Ps. 147:19-20), then all the individuals in other nations were excluded from the covenant promises. While Malachi 1:2-3 in its context refers to the nations that came forth from Jacob and Esau, it went back to God’s choice of Jacob and rejection of Esau as individuals while they were still in the womb. We might ask, if it’s supposedly unfair of God to choose one individual and reject another, isn’t it more unfair to choose one nation and reject all others?
But the problem that Paul is addressing here is, why are many individual Jews, who are a part of the elect nation of Israel, not saved? His answer is that God didn’t choose everyone in Israel to be saved. He later (11:5) refers to the “true Israel” as “a remnant according to God’s gracious choice.” Consider four aspects of Paul’s teaching:
Paul’s answer to the question of whether God’s word has failed because most of the Jews were rejecting Christ is, “No, because God never promised to save the entire Jewish nation, but rather, only a remnant.” That’s what he means by (9:6), “For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel.” He made the same point in 2:28-29 when he said that being a true Jew is not a matter of outward circumcision, but rather of an inward work of God’s Spirit in the heart.
He says the same thing in slightly different language (9:7a), “Nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants.” Ishmael and Isaac were both Abraham’s physical children, but only Isaac was the child of God’s promise. God’s spiritual blessings were to come through the line of Isaac, not Ishmael.
Then Paul repeats it again to make sure we get it (9:8), “That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants.” He is saying that while in a general sense God chose the entire nation of Israel, He never promised to save every Jew. Rather, some Jews were the children of the promise of salvation. As Paul explains (9:11), this was “so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls.”
The Bible is clear that God has always accomplished His purpose by choosing some, which implies that He rejects others. An entire city, Ur of the Chaldees, was made up of pagan idolaters (Josh. 24:2), but God chose only one man out of that city, Abram, and promised to bless him. He specifically excluded Abram’s family by telling Abram to leave them and go to the place that God would designate (Gen. 12:1). Then Abraham fathered Ishmael through Hagar and asked God to make him the heir. But God refused that request and told Abraham that Isaac would be the son of the promise (Gen. 17:18-21). In a similar fashion, God chose Jacob and rejected Esau. His purpose was never to save all the descendants of Abraham, but only a chosen remnant.
Ishmael was a child of the flesh in the sense that Abraham conceived him through Hagar through natural means. There was no miracle involved. But Isaac, the child of the promise, was conceived after Abraham and Sarah were past their natural ability to conceive children. His birth required God’s miraculous power. “I will come” (9:9) focuses on God’s powerful intervention. His miraculous power was the only explanation for Isaac’s birth.
As such, Isaac is a picture of the spiritual miracle of the new birth, which is not humanly explicable (John 1:13; Gal. 4:21-31). Some are born in a Christian family and raised in the church. Perhaps they are baptized and confirmed in the church. But if God does not impart new life to them, they are not “children of the promise.” They are not true children of Abraham (Gal. 3:7). “You must be born again” (John 3:7).
This is to say, God’s purpose is not held hostage by whatever man decides to do. If that were so, then man, not God, would be the sovereign of the universe. But as we’ve seen, the Bible is clear that God is the only sovereign over His creation.
In America, where we have a government of checks and balances, we do not understand absolute sovereignty. Our President is not the sovereign of this country, because Congress can (and often does) go against his will. And, if the people do not like him, they can vote him out of office.
But God’s sovereignty is free, which is to say that He freely chooses what He wants to do and He freely accomplishes His choices and no one is able to thwart His will. Paul states God’s free choice in the plainest terms (9:11-12), “For though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, ‘The older will serve the younger.’” God doesn’t wait to see what choices people will make and then make up His plan to fit with their will. In other words, He doesn’t devise His plan based on foreknowledge. Rather, His plan is based on His purpose according to His choice, without regard to what people may or may not do. And, His plan often goes against human custom or common thinking: “The older will serve the younger” (see, also, 1 Cor. 1:26-31).
Paul illustrates God’s grace by God’s choosing Jacob but rejecting Esau before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad. It was “not because of works, but because of Him who calls” (9:11). The case of Ishmael showed that physical birth from Abraham does not insure God’s blessing. That of Esau shows that works do not (Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 355). If physical birth or good works could merit election, then it would not be an act of God’s free grace.
But, what does Paul mean when he cites Malachi 1:2b-3a, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated”? Some explain it to mean that God loved Esau less than He loved Jacob; but the fact remains, God chose Jacob and rejected Esau. By God’s purpose according to His choice, Jacob and his descendants were the objects of God’s covenant blessings, whereas Esau and his descendants were excluded from those blessings. While we should not interpret hate in terms of sinful human hatred, it does imply that God’s just wrath for sin remained on Esau and his descendants, while God’s gracious love for salvation was on Jacob and his spiritual descendants, the children of promise.
However you reconcile it with God’s love for the world, the Bible also declares, “You hate all who do iniquity” (Ps. 5:5b). He doesn’t just hate the sin; He hates sinners (Ps. 5:6; 11:5). Douglas Moo comments (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 587), “In an apparent paradox that troubles Paul (cf. 9:14 and 19 following) as well as many Christians, God loves ‘the whole world’ at the same time as he withholds his love in action, or election, from some.”
By this point, some of you probably are thinking, “If God accomplishes His purpose through His free, gracious choice of some, while He rejects others, then He’s not fair!” You may also be thinking, “If God is absolutely sovereign as you’ve described, then we’re all just robots with no will of our own. How can God condemn robots that He has programmed to act in a certain way?” If those are your questions, then I have correctly interpreted Romans 9:6-13, because those are precisely the questions that Paul anticipates and responds to (9:14-18, 19-24). You’ll have to come back when we cover those verses to hear my understanding of his answers.
But, meanwhile, does the truth of God accomplishing His sovereign purpose through His free choice of a remnant according to His grace cause you to rejoice? It should, because it shows why God’s word of promise to you cannot fail. If you love God and are called according to His purpose, then you can know that God will bring you to eternal glory (8:28-30). Your salvation is certain because God always accomplishes His sovereign purpose through His free choice according to His grace.
Let me add that the truths of Romans 9 do not nullify the truth of Romans 4, that we are justified by faith in Christ. If Jacob was saved, it was because he believed in God’s promised Messiah. If Esau was lost, it was because he rejected God’s promised Messiah. The elect believe in Christ; the non-elect do not believe. So be diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you (2 Pet. 1:10) by trusting in Christ alone to save you.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
If you are a parent you have heard the repeated refrain from your children, “That’s not fair!” And when you heard that complaint you responded, “Life’s not fair!” But we all want it to be fair! And we want God to be fair—or so we think!
In Romans 9:11-13 Paul wrote, “For though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, ‘The older will serve the younger.’ Just as it is written, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.’” Paul knew that if we were tracking with him, we would respond, “That’s not fair!”
As I pointed out last time, if Paul was saying that God made His decision to bless Jacob and reject Esau based on the fact that God foresaw that Jacob would decide to trust in God, but Esau would reject God, no one would have thought to accuse God of being unfair. That’s perfectly fair. There’s no problem with that.
But, clearly, that’s not what Paul meant. He goes out of his way to make it clear that God chose Jacob and rejected Esau apart from anything that they would do, “so that His purpose according to election would stand.” But we don’t like that! We want things to be equal and fair. We want everyone to have an equal shot at salvation and we want that salvation to be linked in some small way to something that we do. We want to be able say, “I’m saved because I made a decision by my own free will to believe in Jesus!” Then I can take some credit for my wise decision and my faith.
Also, note that even though Paul knew that his line of reasoning would provoke objections, he does not soften it in any way to avoid controversy, but instead he asserts it even more strongly (see John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], pp. 354-356). Some pastors, to avoid controversy, will not teach the doctrine of election. They know that it upsets people, so they soften it or explain it in a way that makes God seem completely fair. But Paul didn’t do that! He raises the objections that he knows we will have and then rather than softening his point, he strengthens it (9:16, 18).
Why did he do that? First, he did it because the Holy Spirit inspired him to do it. Paul’s epistles are the inspired Word of God, given to him for our spiritual understanding and profit. Even though some of his writings are hard to understand and the untaught and unstable distort them, they are Scripture, given by the Spirit to make us wise unto salvation (2 Pet. 3:16; 2 Tim. 3:15-17).
Second, Paul wrote these things because they are in line with the rest of Scripture. If you have a Bible that puts Old Testament quotations in small caps, you can easily see that Paul builds his argument in Romans 9 on the Old Testament. He cites it in 9:7, 9, 12, 13, 15, 17, 25-26, 27-29, & 33. Furthermore, Paul believed that what Scripture says, God says. In 9:17, he says, “For the Scripture says to Pharaoh….” He then quotes from Exodus 9:16, which is actually God speaking to Moses. Moses had not yet written the Torah (the first five books of the OT). But what God said to Moses is what Scripture said to Pharaoh. Scripture is authoritative because it is God speaking to us.
So Romans 9 does not consist of the opinions of the apostle Paul, which we are free to accept if we agree or ignore if we disagree. Romans 9 is God speaking to us with His authority through Paul to tell us what we need to know to be assured about our salvation, which is Paul’s main subject in the context. How can we know that God’s promise of salvation will not fail? Paul’s answer is that our salvation is secure because it does not depend on us, but rather on God’s purpose according to election. As the sovereign of the universe, God always accomplishes what He purposes to do. He chooses some for salvation apart from anything that they do, and He rejects others apart from anything they do (9:11, 13). We need to submit joyfully to this truth because it is God’s authoritative revelation of Himself.
But Paul knew that some would still sputter, “But that’s not fair!” So he teaches here:
As the righteous Sovereign over all, God is not unjust to grant mercy to some and to harden others, because all deserve His judgment.
The structure of this paragraph is: First (9:14), Paul raises and responds vigorously to the objection that God may be unjust to choose some and harden others. Then (9:15), he cites Exodus 33:19 to support his earlier statement (9:13, quoting God), “Jacob I loved.” He concludes (9:16), “So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.” Next (9:17), he cites Exodus 9:16 about God’s purpose with Pharaoh to support his earlier statements (9:11, 13), “so that God’s purpose according to election would stand,” and, “Esau I hated.”
Paul’s concluding summary (9:18), “So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires,” supports 9:13-14, that God is not unjust to love one man and to keep his wrath on another. On the basis of justice, some (like Esau and Pharaoh) receive judgment. On the basis of mercy, others (like Jacob) are the objects of love and salvation. But no one gets injustice, because all deserve judgment. With that as an overview, let’s work through Paul’s reasoning:
Paul is responding to what he knew many would think about his statement in 9:13 that God loved Jacob and hated Esau: “What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be!” Paul is saying that the very question is outrageous! By virtue of who He is, God cannot possibly be unjust (Gen. 18:25). Calvin comments (p. 354), “Monstrous surely is the madness of the human mind, that it is more disposed to charge God with unrighteousness than to blame itself for blindness.”
James Boice (Romans: God and History [Baker], 3:1071) points out, “Even if God should save people on the basis of something in them—faith, good works, or whatever—this would actually be injustice, since people’s backgrounds are unequal.” Due to their natural temperament or their being raised in a believing family, or whatever, it’s easier for some to be more trusting. And for the same reasons, it’s easier for some to be good, moral people. If God’s election were based on these factors, it would not be fair to those who were raised in a violent, immoral, or pagan background.
Also, to raise the question of fairness presupposes that you have rights and that your rights are being violated. If you have no rights, then you have no basis to claim that someone is treating you unfairly. Because we all have sinned without excuse thousands of times against God’s holy standards, we have no right to accuse Him of being unjust if He did not grant us mercy and salvation. His justice would only bring us what we deserved.
Jesus illustrated this truth with a parable (Matt. 20:1-16). Early in the morning, a landowner went into the marketplace and hired some workers for his vineyard, agreeing to pay them a denarius for their day’s labor. Midmorning, he went back and hired more workers, agreeing to pay them whatever was right. He did the same at noon and at mid-afternoon. Then, an hour before sunset, he hired more workers.
When evening came, he called the workers and began to pay them, beginning with the last group. Even though they had only worked one hour, he paid them a denarius. Those who had been hired first and had worked all day thought that they would receive more. But they only received a denarius. So they grumbled against the landowner for being unfair. But he told them, “I paid you what we agreed on. Take your wages and go. But I’m free to be generous to these last workers if I want to.”
The landowner would have been unfair if he had not given the first group what they deserved. They agreed to a denarius; he paid them a denarius. That’s fair. The last group received grace, which the owner was free to give. As sinners, Jacob and Esau both deserved God’s wrath. Esau received wrath; Jacob got mercy. There is no unfairness on God’s part for treating them in that way.
In 9:15 Paul cites Exodus 33:19 to explain why (“For”) God is not unjust to show mercy, while 9:16 draws the conclusion: “For He says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’ So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs but on God who has mercy.”
At first, the quote from Exodus 33 does not sound like an explanation, but rather just a restatement of the problem, namely, that God is arbitrary and unfair. So we need to understand the context in which God spoke these words to Moses. He had gone up on the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments. While he was there, the people grew restless and asked Aaron to make the golden calf, which they all worshiped. They were all guilty of gross idolatry. After Moses destroyed the golden calf and executed judgment on the leaders, he went back up the mountain to make atonement for their sin (Exod. 32:30). In that context, Moses (like Paul in Romans 9:3) prayed that if God would not forgive the people, then He could blot Moses out of His book. God replied that He would punish those who had sinned.
Moses continued to plead with God for His presence to go with them. Then Moses boldly asked God to show him His glory (Exod. 33:18). God replied (Exod. 33:19), “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you; and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.”
To paraphrase, God is telling Moses, “This is the essence of who I am (My name). My glory is displayed by My freedom to show mercy and compassion to whomever I wish. I am not obligated to show mercy to any, because all have sinned and justly deserve My judgment. But I am free to show My glory both by giving mercy to some and by withholding it from others. That is who I am.” Thomas Schreiner (Romans [Baker], p. 507) explains,
No human being deserves his mercy. The choice of Isaac over Ishmael and Jacob over Esau must be construed as a merciful one. In other words, the stunning thing for Paul was not that God rejected Ishmael and Esau but that he chose Isaac and Jacob, for they did not deserve to be included in his merciful and gracious purposes. Human beings are apt to criticize God for excluding anyone, but this betrays a theology that views salvation as something God “ought” to bestow on all equally…. What is fundamental for God is the revelation of his glory and the proclamation of his name, and he accomplishes this by showing mercy and by withholding it. God’s righteousness is upheld because he manifests it by revealing his glory both in saving and in judging.
There is only a slight difference, if any, between mercy and compassion. Compassion focuses on the feelings of sympathy for those in misery, while mercy is the action to relieve their misery. Both words point to the underlying fact that all have sinned and thus all deserve judgment. If you want to talk about justice, we all justly deserve condemnation. But God doesn’t give everyone what they deserve. To some, He shows mercy and compassion, according to His will, not according to anything that sinners merit or deserve.
Paul reinforces this by his conclusion (9:16), “So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.” It refers to “God’s bestowal of mercy” (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 593). It does not depend on a man’s decision to accept Jesus or on human effort (“runs”). Rather, it depends on God who has mercy. Schreiner comments (508), “This verse excludes in the clearest possible terms the notion that free will is the fundamental factor in divine election.” Paul is saying that God freely determines according to the counsel of His own will those to whom He shows mercy.
Also, verse 16 excludes the idea that we determine our salvation by exercising faith that originates in us. As Martyn Lloyd-Jones explains (Romans: God’s Sovereign Purpose [Zondervan], p. 161), if man can originate faith, then it’s something that he can do. It becomes a work that merits the reward of salvation. If that were so, then no one would ever bring the charge that God is unfair or unjust: Jacob believed and God rewarded him with salvation; Esau did not believe and was judged. That’s fair! But Paul is asserting that the difference between those two men was not anything that they did or didn’t do. The difference was that God showed mercy to one, but withheld it from the other. As the Sovereign and righteous God, He is free to do that. Sinners have no claim against Him.
But some contend that God’s love demands that He show mercy to all equally. Dave Hunt brazenly states (in Debating Calvinism [Multnomah], by Dave Hunt & James White, p. 260, italics his), “It is not loving—period—for God to damn for eternity anyone He could save.” He compares this (p. 280) to a doctor who has a cure for a plague, but only gives it to a select group. His contention assumes that God is not able to save anyone. He’d like to save everyone, but because of man’s “free will,” God can’t pull it off. But Paul’s next two verses soundly refute the assertion that God would save everyone if only He could:
Verse 17 defends God’s righteousness in withholding mercy from some, according to His purpose, as He did with Esau (9:11, 13): “For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.’” Then (9:18) Paul draws a conclusion that sums up the entire discussion: “So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.” To point out the obvious, Paul does not say, “He has mercy on whoever believes in Him and He hardens whoever does not believe in Him.” That would stand Paul’s meaning on its head.
Again, we’re not dealing here with Paul’s opinions, but with what Scripture says, which is what God says. As such, we need to submit to it joyfully (as I explained last week), because it reveals something about God’s perfection as God that we need to know. Paul is saying that God is not unjust to raise up a proud sinner on the stage of world history and use him for God’s greater purpose of demonstrating His power and causing His name to be widely proclaimed. God did that by hardening Pharaoh’s heart and bringing the plagues on Egypt, culminating in the destruction of Pharaoh and his army as they pursued Israel across the divided Red Sea.
God could have chosen to be merciful to Pharaoh and the Egyptians by softening their hearts and by telling them about the need to put the blood on their doorposts to escape the wrath of the destroying angel, who killed all their firstborn. But God chose rather to harden Pharaoh’s heart for the greater purpose of displaying God’s glory in power and judgment, so that His fame would spread throughout the earth. As the righteous Sovereign over all, God has the freedom to harden sinners for His greater purpose of displaying His glory and power in righteous judgment.
Some try to get God off the hook by arguing that God only hardened Pharaoh’s heart after Pharaoh hardened his own heart. But Schreiner (p. 510) counters, “A careful analysis of the OT text also reveals that God’s hardening of Pharaoh precedes and undergirds Pharaoh’s self-hardening … and it is an imposition on the text to conclude that God’s hardening is a response to the hardening of human beings.” God announces twice to Moses in advance that He will harden Pharaoh’s heart; it is only after this that the account says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart (Exod. 4:21; 7:3; 8:15; 11:10).
This does not mean that God coerced or caused Pharaoh to sin. God does not cause sin (Hab. 1:13; 1 John 1:5). Pharaoh was responsible for his own sin (James 1:13). But the Bible has many examples of God using evil people and even Satan himself to accomplish God’s sovereign purpose for His glory (e.g., Gen. 45:5; 50:20; 1 Kings 22:19-23; Acts 4:27-28). All He has to do is to withdraw His restraint and leave sinners to their own sin (Rom. 1:24, 26, 28). When He is through using these sinners for His purposes, He justly judges them for their sin (2 Thess. 2:11-12).
But it is blasphemy to accuse God of being unloving because He did not save them all! Everyone justly deserves God’s judgment because of sin. He is not unjust to grant mercy to some to display the glory of His grace, and to harden others to display the glory of His righteous judgment (Rom. 9:22-23).
I heard R. C. Sproul (at the 2004 Shepherd’s Conference) tell about the time when he taught a freshman Old Testament class of 250 students at a Christian college. He told them in the first class that there would be three papers: The first would be due on September 30th; the second on October 30th; and the third on November 30th.
On September 30th, he received 225 papers, while 25 students came to him begging for mercy: “Please, Dr. Sproul, we didn’t budget our time wisely. We’re still getting used to the rigors of college. We’ll do better next time. Please, don’t give us an ‘F.’ Can we have just a little more time?” Dr. Sproul said, “Okay, you have two days to get those papers in.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you, Dr. Sproul!”
On October 30th, he received 200 papers. Fifty students were late. They pled, “Please, Dr. Sproul. We had midterms. We had homecoming. We had all sorts of other pressures on us. Please, give us one more chance.” He said, “All right, you have two more days.” The students were literally singing, “We love you, Professor Sproul.” He was the hero on campus.
On November 30th, 150 turned in their term papers on time. One hundred students were late. “Where are your term papers?” he asked. “Don’t worry about it, Dr. Sproul. We’ll get them to you soon.” He got out his grade book: “Johnson, your paper is late. F!”
“But that’s not fair!”
“Harrison, F!’
“That’s not fair!”
“Is it justice that you want?”
“Yes!”
“All right. You were late on your paper last month. I’m changing your grade on that one to F. Does anyone else want justice?”
Dr. Sproul explains, “If we experience grace once, we’re grateful. If we experience it twice, we’re a bit jaded about it. The third time, we expect and demand it. If God doesn’t choose me, then there’s something wrong with Him, not with me!” But grace, by definition, is something God is not required to give. It’s undeserved. Rather than asking, “Why not everyone?” we should ask, “Why me?”
God forbid, but if any of you are damned on judgment day, you will not be able to blame God by saying, “It’s not fair! You didn’t choose me!” Rather, God will be glorified in judging you for your sin. On the other hand, if you are saved, you won’t be able to boast in your faith, but only in God’s grace. If you have not yet received God’s abundant mercy, then cry out like the publican in Jesus’ parable (Luke 18:13), “God, be merciful to me, the sinner!”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
If you’re struggling with the deep truths about God’s sovereignty that we have been working through in Romans 9, you’re in good company, because it is probably Romans 9 that Peter refers to when he says (2 Pet. 3:15-16), “Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.”
Peter is talking about God’s patience in delaying judgment until all of God’s elect are saved. In that context, Peter refers to Paul’s writing about the same thing. Paul only wrote about God’s patience in three places: Romans 2:4; 9:22; and 1 Timothy 1:15-16, which refers to Paul’s own salvation. Out of those three, the only text that is especially difficult to understand is Romans 9. So the apostle Peter may have been acknowledging that he found our text to be difficult (James Boice, Romans: God and History [Baker], 3:1110)!
I have shared with you before the struggles that I used to have as a college student with Romans 9. I would often read Romans 8, which is such an encouraging chapter, but then I would keep reading through Romans 9. It was kind of like running on asphalt in Romans 8 and then hitting quicksand in Romans 9. It always raised so many questions: How is it fair of God to love Jacob and hate Esau before they were even born (9:11, 13)? If salvation does not depend on man’s will or man’s effort (9:16), then how do we obtain it? Do we just sit and wait for God’s grace to hit us like a lightning bolt? And, if God “has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom he desires” (9:18), then how can He judge the one whom He hardens (9:19)?
So I would put on my spiritual boxing gloves and get in the ring with Paul. I felt that I was able to spar with him until I got to verse 19: “You will say to me then, ‘Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” At that point, I always thought, “Yeah, Paul, that’s a good question. Give me the answer!” Then Paul comes back with (9:20), “On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, ‘Why did you make me like this,’ will it?”
At that point, I always felt like Paul copped out. He asks the right question in verse 19, but then he dodges giving me the answer that I wanted in verse 20. Then one evening as I was boxing with Paul (or so I thought), it was as if the Lord got into the ring and said, “You’re not boxing with Paul, pipsqueak! You’re boxing with Me! I gave you the answer, but you don’t like it!”
So I read it again: “On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God?” It didn’t say, “Who answers back to Paul”! I had been contending against God! Instantly, like when God confronted Job (Job 40:2), “Will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty?” I echoed Job’s reply (Job 40:4-5), “Behold, I am insignificant; what can I reply to You? I lay my hand on my mouth. Once I have spoken, and I will not answer; even twice, and I will add nothing more.” The fight was over. God won. On that day I bowed before God’s sovereign right to be God. While 45 years later there is still much that I don’t understand, God’s right to do as He pleases for His glory hasn’t bothered me since then. I’m content to let God be sovereign. In our text, Paul is arguing:
The Sovereign God has the right to deal with sinful creatures in such a way as to display His glory, both in judgment and in mercy.
The question that Paul anticipates in 9:19 could be paraphrased, “If God has mercy on whom He desires and He hardens whom He desires (9:18), then are we just robots? Don’t we have the free will to choose or reject God? If we don’t, then how can He rightly judge us, since we’re just acting as He programmed us to act?” This would have been a perfect place for Paul to have responded, “Your question shows that you misunderstood me. I didn’t mean that people can’t resist God’s will. That would deny their free will. What I meant was, God has mercy on whoever He foreknows will trust in Him, and He hardens all those whom He foreknows will reject Him.”
But he didn’t say that. His answer shows that Paul is teaching that God has the sovereign right to display His power and to have His name proclaimed throughout the whole earth, by dealing with Pharaoh in judgment (9:17). And, to display the riches of His glory, God is free to love Jacob and to show mercy to Moses and others. Let’s work through his line of thought:
Paul allowed the earlier question, “There is no injustice with God, is there?” but responded instantly with horror, “May it never be!” But here he says, “You’ve crossed the line! You’re out of bounds in even asking the question. Just who do you think you are? You need to humble your heart before the Almighty Sovereign of the universe.”
John Calvin (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 363) points out that the question not only defends the one asking it, but it also makes God the guilty one. It attempts to turn the tables by saying, “God, it’s your fault that I’m sinning. You’re the Sovereign potter. I’m just passive, helpless clay. So how can You blame me for my sin? I’m just the way You made me.” So the very question, “For who resists His will?” is to resist His will!
It’s not true that God made us to be sinners. The human race was plunged into sin when Adam and Eve sinned. You say, “Aha, you see, it’s not my fault! I didn’t have anything to say about the matter!” But to say that is to contend with the all-wise Sovereign God, who assigned to Adam his role as the head of the human race. His action affected the entire race, just as a President’s action to take the nation into war affects the entire nation. Besides, to challenge the fact that you sinned in Adam is arrogantly to imply that you would have done better. Trust me, you wouldn’t have done better! And, it is to dodge the obvious fact that whether you are guilty in Adam or not, you have plenty of guilt in your own track record to condemn you.
This means that you don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to arguing with God about how He deals with you or with other sinners. He holds all the cards. To blame God’s sovereignty for your sin is incredible chutzpah! It would be like a mass murderer arguing in court, “It’s my parents’ fault! They shouldn’t have conceived me. They didn’t raise me properly. And, it’s the law’s fault. If they didn’t have these stupid laws against murder, I wouldn’t be guilty!”
Paul brings in the frequent Old Testament metaphor of God being the potter and people being the clay (Job 10:8-9; Isa. 29:16; 41:25; 45:9; 64:8; Jer. 18:1-12). He is asserting God’s right to make of the clay whatever He needs to further His purpose, which is His own glory. If He wants to make a vessel for dishonorable use, to display His glory in judgment, He has that right. If He wants to make another vessel for honorable use, to display His glory in mercy, He has that right. The clay has no rights.
But, we still sputter, “That’s not fair! If we’re just passive clay, with no free will, then how can God righteously judge us?” First, we need to understand that the clay isn’t innocent clay; it’s sinful clay. Charles Hodge put it (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], pp. 317-318, 319),
It is not the doctrine of the Bible, that God first makes men wicked, and then punishes them for their wickedness. The Scriptures only assert, what we see and know to be true, that God permits men, in the exercise of their own free agency, to sin, and then punishes them for their sins, and in proportion to their guilt….
It is not the right of God to create sinful beings in order to punish them, but his right to deal with sinful beings according to his good pleasure, that is here, and elsewhere asserted. He pardons or punishes as he sees fit…. The punishment of the wicked is not an arbitrary act, having no object but to make them miserable; it is designed to manifest the displeasure of God against sin, and to make known his true character.
Someone might still dare to object, “But you claim that God is sovereign over everything. He decreed all that has come to pass. He could have made a world where sin was not possible, but He didn’t. So if you assert that God is totally sovereign, you make Him to be the author of sin.”
I’m tempted to respond to that charge with Paul’s retort, “Who are you, O man, who answers back to God?” But I’ll say a few things. First, some push human free will to the point that they rob God of His ultimate sovereignty. They fall into the error of dualism, where there is an evil power in the universe that has disrupted God’s plan. God is trying to gain the upper hand, but He hasn’t yet succeeded.
But the Bible is clear that God “works all things after the counsel of His will” (Eph. 1:11), including the sinful actions of Satan and of human beings. The cross is Exhibit A (Acts 4:27-28), “For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.” God predestined the cross, which included the most sinful actions of people in the history of the world.
But, although God ordained the cross and the fall of man into sin (the necessary reason for the cross), He did so in such a way that He is not in any sense the author of sin or responsible for sin. A Faith to Confess: The Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 Rewritten in Modern English [Carey Publications], p. 20) puts it like this:
1. From all eternity God decreed all that should happen in time, and this He did freely and unalterably, consulting only His own wise and holy will. Yet in so doing He does not become in any sense the author of sin, nor does He share responsibility for sin with sinners. Neither, by reason of His decree, is the will of any creature whom He has made violated; nor is the free working of second causes put aside; rather is it established. In all these matters the divine wisdom appears, as also does God’s power and faithfulness in effecting that which He has purposed [Scripture references follow].
2. God’s decree is not based upon His foreknowledge that, under certain conditions, certain happenings will take place, but is independent of all such foreknowledge [Scripture references follow].
3. By His decree, and for the manifestation of His glory, God has predestinated (or foreordained) certain men and angels to eternal life through Jesus Christ, thus revealing His grace. Others, whom He has left to perish in their sins, show the terrors of His justice.
You could chew on those words for the rest of your life! But Paul’s point in Romans 9:19-21 is that the Sovereign God has all the rights to deal with sinners as He chooses; sinners have no rights. So we have to think through these issues by taking our proper place before God, saying, “You alone are God. I am not God!” With Job (42:2, 6) we must say, “I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted…. Therefore I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes.”
Expounding on 9:17-18, Paul sets forth the two sides of this:
Although (9:22, NASB) is the translators’ interpretation of a Greek participle as concessive. But the context, which makes it parallel with 9:17-18, lends support to interpreting the participle as causal (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], pp. 604-605). Translated this way, 9:22 would read, “But what if God, because He was willing to demonstrate His wrath and make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?”
“What if” is not a hypothetical question that may or may not be true. Rather, it is a rhetorical question introducing a statement of fact. It’s as if Paul is saying, “What’s it to you if God holds off on judging sinners so as to make a greater display of His patience, wrath, and power?” As Moo explains (ibid., p. 605), “In the case both of Pharaoh and of the vessels of wrath, God withholds his final judgment so that he can more spectacularly display his glory.” Or, John Piper puts it (“How God Makes Known the Riches of His Glory to Vessels of Mercy,” on DesiringGod.org): “In other words, the final and deepest argument Paul gives for why God acts in sovereign freedom is that this way of acting displays most fully the glory of God, including his wrath against sin and his power in judgment, so that the vessels of mercy can know him most completely and worship him with the greatest intensity for all eternity.”
What does Paul mean by “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction”? Is he teaching “double predestination,” that God created some just for the purpose of judging them? Some reputable scholars (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans: God’s Sovereign Purpose [Zondervan], p. 213; John Bunyan, Reprobation Asserted [Reiner Publications], p. 60) argue that since the subject of the verb is left unstated, the sinner fits himself for destruction by his own sin. This is in contrast to the vessels of mercy, where Paul specifically states that God prepares them beforehand for glory.
But others (Douglas Moo, p. 607; Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], p. 521; John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], 2:36; Charles Hodge, p. 321, John Piper, “Fitted for Destruction,” from The Justification of God, pp. 211-214, on DesiringGod.org) argue that the context of Pharaoh and the action of the potter, argues that God prepares these vessels for destruction. This does not mean that God arbitrarily made these men as sinners so that He could demonstrate His wrath. Every sinner is responsible for his sin; no one can blame God for making him a sinner. But it is to argue that God is sovereign even over proud, defiant sinners. They may think that they can stand against Him, but they are like pawns in His hand. He uses them to display His patience, wrath, and power, and then He righteously judges them for their sin.
I agree with Wayne Grudem (Systematic Theology [Zondervan], pp. 670, 684-686) that it is better to refer to God’s foreordination of the wicked to judgment as reprobation, not double predestination, because the latter term implies that God carries out both election and damnation in the same way, which is not true. In predestining us to glory, God works directly on our hearts through His Spirit to impart new life, saving faith, and all the blessings of salvation. But in reprobation, God does not work immediately on the heart to infuse evil or force people to sin. Rather, He works through secondary causes to permit sin, so that sinners are justly condemned for their willful sins.
Predestination, or unconditional election, is a comfort to believers because it assures us that what God purposed to do for us, He will complete in spite of our many sins. And, it humbles us to realize that we deserved His judgment, but He showed us mercy.
Reprobation, while a difficult doctrine to contemplate (Calvin called it “dreadful,” The Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. by John McNeill [Westminster], 2:955), is also in the Bible to comfort believers with the truth that no evil person can upset or thwart the sovereign purpose of God. Pharaoh tried to oppose God’s will, but God raised him up and patiently endured his sin so that God could make known His wrath and power before He destroyed him (Rom. 9:17, 22). Judas, the Jewish leaders, and Pilate all sinned by crucifying Jesus and they were judged for it, but what they did accomplished God’s sovereign plan (John 17:12; Acts 2:23; 4:27-28; see, also, 1 Pet. 2:7-8; Jude 4).
No wicked ruler, false teacher, or persecutor of the church, including the anti-Christ himself, is able to frustrate God’s plan. The fact that He doesn’t just obliterate them before they increase their terrible sin shows His great patience toward sinners. It also increases their guilt, rendering them more inexcusable. When God finally judges them, He shows the glory of His wrath and power. This should cause us to fear God as the righteous Judge, and to repent of our own sins. And, we should worship God for His holiness and righteousness.
Romans 9:23: “And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory.” Like a diamond on black velvet, God’s unmerited grace shines more brilliantly against the terrible backdrop of human sin. I’m not as eloquent or gifted as John Piper, so let me quote his sermon and encourage you to read or listen to it (ibid.):
As a Christian you are a vessel of mercy. You were called out of spiritual deadness and sinful darkness by mercy, through mercy, and for mercy. By mercy, because in our rebellion we didn’t deserve to be awakened and opened and subdued to God. Through mercy, because every influence that worked on us to bring us to Christ was a mercy from God. For mercy, because every enjoyment that we will ever have, forever and ever, will be a merciful enjoyment. And mercy itself will be supremely pleasant to taste and know.
He goes on to say that the fact that we are vessels of mercy means that all the blessings of salvation are undeserved. We deserved judgment because of our sin, but God showed us mercy. This is humbling for believers, but it is hopeful if you are not yet a believer, because you don’t have to qualify for mercy. The riches of God’s mercy and grace are available to you at this very moment.
God’s ultimate purpose is not just to display His glory, which is mind-boggling enough, but “the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy.” Have you received God’s mercy in Christ by believing in Him? If so, then God has opened your eyes to “see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4). You have begun to enjoy “the unfathomable riches of Christ” (Eph. 3:8). But, also, “in the ages to come [God will] show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:7). The point of that word “riches,” says Pastor Piper, “is to waken in us a sense that our inheritance in God is infinitely greater than the greatest riches on earth…. Oh, how foolish we are to lay up treasures on earth when the glory of God is our portion.”
But maybe you’re thinking, “I’m not sure that I’m a vessel of God’s mercy. I don’t know if I’m one of His elect. How do I know whether God prepared me beforehand for glory?” The same apostle that wrote this will go on to say (Rom. 10:12-13), “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; for ‘Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.’” Will you call on the Lord for mercy? He’s abounding in riches for you!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Does the gospel, the good news that God saved you from sin and judgment by His great love and mercy, cause your heart to rejoice and your soul to be flooded with gratitude? Does the fact that you could have been a vessel of wrath prepared for destruction, but instead you’re a vessel of mercy, which God prepared beforehand for glory, cause you to marvel and ask, “Why me?” If you grew up in a Christian home or you’ve been saved for a long time, you face the danger of the gospel becoming commonplace. You become accustomed to God’s grace, so that you take it for granted.
One sign that you’re drifting into such complacency is that you grumble about life’s trials, forgetting that God has done the greatest thing imaginable in sending His Son to die in your place (Rom. 8:32). Surely, you can trust Him to provide for lesser needs.
Another sign that the gospel has become “ho-hum” is that you’ve become focused on accumulating the world’s stuff, thinking that having the latest and newest gadgets will make you happy. You’re laying up treasures on earth, rather than in heaven (Matt. 6:19-21). You think that you’ll find contentment in the things of this world rather than in the joy of salvation (1 John 2:15-17).
Another sign that the gospel has become commonplace is that you begin to envy the wicked, thinking that sin will satisfy your needs (Prov. 23:17; 24:1, 19). You forget the horrible, corrupting effects of sin. You begin to justify your sins and blame others, or even God, for your own disobedience (Prov. 19:3).
There are many more signs of forgetting the blessings of the gospel, but a final one that I’ll mention is that you become indifferent to sharing the gospel with the lost, whether through your personal witness or by supporting the cause of world missions (Rom. 9:3; 10:1). You forget that those without Christ are lost and headed for judgment (Eph. 2:12). And so we all constantly need to preach the gospel to ourselves and to remind ourselves of the wonderful blessings of God’s mercy to us in Christ.
In our text, Paul continues his response to the problem that he raised earlier in the chapter: If God’s promises to save His chosen people are good, then why are most of the Jews rejecting Christ? He has shown that God’s word of promise has not failed, because He never promised to save all Israel. Rather, God has always accomplished His purpose through a remnant that He has chosen according to His grace. There was a “true” Israel within Israel who were children of the promise (9:6).
Paul knew that his teaching about God’s choosing some but not all would raise questions. So in 9:14-23, he deals with these anticipated objections. Isn’t God unfair to choose Jacob and reject Esau while they were still in the womb (9:14)? Paul replies, “May it never be!” Because all deserve God’s judgment, He is free to show mercy to whomever He wishes (9:15-16). God is free to raise up a man like Pharaoh to demonstrate His power and proclaim His name more widely, but then to leave Pharaoh as an object of His wrath (9:17). Since we all have sinned, none of us has the right to blame God for judging us (9:19). As the divine potter, God has the right to use the sinful clay for His glory, whether as “vessels of wrath” or as “vessels of mercy” (9:20-23).
Who are these “vessels of mercy”? In answering that question, Paul brings us back to the wonder of the gospel, reminding us of God’s great mercy towards us (9:24): “even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.” That is Paul’s theme statement for 9:25-29. It also ties back to the question of whether God’s word has failed. “No,” says Paul,
In fulfillment of His word, God in mercy is calling to Himself a people from the Jews and the Gentiles.
In 9:25-26, Paul supports this theme from the prophet Hosea as it applies to the Gentiles. God told Hosea that He would call the unbelieving ten northern tribes, whom Assyria would take into captivity, “not My people,” and “not beloved.” But then, in mercy, He would restore them, so that He would call them, “My people,” and “beloved.” If those terms could be applied to sinful Israel, then they also can be applied to the Gentiles. This would have been a surprise to the Gentiles, who thought that they were excluded from God’s promises by virtue of not being Jews.
Then (9:27-29), Paul supports the theme from the prophet Isaiah as applied to the Jews. He shows that even though there were many physical descendants of Israel, God only promised to save a remnant, while bringing judgment on the rest (9:27-28). As Isaiah also foretold, if God had not been gracious to leave Israel with a spiritual seed, they would have become like Sodom and Gomorrah, totally wiped out by His judgment (9:29). This would have come as a surprise to many Jews, who thought that they were the beneficiaries of God’s promises simply because of their physical birth as Jews. But Paul is establishing that God’s promise to save His chosen people has not failed, because He has prepared vessels of mercy not only from among the Jews, but also from among the Gentiles. So we can trust God to keep His word.
Rather than working through the text in the order that I’ve just outlined, I want to point out five truths about salvation embedded in these verses:
Paul says (9:23) that God is making “known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory.” Then he adds (9:24), “even us, whom He also called.” Called takes us back to 8:28, “to those who are called according to His purpose.” Paul mentioned both called and the theme of glory in 8:30, “and these whom he predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.” And we again encounter call in 9:11, “so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls.”
The entire book of Romans to this point (but especially chapters 8 & 9) emphasizes that God, not man, is the primary force behind salvation. Both pagan Gentiles and religious Jews were all under God’s righteous wrath and condemnation (Rom. 1 & 2). None were seeking God (Rom. 3). He would not be unjust to leave us all under condemnation. But in His great love and mercy, He sent His own Son to bear the penalty that we deserved.
But God doesn’t leave His sovereign purpose up to the choices of sinful people who have turned their backs on Him. Rather (9:18), “He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.” He initiates His mercy toward some by His effectual call through the gospel. As we saw when we studied 8:30, the word call is used in two ways in Scripture. The general call of the gospel goes out to all. Jesus mentioned this when He said (Matt. 22:14), “Many are called, but few are chosen.” He issued a general call when He said (Matt. 11:28), “Come unto Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” But the general call is not effectual because of the spiritual deadness of sinners’ hearts.
But in the New Testament epistles, call (or, calling) is always used of God’s effectual call. It always accomplishes God’s purpose of giving life to the spiritually dead so that they respond willingly to the call. We see an illustration of this when Jesus called Lazarus from the tomb. The call imparted life so that Lazarus actually came to life and responded to the call. Lazarus didn’t lie in the tomb and think, “I don’t want to be raised from the dead right now. You can’t force me against my free will!” Rather, when Jesus imparted life to Lazarus, he willingly and gladly came forth from the tomb.
In the same way, God’s effectual call to salvation does not violate our will. Rather, His life-giving power makes us willing to respond. And, the fact that we were not left in our sin as vessels of wrath, but rather were called as vessels of mercy, shows us that we owe everything to God’s great mercy. It should humble us and fill us with gratitude every day!
Formerly, we were not His people. Now we are His people. Formerly, we were not beloved. Now, we are beloved. Now we are called “sons of the living God” (9:25-26). These are all terms of a warm, personal, loving relationship with God.
Behind this text from Hosea is a moving story of heartache and grief, which eventually turned into tears of joy. God told Hosea to marry and have children by a prostitute by the name of Gomer as an object lesson to the unfaithful nation that had committed flagrant harlotry against the Lord (Hos. 1:2). Hosea, though, was not to divorce her for her unfaithfulness, but to love her in order to draw her back, to illustrate God’s faithful love to the unfaithful nation. It was a very difficult sermon illustration!
Hosea obeyed and had three children by Gomer. God told him to name the first son, “Jezreel” (Hos. 1:4). That was the name of a well-known valley where Jehu had slaughtered off the house of Ahab, including his 70 sons (2 Kings 9 & 10). God commended Jehu for carrying out His judgment on Ahab and promised that his sons to the fourth generation would sit on the throne of Israel. But Jehu was not faithful to the Lord, and so judgment eventually came on his descendants (2 Kings 10:28-31). Through Hosea’s son, God was announcing that in judgment He would end the northern kingdom of Israel (Hos. 1:4-5).
Hosea and Gomer’s second child was a daughter, whom God said to name “Lo-ruhamah” (“no compassion”). God explained (Hos. 1:6), “For I will no longer have compassion on the house of Israel.” The third child was a son whom the Lord said to name “Lo-ammi” (“not my people”), explaining (Hos. 1:9), “For you are not My people and I am not your God.”
After this, true to her character, Gomer left Hosea and was unfaithful with a number of lovers. She ended up shamefully disgraced on the slave market. God told Hosea to go and buy her back, not as a slave, but as his beloved wife. It was an illustration of God’s faithful love for His adulterous people.
At that point, God changed the names of the children as a lesson to Israel of His great love. Jezreel means in Hebrew, “God will sow,” or “May God sow” (The Message of Hosea, Derek Kidner [IVP], p. 39). God now turns this into a promise to sow the land again with people (Hos. 2:23). God also drops the Hebrew negative (lo) off the names of the second and third children, so that “No compassion” becomes “Compassion,” and “Not My people” becomes “My people” (Hos. 1:10; 2:1, 23). It’s a moving, beautiful picture of the power of God’s grace to restore unfaithful people and bring them into a relationship with Him.
The point is, Christianity is not a religion of going through rituals and trying to keep a bunch of rules to gain standing with God. Rather, it’s all about a gracious, compassionate, merciful God who calls sinners back to Himself. He paid the price to buy us out of the slave market of sin so that we could be His bride, the object of His undeserved love and grace. Formerly, we were not beloved, but now we are beloved. Formerly, we were not His people, but now we are His chosen people. We are “sons of the living God!”
Relationships take time. Are you taking time to maintain and deepen your most important relationship—with God?
Paul’s theme is (9:24), “not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.” This shows us that salvation is not a matter of natural birth or of religious heritage or upbringing. Rather, it is available to all, no matter what their background. In 9:25-29, Paul refers to the Old Testament to show that he wasn’t making up what he had just written about God’s wrath and His mercy, especially about His mercy extending not only to the Jews, but also to the Gentiles, whom the Jews despised.
This is great news for all of us who are not Jewish by birth. As I said, Hosea’s words in their original context referred to the ten northern tribes of Israel, but Paul here applies it to the Gentiles (so does Peter, 1 Pet. 2:10). Paul saw that Israel in apostasy had been cast off as God’s people. For all purposes, they became “Gentiles,” just like the pagan nations around them. But in His great mercy, God brought them back so that again it could be said of them that they were His people. Here Paul applies this to the church, which included Gentiles (see also, Eph. 2:11-22).
Perhaps you were raised in a non-Christian home, where you received no understanding of how to live in a manner pleasing to God. Perhaps your background led you into all sorts of horrible sins. The good news is that no matter how pagan your background, you can experience God’s mercy and forgiveness if you will repent of your sins and trust in Christ.
Many Jews in Paul’s day thought, “I’m good with God because I was born a Jew.” But as Paul has already said more than once, being a Jew outwardly doesn’t make you right with God. You must experience the new birth and have God change your heart (Rom. 2:17-29). Being a child of the flesh counts for nothing; you must become a child of the promise (Rom. 9:6-8).
Verse 27 should begin with “But.” Paul is contrasting Israel with the Gentiles. He cites Isaiah 10:22, “Though the number of the sons of Israel be like the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that will be saved.” The point is that the Jews should not rely on being part of Abraham’s many descendants. Rather, they needed to be a part of the remnant.
Skipping verse 28 for a moment, verse 29 cites Isaiah 1:9, “Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left to us a posterity [lit., “seed”], we would have become like Sodom, and would have resembled Gomorrah.” Sabaoth means “hosts,” referring to the angelic hosts. It emphasizes God’s sovereign authority over His creation. The point is, if the sovereign God had not intervened to preserve a remnant, the entire nation would have been destroyed like the corrupt Sodom and Gomorrah. It is essentially the same point as verse 27: being a Jew by birth was not enough. Even though the Jews were God’s chosen nation, their hearts were just as corrupt as the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. But God granted His grace and salvation to a “seed,” a remnant. He was calling out vessels of mercy from among the Jews.
The point for us is that it is not enough to be born and raised in the church. Your heart is just as corrupt as the hearts of those in the pagan Sodom and Gomorrah around us. You must become a part of God’s seed, His remnant, through the new birth.
Thus salvation is from God’s great mercy and His sovereign, effectual call, not from anything in us. Salvation brings us into a personal relationship with the loving God. Salvation extends to people from every type of background, whether pagan or religious.
Verse 28 cites Isaiah 10:23, “For the Lord will execute His word on the earth, thoroughly and quickly.” It is not easy to understand how Paul is using this verse here, but it probably emphasizes that God will bring judgment on those who claim to be His people by birth, but are not following Him. When it comes, His judgment will be inescapable, thorough, and sudden. None except the remnant, the vessels of His mercy, will escape.
The point for us is that we should not emphasize God’s love and grace to the neglect of His righteousness and judgment. I’ve met Christians who say, “I don’t worship a God of wrath and judgment, but a God of love and mercy.” Well, then you do not worship the God of the Bible! And if you’re excusing your sins and claiming that you’re the object of His love because you belong to the church, you may be in for a rude, irreversible shock. You must respond to God’s call of mercy by repenting of your sins or you may be a part of the professing people of God who are not a part of His remnant.
God is calling to Himself a people, “not from among the Jews only, but also from among the Gentiles” (9:24). As Paul put it in Ephesians 2:13, “But now in Christ Jesus you [the Gentiles] who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” He adds (Eph. 2:19), “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household.” In heaven, there will be a great multitude “from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues,” crying out, “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb” (Rev. 7:9, 10).
There will be no racism in heaven. It will be multi-racial and multi-cultural. And so there is absolutely no place for racism in the Lord’s church today. The church should reflect the racial diversity of the community where it exists. The numbers vary depending on the survey, but Flagstaff is about 70% white, 16% Hispanic, 10% Native, 2% black, and 1% Asian. To reflect those proportions, if we have 400 attending FCF, we should have approximately 280 whites, 64 Hispanics, 40 Native people, 7 blacks, and 5 Asians. I think that God is delighted when the church is multi-racial. So should we be.
Unless there are language barriers, I think that it’s wrong for the church to segregate according to race. We should love each other and learn from each other as a testimony of God’s grace. We are a racially blended family because we were adopted by the God who is calling His people from among the Jews and Gentiles without distinction.
To come back to my opening question, “Does the gospel, the good news that God saved you from sin and judgment by His great love and mercy, cause your heart to rejoice and your soul to be flooded with gratitude?” If perhaps your appreciation for the gospel has grown a bit dull, consider these words that the Puritan preacher Thomas Goodwin (1600-1680) wrote to his son (in A Frank Boreham Treasury, compiled by Peter Gunther [Moody Press], p. 72),
When I was threatening to become cold in my ministry, and when I felt Sabbath morning coming and my heart not filled with amazement at the grace of God, or when I was making ready to dispense the Lord’s Supper, do you know what I used to do? I used to take a turn up and down among the sins of my past life, and I always came down again with a broken and a contrite heart, ready to preach, as it was preached in the beginning, the forgiveness of sins. I do not think I ever went up the pulpit stair that I did not stop for a moment at the foot of it and take a turn up and down among the sins of my past years. I do not think that I ever planned a sermon that I did not take a turn around my study table and look back at the sins of my youth and of all my life down to the present; and many a Sabbath morning, when my soul had been cold and dry, for the lack of prayer during the week, a turn up and down in my past life before I went into the pulpit always broke my hard heart and made me close with the gospel for my own soul before I began to preach.
Don’t ever get over the wonder of God’s mercy to you in the gospel!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
If you were to ask in a poll, “How does a person get into heaven?” you would most often hear, “By being a good person.” There may be slight variations: “By sincerely trying to do your best.” “By being moral or religious.” “By doing good works and helping the poor.”
You would find the same answers in any country or culture where you asked that question. When we were in Nepal, we went to a Hindu temple and encountered some very strange looking men. What was behind their bizarre appearance? They were trying to please the gods in order to earn a higher place in the next life. We saw people there making sacrifices and bathing in the filthy river in an attempt to atone for their sins and purify themselves. We went to a Buddhist temple and saw variations of the same thing. Buddhist monks take a vow of poverty and are devoted to hours of prayers and rituals every day.
Muslims believe the same thing. They must say the creed and the prescribed prayers five times a day, give alms, observe the fast of Ramadan, make a pilgrimage to Mecca, and perform their other rituals in order to go to heaven. The cults are all based on the same principle: The way to heaven is through good works. This may require knocking on doors to share your faith, going on a two-year mission, tithing your money, abstaining from certain foods and drinks, and other duties.
But such an approach to God is not limited to non-Christian religions or cults. Many in Christian religions think that they can earn right standing before God by going to mass and confession, doing good works, and sometimes by harsh treatment of their bodies. Martin Luther was a classic example. He gave up a career in law to join a monastery where he devoted himself to prayers and fasting, penance and the confession of sins, and living in self-imposed harsh conditions. He was trying to earn salvation by his works, but he could not find peace with God because he knew that his works were all tainted by his sin.
What a tragedy it would be to devote your entire life to diligent spiritual efforts to attain right standing with God, only to die and face God’s judgment! You’ve just spent your entire life in religious discipline, denying yourself the common pleasures that others enjoy. You’ve tried your best to be a good person. But you stand at the gate of heaven and see Jesus refusing to let you in and consigning you to hell.
But as you’re standing there in horror, you see Jesus welcoming a man who lived his entire life as a thief. But with his dying breath he cried out, “Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom” (Luke 23:42). The former thief enters into eternal joy with Jesus, while you, who worked so hard for salvation, are turned away! What a shock!
Since life is short and eternity is forever, nothing is more important than understanding the right way to be right with God. And since both fallen human nature and every religion in the world teach the wrong way to come to God, we especially need to understand God’s way of righteousness. Paul addresses this crucial issue in our text.
“What shall we say then?” (9:30) serves both to draw a conclusion from the preceding arguments and to introduce a new section. The question that Paul has been focused on in Romans 9 is, “If God is faithful to His covenant promises to His chosen people, then why are most of the Jews rejecting Jesus as their Messiah and Lord?” Paul has shown that it was never God’s purpose to save all Israel, but rather only a remnant. God always accomplishes His purpose through a chosen remnant according to His grace. Since all deserve God’s wrath and judgment, it is not unfair of Him for His glory to choose some as objects of mercy, but to leave the rest in their sin to glorify His justice in judgment.
Thus Romans 9 is heavily weighted towards God’s sovereignty in salvation. There is an inexplicable mystery here, but the Bible is clear that if we’re saved, it’s totally due to God’s sovereign grace and mercy; but if we’re lost, it’s totally due to our sin and unbelief. No one can blame God for being lost by complaining, “You didn’t choose me!” (As an aside, it’s interesting that many deny the doctrine of election because it offends their pride. They want to think that they can choose God by their own “free” will. But if you tell them that they’re headed for judgment, they suddenly believe the doctrine of election and use it to blame God for not choosing them!)
From Romans 9:30-10:21, Paul shows why the Jews for the most part were rejecting Christ: They were trying to be saved by their own good works so that they stumbled over Christ. They missed God’s way of righteousness through faith in Christ. So the emphasis is on human responsibility and sin. Israel rejected Christ because they were disobedient and obstinate (10:21). And yet God’s sovereignty is still present. It is He who put the stone of stumbling and rock of offense in Zion (9:33). It is God’s sovereign plan to use the salvation of the Gentiles to provoke Israel to jealousy, so that eventually they will turn to Christ (10:19; 11:11, 14). And, God’s sovereignty is seen by the fact that all of this was predicted in the Old Testament, as the frequent citations show.
In our text, Paul lays out the right and wrong ways to come to God. To state the wrong way first:
To approach God through our works will cause us to stumble over Christ and be lost; to approach God through faith in Christ results in righteousness and salvation.
The contrast is plain and stark: If we pursue the righteousness that we need to stand before God by our works we will fail. If we come to God by faith in Christ, we attain righteousness, even if we were not previously pursuing it.
Before we examine both halves of this contrast in more detail, let me point out that there is an inherent danger for those of us who were raised in a Christian home. It is a great advantage to be raised in a Christian home, in that you learn about God and the way of salvation as a child. You’re often spared from the destructive scars of sin that those in the world have experienced.
But the danger is that you may trust in your own religiosity and morality, while you resent or despise those who are not so religious or moral. You become like the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son: “I’ve served you for years and always obeyed you, but then you lavish your love on this no-good brother of mine! But what have you ever done for me?” (See Luke 15:28-30.) And so you miss the heart of the gospel, which is God’s grace.
Scholars spill a lot of ink debating what Paul means by “a law of righteousness” (9:31), but it probably refers to the Law of Moses that Israel pursued to try to attain righteousness before God. But Israel failed to attain that righteousness because they did not pursue the law by faith, but as if it could be attained by works. In so doing, they were only seeking to establish their own righteousness (10:3), which always falls short. This wrong approach caused them to stumble over the stumbling stone, which is Christ.
I’m shocked often to hear professing Christians say that their success is because they have learned to believe in themselves. Formerly, they had low self-esteem and didn’t believe in themselves. But now they tell us, “You’ve got to believe in yourself!” Books on Christian parenting tell us that we need to teach our kids to believe in themselves, to have self-confidence. But where in all of God’s Word does it tell us that we need to have faith in ourselves? It consistently tells us that we can do nothing in ourselves. Rather, we need to cast ourselves totally in dependence on God.
Faith in yourself is the fundamental problem when it comes to believing the gospel. Jesus said (Mark 8:34), “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.” Denying yourself to the point of death and believing in yourself are opposite behaviors! Those who try to come to God by works underestimate or are blind to their own sinfulness. They think that they have something in themselves that will commend them to God. But the Bible says that we are unclean and all our good works are like filthy rags in God’s sight (Isa. 64:6). They’re all built on our pride. And even if we could present to God more good works than anyone else in the world, we still have the huge problem of our sin. How can a pile of filthy rags cover the leprosy of sin? To try to approach God through our works is fundamentally flawed because it is built on faith in our sinful selves.
But there is another problem with such an approach:
Romans 9:32b-33, “They stumbled over the stumbling stone, just as it is written, ‘Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, and he who believes in Him will not be disappointed [lit., put to shame].”
The “stone” theme occurs in several Old Testament texts (Gen. 49:24; Ps. 118:22-23; Isa. 8:14; 28:16; Dan. 2:34-35, 44-45) and is used in the New Testament, even on the lips of Jesus, to refer to Christ (Matt. 21:42-44; Luke 2:34; 1 Pet. 2:8). Here Paul combines parts of Isaiah 28:16 and Isaiah 8:14. Isaiah 28:16 reads, “Therefore thus says the Lord God, ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone, a costly cornerstone for the foundation, firmly placed. He who believes in it will not be disturbed [lit., in a hurry].’” Isaiah 8:14 says, “Then He shall become a sanctuary; but to both the houses of Israel, a stone to strike and a rock to stumble over, and a snare and a trap for the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” Paul takes part of Isaiah 8:14 on judgment, removes the middle of Isaiah 28:16 on the costly cornerstone, and sandwiches the 8:14 excerpt into Isaiah 28:16 to make his point.
Note several things here. First, God sovereignly put the stumbling stone in Israel, but Israel was totally responsible for stumbling over it. Second, Paul is not playing loose with Scripture. Rather, he is showing how the two texts fit together and point to Christ (see James Boice, Romans: God and History [Baker], 3:1142). The Isaiah 8:14 passage shows that the Lord Himself is the stone to strike and the rock to stumble over. But in Isaiah 28:16, the Lord puts the stone in place as a cornerstone to build on.
How can the Lord be both the stone itself and yet the one who puts the stone in place? Answer: The Messiah is the Lord God! By combining the text on judgment with the other text on hope, Paul shows that Christ the Lord is both the hope of salvation for those who build their lives on Him and yet at the same time a rock of stumbling and stone of offense for those who take pride in their own good works.
Third, since Romans 9:33 clearly refers to Jesus Christ, it is obvious that the faith that attains to righteousness, which the Gentiles attained, but Israel did not (9:30-32), is faith in Jesus Christ. This is the faith that justifies, which Paul elaborated on in Romans 3:21-4:25). The citation (ring a negative verdict in judgment. So the two ideas are similar. The one who believes in Jesus as the foundation stone will not fear being condemned at the judgment.
But how is Jesus Christ a stumbling stone to unbelievers? Perhaps the best commentary on this is Paul’s explanation (1 Cor. 1:18-31). I can’t cite the entire text for sake of time, but the main idea is that the cross confronts human wisdom, strength, and pride. A crucified Savior confounds our idea of what the Savior should be. Israel was looking for a powerful king, the Son of David, born of nobility, who like him would conquer all her enemies. The religious leaders thought that surely He would be educated in the Scriptures and traditions, as they were. He would not be a common man, born to a lowly carpenter who lived in the despised city of Nazareth. Those who followed Him would be, as they the religious leaders were, men of wisdom and learning, connected with those in power. Surely His followers would not be the despised tax-gatherers and prostitutes! Or, if a few of this riff-raff got into the kingdom, they would occupy the lowly place by the door. But the religious leaders would be in the place of honor at Messiah’s side!
Paul writes (1 Cor. 1:23), “But we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” He goes on to point out that not many of the Corinthian believers were wise according to the flesh, or mighty or noble by the world’s standards. The reason they were believers is that God chose them (1 Cor. 1:27-28, 31).
But perhaps you’re wondering, “Why would God deliberately place a stone of stumbling and rock of offense in Zion? Why would He give the world a lowly, crucified Savior and a way of salvation that causes many to be offended?” As James Boice points out (ibid., p. 1145), this wasn’t the way a modern advertising executive would devise a campaign to “sell” the gospel! Show people how Jesus will help them succeed at work and have happy families. Show them how Jesus will help them reach their full potential. Minimize all that negative stuff about sin and judgment. What people need is a positive, uplifting message to build their self-esteem!
But the reason the true gospel inherently offends is that it confronts our sinful pride (1 Cor. 1:29). If God sovereignly shows mercy to whom He desires and hardens whom He desires (Rom. 9:18), then I can’t boast in why I was shown mercy. In fact, the very idea that I need mercy is offensive. Sure, I’m not perfect, but why can’t God just give me a little boost? How about a few helpful hints for happy living? Mercy implies that I’m a spiritual basket case, unable to do anything to gain God’s favor! Precisely!
I can’t boast in my intellect, because it actually would keep me from trusting in Christ. I can’t boast in my morality, because if you could see my heart, you would see that it is not morally pure, but putrid. I can’t boast in my good works, because I just do them to make myself look good to others. And they are puny in comparison to how I look out for myself above all else. So God deliberately put Christ and Him crucified at the center of salvation to humble our pride, which is the root of all of our sins. As Charles Simeon put it (Expository Outlines on the Whole Bible [Zondervan], 15:371), “Any plan of salvation which gives no offense to self-righteous men, is certainly not of God.”
And so to approach God through our good works will cause us to stumble over Christ. To come in faith to Christ, God must humble our pride. That leads us to the right way to come to Him:
Here I’m focusing on Romans 9:30, “That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith.” And, 9:33b, “And he who believes in Him will not be disappointed.” When you look at 9:31-32, it is clear that Paul is contrasting the righteousness that comes by faith with the attempt to achieve righteousness by works of the law. This takes us back to his discussion in chapters 3 & 4. Three thoughts:
Clearly, righteousness is Paul’s theme here (repeated four times in 9:30-31). He is referring to the perfect righteousness of God, which he spoke about in 1:17, “For in it [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith.’” Then after showing the sinfulness of both Gentiles and Jews (1:18-3:20), Paul concludes (
But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.
In other words, salvation by human righteousness always falls short. We need God’s righteousness, imputed to us. This refers to justification, where God declares the believing sinner acquitted and He imputes the very righteousness of Christ to that sinner’s account. Paul says that Gentiles (referring to that class of people as a whole) were not even pursuing such righteousness, but they attained it. How? God graciously sought them with the good news that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. They knew that they fit that description and that they needed salvation. So they believed in Christ and were justified.
We can’t bring our best efforts and combine them with the righteousness of Christ. That muddies the pure water of His righteousness and it robs Him of glory. To follow Jesus, we must deny ourselves, especially deny our self-righteousness and good deeds as the basis for right standing with God. Salvation is not a joint project, where we try hard and let God do the rest. It is all of God.
John Calvin expressed this beautifully (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 379):
But how they stumble at Christ, who trust in their works, it is not difficult to understand; for except we own ourselves to be sinners, void and destitute of any righteousness of our own, we obscure the dignity of Christ, which consists in this, that to us all he is light, life, resurrection, righteousness, and healing. But how is he all these things, except that he illuminates the blind, restores the lost, quickens the dead, raises up those who are reduced to nothing, cleanses those who are full of filth, cures and heals those infected with diseases? Nay, when we claim for ourselves any righteousness, we in a manner contend with the power of Christ; for his office is no less to beat down all the pride of the flesh, than to relieve and comfort those who labor and are wearied under their burden.
Christ is either one or the other to you right now: A rock in which you believe and build your life, who will justify you at the judgment. Or, He is a stone of stumbling and rock of offense to your sinful pride. Don’t stumble over Christ by trusting in your good works to save you, as all of the world’s religions teach. Trust in Christ alone and you will not be ashamed at the judgment!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Imagine a dear old lady who all her life has faithfully attended a mainline Protestant Church in her small town in the Bible belt. She has helped with the nursery and children’s ministries, worked in the kitchen during socials, and served in the women’s missionary society. Everyone who knows her says that she is one of the sweetest persons they know.
She is married to a mean old cuss who has no time for religion. He says that the church is full of hypocrites and do-gooders. Why should he hang out with people like that? He prefers his buddies at the local tavern, who can tell some good off-color jokes, place a friendly bet on a football game, and who swap stories about their latest fishing or hunting adventures. He would rather that his wife not go to church, but years ago he realized that it gave him the freedom to go fishing on Sunday mornings. So he jokes that he’s going to baptize a few worms while she gets her religious fix for the week.
If you were to ask her, “On what basis do you hope to get into heaven?” the question would shock her. Why would you even ask? If she could find words to reply, she would say, “Well, all good people go to heaven. I’ve always tried my best to be nice to others. I’ve served at church in various ways. And I’ve usually been able to ignore the mean comments that my husband hurls at me. God knows that I’ve done the best that I could. I feel that I will go to heaven because I’m a good person.”
Lately, her husband hasn’t been feeling very well. But like most tough old geezers he avoids the doctor like the plague. But finally he gets worried enough that he schedules an appointment. The doctor runs a few tests and then gently gives him the bad news: “You’ve got advanced cancer. If you had come a few years ago, we might have gotten it. But there’s not much that we can do now. You might have a few months to live.”
He goes downhill fast, so they arrange for hospice care. One day, a hospice worker whom he likes is able to share the gospel with him. She tells him that God offers forgiveness for all his sins as a free gift if he will repent of his sins and trust in what Christ did for him on the cross. She leaves him with a Gospel of John. Since he knows his time is short, he devours it. As he reads, God opens his eyes to see his sin and his need for the Savior. He sees that Jesus is God’s Son, the Savior of all who trust in Him. He puts his trust in Christ, dies a few weeks later, and goes to heaven.
His wife wouldn’t ever say it, but she is secretly relieved that he is gone. He was always so difficult to live with. She continues with all of her religious activities through the church. A few years later, she dies. Because she was trusting in her own righteousness, this nice old lady goes to hell. She had never trusted in Christ as the necessary perfect righteousness that God gives to all who believe.
That story, while fictional, describes one of the most common misconceptions about the most important subject imaginable: How does a person get eternal life and go to heaven? It’s a topic where you don’t want to be in error! There are no second chances. The Bible plainly says that we die once and then face judgment (Heb. 9:27). There are no makeup exams! And, contrary to popular opinion, God doesn’t grade on the curve. It’s pass or fail, and to pass you must score 100 percent perfect righteousness. One sin in thought, word, or deed and you face God’s eternal judgment!
In our text, Paul is explaining why some very religious people missed salvation. The Jews were about as religious as anyone could be. They were fastidious about keeping the Law of Moses. In fact, to interpret that Law correctly, so that nobody missed it, they devised hundreds of extra laws. Keeping the Sabbath holy wasn’t specific enough for them, so they had rules about how far you could walk and about what constituted work on the Sabbath. For example, when Jesus on the Sabbath made clay with His spittle to anoint a blind man’s eyes, the Jewish religious leaders accused Him of breaking the Sabbath (John 9:6, 16). They had rules on washing and cleanliness that added to the Law (Mark 7:3). But they missed salvation and even crucified the Savior!
In the larger context, Paul is responding to the question, “If God is faithful to His promises to His chosen people, then why are most Jews rejecting Christ?” And, can we then trust that He will be faithful to His promises to us? In chapter 9, Paul’s emphasis was on God’s sovereignty. It was never His sovereign plan to save all the Jews. Rather, He always accomplishes His purpose by saving a remnant which He has chosen according to grace. The rest He leaves in their sins and He will be glorified when He judges them. Thus if we’re saved, it is totally due to God’s gracious election.
But many will sputter, “That’s not fair!” So in chapter 10, Paul shifts the emphasis to man’s responsibility. He shows that the Jews who were lost had no basis to blame God. Their spiritual pride made them think that their religious practices and good works would qualify them for heaven. But people who think that they are good enough for God get offended if you tell them that they are sinners that need a Savior. And so they took offense at Christ and stumbled over Him (9:33). They were lost because of their spiritual blindness, sin, and unbelief. So Paul is showing us why religious people often miss salvation:
Religious people miss salvation because they think that their good works will satisfy God’s demand for righteousness, so they don’t trust in Christ for righteousness.
Note four things:
Romans 10:1: “Brethren, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation.” Four observations:
Sometimes those who argue against the doctrine of election will say, “If God sovereignly chooses who will be saved, then what’s the point of praying for anyone’s salvation? If God has chosen them, they will be saved whether you pray or not. If He hasn’t chosen them, your prayers won’t do any good.” So they contend that belief in the doctrine of election kills prayer for the lost.
But the apostle Paul didn’t follow that line of reasoning. In Romans 9:11, he could not have been clearer in stating that God chose Jacob and rejected Esau apart from any good works that they would do, “so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand.” While we’re still sputtering, “That’s not fair!” he adds (9:16), “So then it [salvation] does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.” He states it even more strongly (9:18), “So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.” He adds (9:23) that those of us whom God calls to salvation are “vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory.” He couldn’t be much stronger on the doctrine of God’s sovereign election.
But here he is a few verses later saying that his heart’s desire and prayer to God was for the salvation of the Jews. There is no contradiction between God’s sovereign election and our heartfelt prayers. How do they fit together? God’s sovereign plan includes our prayers and our preaching the gospel to the lost (10:14-15). God saves His elect through our prayers and our preaching. In fact, if God has done all that He can do to save lost people and now it’s up to their free will, then it’s a waste of time to pray for their salvation. God would be in heaven saying, “Yeah, I’d sure like to see them get saved, too. But My hands are tied. It’s up to them now!”
There is a parallel to this balance between God’s sovereignty and our responsibility to pray in Daniel 9:1-3. Daniel was reading the prophet Jeremiah and he observed that Jeremiah had prophesied that Israel would be in captivity in Babylon for 70 years. Daniel did the math and realized that the time for them to be restored was rapidly approaching. So did he sit back to wait for God to act? No, rather Daniel sought the Lord “by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes” (Dan. 9:3). God sovereignly prophesied what He would do, but Daniel earnestly prayed that He would do it! And so we should pray for the salvation of lost people. We do not know who the elect are, but God uses our prayers to save them. But note something else about Paul’s prayer for the salvation of the Jews:
Paul’s prayer for the salvation of the Jews was unanswered in his lifetime! It’s like praying the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:10), “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Christians have been praying that request for almost 2,000 years, but it’s still not fully answered. We see partial answers as people that we’re praying for come under the lordship of Christ and learn to obey Him. It will be answered fully when Jesus returns. But we should keep praying for His kingdom to come and His will to be done, even though we know that eventually it will happen and even though we may not see thorough answers to it in our lifetimes. And, if you’re praying for the salvation of a friend or loved one, keep praying as long as the person is alive. We can’t understand how our prayers interface with God’s sovereign will, but we should keep praying.
Sometimes we see people who are atheists or blatantly anti-Christian and we think, “They will never come to faith in Christ!” But then we see good, nice, religious people and think, “They don’t need to come to Christ.” Wrong on both counts! Jesus was a friend to the corrupt tax collectors and immoral prostitutes because He knew that they were sick and needed Him as a spiritual physician (Luke 5:30-32). But the religious Pharisees were not good enough to get into heaven by their religiosity. They needed the new birth if they wanted to see the kingdom of God (John 3:3). So if you have religious family or friends, don’t assume that they’re saved just because they’re religious. Pray for God to convict them of their pride and self-righteousness, so that they will see their need for salvation. One final thought on verse 1:
Paul suffered terribly at the hands of the Jews. They saw him as a turncoat, who associated with the despised Gentiles, and so they dogged his steps and tried to assassinate him. It would be understandable if he had said, “Let them go to hell! They deserve it!” But instead, his heart’s desire and his constant prayer was that God would save them. Jesus told us (Matt. 5:44), “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you ….” So if you have a family member who ridicules your faith or is abusive because of your love for Christ, especially pray for his or her salvation. Make a list of the lost people in your family or in your everyday world and begin to pray earnestly for their salvation.
But why are religious people often lost? Paul explains:
Romans 10:2: “For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge.” Paul himself had been more zealous for his Jewish religion than most of his contemporaries, but it resulted in his persecuting the church (Gal. 1:13-14). In our day, Muslims are zealous for God as they understand Him, but their zeal causes them to kill Christians and even family members who profess faith in Christ. Jehovah’s Witnesses are zealous for God, but they promote the fatal view that Jesus is not fully God, and so their zeal only increases their condemnation.
We live in a day that disparages absolute truth and doctrinal precision. The cultural belief is that each person should determine his own truth. What’s true for you may not be true for me, and vice versa. So we should “co-exist,” as the bumper sticker preaches. If that means that we should be civil and polite towards one another, of course that is true. But if it means that it doesn’t matter whether you’re a Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, or atheist, it is fatally flawed!
Just as it matters greatly whether you take the exact drug that the doctor has prescribed in the exact amounts at the proper times, so it matters eternally whether you believe in Jesus Christ as the eternal Son of God who took on human flesh, died for your sins, and was raised from the dead. If you are zealous for a different “Jesus” or a way of salvation other than faith alone in Christ alone, Paul says that you are to be damned (Gal. 1:6-9).
All roads do not lead to the top. Being sincere or zealous is not enough. Good intentions are not good enough if they are mistaken about the truth of the gospel. Religious zeal must always be tested against the core truth of the unchanging gospel. (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans: Saving Faith [Zondervan], 10:20-25 gives numerous tests of false and true zeal.)
Romans 10:3: “For not knowing about God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.” Paul does not mean that the Jews did not know that God is righteous. Anyone familiar with the Old Testament would know that. He means that the Jews did not understand God’s saving righteousness, namely, that He imputes righteousness to the one who believes in His appointed substitute. The ESV and NIV both capture the sense of the genitive. Rather than being possessive (NASB), it is a genitive of source: “being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God” (ESV). Paul explains this with regard to his own conversion (Phil. 3:9), “not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.”
This perfect imputed righteousness was revealed to the Jews in Genesis 15:6, “Then he [Abram] believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Paul cited that text in Romans 4:3 and expounded on it in that chapter. So the ignorance of the Jews was not due to lacking information. It was willful ignorance stemming from their pride in keeping the Law. The Pharisees proudly thought that they were keeping the Law because they didn’t murder (unless they had “good” cause, as when they murdered Jesus!) and they didn’t commit adultery. But Jesus convicted them by showing that God looks on the heart (Matt. 5:21-30). To be sinfully angry with your brother is to murder him. To lust after a woman in your heart is to commit adultery with her.
And so the problem with the religiously proud Jews was, “they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.” To do so, they would have had to admit that they were sinners and that their good works could never justify them. They would have had to admit that all their good deeds were as filthy rags in God’s sight (Isa. 64:6). James Boice (Romans: God and History [Baker], 3:1161) uses the analogy of a woman who is dying of a disease and refuses to go to a doctor because she insists that she looks fine when she puts on her makeup. Yes, her face may look fine with her makeup on, but she needs to deal with the internal disease. Yes, religious people may look good with all their good deeds. But if they do not submit to their need for God’s perfect righteousness credited to their account, their good deeds are just makeup.
Thus religious people often miss salvation in spite of the prayers and concern of godly people for their salvation. They miss salvation because their zeal for God is not in line with knowledge. They miss salvation because they do not know about God’s righteousness and so they seek to establish their own.
Romans 10:4: “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” This is a wonderful verse, but unfortunately it is one of the most disputed verses in all of Paul’s letters (Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], p. 544). The problem is that the word “end” (Greek, telos) has different nuances of meaning. It can mean “termination,” in the sense that Christ ended the Mosaic Covenant when He inaugurated the New Covenant. It can mean “goal,” in the sense that the law existed to point people to Christ (Gal. 3:23-25). Or, it can mean “fulfillment” or “culmination,” in the sense that all of the Old Testament types, rituals, and sacrifices pointed to and were fulfilled in Christ (Matt. 5:17).
All of those nuances are true with regard to Christ, but the difficult question is, “Which meaning does Paul intend in Romans 10:4?” Douglas Moo (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], pp. 637-642) argues that two nuances are intended, namely that Christ is the termination of the Law of Moses and that He is the culmination of all that the Law anticipated.
But Thomas Schreiner is probably correct when he argues that based on the relationship between 10:3 & 4, it means “termination” in an experiential sense. In other words, in 10:4 Paul is responding to the specific Jewish error mentioned in 10:3, that they used the law to try to establish their own righteousness. Thus in 10:4 Paul is saying (ibid., p. 547), “Those who trust in Christ cease using the law to establish their own righteousness.”
In line with that, Everett Harrison argues (The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. by Frank Gaebelein [Zondervan], 10:111), “Paul’s contention regarding the Jew (v. 3) is not the incompleteness of his position, which needed the coming of Christ to perfect it, but the absolute wrong of that position, because it entailed an effort to establish righteousness by human effort rather than by acceptance of a divine gift.” John MacArthur agrees (The MacArthur Study Bible, New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition [Nelson Bibles], p. 1680), “Paul means that belief in Christ as Lord and Savior ends the sinner’s futile quest for righteousness through his imperfect attempts to save himself by efforts to obey the law.”
So verses 3 & 4 are saying that either you are seeking to be right with God by establishing your own righteousness through good deeds and morality (10:3), in which case you will miss God’s salvation, because all such attempts fall short. Or, you will recognize that you need perfect righteousness to stand before God. Thus you will abandon your own attempts to establish your righteousness and trust in Christ alone to be your righteousness (10:4). His perfect righteousness is credited to your account, so that God declares you to be righteous or justified.
God’s way of salvation is not the way of the sweet little old lady, the way of being a good, religious person, because you can never be good enough. One sin disqualifies you from getting into heaven, no matter how much you try to counterbalance it with good works. We’re all born with the terminal “disease” of sin, which grows progressively worse as we age. Don’t be deceived into thinking that the “makeup” of good works will avert the judgment of God, who knows the thoughts and intentions of our hearts.
God’s way of salvation is to trust in Jesus Christ so that the righteousness of God is imputed to your account. As Paul put it (Rom. 3:24), “Being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” Have you received that gift?
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2011, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
My subject is, “How to be saved.” When I was first trained in how to share my faith (over 45 years ago now!), I was instructed not to use words like “saved” or “salvation,” because to most people, they were meaningless religious jargon. Rather, I was told that I should focus on how Jesus can give us abundant life here and now. Tell people how Christ can give peace, joy, freedom from guilt, harmonious relationships, and other present blessings.
While the gospel does bring many wonderful present blessings, its main message is about being eternally saved or lost. In Romans 10, Paul uses salvation or saved in verses 1, 9, 10, and 13. The concept of salvation or being right before God permeates the entire chapter. Paul is still hammering home the same message that he has been preaching throughout the entire letter (1:16-17), that the only way to be right with God is through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, not by good works. You may ask, “Why does Paul keep repeating this?” The answer is, “Because we’re all so prone to try to get saved by our own good works.” We need this message hammered into our works-oriented brains!
Before we work through the text, let me emphasize the practical value of these verses: At this moment either you are saved or you are lost. There is no in between category. If you are saved, it means that if you died today, you would spend eternity with Jesus in heaven. If you are lost and died today, you would spend eternity in the torment of hell. Those are the only options.
As I’ve said many times, saved is a radical word. If life seems to be going okay, then you don’t sense that you need to be saved. If you think that you’re a basically good person and that your goodness will get you into heaven when you die, then you won’t feel a need to be saved. If you think that Jesus came to give us a few tips on how to have a happy life, then you don’t realize your true condition before God. You need to be saved because you’re perishing!
When that cruise ship was sailing smoothly through the Mediterranean Sea last week, if you had rushed into the dining room and yelled, “Get into the life boats now,” the passengers would have thought that you were crazy. They didn’t need to be saved, thank you. You would only be interrupting their dinner. But a few minutes later when the ship hit the rock and began listing as it took on water, everyone’s attention was focused on being saved from a watery grave. The truth is, your boat is going to hit the rock called “death,” and so you need to be ready for that inevitable moment. Life may be going smoothly at the moment, but if you’re not right before God, then you need to be saved.
The angel told Joseph (Matt. 1:21), “You shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” Jesus said (Luke 19:10), “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost.” He said (Luke 5:32), “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” He was not implying that some are righteous enough that they don’t need salvation. Rather, some mistakenly think that they are righteous enough to get into heaven by their own works. But the truth is, we all have sinned and deserve God’s judgment (Rom. 3:23). Thus we all need Jesus to save us from that judgment. So here again Paul says,
To be saved, you must recognize that you cannot save yourself and you must truly believe in Jesus as the risen Savior and Lord.
In Romans 10, Paul is still dealing with the question that dominates chapters 9-11, “If the Jews are God’s chosen people, why are most of them rejecting Christ?” In chapter 9, Paul pointed out that it never was God’s purpose to save all the Jews. Rather, His purpose was to save a remnant according to His gracious choice. The emphasis is clearly on God’s sovereignty in salvation.
But if God is sovereign, then are unbelievers not responsible for missing out on salvation? From 9:30 through chapter 10, Paul argues that the Gentiles attained the righteousness that comes by faith, while most of the Jews were lost because they sought to establish their own righteousness by works. They didn’t trust in Christ, who is “the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (10:4). Their sinful pride kept them from salvation.
In Romans 10:5-10, Paul contrasts the righteousness based on the law (10:5) with the righteousness that comes through faith (10:6-10). To be saved by keeping the law, you must keep it perfectly. But to be saved by faith, you trust in what God has done in sending His Son to die for your sins and raising Him from the dead. Salvation is not by keeping the law, but by faith in Christ.
Romans 10:5: “For Moses writes that the man who practices the righteousness which is based on law shall live by that righteousness.” “For” shows that Paul is explaining 10:4. He refers to Leviticus 18:5, “So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, by which a man may live if he does them; I am the Lord.” In that verse, “live” does not refer to eternal life, but to enjoying God’s blessings in the Promised Land (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], pp. 647-648).
But for Paul, life is equivalent to justification, or righteous standing before God. In Galatians 3:11-12, Paul also cites Leviticus 18:5 to contrast the attempt to approach God by keeping the law with the way of faith: “Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, ‘The righteous man shall live by faith.’ However, the Law is not of faith; on the contrary, ‘He who practices them shall live by them.’” Then in 3:21-22, he adds, “Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be! For if a law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law. But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.”
Paul is making the same point in Romans 10:5: if you want to gain eternal life by keeping the law, you must obey it perfectly. As Paul has just stated, the Jews were trying to establish their own righteousness by works of the law (9:32; 10:3). Paul himself had tried that route. In Philippians 3:5-6, he lays out his Jewish pedigree: “Circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.”
But at his conversion, Paul counted all of these credits as loss for the sake of Christ. He goes on (Phil. 3:9) to explain the contrast (the same one that he is drawing in Romans 10:5-10): [that I] “may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.”
Paul made the same point in Romans 2:12-13: “For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law; for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified.” (See, also, James 2:10.)
Even though Scripture is so abundantly clear, this is the main reason that people do not trust to Christ for salvation: they think that they can save themselves by being good or by keeping God’s law. The truth is, we’ve all repeatedly broken God’s law, both outwardly and on the heart level. We’ve all failed to love God with all of our hearts; we’ve failed to love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves. So, as Paul explains (Rom. 3:19-20), “Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.” To be saved, you first must recognize that you cannot save yourself by keeping God’s law. Rather, that law condemns you.
Romans 10:6-8: “But the righteousness based on faith speaks as follows: ‘Do not say in your heart, “Who will ascend into heaven?” (that is, to bring Christ down), or “Who will descend into the abyss?” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).’ But what does it say? ‘The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart’—that is, the word of faith which we are preaching.”
These are difficult verses and I won’t pretend that I completely understand them, even after reading and re-reading numerous commentaries! But I’ll try to explain them as best as I can. The opening “but” shows that Paul is contrasting the righteousness based on the law (10:5) with the righteousness based on faith. He first cites from Deuteronomy 8:17 & 9:4 (“Do not say in your heart”) and then rather loosely from Deuteronomy 30:12-14, adding his own explanatory comments to link these verses to Christ. His main point is that God has always offered salvation by faith apart from human effort, even under the law.
The problem is that Deuteronomy 30:12-14 seems to say that keeping the law is within the reach of every person. But Paul cites them for an opposite meaning, that salvation has nothing to do with human effort, but rather that God has provided everything so that all we must do is to believe in Christ. How do we explain this?
First, in the Deuteronomy 8:17 & 9:4 references, Moses warns Israel that when they take possession of the land of Canaan, they must not think that they have earned it because of their own righteousness. This clues us in that God’s blessings come to us by grace, not by our efforts. Then Paul adds the reference from Deuteronomy 30:12-14, “It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?’ Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?’ But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it.”
“It” refers to the commandment of the law being near, but Paul replaces the commandment with Christ being near. Is he arbitrarily changing the meaning of that text to make it say something completely different? No! In Deuteronomy 30:6, Moses promised, “Moreover the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.” That is essentially the same as the new covenant promises that later came through Ezekiel (36:25-27) and Jeremiah (31:31-34). These promises point to God’s forgiving our sins and imparting new life to us by His grace alone. It is only when God changes our hearts that we are then able to obey God’s commandments.
But even those who have received the new birth do not obey perfectly. So why does Paul replace the commandment (in Deut. 30) with Christ? Answer: Because, “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (10:4). Jesus did what no one else could ever do: He perfectly fulfilled God’s holy law. By His death, He satisfied the penalty of the law that we deserved. So when you believe in Christ, God imputes Christ’s righteousness to your account and views you as if you perfectly fulfilled the law.
The two questions that Paul cites from Deuteronomy 30 had become proverbial expressions for doing what is impossible (Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 383). Thus Paul is saying that just as an Israelite did not need to go into heaven to bring down God’s commandments, so we do not need to do the impossible by going to heaven to bring Christ down to where we live. God did that in the incarnation. Christ came to bear the curse of the law on our behalf (Gal. 3:13).
Paul changes the second question, which in Deuteronomy is, “Who will cross the sea?” into, “Who will descend into the abyss?” The sea and the abyss were somewhat interchangeable concepts in the Old Testament and in Judaism (Moo, p. 655). Paul refers to the abyss to facilitate his application to Christ’s death (Moo, p. 656). There is no need to go into the abyss to bring Christ up from the dead, because God has already done that.
So Paul’s point is that human effort is not necessary to procure God’s righteousness. God has done it all: He sent Christ. Christ died for our sins. God raised Him from the dead. All that we must do is to believe in this word that Paul was preaching. The fact that this word “is near you” (10:8) means that you don’t have to go through some difficult or impossible process (ascend into heaven; descend into the abyss) to find Christ and be saved. Rather, you can believe in Him at this moment and be saved.
Don’t get lost in the difficulties of verses 6-8 and miss the application, which is: When you die and stand before God, either you will argue that you should get into heaven because you were a good person; or, with the hymn writer, you will say, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.” God in Christ did for you what you never could have done for yourself. Abandon your efforts and trust in Christ! Paul goes on to explain the content of this word of faith that he was preaching, which we must believe:
Romans 10:9-10: “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” In verse 9, Paul follows the order of Deuteronomy 30 (cited in verse 8), “in your mouth and in your heart.” In verse 10, he explains verse 9 (“for”) in the logical order: First we believe in the heart and then that heart belief finds outward expression in confession with our mouths and with our lives.
Paul uses “faith” or “believe(s)” in 9:30, 32, 33; 10:4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14 (2x), 16, & 17. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Romans: Saving Faith [Zondervan], p. 90) argues that in 10:9-10 Paul is giving us a definition of saving faith, showing us both its content and its character.
There are not two requirements here for salvation, namely, believing and confessing. Rather, the repeated emphasis on faith shows that faith is the only requirement. As Paul told the Philippian jailer in response to his question, “What must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:31), “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.” Outward confession of Christ is the inevitable outcome or character of genuine saving faith.
True saving faith is a matter of the heart, or inner person. It is not just a matter of intellectual assent, although we must believe the facts of the gospel as God has revealed them in His Word. These facts include that we have sinned and thus stand guilty before God. He sent Jesus, His eternal Son, to take on human flesh and die as our substitute on the cross. God raised Jesus bodily from the dead, thus showing that He accepted Jesus’ death as a satisfactory offering. Since “Lord” is used hundreds of times in the Old Testament to refer to God, confessing Jesus as Lord means believing that He is the Sovereign God. You must understand and believe this content of the gospel in order to be saved.
As an aside, sometimes when I talk to people about their need for salvation, it becomes evident that they don’t have a clue about who Jesus is. To press such people to make a decision to trust in Christ would be premature, in that they wouldn’t know who they were trusting in. So I encourage such people to read the Gospel of John and ask God to show them who Jesus is and why He came. Otherwise, they would be believing in a Jesus of their own imagination. Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses believe in a false, made-up “Jesus,” but such faith does not save. Saving faith is based on the truth about Jesus as revealed in God’s Word.
But saving faith is also a heart response to these facts. When you believe that the sinless Son of God bore God’s full wrath for your sins on the cross, it affects your heart. Just as you would be moved with gratitude if someone risked his life to save your life, so you are moved even more deeply to believe that Jesus died for you.
And faith includes committing your eternal destiny totally to Christ’s death on your behalf, not to any works of righteousness that you have done. Committing yourself to Christ includes repentance (turning from your sins), and submitting to Jesus as Lord of your life. If you don’t submit to and follow Christ as Lord, it shows that you really don’t believe in Him as He is revealed in the Bible. It would be like saying that you believe in a prescribed medicine, but you never take it. Thus Paul adds…
Faith is the root; confession is the fruit. We are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone, but if our faith is genuine, it will always bear the fruit of salvation (Eph. 2:8-10). The demons believe in Jesus, but their faith is not saving faith because it does not result in repentance and good works (James 2:14-26).
One of the first ways that a new believer should confess Christ is by being baptized. In our culture, baptism isn’t usually a costly commitment, but in many cultures that are hostile to Christ, to be baptized will result at best in being disowned by your family, or at worst by being murdered by them. We should take baptism seriously! After baptism, we go on confessing Christ by living in a manner pleasing to Him, by growing in love and obedience to Him, by trusting Him through our trials, and by telling others about His wonderful salvation as we have opportunity (1 Pet. 3:15).
Of course, all of us have failed numerous times to confess Christ, both through our sins and by not speaking out for Him when we should have. Thankfully, we have the example of Peter, who failed miserably and yet who later preached Christ boldly. The issue is not perfection, but direction. If our faith in Christ as Lord and Savior is genuine, the direction of our lives will be that of confessing Him before others. The outcome of such faith and confession of Christ on earth will be hearing Jesus confess us before the Father in heaven (Matt. 10:32-33).
Don’t make the fatal mistake of thinking that because you’re a pretty good person, you don’t need to be saved. Jesus didn’t give up the glory of heaven and suffer the agonies of the cross so that you could have your best life now. He didn’t die primarily so that you can have a happy family or succeed in business. He died to save you from your sins. He will save you if you recognize that you can’t save yourself and you truly believe in Him as your risen Lord and Savior.
Application Questions
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
The good news: you’ve just inherited $10 million from a distant relative that you haven’t seen in decades! The bad news: no one told you about it, so your life is the same as always. Good news is only good news for you when you hear it and act on it.
The gospel is the best news in the world, but it isn’t good news at this point for approximately two billion (28%) of the world’s population, who are presently cut off from access to the gospel (Mission to Unreached Peoples, www.mup.org). Viewed another way, out of 16,789 people groups in the world, 6,954 (41.4%) are still unreached. An unreached or least-reached people is a people group among which there is no indigenous community of believing Christians with adequate numbers and resources to evangelize this group. Of these almost 7,000 groups, 2,087 are over 50,000 in population. Out of every $1.00 (U.S.) of Christian giving to all causes, less than one penny goes toward pioneer church planting among least-reached people groups. I encourage you to go to the Joshua Project web site (www.joshuaproject.net) and educate yourself with the most up to date statistics on where we’re at in the cause of world missions.
In our text, Paul makes a simple point that in some way will change the direction of your life when it grips you:
Since the gospel is good news for all, we must proclaim it to all.
Paul was trying to set the stage for his journey through Rome, where he could gain the support of the church there for his mission to the Gentiles in Spain (Rom. 15:24). To do that, he had to deal with two criticisms: First, that his message clashed with the Old Testament; second, that his ministry to the Gentiles erased what the Jews saw as a fundamental distinction between the two groups. So here Paul cites the Old Testament repeatedly (10:11, 13, 15; plus, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21) to show that his message came right out of the Jewish Scriptures. And he shows that the same Lord is Lord of all people and has given one message for all to be saved. In 10:11-13 Paul makes the point that the gospel is good news for all. In 10:14-15, he shows that we must proclaim it to all.
Romans 10:11-13: “For the Scripture says, ‘Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.’ For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; for ‘Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.’”
In 10:11, Paul cites from Isaiah 28:16. In 9:33, he cited the same verse more fully, but here he only cites the last part of the verse, changing “he” into “whoever,” thus broadening the application. Then in 10:12, he explains why his broader application is valid, namely, because the same Lord is Lord of all people, Jew and Gentile alike (see 3:29-30). Then (10:13), to show that he isn’t making this up, but that it comes right out of the Jewish Scriptures, Paul cites Joel 2:32, “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” His point is that the gospel is good news for all people, Jew and Gentile alike, if they will respond to it.
“Whoever” occurs in verses 11 & 13 and “no distinction” in verse 12. In 3:22-23 Paul wrote, “for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” That’s the bad news. But here his focus is on the good news, that there is no distinction when it comes to receiving the abundant riches that God pours out on all who call on Him. But before people will call out to God to save them, they must realize that they’re in deep trouble and need to be saved. All people are guilty before God and headed for death and judgment. Thus all people need to be saved.
It’s important to keep this in mind when you talk to educated people about Christ. It’s easy to be intimidated by their great learning. They will argue that evolution is true or that the Bible is full of contradictions or that a loving God could not allow all the suffering in the world. But these things are just smokescreens to keep you from getting too close to their real need: They are sinners who stand condemned before a holy God. They have past and current sins that have alienated them from God and have created problems in their lives. Their number one need is to be saved before they die and face judgment.
On one occasion, the great Welsh medical doctor turned preacher, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, preached to a congregation at an Anglican Church in Oxford made up largely of students. He preached to them as he would have preached anywhere else. After the service, it was announced that Dr. Lloyd-Jones would be available to answer questions in another room. He got there, expecting just a few people, but the room was packed.
The first question came from a bright young student, who got up and spoke with all the grace and polish of a university debater. After paying a few compliments to the preacher, he said that he had one great difficulty as a result of the sermon. He really could not see but that that sermon might not equally well have been delivered to a congregation of farm laborers or anyone else. As he sat down, the room erupted with laughter.
Dr. Lloyd-Jones replied that he was most interested in the question, but really could not see the questioner’s difficulty because he regarded both undergraduates and graduates of Oxford University as being just ordinary common human clay and miserable sinners like everybody else. Thus their needs were precisely the same as those of the farm laborer or anyone else. And so he had preached as he had quite deliberately. This also provoked a lot of laughter and even cheering. They got his point and they gave him a most attentive hearing from there on (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, by Iain Murray [Banner of Truth], 2:76-77).
Since every person is a sinner, his or her main need is to be reconciled to God before he dies. It’s also important to keep this in mind when you’re talking with a good person. You may be tempted to think, “He doesn’t need to be saved. Look at what a nice person he is. Look at how kind and loving he is. He puts most Christians I know to shame!” And, of course, the good person agrees with you, even though he might never say so. He compares himself with others and thinks, “Surely it will go well with me when I stand before God. I’m not like other people!” (See Luke 18:11-12.) But he’s blind to his pride and self-righteousness. The good person is usually the most difficult type to reach with the gospel, because he doesn’t see his need for it. Show him God’s holy law, which is designed to expose his sin (Rom. 3:19-20). Because all people are sinners, they all have the same need to be saved before they die and face judgment.
“Not be disappointed” (10:11) is literally, “not be put to shame.” This does not refer to psychological shame, but rather to not being put to shame with a guilty verdict at the judgment (Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], p. 561). It means that at the judgment God will vindicate the one who believes in Jesus.
Let’s face it, we all have more than a closet full of secret reasons to be put to shame at the judgment. Have you ever thought about what it would be like if your every thought was automatically broadcast out loud without your being able to control it? Even if you had the thought in private, it automatically went on your Facebook page, which was open for everyone to see. We’d all die of embarrassment! But, of course, the God before whom all things are open and laid bare (Heb. 4:13) knows our every thought!
But the good news is that on the cross, Jesus bore all of our guilt and shame so that the one who believes in Him will not be put to shame at the final judgment. Paul explains (10:12) that this good news applies equally to the religious Jew and to the pagan Gentile, because the same Lord is Lord of all. Some think that Lord refers to God the Father, and it may, but since Paul has just said that Jesus is Lord (10:9) and since the context of 10:11-17 is all about believing in Jesus, it is more likely that Lord in both 10:12 & 13 refers to Jesus. He is the Lord of all. The Lord Jesus abounds in riches for all who call on Him. If anyone calls on the name of Jesus, he will be saved.
Paul loves to talk about the spiritual riches that God delights to pour out on sinners who believe in Jesus as Savior and Lord. Note some of the references (see, also, Rom. 11:33; 1 Cor. 1:5; 2 Cor. 6:10; 9:11; Phil. 4:19; Col. 1:27):
Romans 2:4: “Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads to repentance?”
Romans 9:23: “And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory.”
2 Corinthians 8:9: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.”
Ephesians 1:7: “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.”
Ephesians 2:7: “So that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
Ephesians 3:8: “To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ.”
Ephesians 3:16: “That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man.”
The point in our text is that no matter how sinful your past, if you will believe in the Lord Jesus and call upon Him to save you, He will do it out of the abundant riches of His grace. This good news applies to every person from every race and from every walk of life: Call on the name of the Lord and you will be saved.
Thus all people have one primary need: to be saved before they die and face judgment. All people need one message: the good news that whoever believes in Jesus will not be put to shame.
Paul expresses the way to be saved in two synonymous phrases: to believe in Him (10:11); and, to call upon Him, or to call upon His name (10:12, 13). In 10:14, he distinguishes them, as I will explain in a moment. But in 10:11-13, he uses them to mean the same thing.
To believe in Christ means to rely on or trust in Him as the One who died on the cross to pay the penalty for your sin. He died as the propitiation (the atoning sacrifice which satisfied God’s wrath) for all who believe in Him, so that God can now be both just, because the penalty was paid, and the justifier of the one who has faith in Him (3:25-26). To believe in Christ implicitly means that you stop believing in yourself and your own good works as your hope for eternal life.
In 10:13 Paul cites Joel 2:32, “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Peter quotes the same verse in his sermon in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:21). To call upon the Lord (His “name” means, who He is in all His attributes) implies that the one calling is in trouble or great need. This is reinforced by the word saved, which means that the person needs to be rescued from the great and glorious day of the Lord.
Both terms imply that the one calling out has nothing in himself to offer God. He isn’t doing basically okay, and just needs a few pointers on how to get ready for judgment. He can’t help God out. If he thinks that he can offer God anything, then he doesn’t understand his situation. He is guilty of rebellion against the holy God. If his case comes to trial, he will be condemned. So he cries out (Luke 18:13), “God, be merciful to me, the sinner!”
So Paul’s main point here is that the gospel is good news for all. Any guilty sinner, no matter how sordid his past, who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. John Bunyan has a wonderful treatise, “The Jerusalem Sinner Saved,” based on Jesus’ words to the apostles just before His ascension (Luke 24:47), “that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations,” and then He added, “beginning from Jerusalem.” Jerusalem was the city where sinners crucified the Savior. But our sin also crucified Him. There is forgiveness for all Jerusalem sinners. Proclaim it to the nations!
Romans 10:14-15: “How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!’”
I can only skim over these verses, but before we look at them, let me briefly address a criticism often raised by those who deny the doctrine of God’s sovereign election. They argue that the doctrine of election undermines evangelism and missions because if God has chosen someone, he will be saved. If he isn’t elect, our efforts are in vain. So, why witness?
But Paul, who wrote so strongly about God’s choice of Jacob and rejection of Esau while they were still in the womb (9:11-13), also wrote these wonderful verses about the need to preach the gospel to all people. He wasn’t contradicting himself. God chooses who will be saved and He chooses the means through which they will be saved, namely, preaching the gospel to them (2 Tim. 2:10).
Paul strings together a logical list of rhetorical questions to explain the process of how the gospel goes forth, and then backs it up with Scripture. To work from the foundation outward, the process begins with sending out preachers; they preach; people hear, believe, and call on the Lord.
Romans 10:15a: “How will they preach unless they are sent?” God saved Paul and appointed him as a minister and a witness, sending him to the Gentiles (Acts 22:21; 26:16-17). The church acts as a secondary sender, affirming God’s call to those He sends (Acts 13:1-3). To take the gospel to every people, as Jesus commanded in the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19-20; Luke 24:49), those who are sent out need to cross cultural and linguistic barriers to communicate the gospel to those who have not heard. Jesus instructed us (Matt. 9:38), “Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”
So we who have experienced God’s gracious salvation should pray for workers to be sent out. We should support such workers financially, emotionally, and in prayer when they go out to difficult places. And, some of us may be called to go ourselves.
Preach and preacher come from the Greek word meaning herald. The herald was sent out under the authority of the king to proclaim faithfully the king’s message. He didn’t make up his own message that would be more palatable to the hearers. He might get killed by an angry mob who didn’t like the king’s message, but he still had to tell them the truth. Those sent out with the gospel cannot tweak it to fit what people may want to hear. They have to tell them that they have sinned against the holy God and rightfully are under His judgment so that they will see their need for the Savior. They have to confront people’s universal belief that they are good enough to merit salvation so that they will abandon their good works and call on the Lord to save them.
This implies that those sent must be able to communicate in the language and culture of the hearers, but also that they not compromise the message in an attempt not to offend. The cross is inherently offensive, because it confronts our sin. This also means that as the sent ones proclaim the gospel, the Holy Spirit must open the deaf ears of the hearers, who cannot understand spiritual truth (1 Cor. 2:14; Acts 16:14; Isa. 6:9-10). Thus the proclamation of the gospel must always be undergirded with prayer.
As I said, in 10:11-13, Paul uses believing in Christ and calling upon His name somewhat interchangeably. But in 10:14, he separates them to bring out two aspects of saving faith. People must believe in the sense of giving assent to the truth of the gospel or they will not call on Him for salvation. If you do not believe that Jesus is who He claimed to be and that God raised Him from the dead, you won’t cry out to Him to save you. And so a person must believe intellectually that Jesus is the risen Savior, but also he must call out to Him to save him from his sins. Intellectual belief alone without commitment is not saving faith. Finally,
Paul again (10:15b) cites Scripture (Isa. 52:7), “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things.” You don’t normally look at a person’s feet, especially dirty, callused, bleeding feet, and say, “Wow, what a beautiful person!” But this person has dirtied and bloodied his feet to bring good news of good things: God will freely forgive all your sins through Jesus Christ if you will believe in Him and call out to Him to save you!
If we preach, “If you will clean up your life and try hard to obey God and not sin, you might earn a spot in heaven, although you can never be sure,” we’re not preaching good news. Any message of doing good works to earn salvation is not good news, because it depends on sinful people and sinful people inevitably fail and fall short. The good news is, “Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.” “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” That’s the wonderful news that we proclaim.
As long as there are billions of people that have never heard that news, we must commit ourselves to getting the good news to them. There is an African proverb, “There is only one crime worse than murder on the desert, and that is to know where the water is and not tell.” We know where the water is! We’ve got the greatest news in the world: God forgives every sinner who trusts in Jesus as Lord and Savior! We’ve got to tell everyone.
Here are a few practical steps. First, begin locally. Begin praying for the salvation of those you have regular contact with. Pray for opportunities to talk to them about the Savior. Reach out to the international students in our city. Second, educate yourself about world missions. Read about missions. Join one of our A-teams. Pray for our missionaries. Give to the cause of missions, especially to those trying to take the gospel to those who have yet to hear. Finally, God may call some of you to go to those who have never heard. With Isaiah (6:8) respond, “Here I am. Send me!”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Perhaps you’ve seen the TV commercial where some people from the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes knock on someone’s door to tell him that he has just won $5 million. The winner is delirious with joy, leaping in the air, crying, laughing, and hardly believing that this could be true.
But imagine that when the folks from Publisher’s Clearinghouse tell the guy that he’s won $5 million, he pulls out a gun and says, “Get off my property or I’ll blow your brains out!” “What? But, sir, you don’t understand. We’re giving you good news! You’ve just won a fortune!” But he belligerently snarls, “I said, ‘Get off my property now!’”
That’s the contrast between Romans 10:15 & 16. In verse 15 we read (citing Isa. 52:7), “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!” The good news is the message of salvation. Even though you’ve sinned against the holy God and deserve His judgment, He offers a complete pardon to anyone who will receive it. As verse 13 says, “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” But in verse 16 we read, “However, they did not all heed the good news; for Isaiah says [citing Isa. 53:1], ‘Lord, who has believed our report?’”
It’s staggering! God sends messengers with the best news in the world, that God is ready to pardon any sinner who will receive His offer of grace and kindness. Not only that, but God paid a great price to provide this pardon. As Isaiah 53 goes on to reveal, He sent His Messiah, the suffering servant, who would be “pierced through for our transgressions,” and “crushed for our iniquities.” “All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him” (53:5, 6). But a suffering servant didn’t fit with Israel’s idea of a Messiah. They wanted a conquering king to defeat all their enemies and provide a comfy life for them. They didn’t like all this talk about them being sinners who needed a Savior to die in their place. So they slammed the door on the best news in the world.
In Romans 10, Paul is still dealing with the subject that caused him great sorrow and unceasing grief (9:2), namely, why are most of the Jews rejecting Jesus as their Savior? He is expounding on what he wrote in 9:30-33, where he explains that the Jews were rejecting Christ because they were pursuing righteousness by works. But the Gentiles, who had not even been pursuing God, were being saved because they welcomed Christ by faith.
He builds his case from the Old Testament, citing Scripture in 10:16, 18, 19, 20, and 21. He wants to show that the Jews’ rejection of Christ, as well as the Gentiles’ reception of Him, should not be surprising, since it was predicted centuries before in the Scriptures. He’s explaining why some people are lost and some are saved:
Because of disobedient, hard hearts, many do not believe the gospel and are lost; because of God’s sovereign grace, others believe the gospel and are saved.
When the good news is preached, some hear it, believe it, and call upon the Lord to save them (10:14). But sadly, others stumble over the stumbling stone (9:32), reject Jesus Christ, and head toward eternal judgment.
What makes the difference? I’m going to state what the Bible plainly teaches, although I cannot explain how both statements are true: If someone is saved, it is totally due to God choosing him before the foundation of the world, effectually calling him to Christ, and saving him by His grace alone (Rom. 8:30; 9:11-23). If someone is lost, he is totally responsible for his disobedient, hard heart that rejects God’s grace (10:21; Prov. 1:24). In other words, if you believe in Christ, it is only because God had mercy on you. If He had not intervened, you would still be in your sins, headed for eternal judgment. But if you do not believe in Christ and reject His gracious offer of salvation, you are completely to blame. You cannot blame God for not choosing you. Your sinful unbelief is totally your own fault.
C. H. Spurgeon put it (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 4:337): “That God predestines, and that man is responsible, are two things that few can see. They are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory; but they are not. It is just the fault of our weak judgment.” He goes on to say that these two truths will be welded into one in eternity, when we see that both flow from God’s throne.
Paul jumps back and forth in these verses between unbelief (10:16), belief (10:17), unbelief (10:18, 19), belief (10:20), and unbelief (10:21). First we’ll look at the verses dealing with unbelief and then we’ll look at those that describe faith in Christ.
Romans 10:16: “However, they did not all heed the good news; for Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed our report?’” They refers to the Jews, as verses 19 & 21 specify. By extension, it applies also to unbelieving Gentiles, but Paul’s focus here is on the question of why most of the Jews were rejecting Christ. When Paul says that “not all” heeded the good news, he is using understatement to mean, “most” did not obey the gospel.
Heed means to submit to or obey (Paul used this word in Rom. 6:12, 16, & 17). Since Paul goes on to cite Isaiah 53:1, “Lord, who has believed our report?” why doesn’t he say, “However, they did not all believe the good news”? Why does he say, “They did not all heed [obey] the good news”? Is he teaching salvation by works?
Of course not! He has just indicted the Jews because they pursued righteousness by works and not by faith (9:32). Rather, Paul understood and taught the same thing that James taught (James 2:14-26), that genuine faith by its very nature always results in good works. If someone claims to have faith, but lives in disobedience to God, his claim is false. Genuine saving faith is the root that necessarily bears the fruit of godliness. Many will claim, “Lord, Lord,” but they do not obey Jesus as Lord. He will condemn these hypocrites on judgment day (Matt. 7:21-23). Thus Paul begins and ends Romans (1:5; 16:26) talking about “the obedience of faith.” Or, as 1 John 2:3 explains, “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.”
Also, it’s important to realize that the gospel does not come to us as a nice suggestion that you may want to consider. It comes to us as a command from God Himself. Mark 1:15 summarizes Jesus’ message: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” Repent and believe are commands. Or, as Paul told the Athenian philosophers (Acts 17:30-31), “God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”
So if you have not repented of your sins, believed in Jesus Christ as your Savior, and submitted to Him as your Lord, you are in disobedience to the God who is the Judge of the living and the dead. If you were to die in this state of rebellion against God, you would face His eternal judgment.
Skipping 10:17 for a moment, where Paul twice mentions “hearing,” he goes on to respond to a hypothetical objection (that stems from 10:14 & 17) that perhaps Israel has not heard. Romans 10:18 says, “But I say, surely they have never heard, have they? Indeed they have; ‘Their voice has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.’” Paul cites Psalm 19:4 to show that the Jews have heard the good news.
But this raises two problems. Psalm 19:1-6 extols God’s glory through creation (natural revelation), whereas 19:7-11 goes on to extol God’s Word (special revelation). The first problem is: How does a verse about God’s revelation through creation demonstrate that Israel has heard the gospel, since creation doesn’t proclaim the gospel? Is Paul using that text out of context to prove what it does not say? Most commentators explain this by saying that Paul is using an analogy. Just as God’s natural revelation proclaims His glory to all the earth, so now the gospel has been proclaimed over all the earth, especially with reference to the Jews (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], pp. 665-666).
I agree, but I would go a bit further and suggest that Paul may have used this verse on natural revelation to say that if people ignore God’s general revelation of His glory through His creation, then they will be prone to ignore His special revelation through the preaching of the gospel. (We saw this in Romans 1:18-23.)
To apply this to our times, if people deny God by believing the myth of evolution, they are not going to be inclined to submit to Jesus as Savior and Lord. Evolution is the most preposterous myth ever foisted on the human race. Otherwise intelligent people latch onto it because it gives them a supposed escape from the uncomfortable truth that hits you between the eyes in the first verse of the Bible (Gen. 1:1), “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” If that verse is true—and the Bible doesn’t put it out there as a theory to be debated or discussed—then God is God and you are not God! It means that you had better get reconciled to this Almighty Creator before you meet Him in judgment!
But, if Paul is using Psalm 19 as an analogy, to say that just as the creation universally proclaims God’s glory, so the gospel has now been universally proclaimed, then there is a second problem: How does this text establish that all the Jews have heard the gospel? Surely there were many Jews who had not yet heard about Christ. Even Paul knew that not everyone had heard, or he wouldn’t be trying to go to Spain to proclaim the gospel there (Rom. 15:24, 28).
Probably Paul was speaking generally and with some hyperbole. In other words, the gospel has been proclaimed sufficiently among even the Gentile world to such an extent that almost all of the Jews have heard the message. (Paul uses the same kind of generalization and hyperbole in Colossians 1:6, 23.) It would be the same as if I said that everyone who speaks English has heard the gospel. Conceivably, there may be some English speakers who have not heard, but it would be their own fault. The gospel has been so widely proclaimed in English through so many different media for such a long time that any English speakers who have not heard must be deliberately avoiding it.
So Paul is saying that the problem with the Jews’ widespread rejection of the gospel was not that they had not heard the message. The problem was that they had rejected the message because they loved their own sin. Like the Gentiles, they suppressed the truth in unrighteousness (1:18). Their pride caused them to try to establish their own righteousness, rather than to subject themselves to God’s righteousness (10:3).
When you share the gospel, you often will hear the objection, “But what about people who have never heard? Will God judge the person who lived 500 years ago in Afghanistan, who lived and died without hearing about Jesus?” The way to respond is to ask, “If I can resolve that difficulty, are you saying that you would repent of your sins and believe in Jesus as Savior and Lord?” Almost certainly the person will answer, “Well, there are a lot of other questions, too!” In other words, this is just a smokescreen so that he can dodge the issue of his own sin before the holy God. You can press him by saying, “Well, you have heard the gospel and God will hold you accountable for the light that you have received.” And that applies to you! You have heard the gospel. Have you responded with obedient faith?
Paul raises and responds to another hypothetical objection by citing Deuteronomy 32:21 (10:19), followed by Isaiah 65:1-2 (10:20-21). He is providing witnesses from the Law and the prophets to build his case that the Jews were responsible for their sin and unbelief. Romans 10:19: “But I say, surely Israel did not know, did they? First Moses says, ‘I will make you jealous by that which is not a nation, by a nation without understanding will i anger you.’”
In the context, Moses predicted Israel’s apostasy through idolatry. The full verse reads (Deut. 32:21), “They have made Me jealous with what is not God; They have provoked Me to anger with their idols. So I will make them jealous with those who are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.” Paul is applying this to the spread of the gospel among the Gentiles, which he will expand on in 11:11-14. Just as Israel provoked God to jealousy and anger by their idolatry, so God will provoke Israel to repentance and faith when they jealously see those whom they would despise as being a “no-nation” or “a foolish nation” coming to know God. This means that in His grace, God is not through with Israel, in spite of her unbelief and sin (Romans 11 develops this theme).
What is it that Israel did not know? In verses 19 & 20 it is that the gospel would go to the despised Gentiles. In verse 21, it is that most of the Jews would reject the gospel in spite of God’s kindness and patience. Going back to verses 11 & 13, it is the gospel itself. All of these verses are quotes from the Old Testament, which shows that Israel should have known all of these things through reading their own Scripture. Paul wasn’t making them up.
But why did Israel not see these things? Why were they blind to the plain teaching of the Scriptures? Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Romans: Saving Faith [Zondervan], pp. 372-374) observes that the quotes Paul picked hit the Jews with three of their national sins that blocked them from the gospel. First, they were proud nationally: “We alone are God’s chosen people!” So God provokes them by those who are not a nation. Second, they were proud of their knowledge of the Scriptures (John 5:39): “We alone have God’s law!” So God provokes them to anger by those who are a nation without understanding. Third, the Jews were relying on their works to gain righteousness (9:31-32; 10:3). So God confounds them by saving those who didn’t even seek Him (10:20).
We can apply this by asking ourselves, “What national or cultural tendencies may be blocking us or those we share the gospel with from repentance and faith?” We Americans are self-reliant people, but to be saved we must cease believing in ourselves and cast ourselves upon God’s mercy. We’re a materialistic people, but to be saved, we must give up our pursuit of the American dream, and seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness. We’re a hard-working people who demand equitable pay for proper work. But to be justified by faith, we must stop working and believe in Him who justifies the ungodly (Rom. 4:5).
Romans 10:21: “But as for Israel He says, ‘All the day long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.’” This verse deserves an entire sermon, but I can only comment briefly. It pictures God as the rejected lover. He continually reaches out towards sinners whom He loves, but they reject Him with disobedient, hardened hearts. Unbelief is seldom, if ever, an intellectual problem. Rather, unbelief almost always stems from a disobedient, hardened heart that loves sin more than it loves God.
Thus, those who reject the gospel cannot blame God for not choosing them. They are fully responsible for their own damnation. But I must briefly touch on the other side:
Romans 10:20: “And Isaiah is very bold and says, ‘I was found by those who did not seek Me, I became manifest to those who did not ask for Me.’” Most commentators think that in its context, Isaiah 65:1 refers to God’s allowing Himself to be found by Jews who were not seeking Him, but by way of analogy, Paul here applies it to the Gentiles. This ties back into Romans 9:30, “That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith.”
By Isaiah’s boldness, Paul is referring to the astonishing nature of God’s grace. He pursues and saves those who were not seeking after Him, but were content in their pagan ways! This shows that salvation is not due to a good streak in sinners, but totally to God’s sovereign grace. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ today, it is not because it was originally your idea to seek Him and find Him. Rather, He intervened in your life to reveal Himself to you. His Spirit convicted you of sin and showed your need for the Savior. He moved in your heart to respond in faith to the gospel.
Romans 10:17: “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” Some manuscripts read “God” instead of “Christ,” but “Christ” is the better attested reading. This verse seems out of context here, but it is probably a brief summary of verses 14-16 before Paul moves on to focus on the Jews’ unbelief.
“Hearing” is the same Greek word translated “report” in 10:15, and could refer to the message heard. Or, it can refer to the act of hearing. It doesn’t make much difference. Paul’s point is that people can’t believe something that they have never heard (10:14). The message that they must hear is the word of Christ, which is the gospel. So faith comes from hearing the gospel preached.
But, as we all know, not all who hear the gospel preached respond in faith. The quote from Isaiah (Rom. 10:16), plus the ministries of all the prophets, of Paul, and even of the Lord Jesus Himself, show that many hear the good news but reject it.
So what makes the difference? Why do some hear and believe, while others hear and reject the message and sometimes attack the messenger? In John 8:43 Jesus asked His hostile Jewish listeners, “Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word.” They heard the sound of Jesus’ words, but they were incapable of hearing in the sense of understanding and obeying Jesus’ words, because as He went on to say, they were of their father, the devil.
Jesus explained (John 5:25), “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” Or, as Acts 16:14 explains, as Paul spoke the gospel to the Jewish women who gathered by the river in Philippi, “the Lord opened [Lydia’s] heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul.” That’s the difference. Jesus speaks the life-giving word and the spiritually dead come to life. Paul speaks the gospel and the Lord opens hearts to respond. If people are saved, it is because of God’s sovereign grace. If they are lost, it is because of the hardness of their disobedient hearts.
So what is your response to the greatest news in the world? That news is not that you have just won the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes! It is that God has sent the Savior to die for your sins. If you will believe in Him, He gives you eternal life as a free gift. If you receive that good news, you will praise God who opened your heart to the truth. If you reject the news, you have no one to blame but yourself.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
At first glance, a chapter like Romans 11 that deals with the subject of whether God still has a purpose for the Jews might seem irrelevant to your life. What does the future of Israel have to do with finding a marriage partner or staying happy with the one you’ve got? What does Israel’s future have to do with the pressures of work and paying bills? How can it help you as you struggle to rear your children in this evil world? What relevance does this topic have as you struggle with personal problems or health problems? Maybe you ought to check out for a few weeks and check back in when we get to the practical stuff in Romans 12!
Let me suggest several reasons that this subject should be of interest to you. First, the underlying issue that Paul is dealing with in Romans 11 is, “Can God’s promises fail?” God chose the nation of Israel as His people apart from all other nations on earth (Deut. 7:6). Through the prophet Jeremiah, God assured the sinful nation that was about to go into captivity that His promises to Israel could never fail (Jer. 31:35-36; 33:19-26). To dispel the thought that Israel’s sin could lead to their permanent rejection, God added (Jer. 31:37), “Thus says the Lord, ‘If the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth searched out below, then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done,’ declares the Lord.”
In other words, if God rejects Israel as His people, then His promises can fail. And if His promises to Israel fail, then how can we know that His promises to us in Romans 8 will not fail? And since those promises include working all of our trials together for good (8:28) and His promise that no trial can ever cut us off from His love (8:35-39), the question of why God has seemingly rejected Israel becomes very practical! It boils down to, “Can you trust God to do as He promises?”
Second, on a broader scale, if you pay any attention to the news, you’ve no doubt felt at times that the world is out of control and that the bad guys are winning. You see the horrors of terrorism, war, and natural disasters that wipe out thousands. You hear about terrible crimes toward little children. You read about corruption in government both here and abroad. You hear about Christians getting killed by the Muslims. The list goes on and on. Sometimes it can be depressing to the point that you wonder whether God is really in charge of world events. Romans 11 shows us that He is in charge and that His promises and His purpose will not fail.
This chapter also shows us how we should view the Jewish people. Some Christians are so pro-Israel that they wrongly shrug off Israel’s persecution of Palestinian believers, who are our brothers and sisters in Christ. On the other hand, sadly there are professing Christians who are anti-Semitic. During the atrocities of the Holocaust, many of Germany’s professing Christians tacitly went along with Hitler’s evil agenda. But Romans 11 shows that as Christians, we should love Jewish people and seek to bring them to know Jesus as their Messiah and Savior. My understanding of Romans 11 is that in the future, the Jewish people will turn to Christ in unprecedented numbers. God is not finished with the Jews.
One other practical value of Romans 11 is that it helps us to look beyond ourselves to God’s great purpose for history, which should lead us to worship Him for His glorious ways. Paul ends the chapter with an outburst of praise as he is caught up with the truths that he writes about here. Sometimes we get so self-focused that we forget that our eyes should be on God and His glory. His plan includes us, but it’s not ultimately about us. It’s about His glory being displayed over the whole earth (Hab. 2:14; Isa. 11:9). Our lives take on eternal significance as we devote ourselves to this eternal purpose of God.
Before we look at our text, I want to give a brief review to show how chapter 11 fits into the context of Romans and a brief overview of the whole chapter. After setting forth the gospel of God’s grace and how it applies to our daily walk (Rom. 1-8), Paul expressed his heartfelt sorrow over the fact that the majority of the Jews were rejecting Christ (9:1-5). He went on in Romans 9 to show that God’s promises to the Jews had not failed because He never promised to save the entire nation. Rather, He sovereignly determined to save a remnant (9:6-13). Paul’s emphasis throughout Romans 9 is on God’s sovereignty. He has mercy on whom He desires and He hardens whom He desires (9:18). God’s purpose is to make known the riches of His glory on vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory (9:23). This purpose included extending His mercy to the Gentiles.
But then, what about the Jews? Was God somehow unjust in His dealings with them? Of course not! Paul goes on (9:30-10:21) to show that the Jews were responsible for their own rejection of God’s mercy in Christ. They are without any excuse. So in chapter 9 Paul makes the point that if anyone is saved, it is solely because of God’s sovereign mercy in choosing him for salvation. In Romans 10, he makes the point that if anyone is lost, it is because of his own stubborn hardness of heart. He can’t blame God for not choosing him.
But now, in chapter 11, Paul takes up God’s plan for the Jews as it pertains to the future. Is God done with the Jews because of their terrible sin of crucifying their Messiah? Paul answers strongly (11:1): “May it never be!” In 11:1-10, Paul shows that God’s rejection of Israel is partial, not total. God has always preserved a remnant of Jewish believers. God’s sovereign purpose is never thwarted by human sin. Then (11:11-32) Paul shows that God’s rejection of Israel is temporary, not permanent. He has temporarily hardened the Jews in judgment until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in. Then God will open the hearts of the Jews so that “all Israel will be saved” (11:26). Romans 11:30-32 sums up 11:1-29:
For just as you [Gentiles] once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their [the Jews] disobedience, so these also now have been disobedient, that because of the mercy shown to you they also may now be shown mercy. For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.
Then Paul ends the chapter (11:33-36) with a glorious outburst of praise to God for the wonders of His unsearchable judgments and unfathomable ways. With that as a review and overview, let’s focus on 11:1-6, where Paul makes the point:
That God’s promises might fail is unthinkable, because they rest on His sovereign, gracious choice, not on anything in fallen humanity.
God has not rejected His chosen people, but has preserved a remnant according to His gracious choice. Since the choice of the remnant and its preservation depend on God’s grace and not on human works or choice, God’s promises cannot fail.
Paul begins with a rhetorical question (11:1a), “I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He?” He immediately retorts, “May it never be!” He then illustrates this by mentioning himself. He is a Jewish believer in the Lord Jesus. Then he adds (11:2a), “God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew.” He follows this with the illustration from Elijah’s life, where the prophet erroneously thought that he was the only faithful man left in Israel. But God informed him that He still had 7,000 men in Israel who had not bowed their knee to Baal. Paul is arguing that the thought that God’s promises might fail because a majority of the Jews were rejecting Christ is simply unthinkable. God’s promises rest on His sovereign, gracious choice, not on anything in rebellious sinners. If God’s promises could fail, then God would cease to be God, because His faithfulness to His Word is an essential part of His being.
Romans 11:1b: “For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.” Some scholars read various meanings into why Paul added that he was a descendant of Abraham and of the tribe of Benjamin. But I think that all he was doing was establishing that he was a physical Jew (John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 409). In other words, he is not talking about being a spiritual Israelite by faith in Christ (Rom. 9:6; Gal. 3:7), but rather about being a Jew by natural birth. Through the entire chapter, Paul focuses on Israel as a nation. So in verse 1 Paul is saying, “If you argue that God has rejected the Jews, then how do you explain my conversion? I’m as Jewish as you can be, and yet God saved me.”
Humanly speaking Paul’s conversion was the most unlikely event imaginable. The believers in Jerusalem were at first wary of his conversion (Acts 9:26), thinking that it might be just a ploy to get inside the church, where he could persecute even more Christians. Their reaction was only natural, since Paul described himself prior to his conversion as “being furiously enraged at” believers (Acts 26:11), “a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor” (1 Tim. 1:13). Yet he was shown mercy. Paul’s conversion stands as one of the greatest proofs both of the power of the gospel to save sinners and of the truth of the resurrection of Jesus, who appeared to Paul on the Damascus Road. His conversion should encourage us to pray and work for the salvation of those who are the most strongly opposed to the gospel.
Romans 11:2a: “God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew.” There are a couple of matters to clear up in this statement. First, foreknew does not mean that God knew in advance that Israel would choose Him, so He decided to make them His chosen people. Some try to explain foreknowing that way to dodge the doctrine of election (in Rom. 8:29; 1 Pet. 1:1-2; refer to my messages on those texts for more explanation).
But that is not the meaning of the Greek word. If it only refers to knowing something in advance, then God foreknows all people, not just Israel. He knows everything before it happens. Greek scholars are virtually unanimous in saying that the word means that God chose in advance to set His love on Israel. He determined to enter into a special relationship with Israel. In Amos 3:2 God states with regard to Israel, “You only have I chosen [lit., known] among all the families of the earth.” So Paul’s point is that because God predetermined to know Israel as His special people, it is impossible that He would now reject them.
The other matter to clear up is that when Paul says (11:2a), “God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew,” he is not talking about the elect remnant of true believers within the larger nation of Israel (9:6; 11:5; Charles Hodge argues for this). That would be stating the obvious: “God didn’t reject those whom He chose to believe in Him.” Paul’s purpose in the entire chapter is to argue that God is not finished with the nation in spite of her unbelief and sin. And in the immediate context, Paul is arguing that the presence of an elect remnant (Paul and the 7,000 in Elijah’s time) indicates that God has not rejected the nation as a whole from His covenant purposes, in spite of their unbelief.
So when Paul mentions “God’s people whom He foreknew,” he is referring to God’s choosing the entire nation of Israel corporately as His people, not that He chose them all for salvation. “His people” in verse 1 and “His people” in verse 2 both refer to the entire nation. Leon Morris explains (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 399), “Paul appears to have in mind that God chose Israel to be his people, the people in whom his purpose would be worked out in a special way.”
So in our text, Paul is emphasizing God’s sovereignty as the foundation of His faithfulness to His promises. If He is not sovereign, then He may not be able to keep His promises. Human sin might thwart His purpose. But if God is sovereign, then it would be unthinkable for Him to choose a nation as His people and then to turn around and reject them totally.
Thus the fact that God has not rejected His people is illustrated in the present by Paul himself, a Jewish believer in Christ. It also is based on the truth that in eternity God foreknew Israel.
Romans 11:2b-4: “Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? ‘Lord, they have killed Your prophets, they have torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they are seeking my life.’ But what is the divine response to him? ‘I have kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’”
Paul uses this familiar story to argue that the presence of an elect remnant shows that God has not cast off Israel as a whole. Even though the majority of Israel in Elijah’s day had fallen into idolatry, so much so that the prophet thought that he was the only faithful one left, God had preserved a faithful remnant. This demonstrated that God was not through with His people in spite of their sin. Paul applies this principle to his present situation (11:5). Even though most Jews were unbelieving, the existence of a faithful remnant of believing Jews shows that God has not cast off national Israel from His covenant promises. Note two things:
First, the emphasis in the Elijah story is on God’s action as the decisive reason that a remnant was preserved: “I have kept for Myself….” Paul underscores this in 11:5, where he refers to “a remnant according to God’s gracious choice” (lit., the choice of grace). The existence of a faithful remnant was not primarily due to their resolve to stay faithful during a difficult time, although they did obey God. Rather, the reason that they stayed faithful was that God kept them for Himself.
Second, the fact that God worked through a remnant in Elijah’s time and in Paul’s time shows that He doesn’t need great numbers to accomplish His sovereign purposes. Sometimes we may feel as Elijah did, that there are few who do not bow to the idols of our time. Many who profess to be Christians try to pressure us to be more tolerant of false doctrine and not to be so divisive. But by God’s grace, His remnant always refuses to bow to the world’s idols.
Thus Paul’s first point is that for God to reject the people whom He has foreknown would be unthinkable.
Paul makes two points here:
Romans 11:5: “In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God’s gracious choice.” Paul is drawing a logical inference from the story of Elijah. Just as God worked through a remnant that He sovereignly preserved in that day, so in our day He sovereignly chooses those whom He saves and preserves for His purpose. Thomas Schreiner explains (Romans [Baker], p. 582):
The existence of a remnant of believing Jews is not ultimately ascribed to their greater wisdom or nobility, or to their free will, or to their spiritual perception. The inclusion of the remnant in God’s people is due to his electing grace…. The only reason some Jews believe is because God has graciously and mercifully chosen them to be a part of His people….
I realize that many don’t like the doctrine of election, but if you reject it, you’re wiping out the foundation for assurance of salvation. Everett Harrison puts it (The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. by Frank Gaebelein [Zondervan], 10:117), “The sparing of the remnant is inseparably related to the choice of the remnant.” God won’t forsake those whom He chose. The link between verses 4 & 5 is not that there are faithful people in every age, but rather that God’s sovereign choice insures that there are faithful people in every age (see John Piper, “For God’s Sake, Let Grace be Grace,” on desiringGod.org). So if you’re a part of God’s remnant, you can’t take pride in yourself for your wise choice of God or for His choice of you. Rather, you can only boast in God, who chose you by His grace (undeserved favor) alone.
Romans 11:6: “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.” In some ways, verse 6 is not essential in the flow of Paul’s argument, but he felt the need to insert this explanation of the nature of grace, because we all have a built in propensity toward works rather than grace.
Note that Paul does not contrast works and faith here, but rather works and grace. “Works” refers to anything that we can do in and of ourselves. If we have the ability by our own free will to believe in Christ (as many argue), then faith is something that we sinful humans are capable of doing on our own. But that turns faith into a work in which we can boast. If (as also many argue) God chose us because He foresaw that we would believe by our own free will, then He didn’t choose us according to His grace, but on the basis of something that we would do. In other words, if salvation is a joint effort where God does His part and now it’s up to us to do our part, then grace is no longer grace.
By “no longer,” Paul doesn’t mean that salvation used to be by works, but now it’s by grace. He’s using “no longer” in a logical sense, not chronological (Schreiner, p. 583). As Leon Morris explains (p. 402), “Paul is saying that once we have come to see that salvation is by grace there is no longer any place for works.”
I fear that many Christians do not understand in a practical way what Paul means when he says that we are saved by God’s “gracious choice” (11:5), not by anything that we do. We all innately want to offer God something that we think is good in ourselves, so that He will accept us. We want to think, “I was saved by my faith.” But if I think that my faith was something that I came up with, then I have grounds to boast in myself. No, we’re saved by God’s grace through faith, and the whole package is His gift (Eph. 2:8-9; Phil. 1:29; Acts 11:18). If any part of salvation is my doing, then grace is no longer grace.
Can God’s promises fail? If they’re based on anything in fallen humanity, then they easily could fail. But if they’re based on His sovereign, gracious choice, then God’s promises are rock solid.
Adoniram Judson, who spent his life taking the gospel to Burma, once said in the midst of his many trials, “The future is as bright as the promises of God” (cited in Christian History & Biography [Spring, 2006], pp. 6, 40). He didn’t live to see much visible fruit for his years of hardship. But today, with only 49 million people, Burma has over 2 million Baptists, the third largest number of any nation. Only the United States and India have more (ibid., p. 40). Judson, who believed in God’s sovereign grace, knew that His promises could not fail. So no matter what your trials, if you have received God’s grace in Christ, you have a bright future because His promises cannot fail.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
I would venture to say that if Paul had submitted Romans 11:7-10 to an editorial committee from most American churches in our day, it would have come out radically different than he wrote it. Verse 7 would be changed to read, “What then? What Israel is seeking, it has not obtained, but those who believed have obtained it, while the rest chose not to believe.” This talk about God electing or hardening, Paul, is just too controversial! Tone it down!
And verses 8-10, Paul, are just too gloomy and negative. Folks today like a more upbeat message. They want to hear about a God of love, not a God of judgment, who gives people eyes not to see and ears not to hear! That’s depressing! So maybe you should just eliminate those verses altogether!
But under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the apostle Paul wrote these verses as they stand. We can pretend that they aren’t in our Bibles or stumble over them or seek to gain the benefit to our souls that God intended. We dare not fall into the spiritually fatal error of making up a god according to our liking: “I like a loving God, not a God of judgment. I like a God who gives me free will, not a God who sovereignly chooses some for salvation and passes over others in judgment.” If you do that, you fall into idolatry. It’s crucial to come to know God as He has revealed Himself in His Word, not to tweak Him according to your personal preferences.
Paul is drawing a conclusion from 11:1-6, but especially from the remnant motif that he mentions in those verses. He is dealing with the question of why most Jews were rejecting Jesus as their Messiah and Savior. Did their unbelief cause God’s promises to fail? Did their rejection of Christ mean that God was now through with the Jews forever? No, Paul says, the existence of a remnant of saved Jews shows that God was not done with the nation. Their rejection is partial, not total (11:1-10); it is temporary, not permanent (11:11-32). Their unbelief (or any human sin) cannot thwart God’s purpose, which depends on His sovereign grace, not on any human factors at all. The remnant is according to God’s gracious choice (11:5-6), which means that it doesn’t depend on any human will or effort (9:16).
Verse 7 is a brief summary of Romans 9 & 10. Douglas Moo (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 679, note 45) observes, “It blends the predestinatory focus of 9:6-29—‘elect,’ ‘hardened’—with the human responsibility perspective of 9:30-10:21—‘sought,’ ‘did not attain’—to sum up Paul’s discussion of Israel to this point in chaps. 9-11.” In other words, those who are saved are saved because God chose to save them. Those who are lost are lost because they refused to repent and believe the gospel. And then, as Paul has frequently done in Romans 9-11, he backs up verse 7 with Scripture to show that he isn’t making this up (11:8-10). What Paul says in verse 7 is in line with all of God’s Word. He is saying here:
Either you have been chosen by God to hear, understand, and believe the gospel so that you are saved, or you will be hardened and come under His judgment.
Those are the only two possibilities! While this is not easy truth, it is spiritually nourishing for your soul. So ask God to give you insight into this part of His inspired Word. The bulk of the text deals with those who were hardened and came under God’s judgment, and so the bulk of this message deals with that.
Most of our text, 11:8-10, is taken from the Old Testament. Paul lets the Bible say the hard things so that no one can accuse Paul of making it up. That’s a good plan!
When I began here almost 20 years ago, I preached through 1 Peter. When I came to 1 Peter 3:1-6, I preached what the text says, that wives are to be subject to their own husbands. I tried to explain what Peter meant and did not mean in those verses. A few days later a single young woman came to see me and said, “You shouldn’t preach on things like that on Sunday morning!”
I asked her, “Did I misrepresent what the text says?” She replied, “No, you taught what the text says.” So I asked, “Did I teach it with a sarcastic or arrogant attitude?” She said, “No, you taught it with the right attitude.” So I asked, “Then what was the problem?”
“The problem,” she said, “was that I brought a friend to church who is a committed feminist, and she will never come back to church again!”
“Ah,” I said, “God has a way of bringing people to church on the very Sunday that they need to hear what His Word declares.” I added, “One of two things will happen. Either your friend will be convicted of her worldly, unbiblical views and come to repentance and faith. Or, she will reject the truth that she heard and be hardened in her unbelief. One day she will face God’s judgment.”
And so if I teach today what theses verses do not teach or if I teach with the wrong attitude, please let me know. I need to repent. But if I teach accurately and lovingly what God’s Word teaches, then you can’t quarrel with me. I’m just the messenger. You’re contending with God! Four truths will help us to understand what Paul is saying here:
Romans 11:7: “What then? What Israel is seeking, it has not obtained ….” What Israel was seeking, but did not obtain, was right standing with God, or righteousness. Romans 9:30-32 says:
What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works.
He also adds with reference to the Jews (Rom. 10:2-4):
For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. For not knowing about God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
For the most part, the Jews did not lack sincerity. The Pharisees and Sadducees were hypocrites (Matt. 23:13-33), but the majority of the Jews were sincere in their dedication to their religion. Nor did they lack commitment. They followed the prescribed rituals and laws with dedication that would put most of us to shame. Nor did they lack zeal. Look at Paul’s zeal before he was saved. He went to great lengths to try to keep the Jewish religion pure by eliminating those whom he saw as heretics. But if your religious sincerity, commitment, and zeal are misguided, they will only move you toward judgment with greater speed.
The problem, Paul explained, was that their zeal was not according to knowledge, namely, the knowledge that their own good works could never be good enough to atone for their sins or to commend them to the holy God. And they did not know that Christ was the final and sufficient Lamb of God, the perfect sacrifice for their sins. And they didn’t know that God’s way of salvation is by grace through faith, not by works. And so they did not obtain the right standing with God that they were seeking. That leads to the second truth:
If people are basically good and with a little effort and self-denial they can get into heaven, then why did Jesus need to die on the cross? While Jesus set a good example for us, that was not the main reason that He came to this earth. Jesus said (Mark 10:45) that He came “to give His life a ransom for many.” As He faced the cross, Jesus said (John 12:27), “Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour.” Jesus came to die for our sins to save us from God’s judgment. If we can get into heaven by being good people and doing good deeds, then Jesus died in vain.
The good works route is always wrong, because it allows human pride to play a role in salvation. This is the great danger of religion. People mistakenly think that by going to church or taking communion or giving money to the church or serving in the church or helping the poor or whatever, they will gain entrance into heaven. Martin Luther thought that by joining a monastery and treating his body harshly and confessing his sins and going to mass every day, he could gain right standing with God. But nothing brought peace to his soul. Why not? Because by pursuing salvation by works, he was negating God’s grace (Rom. 11:6).
To come to God for grace means that I come as a sinner who does not in any way deserve to be saved. I deserve God’s judgment. To come to God by works means that I come with the claim that I’m basically good enough to get into heaven on my own, or at least with just a little help from God. The works approach is shot through with arrogance before God. It does not understand His absolute holiness and it does not understand our wretched sinfulness. Pride is the root sin of all other sins. It is the sin that led Eve to eat the fruit, so that she could be like God. To come to God for grace, we must judge our pride.
Thus Israel sought righteousness before God on the basis of works, not faith. If we could come to God on the basis of works, then we don’t need a Savior and Christ died in vain. To attempt to come to God on the basis of works is to be filled with the terrible sin of pride. But now we come to the scary part:
Israel, seeking righteousness by works, not only did not obtain it, but Paul adds (11:7), “the rest [the non-elect] were hardened.” Hardened is a passive verb. Who hardened them? Verse 8 plainly tells us, “Just as it is written, ‘God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes to see not and ears to hear not, down to this very day.’” That quote combines Isaiah 29:10 and Deuteronomy 29:4. It also reflects Isaiah 6:10, where God is speaking to the prophet, “Render the hearts of this people insensitive, their ears dull, and their eyes dim, otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and return and be healed.” That text is so important that Jesus cites it in Matthew 13:14-15 (and the parallels, Mark 4:12; Luke 8:10) and in John 12:40; and Paul also cites it to the resistant Jews in Acts 28:26-27.
It refers to God’s judicial hardening of the Jews, who had heard so much truth and seen so many demonstrations of God’s love and power, but refused to submit to Him. In Deuteronomy 29:2-4, Moses said to all Israel after 40 years in the wilderness,
“You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh and all his servants and all his land; the great trials which your eyes have seen, those great signs and wonders. Yet to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to know, nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear.”
So even as far back as Moses, Israel had come under this judicial hardening, as seen in their continual grumbling against God and refusal to submit to Him. Later, they followed the idolatry and evil ways of the Canaanites, until finally God sent them into captivity. But even after being restored to the land, they continued to try to approach God by their works, so that they hated the Savior who came and convicted them of their self-righteousness and pride. And so in Paul’s day, the nation that had crucified the Savior came under even increased hardening from God that has lasted now for 2,000 years! The frightening words of the Jewish mob that was screaming for Jesus’ death have come true (Matt. 27:25), “His blood shall be on us and on our children!”
There are two ways in which we need to understand this judgment where God hardens hearts so that they cannot understand the gospel (I’m indebted here to John Piper, “The Elect Obtained It But the Rest Were Hardened,” on desiringGod.org). First, from God’s perspective, He is free to act according to His own counsel for His own glory and is not obligated to any creature. As we saw in Romans 9:18, “So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.” God is not constrained by anything outside of Himself. If He chose to condemn the entire human race without providing a Savior, He would be free and perfectly just to do so. After all, He did this with the angels that fell.
Second, God’s hardening of the Jews was punishment for their sins. God did it as “retribution” to them (11:9) because of their disobedient, hard hearts (10:21) and “unbelief” (11:20). Israel had been given much light (9:4-5), but they stubbornly refused to respond to it. So God said in effect, “If you refuse to see, I’ll confirm that choice: Be blind. If you refuse to hear, be deaf!” How terrifying, to have God pronounce such judgments against you! And it stems, in the case of the Jews and of many other religious people, from seeking to be righteous by their own works.
We can only look briefly at the specifics of this judgment on those who turn from the light that they have been given. What are the characteristics of those who are under this judicial hardening? I’m going to put it in the second person as a warning to us all.
First, you will be spiritually dull and insensitive, unable to perceive and understand spiritual truth. “God gave them a spirit of stupor.” This refers to someone who is half asleep or who has been stunned so that he can’t think properly. I have shared the gospel with many people who just couldn’t get it, even though it is simple enough for a little child to understand. If you asked them later how a person gets into heaven, they would say, “By being a good person.”
Second, your blessings will become a curse. That is the meaning of the quote from Psalm 69:22 (Rom. 11:9), “Let their table become a snare and a trap, and a stumbling block and a retribution to them.” A table should be a place of nourishment and blessing, but David prays that it will become a snare for his enemies. God gives many blessings, even to unbelievers: material possessions, food, the joys of married love, children, etc. But if they do not honor God and give thanks to Him, then their foolish hearts will be darkened and these blessings will be a curse that keeps them from the supreme joy of knowing God (Rom. 1:21-32).
Third, you are headed for ultimate and final judgment. Romans 11:10: “Let their eyes be darkened to see not, and bend their backs forever.” The last word may be translated continually (in light of 11:25-26), but it may also refer to God’s permanent judgment that will come on the reprobate because they turned away from the light that they had been given. “Bend their backs” may look at bondage to the law. The Jews wanted to establish their own righteousness by works of the law, so they are consigned to that futile pursuit that can never obtain the righteousness that comes by grace through faith (see Acts 15:10-11).
Psalm 69 is a messianic psalm and so these judgments are ultimately aimed, not at David’s enemies, but at the enemies of Jesus Christ. Those who seek to be saved by works are really enemies of Christ, because if you can be justified by your works, you make the work of Jesus Christ on the cross of no effect. Any scheme of salvation that does not center on the cross of Christ exalts proud sinners and spits in the face of the Savior who gave Himself to redeem those who were under the curse of the law.
Let’s look briefly at the other side: How can you know whether you’ve been chosen by God?
“What Israel [was] seeking” but did not obtain (11:7) was righteousness before God (9:31). Then Paul adds, “but those who were chosen obtained it.” Two brief observations:
“Those who were chosen” is literally, “the election.” Paul could have said, “Those who believe obtained it,” which would be true. Or, he could have said, “The elect obtained it.” But he used a different word, meaning “the election,” a word that “serves to put special emphasis on the action of God as that which is altogether determinative of the existence of the elect” (C. E. B Cranfield, (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [T & T Clark International], 2:548). Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Romans: To God’s Glory [Zondervan], p. 27) explains that the word Paul used “emphasizes the one who ‘elects’ rather than any choice made by the people and so all the glory is to be given to God alone.”
So the believing remnant of Jews or the believing Gentiles could not boast in their faith, as if they had believed of their own free will or because of their superior intelligence (Paul specifically warns of this in 11:20). Rather, God had every right to condemn us for our sins, but in mercy He chose to save us. It’s all of grace. But, how can we know if we are part of God’s elect?
A man who left this church years ago because he didn’t believe this teaching once asked me, “How can anyone know if he’s elect?” I replied, “It’s very simple: Do you believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins and was raised from the dead and that He saved you by His grace alone? Only the elect believe that truth.” And the Bible is clear that your faith did not cause or obtain God’s grace. If anything of merit in you caused God’s favor, then grace is no longer grace (Rom. 11:6). Rather, Paul plainly says that God’s grace caused your blind eyes and deaf ears to be opened so that you understood the gospel. God opened your heart to respond so that you believed it. God gave you right standing with Him through Jesus’ blood as a gift. So He gets all the glory (see 1 Cor. 1:26-31).
Please note that Paul does not explain his statement in verse 7 or see any need to defend it (except for the Scripture quotations that follow). He just says in passing, “What Israel is seeking, it has not obtained, but those who were chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened.” It reminds me of Acts 13, where Luke reports that some of the Jews responded to Paul’s preaching by blaspheming and attacking him (13:45), but many Gentiles (13:48) “began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord.” Then Luke adds in passing, “And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.” No explanation. No defense. He just states it and moves on.
Have you believed in Jesus Christ? If so, it’s because you were appointed to eternal life by God’s sovereign election. Do you not yet believe? Don’t delay! If you reject the light God has given, you may come under His frightful judicial hardening.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
If you watch the evening news, you can probably relate to the wife who said to her husband, “Shall we watch the six o’clock news and get indigestion or wait for the eleven o’clock news and have insomnia?” (Reader’s Digest [4/86], p. 2) It often seems that the world is out of control. In that vein, someone wrote a limerick (cited by James Boice, The Last and Future World [Zondervan], pp. 124-125):
God’s plan made a hopeful beginning,
But man spoiled his chances by sinning,
We trust that the story
Will end in God’s glory,
But at present the other side’s winning.
When it seems that the other side is winning, whether in the world at large or in your personal world, it’s important to remember that God has a certain purpose both for world history and for your history and that nothing can thwart His purpose.
In Paul’s day, when it came to the salvation of his Jewish kinsmen, it seemed as if the other side was winning. Relatively few Jews were believing in Jesus Christ as Savior, while many Gentiles were coming into the kingdom. In light of God’s many promises to Israel, this created a problem: Could God’s promises fail? If His promises to the Jews failed because of their sin, then His promises to us in the church might fail, since we often sin.
Thus Paul devotes Romans 11 to deal with this matter of the future of the Jews in light of God’s promises. In 11:1-10 he makes the point that Israel’s rejection is partial, not total, in that there is a remnant of believing Jews. In 11:11-32 he makes the point that Israel’s rejection is temporary, not permanent. God is using the Jews’ present rejection of Christ to spread the gospel among the Gentiles. Then He will use the Gentiles’ reception of the gospel to bring the Jews to faith in Christ. The end result will be great blessing on the whole world.
We come now to the second major section. In 11:11-15, we can apply Paul’s discussion of God’s plan for the Jews by saying,
Because God’s purpose for history is certain, we should commit ourselves to work for His glory through taking the gospel to all people.
Paul states his theme in 11:11a: “I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be!” Israel’s failure was not fatal. He explains (11:11b), “But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous.” Verse 12 elaborates on the first half of that statement: by the Jews’ sin salvation has come to the Gentiles. Verses 13-14 expand on the second half, “to make them jealous.” Paul explains to the Gentiles in the church in Rome his role in God’s plan as the apostle to the Gentiles, part of which is to make Israel jealous. Then in verse 15, he restates the same truth as verse 12, that if the Jews’ rejection resulted in the gospel going out to the world, then how much greater will their acceptance be. It’s difficult to decide whether to include verse 16 with what goes before or with what follows, as it is a transitional verse. But we’ll consider it next time, as it introduces the illustration of the olive tree that runs through verse 24.
I’m going to develop this message with some applications that come out of Paul’s teaching here. But before I do that, I need to comment on the idea that Paul repeats here, that the Gentiles’ reception of the gospel will move the Jews to jealousy so that at some point they will respond to the gospel. Motivating people to jealousy seems like a strange way to bring them to faith!
Paul is going back to the thought of Deuteronomy 32:21, which he cited in Romans 10:19. In Deuteronomy, Moses predicted Israel’s apostasy through idolatry. He wrote (Deut. 32:21), “They have made Me jealous with what is not God; They have provoked Me to anger with their idols. So I will make them jealous with those who are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.” The thought is, just as Israel provoked God to jealousy and anger by their idolatry, so God will provoke Israel to repentance and faith when they jealously see those whom they would despise as being a “no-nation” or “a foolish nation” coming to know God.
Those of us who have reared children probably had a time where you asked your oldest child, “Would you like to go to the store with me?” She was busy playing, so she said, “No, I’ll stay here.” So you asked your second child, “Would you like to go with me?” She said, “Yes, Daddy, I’ll go!” Immediately the oldest child said, “I’ll go, too!” She jealously didn’t want her younger sister getting some goodies at the store while she sat at home. Her jealousy motivated her to get in on the benefits that her younger sister had accepted.
That’s the thought in Deuteronomy 32 and in Romans 11. The Jews said “no” to Christ, so the gospel was offered to the Gentiles. Many of them gladly accepted Christ. When the Jews see the Gentiles enjoying the blessings of salvation that were intended at first for them, they will repent and come to Christ. But Paul doesn’t necessarily see this as happening in his day. He hopes to “save some of them” (11:14). But the widespread salvation of the Jews will only happen towards the climax of God’s plan for history, after the fullness of the Gentiles has come in (11:25-26).
These verses are interesting, but at first glance may not seem very relevant to where many of us are living. So I want to give five points that I think will apply to whatever trials you may be going through. In other words, although these verses show us God’s purpose for the future of the Jews and Gentiles, we can bring these truths down to our present and future, especially when it seems that the bad guys are winning.
Romans 11 is a great prophecy of what God will do in the future both with the Gentiles and the Jews. Paul isn’t venturing his best educated guess at what will happen. Rather, he is unfolding God’s great plan of redemption and how it is going to play out in world history. Note three things about God’s purpose:
Paul believed that the Jews would come to “fullness” or “fulfillment” (11:12). That word can be understood in a qualitative sense, meaning completeness. This would refer to the “full restoration of Israel to the blessings of the kingdom that she is now, as a corporate entity, missing” (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 689). Or it could be taken in a quantitative sense, meaning “full number.” This would mean that to the present remnant, a much greater number of Jews will be saved, “so as to ‘fill up’ the number of Jews destined for salvation” (ibid.). Both ideas may be present, but when you compare it with “the fullness of the Gentiles” in verse 25, it does seem to have a numerical sense (ibid., p. 690). In other words, God has a specific number of elect Gentiles (11:25) and Jews (11:12), that constitutes the fullness of His plan for the ages (see, also, Rev. 6:11). To fulfill His sovereign plan, God must have the power to save these people.
What I’m getting at is that there are many who say that they believe the Bible, but they deny God’s sovereign ability to save whom He chooses. Rather, they say, salvation is up to each person’s free will. God has done His part by providing the Savior, they say, but now you must do your part. They believe that salvation depends on man’s free will, not on God’s sovereign choice.
But how could Paul prophesy that God is going to save the fullness of the Gentiles and the fullness of the Jews unless He is sovereign to save individuals? Granted, he is talking here in national terms, but nations are made up of individuals. So if God is going to bring the Jewish nation to their fullness of salvation, He has to be sovereign in saving individual Jewish people. If it were up to the free will of the Jews, Paul could not have had much hope for their future, because their past and present track records were dismal. They were a disobedient and obstinate people who refused God’s offer of mercy (10:21).
This is a great encouragement for us both in terms of the overwhelming task of global missions and also in the often discouraging task of personal evangelism. We know from Revelation 5:9 that Jesus purchased with His blood “men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.” They will come in faith to Jesus (John 6:37-39). So we can go to the lost people groups of the world and proclaim the good news with the confidence that Jesus has purchased some of them and they will respond.
The same is true in your personal witness. Sometimes people that you know and love seem either disinterested or hardened to the gospel. You may feel like Paul did in Corinth, which was a notoriously pagan and immoral city. The Jews in Corinth had resisted Paul’s message and blasphemed (Acts 18:6). Paul was feeling afraid and may have been ready to catch the next boat for a friendlier place. But then the Lord appeared to Paul in a vision and said (Acts 18:9-10), “Do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent; for I am with you, and no man will attack you in order to harm you, for I have many people in this city.”
Did you catch that last phrase? The Lord had many people in Corinth who had not yet believed. Paul didn’t know who they were, but as he went on preaching the gospel, they would come to faith. God’s purpose to save His elect will not fail because it depends on His sovereign power. But He uses our proclamation of the gospel to do it.
Although it may shock you, the gospel is not primarily about your happiness, but about God’s glory. The two are inseparable, of course, because as John Piper often says, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” Paul wrote (Eph. 1:3-6):
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
A few verses later he adds (Eph. 1:10b-12):
In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory.
Then, after saying that we have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, he adds (Eph. 1:14), “who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.” He ends each section with the same refrain, “to the praise of the glory of His grace” (1:6) and “to the praise of His glory” (1:12, 14). Our salvation and all the blessings that accompany it are to result in the praise of God’s glory.
In Romans 8:29 Paul wrote, “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren.” The idea of the firstborn was that he had preeminence. God predestined us to be like Jesus so that Jesus would get all the glory.
To apply this to our text, Paul says that unbelievers (especially, unbelieving Jews) should look at us who have been saved and be moved to jealousy so that they say, “I want what you’ve got.” They should see enough Christlike character in us that they are attracted to Jesus through us. In our marriages, with our children, on the job, and in our extended families, unbelievers should be jealous about the blessings of salvation—the visible fruit of the Spirit—that they see in us, so that they are drawn to Christ. The gospel is all about God’s glory being reflected in us.
As I commented in a recent message, Paul loves to describe the gospel as riches. He does that again here (11:12), “Now if their transgression is riches for the world and their failure is riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment be!” The two phrases are synonymous, repeated for emphasis. The Jews walked away from the treasures that are to be found in Christ, so that those treasures now are open for the taking to the Gentiles. As Paul expressed it in Ephesians 3:8, “To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ.”
Have you received the unfathomable riches of Christ? Are you digging into the Word every day to discover more and more of these riches? They are there for the taking, but we foolishly spend our money for what is not bread and our wages for what does not satisfy (Isa. 55:2a). God counsels His people (Isa. 55:2b), “Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in abundance.” Or as David exults (Ps. 16:11), “You will make known to me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand there are pleasures forever.” God entreats you to satisfy your soul with the riches that are found in Jesus Christ.
These are wonderful truths, but the reality is that our human existence is marred both with our own sin and with the sins of others. So the question arises, “Does our sin somehow thwart God’s sovereign purpose?”
Our text is one of many examples in the Bible of how God overrules human sin and weaves it into His sovereign plan to glorify Himself through the gospel. The cross is perhaps the greatest example: Evil men crucified the sinless Son of God, and yet they inadvertently fulfilled God’s predestined purpose (Acts 2:23; 4:27-28; see, also, Gen. 50:20). Paul’s subject in Romans 11 is how God used the unbelief of the Jews to take the gospel to the Gentiles, which in turn eventually will lead to the salvation of the Jews.
Paul’s pattern in his missionary endeavors was to preach the gospel to the Jews first. If they rejected the message, then he would turn to the Gentiles (Acts 13:45-48; 18:6; 28:24-28). So in this sense, the Jews’ transgression resulted in salvation for the Gentiles.
Jesus predicted the same thing. He told the parable of the landowner who sent messengers to collect the profits from his vineyard, only to have the tenants beat and kill them. Finally, he sent his own son, thinking that they would respect him. But they killed him, too. Therefore, he would come and bring those evil tenants to a wretched end and rent out the vineyard to others who would pay him the proper proceeds. Then Jesus concluded (Matt. 21:43), “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people [lit., nation], producing the fruit of it.” That “nation” is the church, made up of believing Gentiles and Jews (1 Pet. 2:9).
The point is, while we should never excuse or justify our sin by saying that good will come out of it (Rom. 3:8), at the same time we can take comfort in the fact human unbelief and sin can never thwart God’s sovereign purpose. Where sin abounds, God’s grace super-abounds (Rom. 5:20). He works all things, including the sins of others against us, together for good for those whom He has called to salvation (Rom. 8:28).
Romans 11:13, “Inasmuch then as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I magnify my ministry.” Paul was concerned that some of the Gentile Christians in Rome might appeal to the fact that Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles to disdain the Jews and Jewish believers. But Paul shows them that his ministry to the Gentiles, at least in part, served to move to jealousy his fellow countrymen and save some of them (11:14). By magnifying his ministry, Paul meant that he worked hard to fulfill his ministry.
Even though Paul knew that God’s sovereign purpose to save the Jews would be fulfilled, he didn’t kick back and say, “What will be, will be.” He knew that God fulfills His sovereign purpose through the means that He has appointed. That’s why Paul wrote from prison to Timothy (2 Tim. 2:10), “For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory.” In the same way, we should devote our time, energy, and money to take the gospel to the nations, because God has chosen some from every nation to come to faith in Christ.
Paul labored to take the gospel to the Gentiles who had never heard, but he still had a burden for his fellow Jews to know their Savior. While we should labor to take the gospel to the nations, we should never forget about our neighbors and contacts that we rub shoulders with each week. Make a list of those who are not saved whom you have frequent contact with and pray for their salvation.
Romans 11:15: “For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?” There are two ways to interpret that phrase, with solid commentators in both camps. If it is taken literally, it refers to the final resurrection of the dead at the second coming of Christ. Verse 26 supports this view, which says that just after the fullness of the Gentiles, all Israel will be saved and then Jesus will return. Also, verse 15 parallels verse 12, and in both verses the logic is that if the Jews’ sin and rejection resulted in salvation for the Gentiles, then their reconciliation to God will result in even greater results. What could be greater than salvation, except the final resurrection that ushers in the eternal kingdom? (Douglas Moo and Thomas Schreiner argue for this view.)
While that view may well be correct, the phrase “life from the dead” is never used elsewhere to refer to the final resurrection. In Romans 6:13 Paul refers to our new position in Christ as being alive from the dead. Since unbelievers are dead in their sins (Eph. 2:1) and God through the gospel imparts new life, the phrase may have a figurative meaning. (John Murray and Leon Morris argue for this view.) When the Jews come to faith, it will be nothing less than Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones putting on flesh and coming to life (Ezekiel 37).
In a sense, both views are true. The gospel brings new life in Christ to everyone who believes. All who believe long for that glorious day when Christ returns and our mortal bodies are transformed into eternal bodies in conformity with Christ’s body (1 Cor. 15). The fact that sinners are dead in their sins, alienated from God, should motivate us to commit ourselves to proclaim the gospel to all people, whether Jews or Gentiles.
We’re not all called or gifted as evangelists. I’m not. But we are all called “according to God’s purpose” (Rom. 8:28). His purpose is to be glorified as the good news about Jesus goes to all people. So whatever your spiritual gifts, don’t spend your life pursuing your pleasure through the American dream. Spend your life for God’s certain purpose for history. Commit yourself to work for His glory through taking the gospel to all people.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Years ago, Dr. H. A. Ironside, who was pastor of the prestigious Moody Church in downtown Chicago, felt that he was not as humble as he should have been. So he asked an older friend what he could do about it. The friend suggested, “Make a sandwich board with the plan of salvation in Scripture on it. Put it on and walk through the business district of Chicago for a whole day.”
Ironside followed his friend’s humiliating advice. After he got home, as he took off the sandwich board he caught himself thinking, “There’s not another person in Chicago that would be willing to do a thing like that.”
Spiritual pride is an insidious enemy that we all continually must guard against and fight. It was one of the main sins of the Pharisees. They thought that they were a notch above their fellow Jews (John 9:28-34) and far above the despised Gentile dogs. To confront such pride, Jesus told the parable of the Pharisee and the publican who went up to the temple to pray (Luke 18:9-14). The Pharisee thanked God that he wasn’t like the publican. But how many times have you read that story and thought, “Thank God that I’m not like that Pharisee!”
The apostle Paul apparently knew from some of his contacts in Rome that there was a problem with creeping spiritual pride on the part of the Gentile Christians against their fellow Jewish believers (he deals with this more in chapters 14 & 15) and also against unbelieving Jews. Left unchecked, this attitude would lead to division in the church, to anti-Semitism that would choke out witness to the Jews, and to the spiritual ruin of those who continued down that path.
In our text, Paul counters this problem with an illustration of an olive tree and its branches. He shows the Gentiles that they are not the root, but rather are branches from a wild olive tree that have been grafted into the cultivated tree, supported by the root. Three times (11:18, 20, 25) Paul directly warns Gentile believers against spiritual pride. They were no better than the Jews, but were grafted into the tree by God’s grace alone. And if the Gentiles do not curb their pride, they could be broken off as the unbelieving Jews were. He also encourages evangelism toward unbelieving Jews by showing that in God’s sovereign plan, the branches that were broken off because of their unbelief will be grafted back in when they believe (11:23). In fact, God is moving salvation history toward that end (11:25-26). Applied to us, Paul’s message is:
Guard against spiritual pride by remembering that salvation is by grace alone and by maintaining faith and fear before the God of kindness and severity.
Illustrations ought to make the truth clearer, but sometimes they can have the opposite effect, especially if we try to figure out the details beyond the intent of the illustration (James Boice, Romans: God and History [Baker], 3:1343-1344). It’s easy to get mired in the details of Paul’s illustration here and end up with all sorts of problems. For example, some authors say that the olive tree represents Israel and at first glance this seems reasonable. But if the tree is Israel and Gentile believers are grafted into that tree, then we become Jews. Also, some point out that when a wild olive branch was grafted into a cultivated olive tree, it was to reinvigorate the old tree. But that would mean that Gentile believers give new life to Israel, when Paul states that the unbelieving Jews have been temporarily broken off the tree.
On the other hand, if the tree represents believing Jews you have a problem, because then Paul would be teaching that believers can lose their salvation. Some of the branches were broken off. Some solve this by saying that Paul is talking in terms of nations, not individuals, which is partly true. But that weakens Paul’s exhortation against spiritual pride, because it’s easy for individuals to shrug off national warnings by saying, “That may be true generally, but it doesn’t apply to me.” Also, if Paul is only talking in national terms, it would imply that the Gentiles have now replaced Israel in God’s program, which could result in the anti-Semitism that Paul is combating.
So we need to be careful not to press the details of this illustration too far. The olive tree represents in the broadest sense the people of God. In the Old Testament era, this was Israel, made up of both believers and unbelievers. It now is composed of the church in the broadest sense, made up of believers, but also of some that profess to believe, but are not true believers. These are the ones that Paul warns may be cut off. God is able to graft the Jews back into the people of God if they do not continue in their unbelief (11:23). But we need to stay focused on Paul’s main purpose for this illustration, namely, to confront any spiritual pride on the part of Gentiles in the church; and, to confront any anti-Semitism stemming from such pride that would choke out zeal for evangelizing the Jews. Since the root of both problems was spiritual pride, we’ll focus on how to guard against this dangerous sin.
Spiritual pride creeps in when we forget that salvation is by grace alone, not because of anything good in us. God is in charge of salvation history, working according to His sovereign, gracious choice (9:11-24; 11:7, 28). No one, whether Jew or Gentile, deserves salvation. It is always by God’s grace alone.
You may be wondering, “Where in the world does Steve find Abraham in these verses?” I confess, I didn’t see him here at first, but virtually all commentators agree that the root (11:16) refers to Abraham or also to the patriarchs Isaac and Jacob. In 11:28, Paul says that from the standpoint of God’s choice the Jews “are beloved for the sake of the fathers.” This goes back to Genesis 12:1-3, when God called Abram out of Ur of the Chaldees and told him to go to the land He would show him. God promised to bless Abram and make from him a great nation, so that in him all the families of the earth would be blessed.
Later, Moses told the Israelites (Deut. 7:7-8), “The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the Lord brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.” In other words, God didn’t love the Israelites and choose them because of something worthy in them. Rather, He chose them and loved them for the sake of His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And He chose those men not because of anything meritorious in them, but simply by His sovereign grace alone (Rom. 9:11-13, 16).
So in Paul’s illustration, Abraham is the root and the branches are the people of God in the broadest sense, descended from the patriarchs. But we need to back up and figure out what Paul means by the first piece of dough and the lump (11:16). Paul is referring to Numbers 15:20-21, where Moses tells Israel to offer the first of their dough to the Lord. Although the Old Testament never explicitly states it, Paul infers that if the first piece of dough is holy, then the rest of the lump is consecrated, too.
But what does he mean? He may be referring to the Jewish remnant of believers as the first fruits that signify that eventually the entire nation will be set apart unto God. But most commentators agree that the two illustrations in 11:16 are parallel. The first piece of dough and the root both refer to the patriarchs. The lump and the branches refer to the nation of Israel.
“Holy” in this context does not refer to personal or inward holiness, but rather to the fact that Israel as a nation was set apart to God in an external and relative sense (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 701). As such, Israel had been adopted as sons, they saw God’s glory in the wilderness and in the tabernacle, they had received God’s covenants and His law, and through them the Savior had come to earth (Rom. 9:4-5). Paul’s point in 11:16 is that God will keep His promises to the fathers by keeping their descendants as His people and saving the bulk of them at the culmination of history. And if any Jews were inclined to boast in their privileged position, they needed to remember that their privileges were not due to anything in them, but only to God’s grace shown to their forefathers, who didn’t deserve it either.
Paul deflates Gentile pride in several ways. First, in 11:17 he calls them a wild olive and says that they were grafted in among the Jews so that they became a partaker of the rich root of the olive tree. Normally, a branch from a cultivated olive tree would be grafted into a wild olive tree, but Paul’s illustration goes against nature, as he later states (11:24). God’s grace in grafting the “wild olive” Gentiles into the cultivated tree is obvious. It was contrary to expectations. They didn’t do anything to deserve such blessings.
Paul also deflates Gentile pride by saying (11:18), “But if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you.” We only can receive God’s salvation because He chose to be gracious to Abraham and He promised to bless all the nations of the earth through him. As Jesus said, “Salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22). For 2,000 years virtually all of the Gentiles around the globe were shut out of God’s covenant promises to the Jews through Abraham. But through Christ and because the Jews rejected Christ, the gospel has now gone out to the Gentiles (9:11-12).
But Paul anticipates how a spiritually proud Gentile might respond (11:19-21): “You will say then, ‘Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.’ Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear; for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either.” That leads to a second strategy to guard against spiritual pride:
Paul is talking in national terms in the sense that the Gentiles as a whole could be cut off from God’s grace, just as the Jews were. But we would be remiss if we did not apply this personally: We receive God’s grace by faith alone and we forfeit His grace by unbelief. And so we must make sure that our faith for salvation is in Christ alone, not in anything that we have done or promise to do. Faith in Christ, by its origin and nature, cripples our pride.
We are responsible to exercise faith, but it doesn’t originate within us. In the flesh, no one is able to please God (Rom. 8:8). Faith is pleasing to God (Heb. 11:6). So where does saving faith come from? Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Faith is not a wage that we earn and can demand payment for, or we could boast in it (Rom. 4:3-5). Rather, as Paul says (1 Cor. 1:30), “But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, ‘Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.’” Or, as he later asks (1 Cor. 4:7), “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” We can’t boast in our faith as if it came from us, because we received it from God (Rom. 12:3).
Also, by its nature faith excludes boasting. Saving faith means that I rely on Christ to do for me what I never deserved and what I never could do for myself. He took my penalty for sin on the cross. How can I boast in myself for that? If I were guilty of a serious crime and the judge imposed a penalty of $10 million that I could never repay and some rich benefactor stepped in and paid it for me, would I go around boasting about how great I am to get such a gift? No, it was shameful that I was guilty of the crime and even needed such a gift. If someone else paid my penalty, I could only boast in how kind and merciful he was. So maintaining faith before the God who shows mercy on whom He wills and hardens whom He wills guards us against spiritual pride.
But how do we maintain such faith? Focus daily on the cross and preach the gospel over and over to yourself. After writing to refute the Judaizers who boasted in their outward keeping of the law, Paul concluded (Gal. 6:14), “But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ….” To battle spiritual pride, maintain your faith by exulting daily in the cross.
So to guard against spiritual pride, first remember that salvation is by grace alone. Second, maintain your faith in the gospel.
Romans 11:20b-21: “Do not be conceited, but fear; for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either.” Many Christians today would cast off the notion of fear as an Old Testament concept. They would cry (1 John 4:18), “Perfect love casts out fear….” True, but our love isn’t perfect because our obedience isn’t perfect. As long as any bent toward sin remains in us, we need to fear God and fear our own propensity to sin. “Let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall” (1 Cor. 10:12). Here are four reasons why we should maintain fear:
“Insidious” means, “1. (a) awaiting a chance to entrap: treacherous; (b) harmful but enticing: seductive; 2. (a) having a gradual and cumulative effect; (b) of a disease: developing so gradually as to be well established before becoming apparent” (Wesbter’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary [Merriam Webster, 1988], p. 626). As I said, Paul saw spiritual pride as dangerous enough to repeat his warning three times here (11:18, 20, 25). If anything should humble us, it should be the gospel of God’s grace. But our flesh is so prone toward pride that it just keeps oozing out of any crack that we don’t repair.
Let me mention just one insidious trap of spiritual pride: the pride of being doctrinally correct. I believe that sound doctrine is essential for a healthy spiritual life, so I am not in any way saying that we should give up seeking to be doctrinally correct or striving to understand biblical truth more accurately. You will be spiritually unstable if you do not grow in sound doctrine (Eph. 4:13-15). But make sure that you maintain the fear of God as you grow in sound doctrine or that doctrine will puff you up with pride (1 Cor. 8:1). Remember that if you are doctrinally correct, it is only because God graciously opened your eyes to the truth.
Paul says (11:18), “Do not be arrogant toward the branches ….” “The branches” refers to the Jews who had rejected the gospel and were temporarily cut off from God’s mercy. It’s easy for us who believe to look down on unbelievers with disgust and to think, “Stupid people! They deserve to be judged!” (As if we didn’t!) Have you noticed that when we compare ourselves with others, we always pick those who in our minds are worse sinners than we are? We rarely compare ourselves with the godly. And what if we compare ourselves with God? If He had not chosen to have mercy on us, we would be darkened in our understanding, excluded from the life of God, and hardened in our hearts (Eph. 4:18).
One reason the Jews were cut off from salvation is that they sought to establish their own righteousness by keeping the law (9:31-32; 10:3). But now that the Gentiles have graciously been grafted into God’s promise to Abraham, they turn around and are arrogant towards the unbelieving Jews. They were forgetting that if God had not been merciful, they would still be in their sins. And they were forgetting that they only stood by faith (11:20), not by their works. As we’ve seen, if salvation is by faith then it is not of works, or we would boast. Spiritual pride subtly creeps in and makes us want to take at least some of the credit for our salvation, so that we even boast in our faith. Finally,
Romans 11:22: “Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off.” We tend to skip over behold, but it occurs over 1,000 times in the Bible as a flashing warning light to say, “Slow down! Open your eyes! You need to think about this.”
We’re all prone to behold God’s kindness, but we aren’t so apt to behold His severity. “To those who fell” refers to the Jews who were currently cut off from God’s mercy due to judicial hardening (11:8-10, 25). But Paul says that if the Gentiles do not continue in God’s kindness, they too will be cut off. As I said, this is a warning to all Gentiles, but we need to take it to heart individually.
Some use verses like this to argue that believers can lose their salvation. But the same man who wrote Romans 11:22 also wrote Romans 8:28-39, which is one of the strongest passages in the Bible in favor of the security of believers. He isn’t contradicting himself. Rather, Paul consistently taught that by God’s strength, genuine saving faith perseveres over the long haul. But one way that we persevere is through the many warnings in Scripture not to fall away (1 Cor. 10:1-12; Gal. 5:2-4, 21; Eph. 5:5-10; Col. 1:23; 1 Thess. 3:1-5; Heb. 6:4-12; 10:26-31).
H. C. G. Moule explains (The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, Romans [Cambridge University Press, 1903], p. 197, italics his),
Grace imparts perseverance by imparting and maintaining faith, (1 Pet. 1:5) and it freely uses all means by which such faith is properly animated and energized. Amongst such means are these warnings of the results that must follow if faith loses hold of its object.
Thomas Schreiner comments (Romans [Baker], p. 609), “Those who brush aside the warnings as unnecessary, concluding that they are protected from God’s wrath no matter how they behave, are presuming upon God’s grace.” If someone falls away from the faith and is cut off from God’s mercy, it is evidence that he never truly had believed in the first place (1 John 2:19; Matt. 7:21-23). If we do not judge our spiritual pride it shows that we never really understood or trusted in God’s grace.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones wisely observed (Romans: To God’s Glory [Banner of Truth], p. 125), “The best corrective against pride … is to know God, His character and the truth about Him.” And the main place to behold the kindness and severity of God is at the cross. There the severity of His righteous judgment did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all (Rom. 8:32). There the kindness of His tender love forgave all our sins and adopted us as His beloved children the instant we trusted in Christ. Guard yourself against any form of spiritual pride by remembering that salvation is by grace alone and by maintaining faith in Christ and fear before the kindness and severity of God.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
I spent the summer of 1969 with some other seminary students in a work/study/mentoring situation with Bill Counts and Hal Lindsey at the “Jesus Christ Light & Power House” in West Los Angeles. Hal was busy writing his book on prophecy, The Late Great Planet Earth. He would come to our meetings and beg us to go to Christian bookstores and ask them to order that book. He was afraid that it wouldn’t sell. As it turned out, it sold over 15 million copies and was the best selling book of the decade!
If you want to write a best seller, write it on prophecy! If you want to pack out a church, put on a prophecy conference. For some strange reason that I haven’t quite figured out, Christians and non-Christians alike are drawn to the subject of biblical prophecy. Will Christians go through the tribulation? Who is the anti-Christ? What will trigger Armageddon? Does Israel have a divine right to the land? Will they tear down the Dome of the Rock Mosque and rebuild the Temple? What about the Palestinians? Just this week the Israeli Prime Minister met with our President to discuss whether Israel should launch an attack on Iran before Iran perfects a nuclear weapon that could annihilate Israel.
While these issues are fascinating to speculate about, they usually end up with people walking away no different than they were before. But by way of contrast, biblical prophecy is always given for some practical effect. It calls sinners to repent before the coming judgment. It comforts believers with God’s sovereignty over world events, including persecution. It exhorts believers to holiness. And, in the case of our text, it is aimed at curbing our pride: Paul writes “so that you will not be wise in your own estimation” (11:25).
As we have seen, in Romans 11:1-10, Paul shows that God’s rejection of Israel was partial, not total. There was a remnant according to God’s gracious choice. In 11:11-32, he shows that God’s rejection of Israel was temporary, not permanent. God will again restore the Jews as a nation and pour out His covenant blessings on them.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Romans: To God’s Glory [Banner of Truth], pp. 161-162) observes that Paul gives five arguments (in 11:1-24) that God is not finished with the Jews. First, in 11:1, Paul says that he himself is proof: He is a Jew whom God has saved. Second (11:2-6), Paul shows that God has preserved a remnant of saved Jews. Third (11:16), he uses two parallel illustrations to show that because of God’s promises to the patriarchs, He will bless their descendants. Fourth (11:23), he argues that God is able to graft the Jews back into the olive tree. Fifth (11:24), he argues that what God has done with the Gentiles proves that He is able to do it in the case of the Jews. I would add a sixth argument from 11:12 & 15: If Israel’s failure led to the outpouring of blessing on the Gentiles, how much greater blessing will result from their salvation that God has promised?
But now Paul ends his arguments and makes a prophetic revelation. God has revealed something to Paul regarding the future of the Gentiles and Jews and he wants us to understand it so that we will grow in humility:
Understanding God’s prophetic revelation of salvation history should curb our pride as we realize His sovereign plan and power.
Paul’s opening phrase, “For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed,” is one that he uses frequently (Rom. 1:13; 1 Cor. 10:1; 12:1; 2 Cor. 1:8; 1 Thess. 4:13) to introduce something that his readers may not know, but which Paul regards as important (Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans/Apollos], pp. 61-62). “For” tells us that Paul is explaining what he has said earlier with regard to Israel’s rejection not being permanent. He calls this information a mystery. This teaches us that…
“Mystery” does not refer to some puzzle where we have to use our reason to piece together the clues to figure out what’s going on. And contrary to the “mystery religions” of Paul’s day (or the Freemasons of our day), it does not refer to secret knowledge that only the initiated inner circle can know. Rather, it means something that has been concealed and is unknowable by human reason, but which God has now revealed. Paul uses the word elsewhere to refer to various aspects of the Christian faith, but especially to the gospel and its inclusion of the Gentiles (Eph. 3:4-9; 6:19). Certainly the gospel of justification by faith alone was revealed in the Old Testament (e.g., Gen. 15:6; cf. Rom. 4:3) and the fact that the Gentiles would be included was stated there (e.g., Isa. 11:10; 19:19-25; 42:1-4; cf. Matt. 12:18-21; Rom. 15:9-12). But these truths could not be seen with clarity until Christ brought them into focus.
Thomas Schreiner (Romans [Baker], p. 614) outlines three elements of the mystery in Romans 11:25: (1) Part of Israel is hardened for a limited period of time; (2) the salvation of the Gentiles will precede the salvation of Israel; and (3) all Israel will eventually be saved. Paul may have understood these truths through meditating on the Old Testament in light of the gospel. But the word mystery indicates that God imparted special revelation to Paul on these matters, especially on the truth that Israel would go through a time of judicial hardening while the Gentiles came to salvation. Then the hardening would be lifted and “all Israel will be saved” (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 715-717).
The point is that we cannot arrive at some of these profound biblical truths through human reason alone, and therefore we cannot boast in our knowledge of them. God had to reveal these truths to Paul, who conveyed them to us. Otherwise we could not have understood them. And sometimes, as in the next point that we’re going to consider, we have to set aside our logical objections to the truth and recognize that God has spoken. We can either proudly argue with His revelation or humbly submit to it.
As we have seen, Romans 9 emphasizes God’s sovereignty in showing mercy to whom He wills and hardening whom He wills. Romans 10 emphasizes human responsibility. “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved” (10:13), but Israel stubbornly refused to believe (10:21). In Romans 11:20-23a, the emphasis is on human responsibility to believe in Christ and to persevere. But from 11:23b-29, the emphasis is on God’s sovereignty. He is able to graft Israel in again (11:23-24). He has hardened Israel for a time during which He is bringing the full number of Gentiles to salvation (11:25). But after that time, He will lift the hardening on Israel and bring their full number to salvation. He will do this by sending the Deliverer, removing ungodliness from Jacob, and fulfilling His covenant to take away their sins (11:26-27). While the Jews were currently God’s enemies so that the Gentiles could come to salvation, at the same time God loved them because of His choice and His promise to the fathers (11:28). You can count on this because God’s gifts and calling are irrevocable (11:29).
So while affirming human responsibility to repent and believe, Paul at the same time shows that God is in charge of salvation history, hardening some nations for a period of time while He works with others, and then reversing the process. These are God’s unsearchable judgments and unfathomable ways that cause Paul to burst out in praise (11:33). But let’s unpack this in more detail:
Paul says (11:25), “that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.” We saw this in 11:7-10. Paul also refers to it in 2 Corinthians 3:14-15, where Paul says in reference to the Jews, “But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ. But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart.” Jesus referred to the same spiritual hardening or blindness in Matthew 13:13-16 with reference to His parables. It was a fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy (6:10), “Render the hearts of this people insensitive, their ears dull, and their eyes dim, otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and return and be healed.” It was God’s sovereign judicial hardening of people in their disobedience and unbelief.
This is hard truth! God has the right to show mercy to whom He desires and to harden whom He desires (Rom. 9:18). If we cry, “That’s not fair!” we are contending with the Divine Potter, who has the right to make vessels for honorable or common use as He determines (Rom. 9:20-21). If God were fair, everyone would be condemned because all are guilty before Him. God is not required to show mercy to all. We can either rail against God for what we think is unfair or we can submit to God as the sovereign who has the power to harden or to show mercy. You will not understand the doctrine of election until you bow before God and yield all of your rights to Him, recognizing that if He dealt with you on the basis of fairness, you would be eternally condemned.
The staggering thing about what Paul says here is that for about 2,000 years now, the Jews have for the most part been hardened against the gospel because their ancestors cried out (Matt. 27:25), “His blood shall be on us and on our children!” Not all were hardened, in that there has always been a remnant of saved Jews according to God’s gracious choice (Rom. 11:5). And the hardening is “partial” in that eventually, it will be lifted. But be careful! If you say, “It’s not fair that a Jewish boy or girl living hundreds of years after Christ should be hardened because of the sins of their distant ancestors,” you have just charged God with unfairness! Those who make such a charge do not understand God’s sovereign right to be God or the utter sinfulness of all people in His holy presence.
That’s the negative side of God’s sovereign, powerful working in salvation history. But, thankfully, there is a positive side:
Paul is not expressing a holy wish, “I hope that someday all Israel will be saved,” but rather a prophetic certainty: “All Israel will be saved.” But there is a lot of controversy over the meaning of the text here that we need to sort out.
First, the Greek phrase translated “and so” can be interpreted in several ways. Without going through all of them, the most likely meaning is, “in this manner.” The idea is, “In the same manner that God has hardened Israel while He brought the Gentiles to salvation (described in 11:11-24), so once the full number of Gentiles has been saved, God will use that to provoke the Jews to jealousy so that they will be saved” (Moo, p. 720). As God sovereignly orchestrates the fullness of the Gentiles, so He will do with the Jews (see 11:12, 15).
But there is also controversy over the phrase “all Israel.” Many early church fathers and later the Reformers and their followers argued that “all Israel” refers to all of God’s elect throughout history, both Jews and Gentiles. But in Romans 9-11 Paul uses “Israel” ten times and every use refers to ethnic Israel (Moo, p. 721). The context of these chapters deals with the question of why the Jews were not coming to Christ while the Gentiles were. And clearly “Israel” in 11:25 and “they” in 11:28 both refer to the Jews in contrast to the Gentiles. So it is unlikely that Paul would change his meaning in 11:26.
Another view is that “all Israel” refers to the elect within Israel (as in 9:6). The meaning would then be that eventually the full number of the elect Jews will come to salvation. But this is stating the obvious. And, this would require a shift in meaning between 11:25, where “Israel” refers to the nation generally, to a more narrow meaning in 11:26. Also, it is hard to understand how the completion of the number of elect Jews will be seen as a dramatic event referred to as “life from the dead” (11:15). And so the best meaning is that “all Israel” means the nation in general.
But what does “all” mean? Most commentators agree that it does not mean every single Jew who has ever lived, nor every Jew living in the end times when the hardness is lifted. The phrase “all Israel” is used often in the Old Testament to refer to most of the nation, but not to every single Jew in the nation (Josh. 7:25; 1 Sam. 7:5; 2 Sam. 16:22; 1 Kings 12:1; 2 Chron. 12:1; Dan. 9:11; see Moo, p. 722, note 55). So Paul’s meaning for “all Israel will be saved” is that after the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, God will lift the judicial hardening and the great majority of Jews living at that time will turn to Christ with saving faith.
And the point is that it is not that God looked down through time and saw that the Jews would believe of their own free will, and so He told Paul how things would turn out. Rather, things will turn out this way because God decreed that they will turn out this way. He is sovereignly, powerfully working in salvation history for His own purposes and glory.
Briefly note five things:
Some wrongly teach that there are two ways of salvation, one for the Gentiles and another for the Jews. But there has always been only one way of salvation, namely, to trust in God’s provision of a Savior or Deliverer, who is Jesus Christ the Lord. In the Old Testament, the Jews looked forward to the final and perfect sacrifice who would bear their sins. We look back to Christ as the Lamb of God. But both Jews and Gentiles are a part of the same tree, not separate trees. This is not to say that there are no distinctions between Israel and the church, but it is to say that we are all partakers of the same promise of the Savior that God gave to Adam and Eve in the Garden (Gen. 3:15) and later to Abraham (Gen. 12, 15, 17).
Some argue that verse 26 refers to Christ’s first coming, but at that time Jesus did not remove all ungodliness from Jacob and all Israel was not saved. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (pp. 190-191, 232-234) argues that it refers to a spiritual coming of Christ out of His spiritual dwelling place with His people (“Zion”) at some time in the future that will result in widespread conversion of the Jews. But most commentators understand this as a reference to either just prior to or at the time of the second coming, when Christ will come out of the heavenly Zion (Schreiner, p. 619).
Zechariah 12:10 predicts, “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.” Perhaps even as Paul was converted by seeing the risen Savior, so all Israel will be dramatically converted when the Lord intervenes to save them from national destruction at Armageddon and then appears in glory (Zech. 14:1-4). But we can’t be dogmatic on the details of these future events.
“He will remove ungodliness from Jacob” (from the LXX of Isa. 59:20) is another way of referring to salvation. “Ungodliness” refers to the “unbelief” of 11:23 (Schreiner, p. 620). But to describe salvation as “removing ungodliness” shows, as all Scripture affirms, that saving faith always involves repentance. Granted, it is a lifelong process that is never perfected until we are with the Lord. But if we claim to believe in Christ but live in persistent disobedience, one day we will hear Him say the frightening words, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness” (Matt. 7:23).
Romans 11:27: “This is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins.” Paul combines Isaiah 59:21 and 27:9 (see Moo, p. 729). “I take away their sins” reminds us that salvation is not primarily a psychological matter of moving from low self-esteem to proper self-esteem, as Robert Schuller claims. Nor is it a matter of Jesus helping you to succeed in your family life or career. Salvation meets our fundamental need to be reconciled with the holy God through His just forgiveness of all our sins through the death of Christ (Rom. 3:26).
Some (Moo, p. 728) argue that Paul is referring here to the Abrahamic covenant. But the language also reminds us of the new covenant (Jer. 31:31-44; Morris, p. 422). But the point is, because it is God’s covenant, it is a sure thing. He always keeps His covenant promises (Rom. 11:29). And so Paul’s prophecy shows God’s sovereign, powerful working in salvation history.
But, as I said, God doesn’t give us prophetic revelation so that we can draw up nifty charts of the end times. There is always a practical aspect to it:
Paul gives us this information “so that you will not be wise in your own estimation” (11:25). The Gentiles were prone to think that they were hot stuff because they were saved and to look down on the unbelieving Jews because they had rejected Christ. We’re all prone to think that God saved us because somehow we’re a notch above others and He saw something worth saving in us that others lack. But that is to deny God’s grace. And, if we look down on other sinners and think that they deserve judgment (forgetting that we deserve it just as much as they do), we will not reach out to them with the gospel. One way to hasten the conversion of the Jews is to finish the task of evangelizing the Gentiles, because when the fullness of the Gentiles comes in, God will lift the partial hardening on the Jews and bring them to salvation en masse.
So test your understanding of God’s prophetic revelation of salvation history by this: Does this truth humble you as you realize that except for the grace of God, you could have been born at a time when the Gentiles were “separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12)? But as Paul goes on to say (Eph. 2:13), “But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” God’s sovereign working in salvation history should produce humble gratitude in our hearts.
Also, does this truth burden your heart for those who are outside of Christ, whether Jew or Gentile? While God is sovereign over salvation history, as we saw (10:14-15), He uses those whom He has saved to proclaim the good news to those who need to hear it in order to believe. Understanding God’s prophetic revelation should motivate us to proclaim to all that “the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him” (10:12).
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
William Beebe was an explorer and a friend of President Theodore Roosevelt. Often when he visited the President, the two men would go outdoors at night to see who could first locate the Andromeda galaxy. Then as they gazed at the tiny smudge of distant starlight, one of them would recite, “That is the spiral galaxy of Andromeda. It is as large as our Milky Way. It is one of a hundred million galaxies. It is 750,000 light-years away. It consists of one hundred billion suns, each larger than our sun.” After that thought had sunk in, Roosevelt would flash his toothy grin and say, “Now I think we’re small enough! Let’s go to bed.” (Encyclopedia of 7,700 Illustrations, by Paul Lee Tan [Assurance Publishers], # 2213.)
We now know that Andromeda is 2.6 million light years away and consists of one trillion stars, about twice the number of our galaxy. And while the numbers are only estimates and they keep getting larger, astronomers think that there are at least 100-200 billion galaxies, not 100 million. A German supercomputer simulation recently put that number at 500 billion (universetoday.com). Mr. Beebe and President Roosevelt would feel even smaller!
As the apostle Paul sums up Romans 11 in our text, he wants us to feel appropriately small in the presence of the Sovereign God who moves all of history according to His unfathomable ways for His own glory. Pastor John Piper (desiringGod.org, “God’s Design for History: The Glory of His Mercy,” italics his) sums up, “Romans 11:30-32 is the summary of the main point of this chapter, namely, that God has designed and guided history—both its disobedience and its obedience—so that in the end it will most fully display the reliability of his promises and the magnificence of his mercy—to prevent human pride and produce white-hot worship.”
Douglas Moo (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], pp. 729-730) points out that verses 28-32 “recapitulate and wrap up the argument of chaps. 9-11 as a whole. Paul’s assertion of Israel’s dual status in v. 28 succinctly summarizes the dilemma that drives the whole argument of these chapters: the Israel now at enmity with God because of the gospel is nevertheless the Israel to whom God has made irrevocable promises of blessing.” Paul’s point is:
We should stand in awe of God because He designs and controls all of history to display His faithfulness to His promises and the glory of His mercy to sinners.
Paul has been gazing through the telescope to get a glimpse of just how big God is, and he invites us to take a look for ourselves.
Some might react to this statement by thinking that it denies our “free will.” They would object, “Are we just robots that God has programmed to do what He has determined they should do?” But the biblical view is much more profound than this. While God controls all of history and moves it according to His sovereign purpose, He does so through humans who are free to make choices for which they are held responsible. For example, before human history began God ordained the cross. The cross was necessary because of human sin and it could only be implemented through sinful behavior. And yet at the same time, God is not responsible for sin and He holds sinners accountable for their sin.
In my Bible reading this week, I came to a verse that is a favorite of many, Jeremiah 29:11: ‘“For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.’” It’s a wonderful promise for God’s people, especially those who are suffering. In the verse just before, God tells Jeremiah that after 70 years of captivity in Babylon, He will restore Israel to their land. In the following verses (29:12-13) He says, “Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”
Did you notice the interplay between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility in those verses? God has a plan for His people and He will carry out that plan right on schedule. He is not restricted from carrying out His plan by what sinful people do. God‘s plan required that Cyrus the pagan king had to decide to let the Jews return to their land. The Jews had to decide to give up living in Babylon, where they had been born and reared, and to make the difficult, dangerous, and uncertain journey back to Israel. To do that, they had to rely on God’s promise that their future in Israel would be for their and their children’s good. Furthermore, God declares that the Jews of that future generation will call upon Him, pray to Him, and seek Him with all their hearts.
So God had a plan and it was certain that He would accomplish His plan. The plan included the “free” decision of a sinful king and the “free” decision of the Jews to return to the land and seek the Lord. But when they freely chose these things, they were carrying out God’s foreordained plan. And it was not that God merely foresaw these events. Rather, He designs and controls how things turn out to accomplish His purposes. But at the same time, He accomplishes His purpose through people who make real choices for which they are responsible.
John Piper outlines four broad stages of history (11:30-32):
(1) The time of Gentile disobedience, when God permitted the nations to go their own way. God described some of this history in advance to Abraham in a mind-boggling statement (Gen. 15:13): “God said to Abram, ‘Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years.’” Then God explains why Israel will spend four centuries in slavery in Egypt (Gen. 15:16), “Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.” That’s amazing! Israel would spend four long centuries in slavery because the iniquity of the Amorite (the Canaanites) was not yet complete! When their sin was full to the brim, God freed Israel from slavery to Egypt and commanded them to execute His judgment on the wicked Canaanites.
Paul referred to this time of Gentile disobedience in a passing phrase in a sermon at Lystra (Acts 14:16), “In the generations gone by He permitted all the nations to go their own ways ….” I thought about that verse on Monday as we hiked to a remote spot below the North Rim of the Grand Canyon called “Shaman’s Gallery.” It is an extensive panel of rock art that some native shaman who did not know the living and true God put there perhaps 1,000 years ago. Why didn’t he know God? Because in His unsearchable judgments and unfathomable ways, God permitted the Gentiles to go their own ways.
(2) The time of Jewish disobedience, when they rejected their Messiah and He gave them up to hardness. As we saw last time, Israel brazenly rejected and crucified their Savior as they cried out (Matt. 27:25), “His blood shall be on us and on our children!” Although God had ordained the cross, He permitted the Jews to make that frightening choice and pronounce that curse on them and their children. That hardness has lasted for almost 2,000 years.
When Paul says (11:28), “From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake,” he means that because God hardened the Jews, the gospel has now gone out to the Gentiles (see 11:11, 12, 15). “Enemies” probably means, “They are God’s enemies” because of their sin and unbelief in rejecting their Messiah. But the staggering thing about God’s judgment on the Jews is that if you had been born as a Jew in the past 2,000 years, unless you were a part of the remnant according to God’s gracious choice (11:5), you would have lived and died hardened toward the good news about the Savior!
(3) The time of mercy shown to the Gentiles through the spread of the gospel to all nations—the fullness of the Gentiles. We are the recipients of God’s mercy in this period as the gospel goes out to the nations. And yet, as I just mentioned in the case of the Native Americans who lived 1,000 years ago, they lived and died without hearing the gospel. Approximately 6,900 people groups are still in such spiritual darkness, waiting to hear the gospel (see my message “Good News for All,” 1/29/12).
(4) The time of mercy on Israel as God completes his redemptive plan and takes away the hardening and saves the nation of Israel with a mass conversion to Christ. As I explained last week, this will probably happen either just prior to or at the time of the second coming of Jesus Christ. In 11:31, the second “now” is difficult, causing some manuscripts to omit it. But it is probably original. But how can the Jews now be shown mercy when it is still future? Probably Paul meant that now that the Gentiles have been shown mercy, the Jews were in position for this final phase of God’s program. It could take place “now,” at any time.
I need to emphasize that God’s shutting up all in disobedience does not mean that He is responsible for sin. It has the idea of God giving the Gentiles over to the consequences of their sin (as in Rom. 1:24, 26, & 28) and consigning the Jews to judicial hardening because of their sin (11:7-10). Just as He shut up these two groups to their sins, so He will show mercy to the two groups. But this does not mean that He will save everyone in those groups. Moo explains (ibid., pp. 736-737), “He is saying that God has imprisoned in disobedience first Gentiles and now Jews so that he might bestow mercy on each of these groups of humanity.”
The Westminster Confession of Faith (Chapter III, 1.) puts the biblical balance like this: “God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.” The point is that without violating the free agency of sinners, God designs and controls all history for His sovereign purpose of glorifying His name. And so we should stand in awe of the Sovereign God of history.
Romans 11:28-29: “From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers; for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” H. C. G. Moule (The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans [Cambridge: University Press, 1903], p. 201, italics his) paraphrases,
With a view to the spread of the Gospel, which is the message of salvation for every believer, Jew or Gentile, (1:16) it pleased God in His sovereign plan to reject the great majority of the Jews—in order to open His kingdom wide to you. But with a view to the believing element, the elect Jews of every age, including the great multitude to be called to grace hereafter, the Jews are still dear to Him; for His Covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is sovereign and unchangeable.
Douglas Moo (ibid., p. 729) says, “It is because God has chosen Israel to be his ‘beloved’ that he will bring salvation to the people in the last day.” He points out that “election” (in 11:28) refers not to salvation for every single Jew, but rather to God’s choosing Israel as a nation in line with His covenant with the patriarchs. This status as God’s chosen nation results in salvation only for those whom God individually chooses and calls in this age (the “remnant” of 11:5) and in the future (“all Israel” of 11:26).
When Paul says that Israel is “beloved for the sake of the fathers,” he does not mean that the godliness of the patriarchs somehow stored up merit for their descendants. Nor did God choose the patriarchs because of something worthy in them. The Bible records that they all had many sins. Rather, Paul means that God will fulfill His promises to the patriarchs.
God’s “gifts” (11:29) refers to the blessings enumerated in 9:4-5. His “calling” refers to God’s calling Abram and promising to bless him and his descendants. In other words, it refers to God’s choosing Israel as His special people. According to The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (F. Laubach, [Zondervan, 1975], ed. by Colin Brown, 1:357), “irrevocable” means, “In spite of the disobedience and hardening of men’s hearts God will accomplish his purpose of salvation also in his people Israel.” In other words, God will not go back on His covenant promises. He has designed history to display His faithfulness to His promises.
The practical benefit of this is that we can trust God’s promises, including His promise to work even the most difficult trials together for our ultimate good (Rom. 8:28). But keep in mind that you may die without seeing the fulfillment of God’s promises. Abraham died owning only a burial cave that he had bought with his own money, without realizing God’s promise to give him the land of Canaan. But God’s timing is not our timing. With God, a thousand years is as a day (2 Pet. 3:8), and so it’s only been four days since Abraham’s time! But when the final account of human history stands finished, we will see that God designed and controlled it all to display the complete faithfulness of His promises. We can count on His Word as true!
Romans 11:30-32: “For just as you once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, so these also now have been disobedient, that because of the mercy shown to you they also may now be shown mercy. For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.”
By repetition Paul sets forth two themes: “Disobedient” (or, “disobedience”) occurs four times. “Mercy” also occurs four times. John Murray (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], 2:102, italics his) observes, “It is only in the context of disobedience that mercy has relevance and meaning.” Unless you realize the enormity of your own disobedience and sin, you will not appreciate the greatness of the gift of God’s mercy.
In this sweeping summary of history there is a similarity and a difference (Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans [Apollos/Eerdmans], p. 425). Both the Jews and the Gentiles are alike in that both groups were disobedient to God. But the difference is that in God’s design for history, through the Jews’ disobedience, the Gentiles came to experience God’s mercy, but it will be through the Gentiles’ experience of God’s mercy that the Jews will finally come to know His mercy, too.
Morris (ibid., pp. 424-425) also points out that it is significant that Paul does not say, “You were disobedient, but you have become obedient,” but rather, “You have been shown mercy.” He adds, “It is no human achievement of which he speaks, but a divine gift.” God’s mercy is similar to His grace, in that both represent His unmerited favor toward those who deserve His judgment. But the nuance of difference is that grace emphasizes God’s favor in forgiving our sins because we are guilty, whereas mercy emphasizes His compassion on us because we are miserable (R. C. Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament [Eerdmans], p. 170).
To repeat so that you are clear, Paul is not saying (in 11:32) that God will save everyone. Rather, in the context Paul is looking at the broad sweep of history and God’s dealings with the Gentiles and the Jews as groups. He is saying that just as both groups were at various times cut off from God’s mercy because of their disobedience, so both groups will experience His mercy as history unfolds. This does not imply that every individual in each group will be saved, which would contradict what Paul says elsewhere, that some will come under eternal condemnation (2 Thess. 1:9; 2:12). So “mercy to all” means that just as God is now pouring out His mercy on the Gentiles as a group, so in the future He will pour out His mercy on the Jews as a group. He has designed and He controls all of history to display the glory of His mercy to sinners.
The bottom line for contemplating how God has designed and controls all of history to display His faithfulness and mercy is:
Thinking about these profound truths moved Paul to burst out in worship (Rom. 11:33-36): “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor? Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.”
We will look at those verses in more depth next time, but they teach us that this truth of God’s sovereignty over salvation history is not for debate, but for worship. It should cause us to stand in awe of God and to thank Him for His faithfulness to His promises and to worship Him for showing us mercy.
I conclude with seven practical applications. Some of these will apply more to some than to others, but as they say, “If the shoe fits, wear it!”
(1) Make sure that you have received God’s mercy by repenting of your sins and trusting in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord. God has you hearing this message so that as you feel the weight of your sin and guilt, you can turn to Him and know His mercy.
(2) Grow in worship and humility before God as you meditate often on His sovereignty over history and on the mercy that He has shown you. These truths are not just for your brain, but for your heart before God. Humble yourself before the Almighty Sovereign of history.
(3) If you have received God’s mercy, be merciful to other sinners who are racially or morally different than you, especially when they have sinned against you. Paul knew that the gospel should result in redeemed Gentile sinners extending mercy to Jewish sinners, and vice versa. Apart from God’s mercy to you, you would be just as offensive to other sinners as they are toward you. They need mercy, not judgment.
(4) Rely on God’s faithfulness to His promises no matter how contrary to your current circumstances those promises may seem. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all died in faith, without receiving the promises (Heb. 11:13). Don’t stop trusting when you don’t see instant results.
(5) Since in the inscrutable ways of God the destiny of your children and grandchildren is somehow linked to your faith, make sure that for their sakes you walk with God. The disobedience of the Jews in the time of Christ has affected 2,000 years of Jewish history! How frightening! And as Paul has said (11:22), if we Gentiles do not continue in God’s kindness, we (and our descendants) could be cut off. Your walk with God matters to more than just you!
(6) Tell others about God’s great mercy and faithfulness toward sinners who will call upon Him. His purpose in shutting us all up in disobedience is that He might show mercy to all. He is “abounding in riches for all who call upon Him; for ‘whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved’” (Rom. 10:12b-13).
(7) If you reject Christ, you are an enemy of God. The Jews were God’s enemies because they had rejected the Savior that He had graciously sent. Right now, you’re either the object of God’s mercy through faith in Christ or you’re His enemy, headed toward judgment, because you have rejected Christ. There is no neutral ground. The most loving thing I can say to you is, “Trust in Christ today!”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Pastor John Piper tells of a time when he felt impressed to preach on God’s greatness as revealed in Isaiah 6, the passage where Isaiah saw the Lord on His throne. Normally Piper says that he would have tried to apply the text, but on this Sunday, he simply tried to lift up and display the majesty and glory of God, without a word of application. He did not realize that one of the young families in his church had just discovered that their child was being sexually abused by a close relative. They were there that Sunday and heard his message.
Piper says that many advisors to us pastors would have said, “Pastor Piper, can’t you see that your people are hurting? Can’t you come down out of the heavens and get practical? Don’t you realize what kind of people sit in front of you on Sunday?” Some weeks later he learned the story. The husband took him aside after a service and said, “John, these have been the hardest months of our lives. Do you know what has gotten me through? The vision of the greatness of God’s holiness that you gave me the first week in January. It has been the rock we could stand on.”
Piper concludes (The Supremacy of God in Preaching [Baker], pp. 10-11), “The greatness and glory of God are relevant. It does not matter if surveys turn up a list of perceived needs that does not include the supreme greatness of the sovereign God of grace. That is the deepest need. Our people are starving for God.”
Paul has been outlining for us how God has sovereignly designed and controlled salvation history. There was a long period of time (from Abraham to Christ) when He permitted the Gentile nations to go their own way, while He revealed Himself to the Jews. But then the Jews rejected their Messiah and God brought a partial hardening on them. In many ways, this hardening even went back to the time of Moses (Deut. 32:5-35), but it was intensified when the nation crucified the sinless Son of God. At that point, while preserving a remnant of saved Jews, God opened the door of His mercy to the Gentiles, who are now coming to salvation in unprecedented numbers. But in the future, God will keep His covenant promises to the fathers by showing mercy again to the Jews, “so all Israel will be saved.”
Paul concludes this discussion (11:32) by marveling, “For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.” “All” in the context does not refer to every individual, but to all groups of people. He has shut up all the Gentiles and the Jews to disobedience, so that He can show mercy to both groups.
Verse 32 sums up Paul’s line of thought in Romans thus far. All the Gentiles (Romans 1) and the Jews (Romans 2) have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3). That means that the only way of salvation is not through human works, but rather through God’s grace and mercy (Romans 4 & 5). Verse 32 also sums up Romans 9-11, which focuses on the problem of why the Jews were rejecting Christ. Paul shows that because of our sin, salvation is only possible if God through His sovereign grace chose to have mercy on us (Romans 9). If we are lost, it is because we have refused to call upon the Lord (Romans 10). Because of His gracious promises to the patriarchs, God is not finished with the Jews (Romans 11). While they are now disobedient to God, they will yet again be shown mercy. This thought leads Paul to break out in this concluding doxology that wraps up the entire discussion from Romans 1 through 11.
The main idea that comes through in our text is the immensity of God and the relative puniness of man. Charles Hodge puts it (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 377), “Few passages, even in the Scriptures, are to be compared with this, in the force with which it presents the idea that God is all, and man is nothing.” Isaiah 40, from which Paul cites (v. 34), may compare. In that great chapter, Isaiah says (40:15, 17), “Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales, … All the nations are as nothing before Him, they are regarded by Him as less than nothing and meaningless.”
Paul also cites from Job (41:11), where for four chapters God grills Job on where he was when God created the heavens and the earth and all that is in it. God relentlessly hammers home the truth that He alone is great and no man, not even the most righteous man on the face of the earth, is great. At the end, Job answers (42:2), “I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.” He goes on to admit that he had declared things beyond his knowledge and understanding, and so he repents in dust and ashes. It is that same exalting of God and humbling of us that Paul sets forth here. His message is:
Since God is far greater than you can comprehend and you are not great, humble yourself before God and worship Him.
You may react to that statement by thinking, “That puts me down and damages my self-esteem! I thought that I needed to believe in myself and build my self-esteem.” But that idea came into Christian circles through atheistic psychologists like Carl Rogers, not through the Word of God. Besides, that approach puts you on a path that does not lead to personal and emotional wholeness, because it leaves you as the center of your life. It’s interesting that Isaiah 40, which extols God’s greatness, begins with God saying (40:1), “Comfort, O comfort My people,” and ends with the prophet explaining how God gives strength to the weary who wait upon the Lord (40:29-31).
And to poor Job, who was already beaten to a pulp with all his afflictions and his insensitive counselors, God didn’t say, “Job, think about what a great man you are! You’re really the most righteous man on earth.” God didn’t play the psychologist to build Job’s self-esteem. Rather, He directed Job to think about how great God is, which humbled Job, led him to worship God, and be restored. Since God humbles the proud, but lifts the needy from the ash heap (1 Sam. 2:6-8), being humbled in the presence of the God who alone is great brings great comfort and restoration to your soul. It’s intensely practical to magnify the Lord and to minimize your view of yourself. So let’s consider this transforming truth:
Romans 11:33: “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!”
One of the most important lessons that we all need to learn is, “God is God; I am not God.” That sounds obvious, but we challenge it every time we think that God owes us something or that He is not treating us as well as we think we deserve. We act against it every time we sin. We violate the truth of it every time we grumble about our circumstances. We fly in the face of it every time we get puffed up with pride or look down on others.
We undermine it every time we question God’s right to act as the Bible tells us He acted: “It’s not fair that He loved Jacob and hated Esau! It’s not right that He slaughtered all the firstborn children in Egypt! God didn’t even warn the Egyptian parents to put the blood on their doorposts and lintels. It’s not right that He commanded Israel to slaughter the Canaanites, including women and children! It’s not merciful for Him to strike Uzzah dead for touching the ark! He was only trying to help!” All of those arrogant challenges to God’s right to be God imply that the challenger knows more than God knows. And so a very basic lesson is, “God is God; I am not God.” If you don’t learn that before you stand before Him at the judgment, you will learn it then, but too late!
Paul first exclaims his wonder at the depth of certain qualities or attributes of God and then lays out either four or five of those attributes. I say “four or five” because the Greek text can legitimately be translated in either of two ways and scholars are divided, as the difference between the NASB and the ESV (11:33) reflects. The NASB reads, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” The ESV reads, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!” It’s difficult to decide between the two. In favor of the NASB, Paul does not normally use “riches” without a qualifying genitive (“of His kindness” [2:4]; “of His glory” [9:23]; “of His grace” [Eph. 1:7]; etc.). It seems unlikely that Paul would put “riches” in parallel with “wisdom and knowledge” if he did not mean “the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.” (Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], pp. 632-633, argues for this view.)
On the other hand, Paul may be reflecting back on the riches of God’s grace and love in Christ as he has expounded on them thus far in Romans. It has been pointed out that the citations from the Old Testament (in 11:34 & 35) relate to these three qualities in reverse order: “Who has known the mind of the Lord?” relates to His knowledge; “Who became His counselor?” relates to His wisdom; and, “Who has first given to Him?” relates to His riches. I’m not dogmatic, but I’m going to look at these verses under five headings, each of which show that God is greater than we can ever comprehend.
God’s incomprehensibility is reflected in the word depth. It’s not that we cannot know God at all, but rather that we can never get to the bottom of who He is in His greatness. Maybe you’ve stood on the rim of the Grand Canyon and peered into the bottom and exclaimed, “Oh, the depth!” I just read that some explorers, including James Cameron, the director of “Titanic,” are going to dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest place on earth. It goes down to almost 36,000 feet (almost 7 miles) below sea level. More people have been to the moon than have gone down to the bottom of this trench, which is described as “the most hostile, most remote environment on the face of the planet” (Arizona Daily Sun, 3/19/12). If Cameron’s vessel were to leak, the pressure would crush him so fast that he couldn’t even cry out.
“Oh, the depth!” Let’s try to explore some of the depths of God:
As I recently pointed out, Paul loved the thought of God’s riches: He is (Rom. 10:12b-13) “abounding in riches for all who call on Him, for whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” In Ephesians 1:7-8 Paul says, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us.” In Ephesians 2:7, he says “that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” We will never get to the bottom of the depths of the riches of His grace! In Ephesians 3:8 he says, “To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ.” He uses the same word as in Romans 11:33, how “unfathomable are His ways.” It means that they are not capable of being tracked.
Are you enjoying the depth of the riches of God’s grace toward you in Christ? Do you revel in the fact that God has blessed you with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ (Eph. 1:3)? Do you marvel that He chose you in Christ before the foundation of the world and that in love He predestined you to adoption as his child through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, freely bestowing His grace on you in the Beloved (Eph. 1:4-6)? Like Scrooge McDuck in the old Donald Duck cartoon strip, you are swimming in piles and piles of God’s riches, lavished on you in Christ. Use those riches daily!
God’s wisdom somewhat overlaps with His knowledge. The difference is that knowledge is information and wisdom is the application of that knowledge. So God’s wisdom concerns how He does what He does. The Hebrew word for wisdom has the nuance of skill. To acquire wisdom is to obtain the skill to live a beautiful life before God. Proverbs 2:6 says, “For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.” God’s wisdom is revealed to us in His written Word.
In our text, Paul is especially referring to the wisdom that informs God’s purposes and His accomplishment of them (C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [T & T Clark International], 2:589). As Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 1:18-25, God’s wisdom is especially revealed in the cross of Christ, which is foolishness to the so-called “wise” men of this world. He says (1 Cor. 1:24), “But to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” If you want to go deeper in God’s wisdom, meditate often on the glory of Christ crucified for your sins.
God’s knowledge is His omniscience, the comprehensive information that is the basis for His wisdom. God knows all things in the universe exhaustively. He knows what is going on in the chemical reactions of the stars in billions of distant galaxies. He knows what is going on in the cells of your body. He knows your thoughts before you have them and your words before you speak them (Ps. 139:1-4). He knew you when you were being formed in your mother’s womb and He knows the exact number of your days (Ps. 139:16). He not only knows all things that will happen, but He also knows all things that would have happened had other contingencies prevailed, and He judges people on that basis (Matt. 11:21-24)! Hebrews 4:13 puts it, “And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.”
God’s exhaustive knowledge of us is both frightening and comforting. It’s frightening in that you can’t hide anything from God. “Be sure your sin will find you out” (Num. 32:23)! When the Lord told Abraham that Sarah would conceive in her old age, Sarah, who was in the tent, laughed in unbelief. The Lord asked Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh? … Is anything too difficult for the Lord?” But Sarah was afraid and denied it, saying, “I didn’t laugh.” But the Lord said, “No, but you did laugh” (Gen. 18:13-15). The comforting thing about God’s exhaustive knowledge is that even though He knows our weaknesses and sins, He doesn’t cast us off, but blesses us with His gracious promises in spite of our weaknesses. But we would live far differently if we always remembered that His knowledge is beyond our comprehension.
“How unsearchable are His judgments!” God’s judgments are how He executes His righteousness and justice. David reflects the same thought as Paul when he writes (Ps. 36:5-6), “Your lovingkindness, O Lord, extends to the heavens, Your faithfulness reaches to the skies. Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; Your judgments are like a great deep.”
God’s judgments in times gone by included wiping out everyone on the face of the earth, except for Noah and his family. Later, at the Tower of Babel, God’s judgment confused the languages of the proud men there and scattered them over the face of the earth. From that time until the time of Paul, the Lord judged the Gentiles by permitting the nations to go their own ways (Acts 14:16). In the context of Romans, God’s judgments on the Gentiles included giving them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, degrading passions, and a depraved mind (Rom. 1:24, 26, 28). His judgments on the Jews meant hardening most of them, giving them a spirit of stupor, eyes to see not and ears to hear not (Rom. 11:7-8). In the future, God’s judgment on this evil world will be to “send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness” (2 Thess. 2:11-12).
In Isaiah 55:8-9 God says, “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.’”
Watchman Nee has a wonderful sermon, “Worshiping the Ways of God” (12 Baskets Full [Hong Kong Church Book Room], 3 vol.). He defines God’s ways (2:99): “His ways are the manner in which He Himself for His own good pleasure accomplishes what He has willed to do.” This includes God’s choosing Isaac, the son of the promise, but rejecting Ishmael, Abraham’s firstborn through Hagar. His way was to choose Jacob the deceiver, but reject Esau, a much nicer man. He chose Judah, who thought that he was having sex with a prostitute, but actually it was his daughter-in-law, to be the ancestor of the Messiah.
As Paul says (1 Cor. 1:27-28), “But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God.” These are the incomprehensible ways of the Sovereign God!
In light of the greatness of God, Paul goes on to cite Scripture that both supports God’s greatness and puts us in our proper place:
I’m out of time and so I’m just going to give these points in outline form in this message and then expand on them next time. Paul asks three rhetorical questions that all expect the answer, “No one.” These questions show that in comparison to God, we are not even close to being great.
“For who has known the mind of the Lord?” (11:34a). We have just seen that the Lord knows everything about everyone in all times and in every place. We aren’t even on the curve in His class!
“Or who became His counselor?” (11:34b). God didn’t ask our advice before He formed His plan for the ages. Paul has already said that the mystery of God’s hardening the Jews until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in is “so that you will not be wise in your own estimation” (11:25).
“Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again?” (11:35). We owe God everything He owes us nothing. This verse alone kills all attempts to earn salvation by good works. You can’t put God in your favor so that He owes you anything. It’s all of grace. Therefore,
Romans 11:36: “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.” A big view of God and a little view of ourselves leads to genuine humility and to heartfelt worship.
In 1715, Louis XIV of France died. He called himself, “Louis the Great.” His court was the most magnificent in all of Europe. He even planned his funeral to be spectacular. To dramatize his greatness, his body was put in a golden coffin. He had given orders that the cathedral be dimly lit, with only a special candle set above the coffin. Thousands waited in hushed silence. Then Bishop Massilon began to speak. Slowly reaching down, he snuffed out the candle, saying, “Only God is great!”
That’s what Paul is saying here: God is great; you are not great. So humble yourself before Him and worship Him alone!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Marc Bolan, the late rock star of T Rex, once said, “If God came into my room, I’d obviously be awed, but I don’t think I’d feel humble. I might cry, but I know he’d dig me like mad” (No Matter How Thin You Slice it, It’s Still Baloney, ed. by Jean Arbeiter [Quill], p. 16).
We may dismiss such an outrageous statement because it came from a pagan rock star. But the mindset that pulls God down to our level and lifts us up so that we are almost on a par with the Almighty is not lacking in the evangelical church. I heard Pastor John MacArthur tell about a charismatic pastor friend of his who told John that Jesus often appeared to him in the morning while he was shaving. MacArthur was rightly taken aback, so he asked some questions to make sure that he understood this pastor correctly. The pastor assured MacArthur that Jesus Christ actually appeared to him often as he was shaving. MacArthur’s final incredulous question was, “And you keep shaving?”
When the apostle John, who had known Jesus intimately during His earthly ministry, was on the Isle of Patmos, he had a vision of the risen Christ. His response was (Rev. 1:17), “When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man.” That is the common response of all in the Bible who had an encounter with the living God. They didn’t say, “Hey, good to see you, God! How’s it going?” Isaiah (6:5) cried out, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” Ezekiel (1:28) fell on his face. Samson’s parents fell on their faces and the father, Manoah, thought that they would die because they had seen the Lord (Judges 13:20, 22). And when Paul was caught up into heaven and heard things that he was not permitted to speak, the Lord gave him a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to keep him from exalting himself (2 Cor. 12:2-7).
As the apostle Paul contemplated how God designed and carried out His plan for salvation history, he was moved to this great exclamation of praise that ends Romans 11. These verses serve as a conclusion and climax to the entire book so far, but especially to chapters 9-11. Specifically, Paul is responding to the thought of 11:32, “For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.” By “all,” Paul means “all groups of people,” Gentiles and Jews alike. This leads him to be caught up in wonder and praise over God’s riches, wisdom, knowledge, judgments, and ways. The lesson for us is:
Since God is far greater than you can comprehend and you are not great, humble yourself before God and worship Him.
The point of all the deep doctrinal truths of Romans 1-11 is to bring us to humble worship before our great God, who planned our salvation so that we would be to the praise of His glory and grace. If your study of theology doesn’t lead you to deeper worship, you are not studying it correctly. Seeing more clearly who God is, who we are, and what He has graciously done for us in Christ should cause us to bow before Him in humble worship. Last time we saw:
Today we are focusing on the truth that stems from the realization that God is far greater than you can ever comprehend:
The truth is, we all need to grow in humility. We need to realize that in comparison with God, we are nothing. Muhammad Ali, the former boxing champion, used to proclaim, “I’m the greatest.” I recently saw him on the news, stumbling along a hospital corridor as he suffers the effects of Parkinson’s disease. I thought, “How quickly any supposed human greatness fades!” I was also reminded of the story I read about when Ali was on a commercial flight. Just before takeoff the stewardess came by and told Ali to fasten his seat belt. “Superman don’t need no seat belt,” replied Ali. The stewardess retorted, “Superman don’t need no airplane, either.” Ali fastened his belt (The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes, ed. by Clifton Fadiman [Little, Brown], p. 14).
In Romans 11:33 (ESV), Paul exclaims, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” Then, as he has done consistently in Romans, Paul supports his statements with Scripture. Verse 34 cites Isaiah 40:13, “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor?” Verse 35 cites Job 41:11, “Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again?” Both verses are rhetorical questions that expect the answer, “No one.” While these verses support verse 33, which marvel at how great God is, they also challenge proud man by asking, “Would any of you dare to compare yourself with God?” They say, “You are not great in comparison with the Almighty!”
In the larger contexts of both Isaiah 40 and Job 41, God asserts His greatness by asking rhetorical questions that put man in his proper place. Note the contrasts between God’s greatness and man’s puniness in Isaiah 40:12-17:
Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and marked off the heavens by the span, and calculated the dust of the earth by the measure, and weighed the mountains in a balance and the hills in a pair of scales? Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as His counselor has informed Him? With whom did He consult and who gave Him understanding? And who taught Him in the path of justice and taught Him knowledge and informed Him of the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales; behold, He lifts up the islands like fine dust. Even Lebanon is not enough to burn, nor its beasts enough for a burnt offering. All the nations are as nothing before Him, they are regarded by Him as less than nothing and meaningless.
In Job, God begins by asking Job (38:2), “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” He proceeds to hammer Job with question after rhetorical question, such as (38:4-5), “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding, who set its measurements? Since you know. Or who stretched the line on it?” In the verses just before Job 41:11 (cited in Rom. 11:35), God continues pounding Job by asking whether he can draw out Leviathan (in these verses, a crocodile) with a fishhook. God taunts (41:8), “Lay your hand on him; remember the battle; you will not do it again!” If neither Job nor anyone else cares to tangle with a crocodile, God concludes (Job 41:10b), “Who then is he that can stand before Me?” He then asks (41:11), “Who has given to Me that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is Mine.”
I cite the contexts of these Old Testament verses to show that while Paul is still extolling the greatness of God, he also is saying by way of comparison, “You’re not great!” Some scholars deny it, but it seems more than coincidental to me that the three rhetorical questions relate in reverse order to God’s riches, wisdom, and knowledge: “Who has known the mind of the Lord?” relates to God’s knowledge. “Who became His counselor?” relates to His wisdom. And, “Who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again?” relates to His riches.
Rom. 11:34a: “For who has known the mind of the Lord?” As we saw last time, God’s knowledge is exhaustive. He knows all that there is to know about every molecule and every thought in the universe. Jesus told us that God has the hairs on all our heads numbered. He knows every sparrow that falls to the ground (Luke 12:6-7). And, as we saw last time, He know only knows everything that has happened and will happen, but He also knows what would have happened if other factors had come into play (Matt. 11:21-24)! With David we can exclaim (Ps. 139:6), “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot attain to it.”
Paul also cites Isaiah 40:13 in 1 Corinthians 2:16: “For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.” At first glance, the statement that we have the mind of Christ would seem to contradict our text, where Paul’s point is that we can’t know the mind of the Lord. But the two notions are compatible. As Thomas Schreiner explains (Romans [Baker], p. 636), in the context of 1 Corinthians 2, the main thesis “is that no one can know the mind and thoughts of God’s Spirit apart from God’s free and gracious revelation…. The theme in Rom. 11 is remarkably similar. No human being has the wisdom or knowledge to discern (much less to advise) God on the course that human history should take…. Human beings cannot discern God’s wise plan for history on their own, nor would they ever devise a scheme like God’s.” And yet (as Schreiner points out) in Romans 9-11, Paul has given us the main flow of God’s plan for history, so that we can discern God’s wisdom as we understand these truths.
So Paul’s point is that while God has graciously revealed the broad flow of His plan for salvation history, none of us could have figured it out on our own if He had not revealed it. And so none of us can compare with God in our knowledge.
Rom. 11:34b: “Or who became His counselor?” The question is really kind of humorous. Can you imagine the Almighty God dropping in on you and saying, “I’ve been struggling with this problem and I wondered if you’ve got a few minutes that we could chat?” Can you imagine the Sovereign God meeting with some top advisors to lay out His plan for the ages? It’s laughable! God does not need our counsel on anything!
And yet how often we give God advice about how He should run our lives or run the world! “God, if You would just do things my way, my life would be much smoother! If You would just change my wife or my kids, our home would be much more peaceful!” We often turn our prayers into complaints that imply that we have some advice that God needs to listen to! I often get emails telling me to pray for some important legislative issue. If the issue is clearly spelled out in Scripture, then I can pray that our government will act in line with God’s moral standards. But I need to be careful not to presume to tell God how to run our country or the world. He has been doing that quite capably for centuries without my advice! So be careful when you pray!
Rom. 11:35: “Who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again?” As God adds (Job 41:11), “Whatever is under the whole heaven is Mine.” He owns the entire universe. He spoke it into existence for His own glory. If you could speak the word and a trillion dollars would legitimately appear in your bank account, you wouldn’t need to get a minimum wage job at McDonald’s. You’d be infinitely rich. The point is, we cannot give God anything that He lacks. We cannot meet some need of God’s that He can’t fulfill. He is totally sufficient in Himself alone. God is the supreme treasure in the universe.
This question, “Who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again?” shows that we cannot do anything for God or give anything to God that places Him in our debt. We can’t pile up good works and then think that God owes us salvation. We can’t give a pile of money to the church or to charity and think that somehow it will go well with us at the judgment, because we’ve earned God’s favor. Any thought that God owes us something eradicates the biblical doctrine of grace that is at the heart of a relationship with God.
Even as Bible-believing Christians, it’s easy to fall into this error. The popular early-20th century Bible teacher, Dr. R. A. Torrey, told of a time when he was at a meeting for businessmen in Australia when a note was handed to him. It said,
Dear Dr. Torrey, I am in great perplexity. I have been praying for a long time for something that I am confident is according to God’s will, but I do not get it. I have been a member of the Presbyterian Church for thirty years, and have tried to be a consistent one all that time. I have been Superintendent in the Sunday School for twenty-five years, and an elder in the church for twenty years; and yet God does not answer my prayer and I cannot understand it. Can you explain it to me?
Torrey read the note from the pulpit and replied, “It is very easy to explain it. This man thinks that because he has been a consistent church member for thirty years, a faithful Sunday School Superintendent for twenty-five years, and an elder in the church for twenty years, that God is under obligation to answer his prayer. He is really praying in his own name, and God will not hear our prayers when we approach him in that way.” Later a man came up to Torrey and admitted that he had written that note. He said, “You have hit the nail square on the head. I see my mistake” (R. A. Torrey, The Power of Prayer and the Prayer of Power [Zondervan], pp. 138, 139, cited by James Boice, Romans [Baker], 3:1462-1463).
The good news is that the way to receive from God is not to come to Him as if He owes you something, but rather to come as poor and needy. As Mary exclaims (Luke 1:53), “He has filled the hungry with good things; and sent away the rich empty-handed.” Come to God as rich and you get sent away empty; come as poor and you go away rich. (See, also, Rev. 3:17-18.)
Paul’s thoughts that God is far greater than you can ever comprehend and that you are not great leads him to worship:
Romans 11:36: “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.” This verse has profound implications that I encourage you to meditate on. I can only scratch the surface here. John MacArthur sums it up (The MacArthur Study Bible, NASB Updated Edition [Thomas Nelson], p. 1683), “God is the source, the sustainer, and the rightful end of everything that exists.” John Witmer puts it (The Bible Knowledge Commentary, ed. by John F. Walvoord & Roy Zuck [Victor Books], 2:487), “God is the first Cause, the effective Cause, and the final Cause of everything.” Leon Morris says (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 429), “Paul is speaking of God as the Originator, the Sustainer, and the Goal of all creation.”
Everett Harrison (The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. by Frank Gaebelein [Zondervan], 10:126) points out that while this verse has in view God’s plans and operation in the history of salvation, it also applies to individual saints: “For that life has its source in God, lives by his resources, and returns to him when its course has been run.” Paul asserts four things:
God created everything out of nothing by speaking the word (Gen. 1:3, 6, 9, etc.; Ps. 33:6, 9; John 1:3). Immediately you may wonder, “Did God then create evil?” The biblical answer does not fit neatly into human logic, but we must maintain the tension. The Bible clearly affirms (1 John 1:5), “God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” “Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, and You can not look on wickedness with favor” (Hab. 1:13). “For the Lord is righteous, He loves righteousness” (Ps. 11:6).
On the other hand, God’s eternal decree permitted evil in order to further His own glory. He ordained the cross, which was only necessary because of evil and only accomplished through evil (Acts 4:27-28). God says (Isa. 45:6b-7), “I am the Lord, and there is no other, the One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these.” The Hebrew word translated “calamity” is the word for “evil.” Jeremiah states (Lam. 3:37-38), “Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both good and ill go forth?” Amos (3:6b) asks rhetorically, “If a calamity occurs in a city has not the Lord done it?”
If you deny that evil was a part of God’s decree, then you fall into the Zoroastrian heresy of dualism, that there are two equal powers, one good and one evil. But if you say that God is responsible for evil, you go against the biblical teaching that He is holy. It is a great comfort to hold to the biblical balance, that God is holy and He is sovereign over all things, including evil.
He “works all things after the counsel of His will” (Eph. 1:11). He works all things together for our good (Rom. 8:28). This includes our trials, which are from God’s loving hand for our discipline and for His glory. As Job said (1:21), “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Or as Job (2:10) asks his wife, “Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?”
This means that all things exist because of God’s purpose and for His glory. Nothing exists that will not result in ultimate glory for Him. As the Westminster Shorter Catechism begins, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” Thus,
Do you want a happy marriage? Of course! But why? “So that I’ll be happy!” That is secondary. Your primary desire for a happy marriage should be so that God is glorified. The same applies to rearing godly children or succeeding in your career or to any other goal. Your main aim should be that Christ would be exalted through you, whether by life or by death (Phil. 1:20).
Charles Hodge nicely sums up Paul’s teaching here (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 381): “It is the tendency of all truth to exalt God, and to humble the creature; and it is characteristic of true piety to feel that all good comes from God, and to desire that all glory should be given to God.”
Don’t forget the “Amen.” Paul wants you to say “amen” to all that he has written thus far in Romans. “I am helplessly, hopelessly lost in my sin and I deserve God’s holy wrath.” Amen! “My only hope for eternal life is that Jesus Christ shed His blood for me while I was yet a sinner.” Amen! “If He had not first chosen me, I never would have chosen Him.” Amen! “I am justified by God’s grace alone through faith in Christ alone.” Amen! “I now do not need to yield to sin, because I am identified with Christ in His death and resurrection.” Amen! “He is now working all things, including my trials, together for my good because I now love Him and He has called me according to His glorious purpose.” Amen! “He is now conforming me to the image of His Son, so that one day I will be glorified with Him forever.” Amen!
We are not just grudgingly to submit to these truths, but to rejoice and glory in them. Do you? Can you say in all of your circumstances, “To Him be the glory forever. Amen”?
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
If I were to ask, “What is the most crucial question for which you would like a definitive answer?” we would probably get many different answers. Some might say, “Whom should I marry?” Others may say, “What career path should I pursue?” Or, “Where can I find a decent-paying job?” Some might want to know, “How can my spouse and I live in peace and harmony?” Or, “How can we rear our children in the Lord?”
These are all important questions, of course. But as I’ve often said, the most crucial question that we all must answer is Jesus’ question to His disciples (Matt. 16:15), “But who do you say that I am?” Your answer to that question not only determines how you will live the rest of your life, but also where you will spend eternity.
And the correct answer to that question largely rests on the historic fact that Jesus rose bodily from the grave. If that is really true, then He is who He claimed to be, the eternal Son of God in human flesh, the Lord of all creation, who is coming to judge the living and the dead. That means that you must trust in Him as your Savior and bring all of your thoughts, words, and deeds under His lordship. If you trust in Him as your risen Lord and Savior, He promised that you will spend eternity with Him.
But if it is not true that Jesus is risen bodily from the dead, then you are still in your sins and your faith in Christ is worthless. (1 Cor. 15:17). Paul said that the entire Christian faith stands or falls on this one fact: Jesus is risen!
I’ve spent other Easter messages setting forth the proofs for truth of Christ’s resurrection. You can read or listen to those on the church web site. In this message I want to look at all of the references to Christ’s resurrection in Romans to show why you must believe in the risen Lord Jesus Christ. We have come to the end of Romans 11, so this might also serve as a review of many of the wonderful truths that Paul has set forth in these important chapters. There is only one further explicit reference to the resurrection in Romans, which we will briefly look at (14:9). Of course, the truth of the resurrection implicitly permeates everything that Paul wrote. But his explicit references to it in Romans shows us why you must believe this crucial truth:
You must believe in the person and work of the risen Lord Jesus Christ to be saved and to walk daily with Him.
If you are not saved (to be saved means that Jesus has rescued you from the penalty of your sins), then you are lost. If you should die without being saved, God would justly condemn you to hell for all eternity. Trust me: there is no thought more horrific than that! So you must not rest until you know that Jesus has saved you.
You must understand who Jesus is (His person) and what He did (His work) before you can properly put your trust in Him as your Savior and Lord.
The Christian faith is not a blind leap in the dark. The entire message of the Bible reveals who Jesus is and what He came to do for us. Paul begins Romans by focusing on who Jesus is (1:1-4):
Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord, …
“The gospel of God” is the theme of Romans. “Gospel” means “good news,” and it is the best news in the world. This good news comes to us from God and it is all about God. It tells us how we can be rightly related to Him through His eternal Son, whom He sent. God promised this good news beforehand through His prophets in the Old Testament. After Adam and Eve sinned, plunging the entire human race into sin, God promised that the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent. God’s way of salvation was pictured when He slaughtered an animal, probably a sheep, and clothed Adam and Eve with its skin. It also was pictured when God strangely commanded Abraham to slaughter his beloved son, Isaac, but then at the last minute provided the ram as a substitute. But unlike that story, God actually slaughtered His own beloved Son for us. The Old Testament sacrificial system pointed ahead to and was fulfilled in Jesus, the supreme and final Lamb of God, who bore our sins in His own body on the cross.
In that opening sentence of Romans Paul shows that Jesus is “God’s Son, who was born a descendant of David according to the flesh.” He is God’s eternal Son. There was never a time when He was not the Son of God. It was through Jesus, God’s Son, that everything was created (John 1:1-3; Heb. 1:2). But at God’s appointed time, Jesus took on human flesh through the virgin birth, so that He could provide salvation for the fallen human race. Thus the Jesus in whom you must believe is unique in all history, in that He is eternal God in human flesh. To deny either Jesus’ full deity or His perfect humanity is to believe in a false Jesus.
Paul also says that Jesus “was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:4). As we saw when we studied these verses, “declared” should properly be translated “appointed” or “distinguished.” This does not mean that He became the Son of God through the resurrection, but rather that the resurrection distinguished Jesus to be who He is, the eternal Son of God. By virtue of His resurrection, Jesus was appointed to be seated at God’s right hand of power. Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord (Phil. 2:9-11).
The “Spirit of holiness” refers to the fact that by virtue of Jesus’ resurrection and exaltation, He inaugurated the new age of the Spirit by sending the Spirit upon the church. Paul refers to Jesus as “our Lord,” which means both Master and God. The crucial question that you must answer is, “Is Jesus your Lord?”
Paul spends chapters 3-5 of Romans showing that God justifies sinners through faith in Christ as the one who appeased God’s wrath, not by their keeping the law. He says (3:22b-26),
… for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
In chapter 4, Paul uses the Jews’ greatest ancestor, Abraham the father of their faith, to show that he was justified by faith alone, not through his works. He concludes with the second reference in Romans to the resurrection of Jesus (Rom. 4:23-25): “Now not for his [Abraham’s] sake only was it written that it [faith] was credited to him, but for our sake also, to whom it will be credited, as those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification.”
Paul’s reference to “Jesus our Lord” emphasizes again both His deity and His humanity. Jesus took on human flesh so that He could bear our sins, but He did not give up His deity. He is the Lord. When Paul says that Jesus “was delivered over because of our transgressions,” he means that Jesus died to pay the just penalty for our sins. When he says that Jesus “was raised because of our justification,” he means that when God raised Jesus, He put His seal of approval on Christ’s death as obtaining our justification. Because Jesus was raised, we can know that God accepted His substitutionary death on the cross, so that if we believe in Jesus our sins are upon Him. That leads to the next essential for salvation:
Here I’m jumping ahead to Paul’s description of the message of faith that he preaches (Rom. 10:9-10): “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” Paul’s point in these verses is that to be saved (delivered from God’s wrath), you must truly believe in Jesus as the crucified and risen Lord and Savior.
As he has emphasized from the beginning of Romans, our faith is not just faith in general, or faith in God, however we conceive Him to be. Rather, our faith must be in the specific truths that underlie the gospel. Faith rests on the person and work of Jesus Christ: He is God in human flesh. He died for our sins; He was raised bodily and is exalted on high.
Also, saving faith is a matter of the heart, not of intellectual assent only. It includes committing your eternal destiny totally to Christ’s death on your behalf. You abandon trusting in any good works for your salvation. It also includes turning from your sin (repentance) and submitting to Jesus as Lord of your life. The evidence of such repentance, faith, and submission is that you openly confess Jesus as Lord, beginning with baptism and continuing in a life of obedience to Him.
Don’t make the fatal mistake of thinking that because you’re a good person, you don’t need salvation. We all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory (Rom. 3:23). Thus we all need to be saved from God’s judgment. To be saved, you must believe in the person and work of Jesus Christ, including His substitutionary death and His bodily resurrection from the dead.
But other references to Christ’s resurrection in Romans teach us that…
In other words, Christ’s resurrection is not only essential for salvation, but also for sanctification, or growth in holiness. We can group these references under five headings:
Romans 5:10: “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” Charles Hodge (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 138) explains the main idea of this verse, “If Christ has died for his enemies, he will surely save his friends.” Although we were His enemies, Christ’s death reconciled us to God the instant we believed. But if Jesus died but was not raised from the dead, then He can’t save us from God’s coming wrath on the day of judgment. But He lives now to keep us until that day when He returns bodily to complete our salvation (Phil. 1:6; Col. 3:4).
Becoming a Christian does not mean that you become sinless. It should mean that you sin less and less as you walk with Christ. But when you sin, you feel guilty. The basis for being free from guilt and condemnation is not only that Jesus died for your sins in the past, but also that He now lives to keep you and bring you to the fullness of salvation.
The fact that the risen Christ will save you on the day of judgment also gives assurance of salvation. In Romans 8:33b-34, Paul says: “God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.” Paul is saying that if God has declared us to be righteous on the basis of our faith in the death of Christ on our behalf and if the risen Christ is now at the right hand of God interceding on our behalf, then we can be assured that we will be saved at the judgment. To put it another way, our salvation from start to finish rests on what the crucified and risen Savior has done and is doing for us, not on any merit or good works on our part.
While we are not saved by our good works, we are saved for good works and the basis for good works must be a holy life. Thus,
Romans 6:4-10:
Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
Paul means that when we understand and act on the truth that we are identified with Jesus in His death and resurrection, it frees us from the dominion of sin in our daily lives. Living in light of our union with the living Lord is the key to overcoming sin. John Piper (“Justified to Break the Power of Sin,” on desiringgod.org) explains the practical benefit of Romans Sin can’t enslave a person who is utterly confident and sure and hope-filled in the infinite happiness of life with Christ in the future.”
Romans 7:4: “Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.” Paul is arguing that our identification with Christ in His death and resurrection frees us from being bound by the Law and enables us to bear fruit for God. If you have not trusted in Christ as your Savior, you’re under the condemnation of the Law. But if you are identified with Christ through faith in Him, then you have died to the Law’s condemnation (your old “husband”) and are alive in Christ (your new “husband”), freed up to bear fruit for Him.
Being free from the Law does not mean that we are free to live as we please or as we think best. The New Testament has many specific commands about how we should live. But now our motivation for keeping God’s commands is that Christ has loved us and bought us with His blood to be His bride. In other words, we obey out of love, not out of fear of condemnation.
Thus we’ve seen that faith in the risen Lord gives us freedom from condemnation and guilt and assurance of our salvation. It empowers us to live victoriously over sin. It enables us to bear fruit for God.
Here we jump ahead to the only verse on the resurrection in Romans that we have not yet studied, Romans 14:9: “For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.” In this chapter Paul is dealing with a problem that existed in the Roman church and that has often cropped up in churches down through the ages. Some of the believers were sitting in judgment on other believers over secondary or peripheral matters that are not specifically commanded in Scripture.
Some believed that they could eat all types of foods, but others thought that they could only eat vegetables (14:2). Some observed certain days as holy, but others regarded every day as the same (14:5). Paul argues that we are not our brother’s judge on these matters. Each one lives as unto the Lord, before whom we all will stand for judgment. Therefore, since the risen Savior is the Lord of all, let Him be Lord over your brother on matters where the Bible does not give specific commands. Live your life before the risen Jesus as Lord and encourage your brother to do the same. Again, this does not refer to areas where the Bible gives specific commands, but rather to secondary issues where Scripture is silent.
Romans 8:11: “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” Two verses earlier (8:9), Paul said, “But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” In verse 11 he is saying that if the Spirit does dwell in you through faith, then you have assurance that in the future, He will raise up your mortal body. Jesus is the prototype. Just as He is risen in a glorified body, not subject to death, so we too one day will be raised from the dead and receive new, immortal bodies. In other words, our hope for eternal life in new resurrection bodies rests on the fact that Jesus has been raised from the dead.
I love the story of John Paton (1824-1907), a Scottish man who felt called by God to take the gospel to the cannibals of what was then called The New Hebrides Islands (now Vanuatu). The first missionaries to land there in 1839 were clubbed to death and eaten minutes after stepping ashore. Paton and his new bride courageously followed them in 1858.
Before he left, many tried to dissuade Paton from going. They offered him a nice salary and a manse if he would stay in Glasgow. One old man in his church would often say to Paton, “The cannibals! You will be eaten by cannibals!” Finally, Paton replied (modernized slightly from John G. Paton Autobiography [Banner of Truth], ed. by his brother James Paton, p. 56),
“Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms. I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by cannibals or by worms; and in the great day my resurrection body will arise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer.”
It was Paton’s faith in the risen Savior and his hope in his own resurrection that moved him to risk his life to take the good news to these savage cannibals. Today Vanuatu is over 50 percent evangelical Christians. There are no cannibals.
Why is it imperative to believe in the resurrection? Because you must believe in the person and work of the risen Lord Jesus Christ to be saved. And you must believe in the risen Lord to walk daily in victory and hope.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
A cartoon (by Ed Fisher, source unknown) pictured a huge altar, with many steps leading to the top, such as you see in the ruins of the ancient Mayan culture in Central America. At the top a priest holds a sword, ready to slaughter the next victim. Two guards are dragging a very resistant young man up the stairs to be the next sacrifice. Watching the young man resist, a man who looks like the chief comments to the man standing next to him, “The young people don’t seem to believe in anything these days!”
Perhaps that is the image that comes to mind when you think about giving your body as a living sacrifice to God. You think, “Why in the world would anyone want to do that? I can see giving God an hour or two on Sundays, at least if there’s nothing better to do. Maybe, if you have some extra time, like when you’re retired, you can volunteer to serve in the church. I can maybe see giving God ten percent of your income, if you have anything left over after taxes and the bills are paid. I can see where some of the super-dedicated types may want to be missionaries, at least for a while. It’s probably fulfilling, kind of like serving in the Peace Corps. But offering my body to God as a living sacrifice sounds pretty radical! Why would anyone want to do such a thing?”
But that is exactly what Paul calls us to do (Rom. 12:1), “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” That verse confronts us with the question, “Why give yourself totally to God?”
This verse begins a major new section of Romans. Chapters 1-11 emphasize doctrine, whereas chapters 12-16 focus on practical matters, although there are practical things in the first section and doctrinal issues in the second. Some may feel a sense of relief to be through with all of that difficult doctrinal stuff. They may think, “Finally we can get into things that apply to my life!” Or a few may feel sad that we’re leaving the doctrinal section. They enjoy using their minds to trace Paul’s flow of thought, much like trying to solve some logical brain teaser. They aren’t really interested in the practical section of Romans.
But both views are out of balance. To leap into the practical section without the doctrine would be like building a house without a foundation. A solid foundation may not be exciting to look at, but without it your house will not stand for long. On the other hand, to spend all of your time on the foundation and never to build the house would be useless. The whole point of laying the foundation is to build an attractive house to live in.
In other words, sound doctrine must always be the basis for godly living. The Mormons are reputed for emphasizing family life, which is a worthy emphasis. But they deny the biblical truth about the person and work of Christ (as Paul lays it out in Romans 1-11), and so they are not rightly related to God. They have a religion based on works, and they will be condemned at the judgment if they do not repent and trust in Christ alone for right standing before God. Their house has no foundation.
On the other hand, I have known men who are theologically articulate regarding the great truths of Romans 1-11, but who are mean and unloving towards their wife and children. What good is the foundation of sound doctrine if you do not build on it love for God and others as He commands? The world will mock the truth if we do not show it by our godly lives.
Thus in Romans 12-16, Paul builds on the solid doctrine of 1-11, showing us practically how to live as Christians. In 12:1-2, he sets forth our need to commit ourselves totally to God. In 12:3, he tells us how to think of ourselves in relation to God and others. Then in 12:4-21, he spells out how we are to relate in love to others. Thus the entire chapter is an exposition of the two great commandments: to love God with our total being and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. In Romans 12:1, Paul explains why you should give yourself totally to God as a living sacrifice:
Because you have experienced God’s mercy, give yourself totally to Him.
There are two things: First, the motive and then a description of the commitment that follows.
Romans 12:1a, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God ….” Each word in this phrase is important.
Therefore links this new section to the previous 11 chapters. In one sense, therefore follows directly from Romans 11:36, “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.” If all things are from God and through God and to God, then it follows that our lives belong completely to God. If all things are going to culminate in God’s glory, then we should give our lives totally for His glory.
But there is another sense in which therefore relates back to everything that Paul has said in Romans 1-11. He began by showing that we all are hopelessly, helplessly lost in sin. He sums it up (Rom. 3:10-12), “There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one.”
If that is our true condition outside of Christ, then we all need one thing above all else: God’s mercy. Paul probably uses the plural, mercies, because the Hebrew word is a plural with a singular meaning. God’s primary display of mercy to us is at the cross, where Christ died for us as sinners. But we also experience God’s manifold mercies each day in many ways (Lam. 3:22-23).
Thankfully, mercy is what God is all about. As Paul said (Rom. 11:32), “For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.” None of us can claim that God owes us salvation because of our good works or for any other reason. We’ve all disobeyed God thousands of times. We deserve His judgment. All that we can do is cry out to Him for mercy. And as we have seen, the riches of God’s abundant mercy are yours for the taking (10:13), “for ‘whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.’”
Paul assumes that his readers have taken hold of God’s great mercies in Christ, because he calls them brethren. All that have experienced the new birth through God’s Spirit have been born into God’s family. Here Paul wasn’t asserting his apostolic authority, but he put himself on the same level as them. The ground is level at the foot of the cross, where we all find God’s abundant mercy.
In the same vein, he says, “I urge you.” The Greek word comes from two words meaning, “to call alongside.” The noun form is used of the Holy Spirit, who comes alongside to give us help. It can mean exhort, but here it seems to have the gentler sense of urge or appeal, as it is translated when Paul writes to Philemon (8-9a), “Therefore, though I have enough confidence in Christ to order you to do what is proper, yet for love’s sake I rather appeal to you….” As our loving older brother, Paul is urging us to respond to the great truth of God’s mercy even as he has done, by giving our bodies totally to God as living sacrifices.
Motive is crucial in everything we do. Have you ever had someone act nicely towards you and then you found out later that he was doing it to manipulate you into doing something for him? His ulterior motive canceled everything nice that he had done. Your motive for giving yourself totally to God is crucial.
Some may dedicate themselves to God to try to work off their guilt. I once conducted a wedding with another pastor whom I had never met. As we were chatting in his office before the ceremony, I noticed his seminary degree framed on the wall. He had graduated about three years before and he was in mid-life, so I asked, “Is the ministry a second career for you?” He replied, “Yes.” I followed with, “Why did you go into the ministry at this point in life?” He grimly answered, “Because I had to live with myself!” I didn’t feel comfortable pursuing the subject, but the implication was that he was working off his guilt. That’s a crummy reason to be a pastor!
The proper response to receiving God’s mercy is to give yourself totally to Him out of gratitude. Years ago, Captain Shaw, a medical missionary with the Salvation Army in India, visited a leper colony that his mission was taking over. He saw three men with shackles on their hands and feet, cutting into their diseased flesh. Captain Shaw’s eyes brimmed with tears as he told the guard, “Please unfasten the chains.”
“It isn’t safe,” replied the guard. “These men are dangerous criminals as well as lepers!”
“I’ll be responsible,” said Shaw. “They’re suffering enough.” After the shackles were removed, he tenderly treated the men’s bleeding wrists and ankles.
About two weeks later, Captain Shaw had his first misgivings about freeing these criminals. He had to make an overnight trip and he hesitated to leave his wife and child alone. His wife insisted that she wasn’t afraid; God was there. The next morning she went to the front door and was startled to see the three former criminals lying on her steps. One explained, “We know the doctor go. We stay here all night so no harm come to you.” These men had experienced the doctor’s mercy. They responded out of love and gratitude by serving him.
Everett Harrison puts it this way (Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. by Frank Gaebelein [Zondervan], 10:127), “Whereas the heathen are prone to sacrifice in order to obtain mercy, biblical faith teaches that the divine mercy provides the basis for sacrifice as the fitting response.” The great motive for giving yourself totally to God is that you have experienced His great mercy in Christ. Have you experienced His mercy by calling on Him to save you? Without that, all service to God is just moralism, based on wrong motives. The only right motive is God’s mercy through the gospel.
Let’s read our text again (Rom. 12:1), “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”
Paul was using a picture that was instantly recognized by everyone in that day, but is probably foreign to us. The Jews were all familiar with the ritual of taking a lamb to the temple and watching the priest slit its throat and collect the blood in a basin. After the life had ebbed out of the lamb, it was placed on the altar and burned as an offering. The Gentiles also often had witnessed animal sacrifice to the gods at pagan temples. Perhaps some of the Roman Christians had done that before they were saved.
But most of us have never watched an animal being slaughtered, even if it’s for a meal. We buy our meat shrink-wrapped in the grocery store, without thinking about the animal being killed. Once in a while we read of Satan-worshipers who sacrifice an animal in a secret ceremony and it gives us the heebie-jeebies. But this picture of animal sacrifice was behind Paul’s appeal here to offer ourselves, not as dead sacrifices, but as living sacrifices to the Lord. It means offering everything that you are and have to the Lord as an act of worship. Consider five aspects of this commitment:
It isn’t automatic. It’s a decision that you must think about rationally and then make. No one else can do it for you. You may have grown up in a Christian home. Perhaps you trusted Christ as a child. But as you get older and begin making your own decisions, you have to decide to give your body, your possessions, and your entire life completely to God.
I remember wrestling with this commitment as a teenager. At first I thought of it kind of like that cartoon. It wasn’t my idea of a good time to give myself as a sacrifice to God. What if He wanted me to be a missionary, live in a jungle, eat grub worms, and live without indoor plumbing? I can camp for a few days, but I wouldn’t want to live that way all the time! But then I thought, “If God is good and if He loves me and if He knows what is best for me, He will only ask me to do what is best for me. I’d be stupid not to entrust my entire life to that sort of God.” And so I yielded all of myself and my life to the Lord.
“Present” is in the aorist tense, which leads some to emphasize that this is a once and for all decision. But that is a simplistic understanding of the Greek aorist tense, which focuses on an action as a whole, not necessarily as a point in time. Besides, as some wag has pointed out, living sacrifices have a way of crawling off the altar. So you’ve got to keep renewing this commitment. You present all of yourself that you’re aware of to all of God that you know. But as you grow in the Christian life, you become aware of areas in your life that are not yielded to God. So you put those things on the altar. You become aware of more about the lordship of Christ than you knew. So you yield again and again to Him. So there is a first time when you present your entire life to the Lord to do whatever He wants you to do. But it’s also progressive as you grow to understand more about yourself and God.
Paul also uses the word present in connection with our bodies in Romans 6:13, “And do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.” (See, also 6:16, 19.) In our text, Paul may be using bodies to refer to the total person, but he probably wants us to think specifically about our physical bodies. In verse 2, he zeroes in on the mind, and so his emphasis on the body in verse 1 is probably deliberate.
The Greek philosophers commonly thought of the body as something evil or degrading from which an enlightened person sought to free himself. But the Christian is to view the body as a living and holy sacrifice to be offered to God for His service. The verb present is also used of a father giving his virgin daughter in marriage (2 Cor. 11:2). She presents her body exclusively to her husband in the marriage relationship. Even so, the Lord has bought us with His blood out of the slave market of sin, so that we are His bride. Therefore, we are to present our bodies to glorify God. At the very minimum, this applies to sexual purity (1 Cor. 6:18-20).
Our bodies also encompass our minds, which Paul focuses on in verse 2. It includes our eyes and ears, what we expose ourselves to through the media. Do we look at pornography? Do we look lustfully at attractive women? Do we listen to off-color jokes? The body includes our tongues, which we should use to praise God (Heb. 13:15) and to build up, not tear down, others (Eph. 4:29). We should use them to speak the truth in love (Eph. 4:15). Our bodies include our hands and feet. We should labor with our hands to provide for ourselves and our families (Eph. 4:28). We should use our feet to take the good news to others (Rom. 10:15) and to take us quickly away from evil (Rom. 3:15).
There is a paradox here, in that presenting our bodies to God is a positive thing, as a bride joyfully gives herself to her husband. But it’s also costly, requiring all that we are and have. Jesus put it this way (Mark 8:34-35), “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.” (See, also, John 12:24-25.) David Livingstone, who endured years of hardship taking the gospel to Africa, said (David Livingstone, [Harper & Brothers], by George Seaver p. 632), “I never made a sacrifice. Of this we ought not to talk when we remember the great sacrifice which He made who left His Father’s throne on high to give Himself for us.”
This sacrifice is living. Animal sacrifices were killed and consumed once and for all. The sacrifice of our bodies is ongoing and repeated. God has given us new life through the new birth. We now gladly offer it back to Him.
This sacrifice is holy. It is set apart to God. We dare not offer God a defiled sacrifice. If we have sinned, we must come to God for cleansing and then walk in obedience so that we do not disgrace the name of our Savior.
This sacrifice is acceptable to God. Just as the animal sacrifices were a pleasing aroma to God, so we should live so as to please Him in all that we think, say, and do. Again, the motivation to offer our bodies to God in this way is that He gave His Son for us.
Many translations (NASB, ESV) say, spiritual service, but there is another word that Paul could have used for that (Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], p. 645). He only uses this word here (the only other NT use is in 1 Pet. 2:2). It’s the word from which we get our word “logical” and means “rational” or “reasonable.” In light of what God mercifully has done for us, it’s only reasonable that we should give ourselves totally to Him.
Service of worship (NASB) translates a single word in Greek that refers to the service of priests in the temple (Rom. 9:4; Heb. 9:1, 6). Paul is applying this word for religious worship to our everyday lives. He means that everything that we do should be offered up to God as an act of worship. Hebrews 12:28 exhorts, “Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe….” Hebrews 13:15-16 uses the language of sacrifice to say, “Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name. And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.” (See, also, Phil. 4:18; 1 Pet. 2:5.)
In The Institutes of the Christian Religion (Ed. by John McNeill, translated by Ford Lewis Battles [Westminster], 3.7.1), John Calvin has a wonderfully helpful chapter, “The Sum of the Christian Life: the Denial of Ourselves.” He writes:
We are not our own: let not our reason nor our will, therefore, sway our plans and deeds. We are not our own: let us therefore not set it as our goal to seek what is expedient for us according to the flesh. We are not our own: in so far as we can, let us therefore forget ourselves and all that is ours.
Conversely, we are God’s: let us therefore live for him and die for him. We are God’s: let his wisdom and will therefore rule all our actions. We are God’s: let all the parts of our life accordingly strive toward him as our only lawful goal.
Have you experienced God’s great mercy in Christ? Then give yourself totally to Him. To cite David Livingstone again (ibid.), “Forbid it that we should ever consider the holding of a commission from the King of Kings a sacrifice, so long as men esteem the service of an earthly sovereign an honor.”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Every New Year’s Day, millions of Americans make resolutions to change. Every year by April, those same millions have given up their resolutions as unattainable. As Christians, all of us would say that we want to change so that we will be more like Christ. And yet, when it comes right down to it, change is hard. It’s like climbing up an icy slope—just when we think we’ve made some progress, we slip back to the bottom. So how can we change for good? By for good, I mean both permanently and for good in terms of our character and behavior. How can we change to become more like Jesus Christ?
In addressing this question, let’s be honest: the playing field is not level. Some of you have a much more difficult battle than others do. If you grew up in a home where there was frequent conflict, or where your parents split up, or where you were verbally, physically, or sexually abused, you’ve got a lot more issues to deal with than those of us who grew up in loving Christian homes. Or if you’ve fallen into certain sins, such as drug or alcohol abuse or certain sexual sins, you have a tough battle to change for good. But while the battle may be more difficult, the good news is that the Bible promises change to all who have trusted in Christ.
That’s the next thing that we must address in dealing with change: Romans 12:2 follows Romans 12:1. In verse 1, Paul addresses his readers as brethren, which assumes that they have experienced the new birth. God has changed their hearts from being hostile towards Him to loving Him. They have believed in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, so that they are no longer living according to their own selfish desires. They have presented their bodies as living sacrifices to the Lord. You must have experienced that change of salvation and total commitment of your life to God (Rom. 12:1) before you can experience the change of sanctification, or growth in godliness (Rom. 12:2).
Also, as we saw last time, your motive for why you want to change is crucial. Often people want to change because they’re unhappy with life and they want to be happy. That’s understandable, of course. God gets our attention when we disobey Him by allowing the negative consequences of sin to make life miserable. But the danger is that you just want out of the misery, but you don’t want to surrender to the lordship of Christ. You don’t want to present your life as a living sacrifice to glorify God. You just want to use God to get out of your problems, and then you put Him back in the closet until the next time you’re in a jam. This is often called a “foxhole” conversion. But it doesn’t result in lasting change because your motive is wrong.
As we saw in verse 1, the right motive for wanting to change is that you have experienced God’s abundant mercy in Christ. You were a sinner deserving His judgment when He graciously opened your eyes to see that Christ died for your sins (Rom. 5:8). You heard that He is “abounding in riches for all who call on Him” (10:12). And so you cried out to Him and He saved you. Now, out of gratitude for His mercy and out of a heartfelt desire to please the God who rescued you from judgment, you want your life to bring glory to Him. That’s the right motive for wanting to change.
Romans 12:2 shows how to develop the response to God’s mercy that 12:1 calls us to make: “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” I think that J. B. Phillips’ paraphrase captures the meaning of this verse (The New Testament in Modern English [Geoffrey Bles], p. 332), “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.” Paul is saying,
Rather than being conformed to this evil age, be transformed by renewing your mind so that you prove in practice God’s good, acceptable, and perfect will.
Paul gives a negative command and then a positive one:
World is literally, age, referring to the present evil age, which is passing away, in contrast to the coming eternal age in which righteousness dwells (2 Pet. 3:13). In Galatians 1:4-5, Paul says that the Lord Jesus Christ “gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forevermore. Amen.” Christ did not die to leave us to be conformed to this present evil age, but to rescue us from it, so that our lives would glorify God.
God has permitted this present age to be under Satan’s dominion. Paul says (2 Cor. 4:3-4), “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world [lit., age] has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (See, also, Eph. 2:2, NASB margin.) So the change that we need to make is to live in distinct contrast to this evil age.
But what does that mean? If you grew up in a fundamentalist environment, “worldliness” was identified by certain external behaviors. The “big 5” were no smoking, drinking, movies, dancing, or playing cards. I wasn’t allowed to dance or go to movies until I was 16, when my parents gave me the freedom to decide for myself, but warned me of the dangers. The first movie I saw at a theater was Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds,” which almost cured me of watching any more movies!
One of my classmates in seminary told me that when he first met me, he thought that I must not be a Christian. When I asked him why, he said, “Because you have a mustache and you go to movies.” I would have had a beard, but the seminary didn’t allow beards back then. And, we had to wear a coat and tie to class, because all ministers must wear suits. Why? So that we don’t look worldly! I never could figure that out, because the guys on Wall Street are about as worldly as you can get, and they all wear suits. But having grown up in Southern California, the notion of wearing a suit every day almost kept me out of the ministry!
I’m not suggesting that not being conformed to this age has no relation to outward matters. We should look respectable and not draw undue attention to ourselves by outlandish appearance or dress. We should not wear seductive clothing. Even some of the “big 5” have some validity: We should take care of our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit, which means not smoking or getting drunk. (Of course, it also means watching our weight, which I never heard about in fundamentalist circles!) We should not go to movies that defile us with profanity, violence, or sexual scenes (which eliminates most movies these days). We could add to the “big 5” not using illegal drugs. So not being conformed to the world includes many outward matters.
But at its core, not being conformed to this evil age is a matter of how we think. John Murray (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], 2:113) explains, “Conformity to this age is to be wrapped up in the things that are temporal, to have all our thought oriented to that which is seen and temporal…. If all our calculations, plans, ambitions are determined by what falls within life here, then we are children of this age.”
Harry Blamires, in his insightful book, The Christian Mind [Vine Books], p.44), wrote, “To think secularly is to think within a frame of reference bounded by the limits of our life on earth: it is to keep one’s calculations rooted in this-worldly criteria. To think christianly is to accept all things with the mind as related, directly or indirectly, to man’s eternal destiny as the redeemed and chosen child of God.” In his also excellent follow up, Recovering the Christian Mind [IVP], p. 117), Blamires explained, “The characteristic of ‘secularist values and judgments’ is that they give pre-eminence to man-centered and world-centered (as opposed to God-centered) criteria, to limitedly temporal (as opposed to eternal) standpoints.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Romans: Christian Conduct [Banner of Truth], p. 73) says, “by ‘world,’ the New Testament means life as it is thought of, organized, and lived apart from God, without reckoning on God, without being governed and controlled by Him.”
So Paul tells us, negatively, do not be conformed to the kind of godless thinking that characterizes people who have no knowledge of the eternal God. Always live in light of eternity.
Note three things:
I base this point on the tense, voice, and mood of the verb. It is present tense, indicating an ongoing process. We’re not talking about a quick fix or a dramatic, instantaneous change, but steady, lifelong progress toward godliness. The verb is in the passive voice, indicating that this is a work of God in us. But it is also in the imperative mood, indicating that we are not totally passive in the process. We are responsible to discipline ourselves for the purpose of godliness (1 Tim. 4:7). The balance is (Phil. 2:12-13), “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” We have to obey and work out the salvation that God has given to us, but He is also willing and working in us at the same time.
I grant that sometimes God works instant, permanent change. I’ve known alcoholics who got saved and never had an urge to take another drink. I’ve heard of drug addicts who got saved and never used drugs again. On rare occasions, a man with a fierce temper gets saved and he never explodes in anger again. But those are exceptions, not the general rule. Generally, the process of change is a lifelong battle where the saved person has to learn to depend on the Lord daily. At first there are usually many setbacks. We learn through failure, as Peter painfully did. But as we learn to walk by means of the Holy Spirit, we should see progress in transformation as His fruit is produced in us (Gal. 5:16-23).
Also, God does not change our basic personality type; rather He changes the sinful manifestations of our personality. Before he was converted, Paul was a hard-driving, everything-for-the-cause man. After he was saved, he was all out for the Lord. But he mellowed and became more gracious as he grew in the Lord. When Mark abandoned Paul and Barnabas on the first missionary journey, Paul wouldn’t consider giving him a second try. He and Barnabas had a fierce conflict and parted ways over the matter. But later in life, Paul told Timothy (2 Tim. 4:11), “Pick up Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for service.” God will use your personality, but He will sandpaper off your rough edges. Study the weaknesses that you are prone to, so that you can be on guard against them and work to overcome them.
“Be transformed by the renewing of your mind….” We act as we think. All sin and all obedience begin in the mind. So the key to overcoming sin and to growing in godliness is to change your thinking. How you think about God is immensely important. For example, if you think daily about the fact that God is with you and that He knows your every thought, word, and deed, it would have a profound effect on your behavior. Before you stretched the truth or lashed out in anger, you’d stop and think, “I can’t act like that because God is here with me.” So the process of change is directly linked to changed thinking, which stems from two main sources:
I cannot emphasize enough that if you are not saturating your mind with God’s Word, you will not change for the better. You must come to know God as He has revealed Himself in His Word. Satan is always trying to distort our view of God. He got Eve to sin by slandering the goodness of God and by casting doubt that He would follow through with His threatened punishment (Gen. 3:1-5). Also, you must come to know your own propensity toward sin as revealed in God’s Word. Even David, the man after God’s own heart, after he had written many of the psalms, was capable of adultery, deception, and murder. Do you think that your heart is immune toward sin? “Let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall” (1 Cor. 10:12).
The Bible speaks to virtually every area of life. How should we think about trials or success? How should we think about our relationships, especially when we’ve been disappointed or wronged? How should we think about money and possessions? What priorities and goals should we adopt in life? What moral standards should we hold to? What entertainment is wholesome and renewing? How do we process world news of terrorism and threats to our freedom? What political position should we adopt? Should we be concerned about the environment? What is good art? Should Christians be involved in the media? How should we educate our children? The Bible speaks to these and many more issues.
This means that you should have a regular habit of reading through the Bible over and over again, to get the balance of the totality of Scripture (Ps. 119:160). God is love, but He is also a God of wrath. You are prone to sin, but you’re also a saint in Christ Jesus. You need the balance. Meditate on God’s Word and how it applies to your life. Memorize the Word so that you can evaluate any situation or decision in light of Scripture. Without a steady diet of God’s Word, you will not change for the good.
I have heard some sanctimonious saints say, “I only read the Bible; I don’t read the writings of other men.” That sounds really pious, but it’s a denial of Scripture, which says that God has given gifted teachers to the church (1 Cor. 12:28; Eph. 4:11-12). I am blessed to have a library full of commentaries written by men who are far more gifted in biblical languages and theology than I am. Listen to the sermons of godly preachers. Read good books on the spiritual life.
Also, God has given us godly examples of men and women, both in history and people we know who can mentor us. The Bible has many godly examples, but also we have biographies of saints who have walked with God. I have gained more help by reading Christian biographies than from any other source outside of the Bible. The stories of George Muller, John Calvin, John Bunyan, Jonathan Edwards, William Carey, Adoniram Judson, Hudson Taylor, C. H. Spurgeon, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and others have deeply impacted me. The best biographies show you the warts and all of these dear people, so that you can learn from both their strengths and weaknesses. (See my article on the church web site, “Mining for Gold.”) I also have two bibliographies on the church web site. One is for books in general; the other is exclusively on Christian biographies and church history. I encourage you to become a reader of good Christian books.
If you protest that you don’t have time to read, consider this: I just listened to an interview that Mark Dever conducted with Greg Beale, who was in my class in seminary. He is now a renowned New Testament scholar and seminary professor, author of many books and commentaries. At one point Dever mentioned a scholarly book and Beale said that he read that book while he was brushing his teeth! Dever was surprised and asked him about this. Beale said that he read a page in the morning and another page at night while brushing his teeth, and got through the book in that manner! So you can find time to read if you want to grow!
Scholars debate whether “so that” introduces a purpose or a result. It seems to me that Paul is describing the result of being renewed in your mind: “so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
“The will of God” here does not refer to issues like whether you should go to college or not, or what career you pursue. Paul is talking about the moral will of God as revealed in the Bible. This would include that you marry only a committed Christian, but it does not include whether you marry Christian Bob or Christian Bill. That is another (difficult) subject!
“Prove” means to discern and approve by testing. The NIV translates, “to test and approve.” Phillips has, “prove in practice.” Douglas Moo comments (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 757), “‘Approving’ the will of God means to understand and agree with what God wants of us with a view to putting it into practice.” H. C. G. Moule (The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans [Cambridge University Press, 1903], p. 207), “Here the meaning is that the Christian’s intelligence has been so ‘renewed’ by grace that he now, by a holy instinct, can discern, in conflicting cases, the will of God from the will of self or of the world.”
Good refers to moral goodness or holiness. It is also good for you, because sin always damages you, whereas holiness always restores and blesses you.
Acceptable primarily means, “acceptable or pleasing to God.” Some authors object and say that this would be a tautology. But I don’t see their point. In Ephesians 5:8-10, Paul says, “for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.” “Trying to learn” is the same verb that is translated “prove” in Romans 12:2. We are to prove in practice what pleases God. Of course, this is also pleasing to us in the long run. Often obedience to God’s moral standards is difficult at the moment. You don’t cheat on the test and those who do get the better grades. You refuse to compromise your moral purity and your boyfriend leaves you for a girl who will sleep with him. But in the long run, God’s will is always more pleasing for you than disobedience is.
Perfect refers to God’s absolute moral perfection, which we will never attain to perfectly in this life. But the word also means “mature” or “complete.” As Phillips paraphrases, proving God’s will in practice “moves [you] towards the goal of true maturity.”
Columnist Sydney Harris (source unknown) said, “Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we want is for things to remain the same but get better.” For things to get better in your life, you must change. To change, you must be involved in the process of renewing your mind by God’s Word, so that you are proving in practice God’s good, acceptable, and perfect will. I encourage you to set a reasonable goal to begin growing in the process. Begin a daily time in the Word. Aim at reading five good Christian books this year. Link up with a mature mentor who can help you grow. Don’t let the world squeeze you into its mold. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
In 1985, the great baseball pitcher Tom Seaver was on the verge of winning his 300th game, which few pitchers have done. He went over to his 9-year-old daughter in the box seats and said excitedly, “Three more outs to go!” She responded, “Good, then we can go home and go swimming.” (Newsweek, 1/20/1992, p. 47)
Our kids have a way of keeping us humble, don’t they! And humility is a virtue that we all need to grow in. Three times in Romans 11 (11:18, 20, 25) Paul warned against pride. He brings it up again here (12:3). He will mention it again indirectly in 12:10 (“give preference to one another in honor”) and directly in 12:16 (“do not be haughty in mind”). Pride is the underlying sin in his rebuke in 14:4 & 10, “Who are you to judge the servant of another? … But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt?” Paul was concerned that his readers grow in humility.
For centuries the Christian church has listed pride as one of the seven deadly sins, which also include wrath, greed, sloth, lust, envy, and gluttony. But since psychology flooded into the American evangelical church in the 1970’s, we’ve been inundated with books that tell us that we need to grow in self-esteem, which seems at odds with humility. One of the most prominent promoters of this supposed “virtue” is Robert Schuller. In Self-Esteem: The New Reformation [Word, 1982], which was mailed unsolicited and without charge to almost every pastor in America, he wrote (p. 57),
In my lectures to thousands of ordained clergy of the widest cross section of historic Christianity, I have found it necessary to tell my colleagues, “Dare to be a possibility thinker! Do not fear pride; the easiest job God has is to humble us. God’s almost impossible task is to keep us believing every hour of every day how great we are as his sons and daughters on planet earth.”
If we should not fear pride, why does James 4:6 warn, “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble”? Why does God promise (Isa. 66:2b), “But to this one I will look, to him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word”? If we shouldn’t fear pride, why does Proverbs 16:18 warn, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before stumbling”? Why does Paul warn (1 Cor. 10:12), “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall”? Since Satan’s original sin was that his heart was lifted up (Ezek. 28:17), seeking to make himself like the Most High (Isa. 14:14), and since pride is at the root of every sin that we commit, it would seem that we should fear pride and seek to grow in true humility.
Let’s try to define humility. Vernon Grounds wrote (Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, ed. by Merrill C. Tenney [Zondervan], 3:222), “It is the spontaneous recognition of the creature’s absolute dependence on his Creator ….” He adds (3:223), “Humility is the logical corollary of sin-consciousness.”
In one of the few books written on humility (Humility: The Beauty of Holiness [Christian Literature Crusade], p. 12), Andrew Murray calls it “the place of entire dependence on God.” He adds (p. 13, italics his), “Humility is not so much a grace or virtue along with others; it is the root of all, because it alone takes the right attitude before God, and allows Him as God to do all…. It is simply the sense of entire nothingness, which comes when we see how truly God is all, and in which we make way for God to be all.”
In his excellent little booklet, From Pride to Humility (rev. ed., excerpted from The Exemplary Husband [Focus Publications], p. 17), Stuart Scott says,
When someone is humble they are focused on God and others, not self. Even their focus on others is out of a desire to love and glorify God…. A humble person’s goal is to elevate God and encourage others. In short, they “no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf” (2 Cor. 5:15).
Then he offers this definition (p. 18): “The mindset of Christ (a servant’s mindset): a focus on God and others, a pursuit of the recognition and the exaltation of God, and a desire to glorify and please God in all things and by all things He has given.”
Here’s another helpful definition, from C. J. Mahaney (Humility: True Greatness [Multnomah], p. 22, italics his): “Humility is honestly assessing ourselves in light of God’s holiness and our sinfulness.” He adds (ibid.), “Without an honest awareness of both these realities … all self-evaluation will be skewed and we’ll fail to either understand or practice true humility.”
So we could sum up that true humility means seeing God as the giver and sustainer of everything and seeing ourselves as sinful and needy in His presence, so that we trust totally in Him and not in ourselves, so that He gets all the glory.
Paul ends Romans 11 with the great doxology (11:36), “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.” God is the source and sustainer of all, and thus all glory is due to Him. Thus, in light of God’s mercy to us as sinners (11:32), Paul urges us (12:1-2) to present our bodies as living sacrifices to God. We are not to be conformed to this evil age, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we prove in practice God’s good, acceptable, and perfect will.
It is significant that the first aspect of a renewed mind that Paul mentions is humility. Paul is describing for us how the renewed mind thinks. In the Greek text, Paul uses the verb “to think” or a compound of it four times. This shows us that humility (or pride) is a matter of how we think before God. Often we can see the attitudes and behavior of pride in others. But the point is, even if we can hide our pride from others, we cannot hide it from God. This is a mindset that we have to develop before Him, where we constantly judge our dependence on ourselves and affirm our gratitude toward Him and dependence on Him. As James 4:10 exhorts, “Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.”
Also, Paul’s emphasis in the following context is on loving relationships and he introduces that subject by confronting our pride and exhorting us to humility. Pride is at the root of all relational conflicts. Humility is the foundation for godly, loving relationships. We can see it in toddlers, who selfishly grab a toy, claiming, “That’s mine!” The other toddler fights back, trying to get what he thinks he has a right to play with. While we may grow more sophisticated in how we do it, all of our adult conflicts are rooted in this same self-centered pride. So when Paul says, “I say to everyone among you,” he is emphasizing that this is not something that only a few of us need to work on. Pride is endemic to the fallen human heart. So in verse 3 Paul is telling us,
It is vital for each of us to develop true humility in light of God’s gracious gifts to us.
Paul outlines four steps to develop true humility:
Paul begins, “For through the grace given to me ….” He is probably referring specifically to the grace that gave him the gift of apostleship (Rom. 1:5; 15:15-16; 1 Cor. 3:10; 15:9-10; Eph. 3:8). This means that what follows are not helpful hints for happy living, but rather apostolic commands. If we don’t grow in humility, we are disobeying God. And, if anyone would be susceptible to pride, it would be those holding the office of apostle. But Paul was always keenly aware that he held this position by grace alone. (These two points are from Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], p. 651.) Although the gift of apostle is no longer given, the principle still holds: the more prominent your gifts, the more you will be prone to pride, unless you remember that everything you are and have are from God’s grace.
But I believe that Paul is also cognizant of the grace of salvation that he shares in common with all believers, which he has expounded on in Romans 1-11. As he has just said (11:32), “For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.” If we are saved, it is because God was gracious to us. It was not a reward for our good behavior! If it had not been for God’s grace, we would still be in our sins, headed for hell. And now that we are saved, whatever natural or spiritual gifts that we have are due to God’s grace. As Paul chides the arrogant Corinthians (1 Cor. 4:7), “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?”
And so the foundation for true humility is always to keep God’s grace in view. Keep coming back to the cross. Jesus didn’t die for you because you were worthy and He knew that He was getting a real prize. John Newton put it rightly, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” By the way, years ago when the Biola choir sang “Amazing Grace” on Robert Schuller’s “Hour of Power” TV show, he required that they take out the word “wretch” and sing, “That saved my soul for me”! You can’t have high self-esteem if you call yourself a wretch!
The danger is not that we would think too lowly of ourselves, but too highly. Paul doesn’t tell us that we need to build our self-esteem or our self-confidence in order to succeed. I’ve heard Christians say that the reason for their success is that they believe in themselves. But the Bible says that those who believe in themselves are cursed (Jer. 17:5). Our trust must always be in the Lord through us, not in ourselves (2 Cor. 3:5; Phil. 4:13). I’ve not been able to find a single instance in the Bible where the Lord tells someone who is bemoaning his weakness or inadequacy that he needs to start believing in himself.
Let’s look at a few examples. In Genesis 18:27, Abraham is trying to get God to spare Sodom. He states, “Now behold, I have ventured to speak to the Lord, although I am but dust and ashes.” The Lord doesn’t respond by saying, “Come on, Abraham, you need to see how great you are as My chosen child!” He lets Abraham’s self-deprecation stand.
Job had lost his possessions, his ten children, and his health. Then his so-called friends berate him for over 30 chapters. When God finally speaks, He spends two chapters (38 & 39) showing Job how little he knows and how powerless he is compared to God. Job responds (40:3-5), “Then Job answered the LORD and said, ‘Behold, I am insignificant; what can I reply to You? I lay my hand on my mouth. Once I have spoken, and I will not answer; Even twice, and I will add nothing more.’” But the Lord doesn’t comfort him or say, “Come on, Job, you’re the most righteous man on the earth! Don’t talk like that! Look at how great you are!” Rather, the Lord goes on putting Job in his place for two more chapters! Then Job concludes (42:6), “Therefore I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes.” That’s where Job, the most righteous man on earth, needed to be. And it was only after that that the Lord restored him.
Note, also, Peter’s response to the first miraculous catch of fish (Luke 5:8), “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” Jesus didn’t correct him by saying, “Come on, Rock! You need to think better things about yourself! Let’s get rid of this worm theology stuff!” Rather, Jesus graciously focused on how He would change Peter (Luke 5:10), “Do not fear, from now on you will be catching men.” (Also, see Isa. 6:5; Dan. 9:4-19.)
If you can find any verses that tell us that we need to build our self-esteem or love ourselves more or think of ourselves more highly, I’d be glad to consider them. The second great commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:39), is not commanding us to love ourselves more. Rather, it assumes that our innate self-love is the standard by which we should strive to love others. And while we should see ourselves as God’s beloved children, identified with Jesus Christ and possessing His gracious gifts for service, these blessings are all due to His grace, not to something inherent in us. To develop true humility, we need to work on going lower, not higher (Rom. 12:16).
Paul says that we are “to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.” Some argue that this refers to the faith necessary for justification, which God has given to all who are saved (Eph. 2:8-9). While it is true that saving faith comes from God, this doesn’t fit with “allotted” or “measure,” which indicate varying amounts.
In verse 4, Paul says that we all have different functions in the body. In verse 6, he says that “we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us,” and that we are to exercise these gifts “according to the proportion of [our] faith.” Thus it seems to me that in verse 3 Paul is talking about varying amounts of faith that God has given to different believers for the exercise of various spiritual gifts. In 1 Corinthians 12:4-6 Paul says, “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons.” The point is, whether we have the gifts and faith to launch and sustain a worldwide ministry, or whether we exercise our gifts and faith on a small, local scale, keep in mind that everything you are and have comes from God, according to His sovereign purpose (1 Cor. 12:11).
This attitude eliminates pride. How can I boast when I am only doing what God has graciously enabled me to do? Although I’ve never read that he is a Christian, the billionaire Warren Buffet, who is reputed to be the second richest man in the world, refuses to take credit for his company, Berkshire’s, success. He explains (Reader’s Digest, 11/94, p. 175):
Much of our businesses’ prosperity has been created by our managers. My role may best be illustrated by an incident at my granddaughter Emily’s fourth-birthday party. Attending were other children, adoring relatives and a local entertainer named Beemer the Clown.
As Beemer began to perform magic tricks, he asked Emily to help him by waving a “magic wand” over “the box of wonders.” Green handkerchiefs went into the box, Emily waved the wand, and Beemer removed blue ones. Loose handkerchiefs went in and, upon a magisterial wave by Emily, emerged knotted. Soon Emily was unable to contain herself. “Gee, I’m really good at this,” she exulted.
And that sums up my contribution to the performance of Berkshire’s businesses.
That should be our attitude as Christians when God grants blessing on our labors. We weren’t ultimately responsible for the results. We were only using the gifts and faith that God gave us.
This attitude also checks us from comparing ourselves with others who may be more “successful” than we are. This is a common stumbling block for us pastors. We see another pastor with a bigger church or who is in demand around the world as a speaker or who has publishers asking for his books and we get jealous. Instead, if the man is preaching the gospel and teaching God’s Word without compromise, we should rejoice. We’re on the same team; we’re members of the same body. If he is seeing fruit, it’s for the cause of Christ and for His glory. We should make sure that we are properly using the gifts that God has given to us. Then we can rejoice in someone else’s greater gifts.
Thus to develop true humility, keep God’s grace always in view. Work on going lower, not higher, in your estimate of yourself. Remember that all that you have, including your faith, comes from God and must be exercised as unto Him. Finally,
Paul tells us not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think, “but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.” He does not say that God has only allotted to some a measure of faith, but rather, to each one. Every text that mentions spiritual gifts emphasizes that we all have at least one gift (1 Cor. 12:7, 11; Eph. 4:7; 1 Pet. 4:10). The analogy of the church being the body of Christ underscores the point. Each part of the body is essential for the proper functioning of the whole. There are no parts of my body that I care to part with! I know that I can get along with one leg or arm or with one eye or one kidney. But I can only function at full capacity when all of the parts are there and doing what they’re supposed to do.
People who go around dumping on themselves are not thinking with sound judgment, because they’re denying that God has given them a gift to be used for His glory. In Jesus’ parable of the talents (Matt. 25:14-30), it wasn’t the slave who received five talents or the one with two talents who buried them and didn’t use them for his master’s benefit. It was the slave who received one talent who buried it and received a scathing rebuke when the master returned. If you think that because you’re not gifted as a public speaker or effective as an evangelist, your gift doesn’t matter, you’re in danger of imitating that one-talent slave. You’re not thinking with “sound judgment,” as God has allotted to you a measure of faith. If you don’t evaluate yourself correctly, you may not use what God has given you for His purpose and glory, and you will face His displeasure when you stand before Him. You want to hear the Lord say (Matt. 25:21), “Well done, good and faithful slave. … Enter into the joy of your master.”
So try to figure out, perhaps with the help of trusted friends, what you can do for the Lord and get involved in doing it. There may be a learning curve, where you fail at first. You will probably catch criticism from other believers. It goes with the turf! Keep learning and growing and serving. Maybe the Lord will re-direct you into another type of service. However you serve, ask Him to use you in a way that is greater than you can ask or even think (Eph. 3:20). Ask Him for results that are disproportionately greater than human explanation can provide. Keep in mind Paul’s words (2 Cor. 3:5), “Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.”
As a pastor, I’m concerned because I see many Christians who do not think about these things with sound judgment. They do not evaluate what God has given them to do and then get on with doing it in faith with a view to giving an account someday to God. They know that the pastor will give an account someday for how he uses his gifts, but it never occurs to them that they will also give an account for the ministry that God has given them to do. And so we always seem to have a lot of ministry needs that go unmet.
In his classic, The Training of the Twelve ([Kregel], p. 180), A. B. Bruce observed, “The whole aim of Satanic policy is to get self-interest recognized as the chief end of man.” As you know, God’s glory should be our chief end. We glorify Him by serving Him with true humility in light of His gracious gifts to us.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Unless you’re an airplane buff, you probably don’t recognize the name, Charles Lawrence. He is credited with developing the engine for “The Spirit of St. Louis,” the aircraft that Charles Lindbergh flew non-stop from Long Island to Paris in 1927.
After Lindbergh’s record-setting flight, friends of Lawrence held a dinner in honor of his achievement. At the dinner, in response to all the attention being lavished on him, he made this humble comment: “This is nice, and I appreciate it very much, but who ever heard of Paul Revere’s horse?” (Source unknown)
Lawrence’s comment reflects the humility with which the church, the body of Christ, should function. Some members, like Lindbergh, are more prominent and get the attention. But without the behind the scenes work of a man like Charles Lawrence, Lindbergh never could have gotten off the ground. And for the proper functioning of the body of Christ, there have to be dozens of faithful servants humbly working behind the scenes, who don’t care about getting the glory. Their desire is to make the church be all that God wants it to be.
The apostle Paul is showing us how the life of sacrificial service (12:1) plays out in ministry to others. At the heart of the properly functioning body of Christ the members must not be conformed to this evil age, but be transformed by the renewing of their minds (12:2). The renewed mind will not think more highly of itself than it ought to think, but will think with sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith (12:3). In other words, each member will not arrogantly think that he is better or more important than others. But also, he will not despise the gifts that God has given to him, however insignificant they may seem. He will humbly exercise them for the good of the body and the glory of God. So Paul now (12:4-8) shows how humility operates in the functioning body of Christ. He is saying that humility requires that we recognize the concept of the body of Christ (12:4-5); and that we function in the area of our own gifts (12:6-8).
In 12:4-5 Paul briefly sets forth the concept of the church as the body of Christ, which is one of several New Testament analogies used to describe the church. (Paul develops this in much more detail in 1 Cor. 12:12-27; also, Eph. 1:22-23; 4:15-16; Col. 2:19). Then in 12:6-8, he mentions, by way of example, seven spiritual gifts that function in the body, making the point that those who possess these gifts must exercise them faithfully in order for the body to function properly. No one member possesses all the gifts, and thus we’re all interdependent. To the extent that the members of a local church do not recognize the concept of the body and faithfully function as humble members of the body, that church will be dysfunctional. But when the members of a church faithfully exercise their gifts with humility, that church will be healthy. Today we can only look at 12:4-5, where Paul makes the point that…
Humility requires that we recognize and function within the concept of the body of Christ.
Romans 12:4-5: “For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”
“For” shows that Paul is explaining further the implications of 12:3. We think with sound judgment and proper humility when we recognize that we’re only a part of the one body of Christ and that we’re members of one another. Just as the human body doesn’t function well when only a few members work, so neither does the body of Christ. All the members must work together in humility. The analogy of the church as the body of Christ implies five truths:
The church is the community of all who believe in Jesus Christ during the New Testament era. Covenant theologians extend the church to include all believers of all time, including those who believed under the old covenant. While the Greek word for church or assembly, ekklesia, is used once in the New Testament of the entire nation of Israel in the wilderness (Acts 7:38), I believe that there are some important distinctions between Israel and the New Testament church.
Israel was a national, ethnic group made up of both believers and unbelievers. The church, in its truest sense, is a spiritual group made up of believers from many ethnic nations. In Israel, even those who believed are never described as belonging to the body of Christ. The church in this sense came into being on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit baptized all who believe in Christ into the one body of Christ (Acts 1:5; 1 Cor. 12:13). Membership in Israel was due to one’s physical birth. But as I’ll mention in the next point, membership in the church is due to one’s spiritual birth.
I agree there is only one true people of God, consisting of all who believe in Christ whether in the Old or New Testament eras. But I would contend that there is a difference, even between believers in both eras. Old Testament saints were not a part of the living, organic body of Christ, baptized by the Spirit into this one body, with Jesus Christ as Head. And if you compare the entire nation of Israel with the church, the differences are even greater. The nation of Israel was a physical, ethnic entity, containing both unbelievers and believers. The church is a spiritual organic entity, containing only believers.
I’ll say more about the unity of the church in a moment, but for now I will point out that at its essence, the church is not an organization, but rather an organism. Organisms are highly organized, but in addition, they have life. Connected vitally to Jesus Christ as our head, the church shares His life in us. This means:
To use another analogy for the church, when a person is born again, he is born into God’s family. All other believers become his brothers or sisters. While I think that there is a legitimate place for having a defined membership in a local church, at its most basic level you do not become a member of the church by going to a new members’ class, filling out a membership application, being interviewed by an elder, and being formally welcomed into the church. You become a member of the church by believing in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. The membership process is to help the elders to ensure that all who join the church have a credible profession of faith in Christ. But the point is, you don’t become a member of the church as the body of Christ by natural birth, but by the new birth.
In my judgment, those that view the church as an extension of or replacement for Israel and view baptism as the replacement for circumcision inevitably get into trouble because they have many in membership who have not been born again. These people were born in the church, baptized as infants, confirmed by going through a catechism class, and welcomed into the membership of the church as adults without a credible profession of faith in Christ.
Eventually, the church becomes like Israel, a mixed multitude with many who have never trusted in Christ as Savior. Thus many of these denominations now accept practicing homosexuals as clergy and deny many cardinal doctrines of the faith. At its root this is because they have not recognized that the fundamental basis of membership in a local church is the new birth through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, not physical birth into the covenant community.
I grant that even local churches such as ours that insist on the new birth as the basis for membership have some who slip through the cracks. They have become official members, but they have never truly been born again. We try to prevent this through the membership process, but we cannot know a person’s heart. But our aim is to limit the membership of the church to those who have been born again. That is how we become members of the church universal. We try to apply that to the local level.
In other words, the church is not just a place where you come, as you would to a theater, to watch a show and then leave without much if any interaction with other attenders. Or, a church is not like a college classroom, where you may know a few of the students, but you only come to hear the lecture, chat with a couple of friends in the hallway after class, and then go your own ways. The church is a body, which implies a deeper level of contact and interaction than the theater or classroom comparisons provide.
A body does not do well when its members are not connected with one another. My fingers only work when connected with my hands and my hands with my arms and my arms to my body. The whole thing has to be vitally connected with my head. While in a church that is much larger than 100 people it’s impossible to know everyone well, you should have a network of some with whom you go deeper than just saying “hello” on Sunday morning and then not seeing them again for another week. The early church in Jerusalem is our model. It consisted of many thousands of members (Acts 2:41, 47; 4:4; 6:7). They met at the temple to hear the apostles’ teaching, but they also met house to house for interaction on a deeper level (Acts 2:42, 46). The principle of the body means that we need to be developing relationships with some other members of the body for the purpose of mutual growth in Christ.
As you know, we Americans tend to be individualistic. We admire the strong, independent guy who can make it on his own. To depend on others for help is a sign of weakness. But as Christians, we need to fight this tendency. There is a sense in which each believer must bear his own load or be responsible for his own spiritual growth (Gal. 6:5). But there is another sense in which we must bear one another’s burdens, because we are members of one another (Gal. 6:2). The principle of the body means that we need each other to grow and stand strong against the enemy. But to admit that and practice it requires humility.
Years ago, Gene Getz wrote a helpful book, Building Up One Another [Victor Books, 1976], in which he examined many of the “one another’s” in the New Testament. He said (p. 4) that outside of the gospels, there are 58 uses of the Greek word that is usually translated “one another.” His 12 chapter headings were:
Note that many of these references come from Romans. All of them are specific ways to show love for one another (John 13:34-35). Getz’ point is that the New Testament has a strong emphasis on the fact that we are not to be Christians in isolation, but in relationship with one another.
But that’s often the rub, isn’t it? Relationships often result in misunderstanding, conflict, and hurt feelings, even in the body of Christ. I often meet Christians who have been deeply hurt by fellow believers. Sometimes they drop out of the church altogether because of their bad experience. Or they may attend church, but they refuse to get involved because they don’t want to get hurt again. Perhaps some of you hold back from serving in the church because of past bad experiences.
But in this fallen world, even in the body of Christ, relationships always expose you to the risk of getting hurt. I only half-jokingly say to those joining this church that we promise to offend you or hurt your feelings at some point. I hope that it’s not intentional, but it’s almost inevitable because of our differences and because we’re all still prone to sin. When you get men and women (there’s serious potential for misunderstanding right there!), of different ages, different cultural and racial backgrounds, and sometimes even different linguistic backgrounds, together and throw in the world, the flesh, and the devil, you’ve got the potential for conflict and division! But the benefits of loving relationships outweigh the risks of getting hurt.
Someone once described the church as Noah’s Ark: You couldn’t stand the stench inside if it weren’t for the storm outside! Well, it’s not that bad! But we do need to keep working at our relationships and growing in love for one another. Separating from one another should only be a last resort and only for serious reasons.
But in light of the thousands of different denominations, you might wonder how Paul can say that we are “one body” (12:5).
Paul says (12:5), “We who are many, are one body in Christ.” We need to think carefully about what this means. As a pastor, I frequently feel pressure to join with some attempt to bring all the churches in Flagstaff together in an outward show of unity. It may be a prayer breakfast or a community worship service. I received an invitation to attend the multi-faith prayer service this past week at one of the churches in town. At the bottom of the invitation was the logo for the familiar bumper sticker that has symbols for the world’s major faiths, along with the word “Co-exist!” I did not accept that invitation!
The ecumenical movement has tried to bring about outward, organizational unity between various denominations through organizations such as the World Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches. Although the statements of faith of these organizations sound okay on the surface, in practice they welcome denominations that are liberal and in some cases, heretical. The National Association of Evangelicals attempts to bring more evangelical churches together in some sort of visible, organizational unity.
While there may be some benefits in belonging to an association of like-minded churches for the accomplishment of larger goals (FCF belongs to the Southwest Conservative Baptist Association), we must remember that at its heart, the unity of the body of Christ is invisible and spiritual, not outward and organizational. As I said, it consists of the fact that all who have trusted in Christ have received new life in Him and were baptized by the Spirit into this one body (1 Cor. 12:13). This is a unity that God creates, not one that we create.
In Ephesians 4, Paul speaks of two aspects of this spiritual unity. In verse 3 he exhorts us to be “diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” This is the unity that the Spirit creates. We do not cause it, but we must be diligent to preserve it through humility, gentleness, patience, and tolerance in love (Eph. 4:2). But in verse 12 Paul states that the various gifted leaders are to equip the saints for the work of the ministry and the building up of the body of Christ. Then he adds (4:13), “until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” This is a unity that we must labor to attain, not (as with the unity of the Spirit) to preserve. It is not based on our common faith in Christ alone, but also on our growing knowledge of Christ through God’s Word.
So the operative phrase in Romans 12:5 is, “in Christ.” We are only unified with those who are truly in Christ through the new birth, which is an inner, spiritual unity. We should strive to show this unity outwardly through love and cooperation when possible. Frankly, it is not always easy to know how and when to display outward unity, because some who are truly born again at the same time hold to some strange doctrines and practices that I would rather not be identified with publicly. If you’re interested in pursuing this further, I wrote a paper, “Separation vs. Cooperation” (on the church web site).
Thus humility requires that we think carefully about this concept of the body of Christ. This means that the church is an organic unity, made up of diverse members. We become members of the body through the new birth, which unites us to all other born again people. The church as the body of Christ also implies that God has not called us to be Christians in isolation, but in relationship with one another. And the unity of the one body of Christ is invisible and spiritual, not outward and organizational. Finally,
We are “individually members one of another.” As Paul elaborates on this (1 Cor. 12:14-21):
For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot says, “Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body,” it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body. And if the ear says, “Because I am not an eye, I am not a part of the body,” it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired. If they were all one member, where would the body be? But now there are many members, but one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; or again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”
In other words, we are interdependent and we need one another for the body to function well. But it takes humility to recognize this and make it work, because our pride makes us want to be independent and not let anyone know that we need him or her.
Years ago, I read a touching story that illustrates this truth. During Vacation Bible School, a woman teaching a primary class was interrupted about an hour before dismissal when a new boy was brought in. He only had one arm and the teacher did not know any details about why he was missing his arm or how he may have adjusted to this handicap. She was nervous and afraid that one of the other kids would comment on it and embarrass him. But she had no opportunity to coach them on how to respond.
As the class came to a close without incident, she began to relax. She asked the class to join her in their usual closing ceremony. “Let’s make our churches,” she said. “Here’s the church and here’s the steeple, open the doors and see all the ….” Then the awful truth of her own actions hit her. The very thing she had feared the children would do, she had done.
But as she paused, speechless, the little girl sitting next to the new boy reached over with her left hand and placed it up to his right hand and said, “Davey, let’s make the church together.”
Without knowing it, that little girl gave us a beautiful picture of how the body of Christ is supposed to function. We shouldn’t arrogantly let the person with one hand know that we’ve got two and that he can’t do what we can do. Rather, recognizing our unity as members of the same body and our interdependence as different members of that body, we come alongside one another and say, “Let’s make the church together.”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
In my years of studying God’s Word, I have found few subjects where there is more widespread difference of opinion than that of spiritual gifts. Different authors define the various gifts in different ways. There is debate over whether all the gifts are still functioning today, or whether some were “sign” gifts that ceased after the apostolic era. There are different views over how many gifts each person has and over how we discover our gifts. Some offer spiritual gift inventories, by which you may supposedly determine what your gift is. Others say that it is a wrong emphasis to try to discover your gift (Gene Getz, Building Up One Another [Victor Books], pp. 9-16).
And so I approach Romans 12:6-8 a bit hesitantly, acknowledging that good men differ in their understanding of this topic. In the context, Paul is expanding on 12:3, “For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.” In 12:4-5, he uses the analogy of the church as the body of Christ to show that true humility will recognize and function within this important concept. We are one body in Christ, made up of various members, each with an important function. Thus we are not independent of one another, but rather, interdependent. You need me and I need you in order to grow in Christ and fulfill God’s purpose on earth.
Now (12:6-8) Paul shows how the body functions through the variously gifted members. Continuing the humility theme he says:
Humility requires that we each function within the area of our own gifts for the benefit of the whole body.
Paul again emphasizes that whatever gifts we may have are due to God’s grace, and thus there is no room for pride. God has graciously given gifts to each of us that we are to use to serve others. We should not despise others’ gifts and we should not neglect using our own gifts. Paul lists seven spiritual gifts by way of example. I do not know why he picks these seven and not others or why he lists them in the order that he does. A comparison with 1 Corinthians 7:7; 12:8-10, 28-30 and Ephesians 4:11 shows that there are other gifts than these seven. None of the lists are exhaustive and some of the gifts with different names would seem to refer to the same thing (e.g., administration and leadership [1 Cor. 12:28; Rom. 12:8]; helps and serving [1 Cor. 12:28; Rom. 12:7]). No list contains prayer (although it may be under “faith,” 1 Cor. 12:9) or music. Some contend that each believer only has one spiritual gift, but I find no Scriptural basis for that view. The apostle Paul seemed to have many gifts, and there is no reason to think that he was unique.
There is also debate over whether there is a correlation between natural abilities and spiritual gifts. Some authors are dogmatic that since these are spiritual gifts, they are unrelated to a person’s natural abilities. Thus if a gifted teacher comes to Christ, he may not have the gift of teaching. But others argue that God sanctifies a person’s natural abilities after he comes to salvation and uses them as spiritual gifts. In this vein, Wayne Grudem defines a spiritual gift (Systematic Theology [Zondervan], p. 1016, italics his), “A spiritual gift is any ability that is empowered by the Holy Spirit and used in any ministry of the church.” Since all that we are and have, both naturally and spiritually, comes from God, I don’t see a problem with the second view.
Also, even though the Holy Spirit gives and empowers the gifts, there is a need for the gifted person to work to develop the gift. A gifted evangelist needs to study biblical evangelism and evangelism in church history so that he can improve his skill in proclaiming the gospel. A gifted teacher needs to study and learn throughout life. A pastor needs to grow in his ability to shepherd people with grace and wisdom. Timothy seemed to be in danger of letting his gift languish through disuse or inattention, and so Paul urges him to kindle it afresh (1 Tim. 4:14; 2 Tim. 1:6; cf. Col. 4:17).
It is important to remember that almost all of the spiritual gifts have corresponding commandments for all believers. Thus we can’t opt out of doing certain things because we claim that it’s not our gift. There is a gift of exhortation, but we all are to exhort one another in the things of God. There is a gift of teaching, but we all are to teach one another and teach our children the truths of Scripture. Some are gifted in evangelism (Eph. 4:11), but we’re all commanded to share Christ with the lost. There is a gift of service, but we all must serve. There is a gift of mercy, but we all must show mercy to the suffering. There is a gift of giving, but we’re all required to be generous with what God has entrusted to us.
Then we might ask, what is the benefit, if any, of knowing what your spiritual gift is? The answer is that it helps you to know where to focus your time and effort for the greatest impact in God’s kingdom. We see this in Acts 6. A controversy arose in the early church because the Hellenistic Jews felt that their widows were being overlooked by the Hebrew believers in the daily serving of food. So we read (Acts 6:2), “So the twelve summoned the congregation of the disciples and said, ‘It is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables.’” They directed them to find seven godly men who could take care of the ministry to the widows and then explained (Acts 6:4), “But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” It was not that serving tables was beneath the apostles. Rather, they recognized that their gifts were in the realm of prayer and teaching the Word, and they needed to focus there.
We all should be looking for needs in the body and be quick to help, no matter what our spiritual gifts. If you’re at a church potluck and the workers need help cleaning up, you don’t have to have the gift of serving to run the vacuum or wipe off tables. Just do it! But, if you have the gift of teaching, you should not make cleaning up your main ministry. That is the needed balance.
Another debate centers on the question of whether spiritual gifts are given permanently or whether they may be temporary for a specific situation. Generally, it would seem that the gifts are permanent, as seen by the analogy of the body and Paul’s exhortation that a person with one gift should not envy a person with a different gift. The eye is always an eye and the ear an ear, and neither changes or should wish that it was something different.
Coupled with this, does God determine what gifts a person gets or should we pray to receive certain gifts that we lack? Paul makes it clear that gifts are given according to God’s sovereign will (1 Cor. 12:11, 18, 28) and thus we should be content to function as God has gifted us. But then why does Paul say (1 Cor. 12:31), “But earnestly desire the greater gifts” (also, 14:1) if the distribution of gifts is fixed by God’s will?
There are two possible answers. First, Paul was speaking to the Corinthian church as a whole, instructing them to seek the gifts in their church gatherings that would result in the greatest edification of the whole body. So he wasn’t telling individuals to seek certain gifts, but the church body. Second, if there is an individual application, it would be no different than the matter of salvation. On the one hand, God has sovereignly determined before the world was created who will be saved. On the other hand, sinners are exhorted to call upon the Lord for salvation. Although there is a mystery, both are true.
So perhaps there is a situation where a certain ministry is desperately needed and there is no one else there to meet the need except you. It would be legitimate to cry out to the Lord to give you the ability to meet the need, even if it is not in the area of your lifelong gifts. Perhaps you need unusual discernment to give godly counsel. Even if your normal gift is not discernment, ask God to give you that gift in that situation. Or perhaps the need is to exhort someone to turn from sin, but you normally hate confrontation like the plague. Don’t dodge the need; cry out to God to give you the wisdom and courage to exhort.
Before we look at the seven gifts in Romans 12:6-8, let me address one other question: How does a person discover what his or her spiritual gifts are? I’m not a fan of spiritual gift inventories. I suppose they may be of some help, but too often people trust these to lock in on some supposed gift that they have and it boxes them in so that they are not open to other possibilities.
First, to discover your gifts, get involved in serving in a number of different ministries. As has often been said, God only directs moving vehicles. So start serving and if God needs to redirect you, He will. As you serve, you will discover that you enjoy doing some things more than others. God uses our desires to direct us. This doesn’t mean that you will find your area of gift easy to do. I find teaching God’s Word to be difficult and stressful. But like all hard work, there is satisfaction after the work is done.
Also, when you serve in a certain area that you’re gifted in, God will give a measure of blessing so that others will comment on how much your ministry meant to them. When I first started to teach the Bible, way back in my college years, I was surprised when people would come up to me weeks later and tell me that God had used something I said in their lives. After this happened a few times, I began to discern that God might use me in teaching. Also, over the years, my efforts at personal evangelism have yielded little fruit, at least as far as I know. But ministering to believers to help them grow or understand the Christian life has often yielded fruit. So I think that I have the gift of pastor-teacher.
Here’s a final way to discern your gift that may surprise you: What do you complain about in the church? People tend to complain in their area of giftedness. Gifted teachers complain that the teaching is weak. Those gifted in administration grumble about the church being poorly organized. Those gifted in mercy gripe that the church neglects the shut-ins. Those gifted in evangelism shake their heads at the lack of interest in outreach. And so it goes. The solution, of course, is to quit complaining and start serving in your area of giftedness, so that the church will improve in that area.
Also I should point out that there is not necessarily a correlation between the effectiveness of a person’s gift and that person’s spiritual maturity. Someone may be a gifted evangelist, but he is spiritually immature, so that his life is not a good advertisement for the gospel. The enemy often uses this to bring dishonor to the name of Christ. We all should be growing in maturity and be careful that if God grants us great results in some ministry, our lives are Christ-like and do not cause a scandal for the gospel.
I’m going to dodge the difficult question of whether all of the spiritual gifts are valid for today, except to say that I cannot find biblical support for the view that the so-called “sign” gifts ceased completely and permanently at the end of the apostolic era. On the other hand, we need to test the gifts against the New Testament (1 Thess. 5:20-21; 1 John 4:1). On that basis, I am very skeptical of most of what is claimed to be speaking in tongues and miraculous healing today. The genuine gift of tongues is the miraculous ability to speak in a foreign language that you have not studied, but most “tongues” today is just gibberish. And the so-called “faith healers” who put on crusades and appeal for money are a bunch of spiritual hucksters, preying on gullible people.
With that as a very lengthy introduction, let’s briefly work through the seven gifts of Romans 12:6-8:
There’s a lot of controversy and difficulty in defining this gift. Wayne Grudem has written a book, The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament & Today [Crossway, 1988], arguing that this gift, properly defined, is valid for the church today. He distinguishes between the apostolic gift of prophecy, which transmitted authoritative revelation to the church and this spiritual gift, which required evaluation and discernment to determine its application and validity. He defines it (Systematic Theology, p. 1049, italics his) as “telling something that God has spontaneously brought to mind.” But many argue that this gift only functioned in apostolic times and is not valid today. I think that Dr. Grudem’s arguments are largely convincing.
When Paul says that he should prophesy “according to the proportion of his faith,” I understand him to mean that the prophet must not be governed by his emotions or his love of speaking, but must only speak what God has given him to speak (John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 123; Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans: Christian Conduct [Banner of Truth], pp. 239-240). Also, the prophet must speak everything that God has given him to speak, not holding back difficult truth (Lloyd-Jones, ibid.). Most authors distinguish prophecy from teaching by saying that the prophet received immediate revelation from God, whereas the teacher studied the Scriptures to explain and apply them.
Some authors (John Calvin, Charles Hodge) argue that Paul is saying that the prophet must speak “according to the analogy of the faith” (the Greek word for “proportion” is analogia). In other words, his speaking must be in line with inspired Scripture. While that is true, I doubt that it is Paul’s meaning here. I understand “according to the proportion of his faith” to be in line with verse 3, “as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.” So Paul is referring to the faith of the prophet. Paul means that he must be careful to trust in God and not go beyond what God has given him to say.
I don’t have time to go into how this gift may be used in our church. I am open to it being exercised in a careful manner, where someone may sense very strongly that God has revealed some insight that we need to know regarding the ministry here. It may be a warning or an encouragement (1 Cor. 14:3). On rare occasions, the Lord may reveal something about the future that we need to know (Acts 11:27-29). But all prophecies need to be evaluated by those who hear them and not just swallowed whole (1 Cor. 14:29, 32).
“If service, in his serving…” (12:7). In other words, if you are a servant, then do it. The gift of service often takes place behind the scenes, but if it is not done, everyone notices. If we went to distribute the communion elements, but no one had bought the juice or made the bread or filled the trays and no one was ready to pass out the trays, you would notice. Faithful servants make these things and many more things happen around here every week. It’s a valuable gift!
“Or, he who teaches, in his teaching…” (12:7). After telling Timothy not to neglect his spiritual gift, Paul goes on to tell him (1 Tim. 4:15-16), “Take pains with these things; be absorbed in them, so that your progress will be evident to all. Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things ….” In other words, just because you’re gifted in teaching doesn’t mean that it comes easily. Don’t just wing it. Work hard at it.
“Or he who exhorts, in his exhortation…” (12:8). There is obviously some overlap between the gifts of teaching and exhortation. Usually the difference is one in emphasis. John Murray (ibid., p. 125) says, “As teaching is directed to the understanding, so is exhortation to the heart, conscience, and will.” I think that all teaching should contain this element of exhortation or application of the truth. God’s Word is not meant just to fill our heads with information, but to transform our lives (Rom. 12:2).
“He who gives, with liberality…” (12:8). The word translated “liberality” may mean generosity. Or, it may mean simplicity, where the idea is that he must give with pure motives. He should not use his gifts manipulatively, to gain power or status. He should give as to the Lord to meet legitimate needs. Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11) are a negative example of this principle.
“He who leads, with diligence…” (12:8). This verb may mean to give aid or engage in good deeds (Titus 3:8, 14), but most commentators understand it here to mean “to lead.” Paul uses it this way to describe church leaders (1 Thess. 5:12), including both elders and deacons (1 Tim. 3:4, 5, 12; 5:17). “With diligence” means that you can’t be a passive leader. You must take initiative, whether in leading your family or the church. Leaders must see problems that need attention and work through others to provide solutions, giving appropriate oversight.
“He who shows mercy, with cheerfulness” (12:8). People who are suffering can tell whether you’re there helping them as a duty or because you genuinely care for them. They don’t need to hear about how much you’re sacrificing to help them. They need a cheerful countenance that helps point them to the Lord as their strength. A cheerful disposition leaves the suffering one with hope.
Even if you don’t agree with all the details that I’ve shared, we all should agree with several practical implications of Paul’s teaching here. First, there should not be any benchwarmers in the body of Christ. Every member has been given some gift and the Lord didn’t give you a gift to bury it and wait for His return. So if you’re not serving, look around, figure out what needs to be done, and get on with doing it!
Second, we should not boast in our own gifts and belittle or criticize those who don’t have the same gifts as we do. God graciously gave us whatever gifts we have. We don’t deserve them. It’s a great privilege to serve the Lord who has saved us. And you need the gifts of others, so receive their ministry and affirm them for doing it. Serve the Lord and His church with humility.
Third, don’t envy the gifts of others. God made you who you are and what He gave you to do is important for the functioning of the body. We should cooperate, not compete with one another.
I close with a story that illustrates how we should cooperate, not compete. Years ago in a Special Olympics, the boys were running the 220. One runner named Andrew was faster than the others. As he came around the corner of the track, he was about 50 yards ahead of everyone. Everyone was standing at the finish line, yelling at Andrew, “Come on! Come on!” But out of the corner of his eye, he could see his best friend in the far lane fall. Andrew ignored the ones yelling for him to win. He went back, picked up his fallen friend by the hand and together they crossed the finish line in last place to the cheers of those in the stands.
Did Andrew win? It depends on how you define “win.” If winning is coming in first, Andrew lost. He came in last. But if winning is caring for and working together with your brother, Andrew won. That’s how we are supposed to use our gifts to serve one another in the body of Christ.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
When sin entered this world, its immediate effect was to damage relationships. Adam and Eve were instantly separated from the God whose fellowship they had formerly enjoyed. Guilt prompted them to try to hide from Him. And they were suddenly estranged from each other. Before sin they were naked and unashamed in one another’s presence, but after they sinned, they sewed fig leaves together to try to hide their shame from one another (Gen. 2:24, 3:7). Sin always damages relationships.
And so the whole thrust of the Bible is to show us how we can and should love God with our total being and love one another as we in fact love ourselves (Matt. 22:37-40). To love God, we must first understand that He first loved us (1 John 4:19). Romans 5:8 puts it, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Christ had to die to pay the just penalty for our sin that we deserved. God offers a full pardon and complete justification as a gift to all who will trust in Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:21-26). Believing the gospel reconciles us to God and floods our hearts with His love so that we can begin the lifelong battle of loving Him and others more and more.
And it is a lifelong battle! Because of indwelling sin, our default mode is to be selfish, not to sacrifice ourselves in love for God and others. And so the Christian life is a constant battle to dethrone self and enthrone Christ. It isn’t automatic. It’s a fight. And one of the most practical tests of whether Christ is truly our Lord is seen in our relationships. Am I growing in sincere love from the heart for my family, my fellow believers, and the unbelievers that I know and have contact with? Sincere love for God always spills over into sincere love for others.
This is the consistent message of the New Testament. The apostle John unmasks our tendency toward hypocrisy in this matter of love when he writes (1 John 4:20), “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.” He also says that our love for one another is evidence that we have been born again (1 John 3:14): “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death.” (Also, see 1 Pet. 1:22-23.)
The apostle Paul also puts a strong emphasis on love in all of his letters. It’s interesting that in 1 Corinthians 12 he talks about the body of Christ and spiritual gifts and then follows with his famous chapter on love. Here, more succinctly, he talks about the body of Christ and spiritual gifts (12:4-8) and then talks about love (Rom. 12:9-10): “Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor ….” The theme of love actually runs through verse 21.
It’s difficult to know how to outline verses 9-21 and to divide it for preaching. Paul gives in machine gun fashion a series of practical commands, most of which have to do with loving relationships. If it weren’t for verse 14, we could say that verses 9-16 deal with love in the church and verses 17-21 with love toward enemies outside of the church who wrong us. But in the middle of commands that relate mostly to the church, verse 14 interjects how to respond to those who persecute us.
Because of that, some argue that verses 9-13 focus on love in the church, while verses 14-21 deal with loving our enemies. But then verses 15 & 16 don’t seem to fit that theme. And, while verses 17-21 mainly apply to relationships with those outside of the church, most of us have been wronged by someone in the church. In fact, those are often the most difficult wrongs to deal with! And so all of verses 9-21 apply to love in all of our relationships.
To break it into a manageable size, I’m going to limit this message to verses 9-10, which we can sum up:
Sacrificial, transformed living calls us to love others sincerely.
I say “sacrificial, transformed living” because the commands in 12:9-21 are built on the foundation of 12:1-2. Paul is showing us the practical outworking of those important verses. At the heart of everything are the mercies of God. If you have not experienced God’s mercies in Christ, as Paul spelled out in chapters 1-11, you cannot begin to apply Romans 12:9-21.
Then, based on God’s mercies, you are to present your body as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your rational service of worship (12:1). Then you are not to be conformed to this age, but rather be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you prove in practice God’s good, acceptable, and perfect will (12:2). So verses 9-21 spell out in detail what God’s good, acceptable, and perfect will looks like in loving relationships.
Before we work through verses 9 & 10, note that consistently throughout the New Testament love is not an uncontrollable feeling that comes over you once in a while. Rather, it is a commandment to be obeyed. The Lord Jesus made this explicit (John 13:34), “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” The supreme demonstration of Jesus’ love was when He went to the cross and bore God’s wrath on our behalf. He didn’t do that because He just felt an impulsive urge to do something nice for us. He did it in obedience to the will of the Father.
Based on Christ’s self-sacrificing love on the cross, we can define biblical love as “a self-sacrificing, caring commitment that shows itself in seeking the highest good of the one loved.” If you’re not seeking to live out that kind of love in your relationships, you’re disobeying God. By the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, you can choose to sacrifice your selfish interests on behalf of others with the aim that they will be conformed to the image of Christ (their highest good). The first fruit that results from walking in the Spirit is love (Gal. 5:16, 22-23). In our text, Paul spells out four aspects of biblical love:
Paul would not have written that unless he knew that there is a strong tendency, even among believers, to put on a mask of love to cover hearts that are full of selfishness, jealousy, manipulation, and even hatred. The epitome of “love” with hypocrisy was when Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss (Luke 22:48). Outwardly, it looked as if he really cared for Jesus, but in reality, he was giving Jesus over to bloodthirsty men who would torture and kill Him. But Paul is calling us to sincere love from the heart.
The English word “sincere” comes from two Latin words meaning, “without wax.” Dishonest merchants would fill a crack in a pot with wax and glaze over it, selling the defective pot as if it were just fine. Only later would the buyer discover that the pot was worthless. So honest dealers would stamp sine cera on the pot, verifying that it was without wax.
The Greek word that Paul uses means “without hypocrisy.” The word was used of the masks used by actors on the stage. You have probably seen these in advertisements for stage plays in our day. Some of the masks were happy, others were sad. The actor did not necessarily feel as the mask signaled, but the mask showed the role that he was playing. Paul says that our love for one another is not to be a phony mask or role playing, but rather be the real thing. We should genuinely desire God’s best for others and speak and act toward that goal.
The apostle John puts it (1 John 3:15-18), “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.”
Biblical love must be wise and discerning, always keeping in mind the highest good of the one loved. It may not be for the person’s highest good to dole out money to him, because you may be helping him to continue an irresponsible, lazy way of life. You may be enabling him to continue an undisciplined pattern of spending on frivolous things. Or, you may be contributing to his dependence on alcohol or drugs. So biblical love sometimes confronts sin, rather than just being nice and ignoring sin. Positively, to show love, you may need to teach the person biblical principles of stewardship and spend time helping him establish a budget or control his spending. Your heart motive is to help him grow in godliness.
So Paul’s point is that your motive must always be sincere, to seek the other person’s conformity to the image of Christ. If you’re just looking out for your own interests and trying to manipulate the situation for your own benefit, you’re not practicing biblical love. If you praise the person to his face and then run him down behind his back, you’re not practicing biblical love. Biblical love is without hypocrisy. It is sincere.
By the way, as far as I know, the Bible never commands us to like everyone, but it does command us to love everyone. Liking someone is a matter of our mutual personalities and our enjoyment of similar things. It is one basis for forming close friendships. But loving those I may not choose as my close friends means that I genuinely care for them and I’m committed to help them be all that God wants them to be.
“Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good.” In the Greek text, “abhor” and “cling” are participles that show how love without hypocrisy operates: “abhorring what is evil; clinging to what is good.” In other words, biblical love is discerning (Phil. 1:9). It never endorses, aligns itself, or encourages in others attitudes or behavior that is evil. Rather, it embraces what is good in God’s sight: His good, acceptable, and perfect will (12:2).
Paul’s words obviously imply that there is an objective, knowable standard of what is evil and what is good. This standard does not change with the times or with different cultures. God has revealed His holy standards of right and wrong in His Word. For example, if His Word plainly states that homosexual behavior is sinful, then it does not change when public opinion polls or a U. S. President say that it is acceptable. If it is sin in God’s sight, then it is not loving to treat such behavior as morally acceptable, because sin hurts people. Rather, the loving thing to do is gently and with compassion, tell the person the truth about his sin and point him to Christ so that he can be saved from it before it destroys him.
Did you see the recent “Dear Abby” column where a mother whose son just came out as homosexual wrote to Abby about her confusion? She wasn’t sure how God really views gays and lesbians. She knew that some religious people think that they will go to hell. She tried to read the Bible to find out what it said, but couldn’t understand it. So she asked Abby if she believes that a gay person will go to heaven.
Abby explained (Arizona Daily Sun, 4/30/2012), “I believe that entrance to heaven is based upon a person’s character, not his or her sexual orientation. Today, because of modern scientific studies, we know more about homosexuality than was known when the Bible was written, and that sexual orientation is not a ‘choice.’” I am not aware of any scientific studies that have proved that homosexuality is genetically caused. But even if such studies exist, they do not refute God’s moral standards, which are not subject to so-called “science.” So if God’s Word is true, then Dear Abby gave the most hateful advice possible, because she did not abhor what is evil and cling to what is good. We do not love people who are in sin (whether homosexuality or any other sin) if we overlook or, worse, endorse their sinful behavior.
Also, note that Paul doesn’t just say to avoid evil, but to abhor it. We are to detest it, or hate it. The Greek verb (used only here in the NT) has the nuance of shrinking back in horror from evil. It is an emotional reaction against all that displeases God. Since God hates sin, to be indifferent toward sin is to be indifferent toward God. Obviously, to laugh at evil or be entertained by evil, whether in person or on a movie or TV screen, is not to abhor it.
The opposite of abhorring what is evil is to “cling to what is good.” The verb, “cling to,” literally, is to be “glued to.” “The good” is God’s good, acceptable, and perfect will (12:2), His moral will, which is revealed in His Word. In Philippians 4:8, Paul instructs, “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.”
We must hold tightly to that which is good because the enemy is always trying to get us to loosen our grip on the good by being more tolerant of what is evil. He whispers, “You need to be more accepting, don’t be so judgmental!” One of his favorite verses to quote out of context is (Matt. 7:1), “Do not judge so that you will not be judged.” Jesus is clear that first and foremost, we must judge our own sin before we judge others for their sin. “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (Matt. 7:5).
But once we have judged our own sin, we are still to hate evil and cling to what is good. Psalm 97:10 commands, “Hate evil, you who love the Lord.” Or, Proverbs 8:13, “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverted mouth, I hate.” Loving God and fearing Him are the basis for the proper hatred and disgust of all that is evil. It is only to the degree that we love Him for the beauty of His holiness that we will hate evil and cling to what is good.
“Be devoted to one another in brotherly love ….” Paul uses the word, philadelphia, which refers to the natural love among brothers and adds another word that refers to family affection. James Boice (Romans [Baker], 4:1598) gives the sense, “In respect to the love of our Christian brothers and sisters, we are to be marked by a devotion that is characteristic of a loving, close-knit, and mutually supportive family.”
Again, this is a command, not a suggestion to try when you’re in a good mood. But it involves our emotions. So how do you command your emotions?
Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Romans: Christian Conduct [Banner of Truth], p. 349) points out that it never works to approach the emotions directly. Rather, he says, “Feelings are always the result of something else, the result, ultimately, of understanding and of thought.” He points out that if we just put on a cloak of feelings which we do not have, it would be sheer hypocrisy. Rather, we must go back to the doctrines that Paul has expounded in Romans 1-11, and to the logical conclusion that he urges in 12:1-2. Then we will realize that by God’s mercy, we have been born into His family, along with all others who have trusted in Christ. None of us deserved it. But now we all are related through the new birth and we will be spending eternity together. So heartfelt obedience to these commands comes from responding to the teaching of who we are in Christ (Rom. 6:17). All who believe in Christ are a part of God’s family. We should feel closer to a brother or sister in Christ than we do to a relative who does not know Christ.
Thus sacrificial, transformed living calls us to love without hypocrisy. This love must be holy. It must be brotherly. Finally,
“Give preference to one another in honor ….” The Greek word translated “give preference to” means to lead or go before, thus to set an example. Dr. Boice (ibid., 1599) says that Paul means, “Don’t wait around for people to recognize your contributions and praise you. Instead, be alert to what they are contributing and honor them.” We are not to seek honor for ourselves, but rather genuinely to rejoice when others receive honor and we don’t. That’s easily said and hard to practice!
We need to be clear that Paul is not saying that we should set aside our gifts or our knowledge and practice a kind of mock humility where we say, “I’m nothing! I’m a nobody! Don’t regard what I say.” That would contradict what Paul said in 12:3, that we are “to think with sound judgment as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.” For example, when Paul went to Jerusalem to confront the Judaizers, he was not overawed with those in power so that he just kept quiet and listened. He says of those who were of high reputation (Gal. 2:6), “What they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality.” So Paul defended his gospel before James, Peter, and John (Gal. 2:9). Again, when Peter came to Antioch and withdrew from eating with the Gentile believers because of his fear of the Judaizers, Paul openly confronted Peter with his hypocrisy (Gal. 2:11-14).
So when Paul says, “Give preference to one another in honor,” he doesn’t mean that we should deny our gifts or knowledge. Rather, he means that we should have a true estimate of ourselves. We should not over-estimate ourselves and under-estimate others. As Paul says (1 Cor. 15:10), “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them [the other apostles], yet not I, but the grace of God with me.”
How do we grow in this sincere love for one another? Here are four practical ways:
First, instantly judge your selfishness and anger as sin and ask God’s forgiveness. Self is the main enemy when we fail to love others. Sincerely ask forgiveness from the one you sinned against (beginning with your mate and kids!).
Second, focus on God’s love for you at the cross. In Ephesians 4:32-5:2, Paul writes, “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.”
Third, walk moment by moment in submission to and dependence on the Holy Spirit. When we walk in the Spirit, we will not carry out the deeds of the flesh, which include “enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissension, factions, envying” (Gal. 5:20-21a). Rather, His fruit will grow in us: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23).
Fourth, memorize 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, so that you can evaluate whether your attitudes, words, and actions are in line with biblical love: “Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” Read those verses over each morning until they shape the way that you relate to your family and to others.
I pray that in our homes and in this church it may be said of us, “They love one another without hypocrisy, abhorring what is evil and clinging to what is good. They are devoted to one another in brotherly love. They give preference to one another in honor.”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
As most of you know, Marla and I like to hike. So when we started having children, we started them hiking at a young age. Of course when they’re toddlers, you have to carry them a lot. But as they grew older and got too heavy to carry, they had to walk by themselves. And sometimes we took them on difficult hikes, climbing to the tops of mountains that required a lot of stamina.
Before you accuse us of child abuse, let me explain that we discovered that the kids had more physical strength than we did. We were not forcing them to do something that their bodies could not endure. The real issue was motivation. If they were motivated, they could literally run on a trail where Marla and I were struggling just to walk. But if they were not motivated, they acted like they could not walk a step farther.
And so it was always a challenge to figure out how to motivate the kids to climb a mountain. I remember when our second daughter, Joy, was about seven and we were climbing Mt. Lassen in Northern California, which is over 10,400 feet high. It requires gaining almost 2,000 feet of elevation in about two and a half miles. I told her that I would beat her to the top. That was all the motivation that Joy needed. She took off going faster than I could ever go. I would see her two or three switchbacks above and call out, “Slow down, Joy, so that I can catch up.” She would laugh and move even faster. She beat us all to the summit. The issue was not muscle strength; the issue was motivation. At other times, I might add, we would bribe the kids with Skittles candy. “See that ridge up there? If you get up there, I’ll give you some Skittles.” Somehow they all grew up reasonably healthy in spite of our sugary bribes!
I tell that story because in Romans 12:11, Paul says that we are to be “not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” He’s talking about people who are motivated to “run up the mountain,” passionate in their service for the Lord. So I must ask myself and ask you to ask yourself, “Does that describe me?” Am I (are you) not lagging behind (the word means, “lazy”) in diligence? Am I (are you) fervent in spirit in my service for the Lord? Or, like the church in Laodicea, whom the Lord threatened to spew out of His mouth, could I be lukewarm (Rev. 3:15-16)? Could I be lazy in serving the Lord? Could I be indifferent to the cause of the Lord and Master who bought me with His blood?
Perhaps some of you are thinking, “I used to be diligent and fervent in serving the Lord, but I burned out. Other Christians criticized me. Some spread false rumors about me. No one seemed to appreciate all of the long, hard hours I spent working behind the scenes. So I don’t feel like going through that again. I’ll attend church and leave, but I don’t want to get involved in serving.”
If you feel like that, you need to refocus so that you get the proper motivation to serve. And Paul has set forth the motivation that you need in Romans 12:1: “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” He goes on to tell us not to be conformed to this age, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. The supreme motivation to sacrificial, transformed service is “the mercies of God,” which Paul lays out in chapters 1-11. And in our text (12:11), Paul shows how to serve the Lord. He’s saying:
The mercies of God call us to diligent, fervent service for the Lord.
I’m proceeding on the assumption that you have personally experienced the abundant mercies of God that are to be found in knowing Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord. If you have not trusted in Christ, then nothing else that I say in this message applies to you. Or, if you have trusted in Christ, but your love for Him has grown cold because you have forgotten the many mercies of His love for you on the cross, then you need to park yourself at the foot of the cross. The mercies of God are the motivation for diligent, fervent service for the Lord.
Paul first gives us the negative, then the positive, and then the focus of the command.
Romans 12:11a: “not lagging behind in diligence.” As I said, “lagging behind” translates a Greek word that means “lazy.” Jesus used the word to describe the lazy servant who didn’t bother to invest his master’s money that had been entrusted to him, but just buried it in the ground until the master returned (Matt. 25:26). That lazy servant put his own convenience above the Master’s purpose. The word is used in Proverbs 6:6, 9 (LXX) to describe the sluggard, who needs to go to the ant and consider its hard work in storing up food in the summer for the winter.
Although he doesn’t use the same word, Paul describes the same concept in Galatians 6:9, “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.” Or, after describing at length the truth of Christ’s resurrection and the certainty of our resurrection, Paul concludes (1 Cor. 15:58), “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.” Don’t be lazy; be diligent in serving the Lord.
So I ask, “Do you work hard to serve the Lord?” Maybe you’re thinking, “I’ve got to work hard to earn a living. I’m too beat after work to serve the Lord.” I would respond with two comments. First, you should view your work as service to the Lord and therefore do it heartily as unto Him. In Colossians 3:23-24, Paul writes to believing slaves, “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.” If those words applied to slaves, who had the most menial jobs imaginable, then they certainly apply to your job. Your mindset should be that you are serving the Lord; therefore, don’t be lazy. Work hard.
Second, God has given you spiritual gifts to be used in serving Him (Rom. 12:3-8) and when you use those gifts to serve His kingdom purposes, He energizes you with His power. As Paul explains (Col. 1:29), “For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.” Of course, we all need to evaluate how much we are able to commit to. We disqualify ourselves from service if we neglect family responsibilities (1 Tim. 3:4-5). And we will not be effective if we take on so much that we neglect our own souls (Acts 20:28; 1 Tim. 4:16). But when you do what God has gifted you to do in the power that He supplies, it energizes you. You may be tired, but you’ll also be deeply satisfied.
Romans 12:11b: “fervent in spirit.” Commentators argue over whether “spirit” refers to the human spirit or to the Holy Spirit (in the original Greek there were no capitals for proper names). But perhaps, as several scholars suggest, we do not need to take an either-or position. Paul may be referring to the human spirit as motivated and energized by the indwelling Holy Spirit. Thomas Schreiner puts it (Romans [Baker], p. 665), “Believers are to burn and seethe in their spirits, but the means by which this is done is the power of the Holy Spirit.”
The word translated “fervent” literally means, “to boil.” So Paul is describing a holy zeal or passion for God and His kingdom purposes. J. C. Ryle describes this godly zeal (A New Birth [Old Paths Gospel Press], p. 235), “Zeal in religion is a burning desire to please God, to do His will, and to advance His glory in the world in every possible way.”
So Paul isn’t describing someone who needs to be arm-twisted into “volunteering” for some ministry until finally he feels guilty and can’t figure a way out, so he grudgingly says, “Okay.” Rather, he’s describing those who are boiling over with zeal to the point that they probably need to be counseled to focus their efforts, because their tendency would be to get involved in just about every opportunity to serve the Lord that comes along.
Jim Elliot, who was martyred in Ecuador at age 28 in his attempt to take the gospel to the fierce Auca Indians, was a man who embodied true godly zeal. If you haven’t read his story, you’re missing a great blessing. His widow, Elisabeth Elliot, wrote Through Gates of Splendor [Spire Books], which tells the story of all five men who were murdered. Her book, Shadow of the Almighty [Zondervan] focuses more on Elliot’s life alone. Jim wrote in his diary (Through Gates of Splendor, pp. 19-20, italics in original), “Wherever you are, be all there. Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God.” Or, as Jonathan Edwards wrote as a young man in his 70 resolutions (The Works of Jonathan Edwards [Banner of Truth], 1:xx, # 6): “Resolved, To live with all my might, while I do live.” Both men are saying, “Don’t be indifferent about the Lord and His cause. Be fervent in spirit!”
Perhaps you’re thinking, “That’s fine for all the Type A, naturally zealous people. But I’m just not that type. I’m too laid back to be fervent in spirit as you’re describing.” But this isn’t a matter of personality types. Paul writes this to the whole church in Rome. It applies to every personality type. It applies both to young people, but also to the old. It’s a matter of passion, of what gets you excited. No matter what your personality type, some things get you excited. Whether it’s politics or sports or music or nature or your job or your family, you are passionate about something.
If you’ve been tracking with Romans 1-11, then you know that Paul is shouting, “Jesus Christ and the gospel should make your spirit boil! The good news that Christ died for us while we were yet sinners should excite you! The glorious fact that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord should stir your heart! Let the many mercies of God that rescued you from condemnation fuel the fires of passion for Christ and His kingdom! Don’t be lukewarm about such wonderful truths. Be fervent in spirit as you serve the Lord.”
Romans 12:11c: “serving the Lord.” These three simple words are packed with some important practical truths.
Paul wrote this to the entire church at Rome, not just to the pastors or church leaders. All Christians, not just so-called “full time Christian workers,” are to be serving the Lord in some capacity. We saw this in 12:4-8, where Paul develops the analogy of the church as the body of Christ. Every part of the body is valuable and useful to the overall functioning of the body. Even so, every believer has been given spiritual gifts to use for the building up of the body of Christ. There is no such thing as a non-serving member of the body. If you’re not serving, you need to ask the Lord how He wants you to serve and begin doing it.
The Greek word for “serve” means to be enslaved. Since the Lord bought us with His blood out of the slave market of sin, we are not our own. We belong to Him as His slaves. Thus all that we are and have is not ours, but His. Our time is not ours to use as we please. Our money is not ours to spend as we please. Our families are not ours, to take priority over allegiance to the Lord. Our careers are not ours, to pursue as we wish. Everything we are and have belongs to the Lord, to be used for His glory and purpose.
There is a fundamental difference between slaves and volunteers. Volunteers choose when and how they serve; slaves are on call day and night, whether they feel like serving or not. Volunteers can quit serving if they get tired; slaves are slaves for life. The master may change their duties, but they aren’t free to quit. Volunteers have certain expectations. They expect to be treated with respect. They expect proper working conditions and consideration of their needs. They expect to be honored for their service. But slaves don’t have any such expectations. Jesus illustrated this in Luke 17:7-10:
“Which of you, having a slave plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come immediately and sit down to eat’? But will he not say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat, and properly clothe yourself and serve me while I eat and drink; and afterward you may eat and drink’? He does not thank the slave because he did the things which were commanded, does he? So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.’”
Do you view yourself as a slave of Jesus Christ? If that sounds harsh, remember the alternative. As Bob Dylan sang, “You gotta serve somebody.” If you’re not a slave of Christ, then you’re a slave of the devil and sin. Christ is a loving, caring Master, who never abuses His slaves. The devil is a conniving, self-serving tyrant, who has no concern for his slaves. It is far better to be Christ’s slave than to be enslaved to Satan and to sin.
Paul warns the Roman believers about those who serve themselves, not Christ (16:17-18):
Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them. For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ but of their own appetites; and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting.
These men were manipulators, using the ministry to satisfy their own lusts. Some are in the ministry because they love to be in power over people, not to build them in Christ. Some use the ministry for financial gain, using false promises of healing to milk people of donations so that they can support a lavish lifestyle. Others despicably use their position in ministry to prey on vulnerable women, using them to gratify their sexual lusts. All such men are serving themselves, not Christ as Lord.
While I hope that none of us are so crass, we can fall into the more subtle snare of using our service for Christ to serve our own needs. I’ve read secular articles that urge people to volunteer in some sort of community service, where the pitch is, “You will benefit from serving.” So people serve for what it can do for them.
But it’s easy for Christians to fall into this mindset, where it becomes “my ministry.” It brings me fulfillment. My whole identity gets tied up with “my ministry.” I love the feeling of significance that I get when I help out. I love the praise that people give me when I serve them. While there is great joy in serving the Lord and there is a legitimate sense of fulfillment when God uses you to serve others, we need to beware of serving ourselves rather than serving the Lord. It sets you up for getting hurt when others do not give you the praise and affirmation that you’re seeking. Serving the Lord means that we’re not serving ourselves.
True, there is a sense in which through love we serve one another (Gal. 5:13). We are to bear one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2). We are to lay down our lives for one another (1 John 3:16).
But there is another sense in which we serve the Lord, not people. In Galatians 1:10, Paul writes, “For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.” “Bond-servant” is the Greek word for “slave.” If our focus in serving people is to gain their favor, then we’re not serving Christ. If we care more about what people think of us than about what the Lord thinks about us, then we’re serving them, but not Christ. We need to aim at pleasing God, who examines our hearts. We need to be faithful to His truth, even if people despise us for it. We only serve people secondarily. It is the Lord Christ whom we serve.
Of course, when we serve Christ by aiming to please Him above all, we truly serve people. If you’re a people pleaser, craving popularity, you won’t confront those in sin, because they might not like you. But to let people go on in sin is not to love and serve them, because their sin will destroy them. But if you’re a servant of Christ, then you aren’t dependent on the praise of people. If you need to confront, you do it in obedience to Christ and out of love for the sinner. But you’re not worried about what people think of you. You’re only concerned that you please your Master.
So we’re all called to serve Christ. We serve as His slaves, not as volunteers. Serving the Lord means that we are not serving ourselves and we’re not primarily serving others. Finally,
He is the Lord of glory, who gave up the splendor of heaven to endure the abuse of sinners in order to bring us to glory. It’s a great privilege to serve this gracious, loving Lord! It’s not a burdensome duty, but a joy to serve the King of kings, who sacrificed Himself to rescue me from condemnation.
William Carey, the pioneer missionary to India, had a son named Felix, who resigned from the mission to accept a position as Burma’s ambassador to the British government in India. William deeply lamented this and wrote to Andrew Fuller (Pearce Carey, William Carey [The Wakeman Trust], p. 317, italics in original), “Felix is shriveled from a missionary into an ambassador.” William Carey knew what a privilege it is to serve the King of kings.
So how should we serve the Lord? First, make sure that your motivation is right. You serve Him because of His great mercies toward you in the gospel. That motivation moves you not to be lazy, but diligent in serving Him. Serving Christ becomes your passion, so that you do it fervently. And, remember that you’re serving none other than the Lord Himself.
Years ago, I heard about a successful Southern California doctor who met Jesus Christ. He left his lucrative practice to serve in a primitive country. His non-Christian partner couldn’t believe that he would do this. On one of his trips around the world, he stopped in to see his former partner.
The Christian doctor was performing surgery on a poor woman in very primitive circumstances. The non-Christian doctor asked, “Don’t you remember how much you would have made doing this surgery in Southern California?” “Yes, many thousands,” replied the Christian. “Then why are you doing it?”
“Several reasons. See her clenched fist? In it there are several coins which she will give to our mission. See those kids in the other room? They will be forever grateful if I can save their mother’s life. But there’s one more thing—I hope to receive from my Lord some day the words, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’” The mercies of God call us to diligent, fervent service for the Lord.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Over the years, I’ve encountered many Christians who think that God is supposed to protect them from all trials. They will say, “I just don’t understand why I’m going through these trials. I’m reading the Bible every day. I’m trying to obey the Lord. Why is He allowing these things to happen to me?” Their expectation is that following the Lord is supposed to exempt us from trials.
I don’t know which Bible version these folks are reading because from cover to cover the Bible makes it clear that godly people often suffer intense trials. Job was the most righteous man on the earth in his day, but look at what he suffered! David was a man after God’s own heart, and yet he spent the better part of his twenties running for his life from the mad King Saul. Daniel was a faithful, godly prophet, who witnessed boldly about God to pagan kings, and yet as an old man, he got thrown into the lions’ den. And there are many other examples in the Old Testament of godly people who suffered terribly (Heb. 11:35-38).
When you come to the New Testament, Jesus said that John the Baptist was the greatest man ever born (Matt. 11:11), and yet he got thrown into prison and beheaded because he confronted the wicked Herod for his sin. The apostle Paul was one of the boldest, most faithful witnesses for Christ who has ever lived. And yet he went through false accusations, beatings, imprisonments, threats on his life, being stoned, three shipwrecks, and much more (2 Cor. 11:23-28). He also endured many disappointments and difficulties in his labors for the Lord. He instructed new believers (Acts 14:22), “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”
When the apostle Peter wrote to believers who were enduring horrible persecution, he exhorted them (1 Pet. 4:12-13), “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation.” In the same vein, James (1:2-4) wrote, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
Or, look at the Lord Jesus Himself. He was the sinless Son of God, who went about doing good for everyone. Yet look at how He suffered! If our Lord suffered so horribly, why should we think that we would be exempt, especially since the Bible repeatedly tells us to expect suffering? Jesus plainly warned the disciples (Matt. 24:9), “Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name.” The Bible never promises those who follow Christ a trouble-free life.
And so in the context of loving one another and serving the Lord (Rom. 12:9-11), Paul indicates that we will face tribulation and he tells us how to endure it (12:12): “rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer.”
As I said last week with regard to verse 11, I need to ask myself regarding verse 12, “Do these three phrases describe me? Is my life full of joy in hope? Do I joyfully persevere in tribulation or grumble as I muddle through it? Am I devoted to prayer or do I dabble at it?” To the extent that you and I fall short of these qualities, we need to grow!
As I’ve said repeatedly with reference to 12:9-21, these commands are built on 12:1-2: “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Everything in 12:9-21 assumes that you have personally experienced the many mercies of God that are spelled out in chapters 1-11. You must come to God as a guilty sinner and receive the free pardon and redemption that is offered through faith in Jesus Christ. That is the foundation and motivation for these commands. We should desire to grow in these qualities because we have received God’s many mercies in Christ, shown to us while we were yet sinners.
Let me try to deal with a difficult question that comes up regarding 12:9-21: Is there any logical flow to all of these commands or are they just random thoughts that came to Paul’s mind in no particular order? Many argue for the latter. Douglas Moo (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 772) says that Paul is using a style known as “parenesis” (a technical term for “exhortation”), which is characterized by a lack of concern for sequence of thought and development of a single theme. That may be so.
But, since Paul is always so deliberately logical (especially in Romans) a few try to establish a flow of thought (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans: Christian Conduct [Banner of Truth], pp. 332-333). Here’s my stab at it:
In 12:9-21, Paul is spelling out the specifics of what mercy-motivated, sacrificial, transformed (12:1-2) Christian living looks like. Each person must humbly evaluate himself or herself in light of God’s grace (12:3). This evaluation will recognize that God has gifted us as unique members of the one body of Christ, each with different functions (12:4-5). Our spiritual gifts (12:6-8) must be exercised in genuine love (12:9-10). We must not be lazy or lagging behind in showing love or in exercising our gifts, but be fervent in spirit as we serve the Lord (12:11). Even when trials come, we must maintain the right attitude, rejoicing in hope, persevering in the trials, and sustained through devotion to prayer (12:12). And in those trials, we must not become self-absorbed, but keep an eye out for how we can contribute to the needs of other believers and go after opportunities to show hospitality (12:13).
Then Paul focuses on what transformed attitudes toward others look like: When persecuted, mercy-motivated, transformed believers bless their persecutors (12:14). Even under persecution, they do not become so self-focused that they are oblivious to the feelings of others; rather, they enter sympathetically into their joys and sorrows (12:15). This focus on others also means that mercy-motivated, transformed minds are humble, not proud (12:16). Even when wronged, whether by unbelievers or by believers, mercy-motivated, transformed believers do not seek vengeance, but seek to bless the wrongdoer and overcome the evil with good (12:17-21). All of this is so that Christ will be glorified as people see Him in our loving relationships.
With that as a general overview of the context, let’s zero in on 12:12, where Paul tells us that…
The mercies of God call us to joyful, prayerful perseverance in trials.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones observes (ibid., p. 402), “Tribulation, hope and prayer always go together in the New Testament and it is a very good way of testing ourselves to ask whether they always go together in our experience. They should.”
Paul has linked hope, tribulation, and perseverance in Romans 5:3-5, “And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”
And, he links hope, perseverance, and prayer in 8:24-26, “For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” So, again, it is important to keep in mind that just because we have experienced God’s mercies does not mean that we will be exempt from trials. Rather, the Bible shows us how God uses trials to conform us to the image of Christ and to be glorified through us as we joyfully depend on Him in our trials.
Romans 12:12a, “rejoicing in hope.” Does that describe you, especially when you’re going through a difficult trial? According to the U. S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, about nine percent of those in the United States report that they suffer from current depression (within two weeks of the survey), with four percent suffering from major depression (www.cdc.gov/Features /dsDepression). And believers are not exempt. Some godly saints, such as Martin Luther, Charles Spurgeon, and the hymn writer, William Cowper, have suffered from severe depression. Probably some of you are depressed right now. But since joy and hope are the opposite of depression, we all should try to understand what the Bible teaches about how we can have such joy and hope, especially in the face of difficult trials.
Before we look at what the Bible says, let me say that the causes of depression can be very complex. It can stem from various diseases, from physical conditions (such as post-partum depression in women), from grief over loss, or from our genetic brain chemistry. Psychiatrists do not understand exactly how brain chemistry or anti-depressant drugs work. If you suffer from inexplicable depression, the first thing you should do is get a medical checkup, to see if a doctor can determine the cause.
Regarding anti-depressant drugs, my view is that if you need them to get out of the pit so that you’re able to function somewhat normally again, then take the drug as you would any other medication if you were sick. But once you’re stable, unless you absolutely need the drug to remain depression-free, I would advise weaning yourself off the drugs under a physician’s supervision.
But having said that, I have a caution: If your depression stems from some known sin, taking an anti-depressant so that you feel better and moving on with life without dealing with your sin is spiritually and emotionally damaging. God designed things so that our sin has negative emotional effects to get our attention. The proper response to sin is not to take a pill, but to repent and seek to please Him.
Depression is often an emotional indicator that you are living to please yourself, not to please God. Those who are severely depressed to the point of being suicidal are not thinking about pleasing God or about the effect their action would have on others. Rather, they are focused on how to get out of their pain, with no regard for pleasing God or serving others. So when you’re battling depression, seek to please God beginning on the thought level.
The first man born in sin disobeyed God and became jealous of his brother, who obeyed God. When Cain sinned, he became depressed and angry (those emotions often go together). God didn’t prescribe an anti-depressant. Rather, He confronted Cain with his sin and told him to counter it with godly behavior (Gen. 4:6-7): “Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.’” God’s prescription for Cain’s depression and anger was obedience.
The Bible often (as in our text) says that believers are to be full of joy and hope, even in the midst of severe trials. Joy is not a minor theme in the Bible. The Psalms are full of commands to praise the Lord and rejoice in Him. Joy is promised to all that walk in the Spirit (Gal. 5:22). Paul wrote Philippians when he was in prison and other believers were attacking him. That short book is brimming with joy in the Lord. He writes (3:1), “Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you.” In case we missed it, he repeats (4:4), “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!”
To help you understand this important matter, let me mention three things that biblical joy is not and then show how to get it. By the way, no one has written more capably on this than John Piper. All of his books deal with it, but I especially recommend When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy [Crossway]. As he often says, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” Our joy is all about glorifying our merciful God and Savior.
First, biblical joy is not a matter of personality or temperament. Some by nature are cheery and optimistic. Others are naturally more gloomy and pessimistic. But biblical joy comes from walking in the power of the Holy Spirit, not by natural temperament. Those who are naturally more melancholic will have to fight harder to attain biblical joy. But those who are naturally cheery should not assume that they have biblical joy, unless they know that their joy comes from dependence on God and His promises.
Second, biblical joy is not a matter of happy circumstances. Paul could rejoice in prison and in the face of many trials because his joy was in the Lord, not in circumstances. In the Psalms, the psalmist is often in horrible circumstances, sometimes despairing of life itself, but when he puts his trust in the Lord, he ends up praising and thanking Him and literally singing for joy.
Third, biblical joy is not a phony, superficial happiness that smiles on the outside when the heart is hurting on the inside. Just three verses after our text, Paul tells us to “weep with those who weep.” He doesn’t say, “Tell those who weep to buck up and smile!” There is a time for grieving and sorrow. Paul described himself (2 Cor. 6:10) “as sorrowful yet always rejoicing.” The shortest verse in the Greek New Testament is 1 Thessalonians 5:16, “Rejoice always.” The shortest verse in the English New Testament is John 11:35, “Jesus wept.” There is no contradiction. Biblical joy is a solid undercurrent that is not affected by the surface storms of life.
Then how do we get this joy? Paul says here that it comes from hope. And hope comes from focusing your mind on the sure promises of God for the future. The Bible tells us that we can set our minds on certain things that are true of us in Christ (Col. 3:1-4):
Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.
Either Jesus and Paul were liars and you can chuck the entire Christian faith, or they spoke the truth. Jesus promised to come back and complete our redemption, so that we will share His glory. Focus on that truth, even if you don’t feel like it! Feelings eventually follow your thoughts. Set your mind on the hope of eternal glory and joy in the Lord will follow.
Romans 12:12b: “persevering in tribulation.” I’ve already shown how to persevere in tribulation, namely, by rejoicing in the certain hope of eternal life. So persevering is not a matter of gritting your teeth and grimly enduring it. “Rejoicing in hope” is how you persevere in tribulation.
The Greek word translated “tribulation” means “pressure.” Our English word actually comes from the Latin, tribulum, which was an instrument used to crush corn in order to get flour. So tribulation refers to events that bring pressure upon your mind and heart, which tend to get you down or crush your spirit. “Persevering” comes from a Greek verb meaning to remain steadfast, to stand your ground, or to bear up under a situation.
Often when we’re in a time of trial, we pray for relief from the trial, and that’s not necessarily wrong. But Paul prayed that believers would be strengthened with God’s power so that we could endure trials with joy and thankfulness (Col. 1:9-12):
For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.
You don’t need “steadfastness” (the same Greek word root translated “persevering” in our text) unless you’re going through a trial. So our experience of God’s mighty power is not necessarily to miraculously deliver us from the trial, but to give us joyful, thankful hearts as we persevere through it. Finally,
Romans 12:12c: “devoted to prayer.” I intended to cover this point adequately in this message, but I’m out of time and can only touch on it here. Next time I want to devote the entire message to how practically we can grow to be more devoted to prayer.
For now, let me point out that it is our trials that often drive us to be devoted to prayer. You’ve probably had the same experience that I’ve had, where you work through your prayer list, but without much intensity or fervency. But then a trial hits and you pray often and fervently. The more intense the trial, the more intensely you pray. As you think about the trial often during the day, you cry out to God for help. Prayer is the lifeline that lays hold of the living God to supply our needs during times of tribulation. Being devoted to prayer is the only way that you can rejoice in hope and persevere in tribulation.
The God who poured out His mercies on us in salvation is not going to abandon us in our trials. So as the psalmist exhorts (Ps. 62:8), “Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us.” Be devoted to God in prayer.
How can we put verse 12 into practice? First, honestly evaluate yourself in light of these three phrases. Are you grumbling in depression or cynicism? Then you’re not “rejoicing in hope.” Are you giving up or despairing in your trials? Then you’re not “persevering in tribulation.” Are you grabbing every remedy that the world has to offer to get out of your trials? Then you’re not “devoted to prayer.” You can’t begin to grow in these qualities until you honestly evaluate where you’re falling short.
Second, begin each day by focusing on the hope that you have in the gospel. Even if you have small children demanding your attention first thing in the morning, you can still direct your thoughts to the mercies of God that saved you from your sins. You can focus your mind on the hope of the glory of God that you will share when Christ returns. As soon as you’re able, spend some time in God’s presence through His Word. Bring all of your needs before Him, knowing that He is your loving, all-powerful Creator and Father.
Also, put key promises from God’s Word on 3x5 cards and read them over often during the day. Here’s one (Jer. 32:17): “Ah Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for You….” There are hundreds of wonderful promises like that in God’s Word. Meditate on them often when you’re depressed.
Finally, don’t try to go it alone. You’re part of the body of Christ. The Lord intends for you to share your burdens with other believers (men with men, women with women, or with your spouse). God’s many mercies call us to be “rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer.”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Our text is only three words, “devoted to prayer,” and yet these three words raise more guilt than almost any other subject in the Bible. Not many of us could honestly say, “Yes, being devoted to prayer describes me.” I’ve read how Martin Luther was so busy that he had to devote four hours every morning to prayer and it drives me further under the pile of guilt and inadequacy in my prayer life. Maybe Luther’s prayer life has motivated some to become more faithful in prayer, but to be honest, it de-motivates me because it’s so far from where I live that I know I’ll never come close. And so I muddle along in my inadequacy.
My aim in this message is not to raise your guilt level about prayer, because guilt is a crummy motivator. Rather, I hope that this will be a practical message that will motivate you by God’s grace to become more devoted to prayer (NASB) or constant in prayer (ESV). I want this church to become devoted to prayer, so that all the glory for any results goes to God alone. In our text, Paul is saying,
The mercies of God call us to be devoted to prayer.
The Greek verb means to adhere to, persist in, be devoted to, or hold fast to something (A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, by William Arndt, F. Wilbur Gingrich [University of Chicago Press, 2nd ed.], p. 715). It is often used with reference to prayer in the New Testament. As the early church waited for the promised Day of Pentecost, we read, Acts 1:14, “These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer ….” Later, Luke sums up the activities of the Jerusalem church (Acts 2:42), “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”
When the apostles sought to find seven faithful men to take care of the problem of meeting the needs of the widows, they explained (Acts 6:4), “But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”
Paul instructed the Ephesians (6:18) about prayer, “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints ….” “Perseverance” translates the noun that is related to the verb, “be devoted to.” In Colossians 4:2, Paul writes, “Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving.” And, although he does not use the same word, Paul expresses the same concept in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, “Pray without ceasing.” The Greek word translated “without ceasing” was used of a hacking cough and of repeated military assaults. So the idea is not that we pray every waking minute, but that we keep coming back to prayer again and again. We are relentless in prayer.
So these verses tell us that prayer is not to be a little segment of our lives, where the extent of our praying is to bless our food before meals or to pray with our kids as we tuck them into bed. Rather, prayer is to permeate all of life. We should pray about virtually anything and everything. And so, being devoted to prayer is one of those commands that I’ll never be able to check off my list and say, “I’ve got that one down. What’s next?” No, there is always room to grow more devoted to prayer. My prayer is that this message will help move you in that direction.
First, I’m going to mention some books (besides the Bible) that have been especially helpful to me for growing in devotion to prayer. Then I’ll mention four grace-oriented motivators for growing in devotion to prayer. I’ll conclude with brief answers to seven questions about prayer.
I’ve read many good books on prayer, but these are some that I keep going back to for help.
First, as I’ve told you before, God changed my spiritual life in the summer of 1970 when I read for the first time, George Muller of Bristol, by A. T. Pierson [Revell]. While my prayer life is no where close to that of Muller, his testimony of God’s faithfulness to answer prayer still motivates me to pray. Read anything about George Muller and your prayer life will be strengthened.
Second, John Calvin’s The Institutes of the Christian Religion (Ed. by John McNeill [Westminster Press], Book 3, Chapter 20) has about 70 pages on prayer that are very helpful. This has recently been collected into a book, On Prayer: Conversation with God [Westminster], with an introduction, summary, and discussion questions by John Hesselink. Calvin has rich, practical insights on prayer. For example, on the problem of unanswered prayer, Calvin observes (3:20:52, p. 919) that our praying is not in vain even if we do not perceive any fruit from it, because we will have drawn near to God. If we have Him, we have all good things in Him. We’ll understand the rest on the day of judgment. I’ve compiled some insights on prayer from John Calvin and George Muller, which are on the church web site (fcfonline.org/Resources).
Third, Paul Miller’s A Praying Life [NavPress] is down-to-earth and practical. Miller shares his struggles and his victories. He has some encouraging counsel on praying like a child. He has many practical insights, such as (p. 65), “You don’t need self-discipline to pray continuously; you just need to be poor in spirit.” For a message by Miller that sums up the book, go to DesiringGod.org, “Conference Messages,” 2011 Conference for Pastors.
Fourth, Bill Thrasher’s A Journey to Victorious Praying [Moody Press] has many practical insights and encouraging stories.
Finally, Praying [IVP] by J. I. Packer and Carolyn Nystrom has many helpful insights on deepening your prayer life.
Again, there are many more books that I could mention. Taking Hold of God: Reformed and Puritan Perspectives on Prayer [Reformation Heritage Books], edited by Joel Beeke and Brian Najapfour collects many rich insights on prayer into one source. Matthew Henry’s A Method for Prayer [Christian Focus], edited by Ligon Duncan, shows a plan for prayer and how to use Scripture in prayer. So dig in and grow by reading about prayer.
Legalism and guilt do not motivate me to pray. By legalism, I mean setting up unbiblical standards to try to follow so that I can feel good about having met those standards: “I prayed for an hour today, so I am spiritual!” By guilt, I mean that often we feel guilty because of our lack of prayer, so we determine to pray through a list or pray for a certain amount of time, thinking that it will ease our guilt. But, it is God’s grace and mercy in Christ that motivates me to pray. Prayer is drawing near to our gracious, loving Father.
As I’ve mentioned, Romans 12:9-21 is built on Romans 12:1-2, which is founded on Romans 1-11. It is because of God’s many mercies as spelled out in chapters 1-11 that we present our bodies to God as living sacrifices. Because of His mercies, we should be motivated to draw near to Him in prayer. As we saw in Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?” If the Father paid that great price to save us and if the Son is at His right hand interceding for us (Rom. 8:34) and if the Holy Spirit is helping us by praying for us with groanings too deep for words (8:26), that motivates me to pray. The author of Hebrews puts it this way (Heb. 4:14-16):
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Do you need mercy and grace to live? You’ll find them at the same place you found them for salvation: at God’s throne of grace. Let that motivate you to pray!
George Muller taught this frequently from his own experience. He said (Pierson, p. 257), “The chief business of every day is first of all to seek to be truly at rest and happy in God.” Muller’s prayer life was rooted in his reading and meditation on God’s Word. When he was 92, Muller told Pierson that for every page of any other reading he was sure he read ten of the Bible. During the last 20 years of his life, he read through the Bible carefully four or five times per year (Pierson, p. 49). His prayer life was directed by his communion with God through His Word.
So don’t neglect the Bible or your prayers will be misdirected. Rather, let the Bible direct your prayers in line with God’s promises and purposes. Use the Word to find delight in God each day.
Jesus said (John 15:5), “… apart from Me you can do nothing.” But as the angel told the virgin Mary (Luke 1:37), “For nothing will be impossible with God.” C. H. Spurgeon (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 25:352) said, “Nothing sets a man more eagerly upon prayer than a deep sense of his need of that which he is seeking at the Lord’s hand.” In speaking of our Lord’s prayer life, Paul Miller puts it this way (p. 44), “If you know that you, like Jesus, can’t do life on your own, then prayer makes complete sense.” He adds (p. 55), “Prayer is bringing your helplessness to Jesus.”
Miller shares a lot about their struggles in rearing their children, one of whom is severely autistic. He says (p. 169), “Until we become convinced we can’t change our child’s heart, we will not take prayer seriously.” He adds that when we see our child’s self-will and anger, we need to ask ourselves, “How am I self-willed? How am I angry?” Prayer isn’t so that we can dominate our children and have a more comfortable life. It is to show us our deep need to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. To the extent that you see your need and God’s gracious offer to meet your need, you’ll be motivated to pray.
Thus to be devoted to prayer, consider often God’s mercies that saved you. Begin each day by finding delight in God Himself through His Word and prayer. Think about your absolute need and God’s willingness to work in your situation.
James 5:16b says, “The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.” To be effective, we must come to God as clean vessels, seeking to please Him in all respects. Psalm 66:18 says, “If I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear.” James 4:3 points out one reason for unanswered prayer: “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.” But in Psalm 81:10, which was a favorite promise for George Muller, the Lord says, “I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt; open your mouth wide and I will fill it.”
Dorothy Clapp was an older Christian lady who felt God leading her to pray for a public high school near her home in New Jersey. So day after day, month after month, year after year she prayed that God would save young people in that school. She began to pray that God would not only save them, but also send them to the ends of the earth. After 12 years of praying, she began praying for one young male student. She sent him a Gospel of John. For three years she prayed and at last, God saved George Verwer.
Before long, George had led 200 other students to Christ. In 1957, three of them went to Mexico to evangelize during their summer vacation. That was the beginning of Operation Mobilization, which now has a worldwide outreach into many of the most difficult countries to penetrate with the gospel (story by Wesley Duewel, told by Thrasher, pp. 36-38). Sometimes, of course, we won’t see the results of our prayers until we’re in heaven. But if we are seeking God’s glory and the furtherance of His kingdom, He can do mighty things through our prayers. Finally:
George Muller outlined the following conditions of prayer (in Pierson, pp. 170, 455, 456): (1) We must ask for that which it would be for God’s glory to give us. (2) Ask in dependence on the name of the Lord Jesus, that is, expect it only on the ground of His merits and worthiness. (3) Be separated from all known sin. (4) Believe that God is able and willing to give us what we ask Him for. (5) Continue in prayer, expecting God to answer, until the blessing comes. Packer & Nystrom put it this way (p. 154): “We are to make requests to the Father that the Lord Jesus will back.”
As I just said, our motive should always be that God would be glorified and that His will might be done. That’s easily said, but it’s easy for selfish desires to take first place so that we forget about God’s glory: “God, heal my marriage! God help our children to follow You!” Why? “So that we’ll be a happy family!” Okay, but why? The answer should be, “So that God will be glorified through our happy family.”
As just mentioned, we come on the basis of the merits of Christ and through His blood. While we must be separated from all known sin, we do not come on the basis of our performance: “I’ve been faithful in reading the Bible and praying and serving the Lord, so now He should answer my prayers.” Rather, come to the Father through His grace and through the merits of His Son, who is our high priest (Heb. 4:14-16). Come as His needy child, laying hold of His promise (Luke 11:9), “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”
Often our prayers are too broad and generic: “God bless the pastor, bless the church, and bless the missionaries. Amen!” This is where praying the Scriptures back to God for others and for yourself can help. I took a list that Will Bruce of Overseas Missionary Fellowship prepared and added to it and added the biblical references. You can probably come up with more, but I listed 20 things (you can access it on fcfonline.org/Resources). I don’t have time here to list all 20, but pray that the person (family member, missionary, pastor, yourself, etc.) will love God more fervently from the heart. Pray that he will be filled with and walk in the Holy Spirit. Pray that he will be regular in reading, studying, and memorizing God’s Word. Pray that he will grow in Christlike maturity, developing the fruit of the Spirit in his life. Pray that he will not love the world or the things in the world. Pray that he will grow in humility and have a servant’s heart. Pray that he will be a good steward in financial matters. Etc.
Regarding physical healing, pray for it but realize that it may or may not be God’s will to heal. But whatever His will regarding the healing, pray that He will use the illness to glorify Himself, to reach others with the gospel, and to shape the person who is ill into the image of Jesus Christ.
This is always difficult. I struggle often with it, in that it seems that I get more delays or denials to my prayers than immediate answers. I can only touch on it here. One reason for the delay may be that God wants me to grow closer to Him and as long as the need persists, it keeps me drawing near through prayer. All parents know that if you give your children everything that they ask for at the minute they ask, they do not learn patience. They do not learn self-denial. They do not learn to trust your word. Even so, we often grow by waiting patiently for the Lord.
Also, the Lord may want to purge my motives, so that I truly want His glory above all else. Often we ask selfishly, with no thought of God’s purpose or His glory. By waiting, we learn our own weakness and His strength. We abandon all thought of our own glory and seek His glory alone.
Also, if He instantly granted every request, I might not appreciate the answers as much as I do after I’ve cried out to Him for a long time. Waiting deepens our gratitude when the blessing is granted. Even after 38 years, I’m thankful every day for Marla because I had to wait a long time for her!
Also, the Lord knows all things and so He knows the best time and circumstances to answer our prayers. I only see things from my narrow perspective, but God sees the big picture, taking all factors into account.
Jesus told the parable of the friend who comes asking for bread at midnight and the parable of the unrighteous judge (Luke 11:5-8; 18:1-8) to teach us that we need to persist in prayer. Bill Thrasher (pp. 192-193) offers some guidelines on when to persevere. Persevere “when you desire God more than you desire the answer to your prayer.” Jonathan Edwards put it this way (cited in Taking Hold of God, p. 201), “The good that shall be sought by prayer is God himself.” Also, persevere “when you are standing on the Word of God.” Argue your case using the promises of the Word. Third, persevere “when you are willing to wait on God’s timing for the answer.” George Muller said (Pierson, p. 457, italics in original), “Most frequently we fail in not continuing in prayer until the blessing is obtained and in not expecting the blessing.”
Start simply. If you’re not praying consistently now, don’t begin by aiming for an hour of prayer daily. Set your alarm 30 minutes early. Get up, read a Psalm and a portion from the Old and New Testaments. Turn what you read back into prayer.
I find it helpful to use the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:9-13) as an outline: “Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name.” Begin by worshiping the Father for who He is and asking that His name be holy (hallowed) in your life and the lives of your loved ones. “Your kingdom come ….” Pray for missions and missionaries. “Your will be done ….” Pray for discipleship and submission to God’s will in your life and the lives of those you have contact with. Pray for lost people you know to come to salvation.
“Give us this day our daily bread ….” Pray for personal needs. “And forgive us our debts ….” Confess your sins and appropriate His forgiveness. “As we forgive our debtors….” Pray about your relationships and make sure that you’re not harboring bitterness. “And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Pray for holiness in thought and deed for yourself and others.
Also, begin to send up short prayers during the day for every situation that you encounter. It can be as short as, “Help!” (See Neh. 2:4-5.) If your child is upset or disobedient, pray before you deal with the child. If your mate is upset, stop and pray with her before you talk about the problem. If you’re going into a meeting at work, pray. In any and every situation, pray. God is merciful. We lay hold of His mercies through prayer. That’s why we need to be devoted to prayer.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
As I mentioned last week, Paul’s three words in verse 12, “devoted to prayer” are likely to raise the guilt level for most of us, because we know that our prayer lives are inadequate. But then he has the nerve to follow that up with another topic that produces more guilt, namely, giving (Rom. 12:13): “contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.” Paul is calling us to generosity and hospitality, which also includes sharing our resources.
But as we consider this touchy subject, let me remind you again that Paul is not motivating us by guilt. His commands in this section are based on Romans 12:1-2, which is the logical conclusion of chapters 1-11. Paul is saying that if you have experienced God’s many mercies in Christ, then it is only reasonable that you give yourself totally to Him and live in a manner that is pleasing to Him. God’s mercy and grace are the motivation to surrender all to Christ, including our money and possessions.
Paul uses the same logic in 2 Corinthians 8:9, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.” In the context, Paul is appealing to the Corinthians to be generous toward the poor believers in Jerusalem. The appeal is: Christ’s grace in giving Himself for us on the cross when we were spiritually helpless and destitute should motivate us to be generous to those in need. And the bottom line, as always, is that our generosity would glorify the generous God who gave His own Son for us. So in verse 13 Paul is saying,
The mercies of God call us to be generous and hospitable.
It is estimated that 15 percent of everything Jesus said (as recorded in the gospels) relates to money or possessions. He said more about money than about heaven and hell combined (Randy Alcorn, The Treasure Principle [Multnomah Publishers], p. 8). As Alcorn says so well (p. 73), “God prospers me not to raise my standard of living, but to raise my standard of giving.” Ouch!
Jesus taught that how we handle money is the litmus test of our faith in Him. He said (Luke 16:10), “He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much.” That verse is often used to say that if we’re faithful in some insignificant job, then we’ll get promoted to more important jobs. While that may be true, that application overlooks the fact that in the context, the “very little thing” is money, while the “much” refers to things of eternal value. It’s quite ironic that the thing that for us is a very big deal (money) Jesus calls a very little thing! Jesus is saying that if we’re faithful stewards of the money that He entrusts to us, then we’ll be faithful with the things that really matter, namely, eternal riches.
So the question we all must ask ourselves is, am I treasuring stuff and laying up treasures of stuff on earth, or am I treasuring Christ and laying up treasures in heaven by generously giving to promote His kingdom purposes?
Romans 12:13a, “contributing to the needs of the saints.” “Contributing” (Rom. 12:13) is the familiar Greek verb, koinoneo, often translated as “fellowshipping” or “sharing together.” It (and related nouns) is used in reference to sharing material goods in several other places (Acts 2:44; 4:32; Rom. 15:27; 2 Cor. 8:4; 9:13; Gal. 6:6; Phil. 4:15; 1 Tim. 6:18; Heb. 13:16). “Saints” refers, of course, to fellow believers. It could refer to the poor (such as Paul’s efforts to collect funds for the poor Christians in Jerusalem, 2 Cor. 8 & 9), or to Christian workers who needed support (1 Cor. 9:4-18; Gal. 6:6; 1 Tim. 5:17-18). By mentioning the saints, Paul is not denying the need to help unbelievers, but rather emphasizing that our priority should be towards fellow Christians (Gal. 6:10).
First I want to give you some guidelines to help evaluate your own generosity. Second, we will look at how to grow in generosity. Then we’ll look briefly at how to determine to whom you should give.
Generosity is a lifestyle that flows out of an attitude. It’s a bit difficult to define, since there is a subjective element in generosity. Webster says that it refers to liberality in giving. But what seems generous to one person may seem stingy to another. Also, we don’t know whether a person is giving sacrificially or out of an overflow of abundance. So what may look to us like a stingy gift may actually be quite generous if the giver is poor, or what may look to us like a generous gift may be stingy if the giver is wealthy. So we should not judge others, but seek to please God with our giving and let Him be the judge of others. Here are four guidelines to use in evaluating your own generosity:
This gets at our heart motives for giving. There are a lot of wrong motives for giving: pride; the desire for power; guilt; greed (the thought that if I give, God will give back to me far more); pressure; or, responding to gimmicks. The right motive for giving is that God has mercifully, generously given me eternal life through the sacrifice of His own Son. In response, out of a desire to please God and glorify Him by reflecting His generous nature to others, I give. So ask yourself, “Does my life help others to see that my Heavenly Father is generous?”
Paul puts it this way (2 Cor. 9:7): “Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” Generosity is closely tied in with a cheerful, thankful attitude. If it takes pressure tactics or guilt to get you to give, you’re probably not giving generously. Ask yourself, “Do I give cheerfully with thankfulness to God for His unspeakable gift to me?”
As we just read, biblical givers “purpose in their hearts.” They plan to give. As Paul wrote (1 Cor. 16:2), “On the first day of every week each one of you is to put aside and save, as he may prosper, so that no collections be made when I come.” He wanted the believers to be thoughtful, systematic, and disciplined with their giving. Impulsive, sporadic giving is usually not generous. Often it is a response to alleviate guilt. So ask yourself, “Do I give prayerfully, systematically, and faithfully, or only impulsively and sporadically?”
I think that it’s a significant silence that Paul never wrote to Gentile churches to explain the need to tithe. (See my message, “Why You Should Not Tithe,” on the church web site.) Rather, the standard is, “as he may prosper.” If the Lord has prospered you so that you have enough to provide for your family, then don’t use the extra to buy more and nicer stuff. Use it to give generously to the Lord’s work or to genuinely needy saints.
The reason a generous person does this is that he realizes that whatever he lays up on earth will be lost, but whatever he lays up in heaven will be his eternally. As Jesus said (Matt. 6:19-21), “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Randy Alcorn (ibid., p. 13, italics his) comments, “But when Jesus warns us not to store up treasures on earth, it’s not just because wealth might be lost; it’s because wealth will always be lost. Either it leaves us while we live, or we leave it when we die. No exceptions.” So ask, “As God prospers me more, do I look for ways to give more or to spend more? Is my aim to collect more stuff here or to invest in that which lasts for eternity?”
Let me suggest five ways:
God owns the world and all that is in it (Ps. 24:1; 50:10-12). He has entrusted each of us with a certain amount to use for His purposes until He returns, when we will give an account (Matt. 25:14-30). Jesus made it clear: You either serve God or Mammon, but not both (Matt. 6:24). So we have to view ourselves as managers, not as owners, and keep the Owner’s objectives in view. Since His aim is to glorify Himself by having disciples from every people group before His throne in glory, we need to use His resources in view of that goal. To keep Mammon from its gradual encroachment, I need to constantly reaffirm God as the owner of all.
The American dream is to get a good-paying job so that you can pile up money and stuff for your own pleasure. But God’s way, as Alcorn put it, is, “God prospers me not to raise my standard of living, but to raise my standard of giving.” Paul gives this instruction (Eph. 4:28), “ He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need.” A thief who merely stops stealing hasn’t dealt with the laziness and greed that led him to steal. To deal with laziness and greed, the former thief needs to work so as to have extra to give to those in need.
Your primary responsibility is to provide for your own needs and those of your family. Paul didn’t mince words when he said (1 Tim. 5:8), “But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” Even unbelievers work to provide for their own families. Believers should not do less. But once your family’s needs are met, you should think and pray about how the Lord may want you to invest it for eternity, rather than to run out and buy more stuff.
Paul equated greed with idolatry (Col. 3:5), which is not a minor sin! Jesus warned (Luke 12:15), “Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.” All of the ads that constantly bombard us are designed to feed our greed. The advertisers want us to think that we can’t be happy unless we buy their product. But even after we’ve got their stuff, there is always something else.
The opposite of greed is contentment. Hebrews 13:5 exhorts, “Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, ‘I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.’” Paul said (1 Tim. 6:8), “If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.” Then he went on to warn (1 Tim. 6:9-10), “But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” So a major part of fighting greed is to find contentment in Christ, not in stuff.
Debt goes hand in hand with greed, because it feeds off greed by giving us what we want now, rather than making us wait for it or work for it in advance. Debt almost always reflects impulsiveness, which is the opposite of self-control, a fruit of the Spirit. It usually reflects mismanagement and irresponsibility, which are not the marks of a good manager.
You can’t be generous in giving if you’re in debt. You need to develop a plan to pay off your creditors, live carefully within your means, and have a savings account to provide for upcoming bills and unforeseen emergencies. This requires discipline, of course. But you won’t get out of debt unless you spend less than you earn. And you won’t be free to be generous if you don’t get out of debt.
If you wait to give until you see how much you have left over after everything else, you won’t give generously, if at all. So plan how much the Lord wants you to give and give it off the top, before you spend it.
How much should you give? If the tithe was the standard under the Law, it would seem that under grace we should give more, not less than ten percent. We used to give ten percent until early in my ministry, I made the “mistake” of preaching a sermon series on the Christian and money! Since then, we’ve been able to give pretty consistently at or slightly above 20 percent of our gross income (before taxes) each year. The New Testament standard is, if the Lord prospers you more, give more.
George Muller, whom I mentioned last week as a great example for prayer, was also an example for giving. In 1874, he received for personal income (from donations) 3,100 pounds. That was a tidy sum back then, and he could have lived lavishly. But he and his family lived on 250 pounds (8%) and gave away the rest (92%). From 1870 on, Muller personally fully supported 20 missionaries with the China Inland Mission. Over the years 1831-1885, I calculated that he gave away 86 percent of his income to the Lord’s work! God funneled it in the top, but Muller kept the bottom open, never hoarding it or squandering it on personal luxury.
This is a very difficult question to answer! Paul says that we should contribute to the needs of the saints (fellow Christians), but even that is not easy, since the saints may be needy for a number of reasons. Paul does not say to contribute to the greed of the saints, but to their needs. But a believer may be needy because he has been undisciplined with spending on non-essential or extravagant things. He may be needy because he has been too lazy to work or because he does not work hard on the job and gets fired. To give to alleviate needs due to those reasons would only treat the symptoms, not the cause. But, some are truly needy due to factors beyond their control. They are the ones we should try to help.
Generally, our first responsibility in giving is toward truly needy family members (1 Tim. 5:3-16). To fail here is to be worse than an unbeliever, as we’ve seen. Next would be to support the local church, which is God’s ordained means for evangelism and discipleship. The church should support workers sent out to spread the gospel among those who have not yet heard (3 John 7; 1 Cor. 9:3-14). Beyond that, Christian organizations that preach the gospel and alleviate the needs of the poor are worthy of your help. But do your homework. Make sure you know and agree with the organization’s statement of faith, objectives, programs, and methods. Make sure that they are financially accountable.
I’ve recently read several excellent books on the subject of giving. When Helping Hurts, by Steve Corbett & Brian Fikkert [Moody Publishers] gives many wise and tested insights. For example, the first step in working with the poor is to discern whether the situation calls for relief, rehabilitation, or development (pp. 103-104). When people come to the church needing funds to alleviate a crisis, they recommend asking four questions (p. 106): First, is there really a crisis at hand? Second, to what degree was the individual personally responsible for the crisis? Have they learned from their mistakes? Third, can the person help himself? Fourth, to what extent has this person already been receiving relief from you or others in the past?
Another excellent book is Jonathan Martin’s Giving Wisely [Last Chapter Publishing]. He gives four helpful criteria by which to evaluate your giving, whether overseas or here at home. He uses the acronym RAISE (pp. 61-129): Relationship: “A working and viable relationship is the foundation for wise giving.” Accountability: Giving to anyone without appropriate accountability is a setup for sin. Indigenous Sustainability: Our giving should not create dependency on long-term outside help. Equity: Our gifts should not create economic inequities in the place it is given.
I would like to see a task force in our church work through these two books and come up with some ways that we can do a better job of contributing to the needs of the saints and helping the poor, whether locally or globally. Keep working at growing in generosity for the glory of God.
Romans 12:13b: “practicing hospitality.” The word “practicing” is not a helpful translation. It literally is, “pursuing.” In fact, it is the word used in the next verse for “persecute.” The idea is that we ought to go after or pursue opportunities to show the love of Christ by welcoming people into our homes.
In Paul’s day, there were few safe inns and so believers would take in traveling Christians, especially gospel workers (3 John 5-8), in many cases whom they did not know (“hospitality” is literally, “the love of strangers”). Hospitality was enjoined on the entire church (Heb. 13:2; 1 Pet. 4:7-9) and was a necessary qualification for elders (1 Tim. 3:2; Titus 1:8). At the judgment, hospitality will be one mark that we are Jesus’ true disciples (Matt. 25:34-35).
One way that you can practice hospitality is to open your home to visiting missionaries. You and your children will be blessed by the experience and you will form a bond that will help you to pray for the missionary’s labors on the field. Another way is if you have room, to take in a student (perhaps an international) for a semester or year. Also, we need everyone at church to keep an eye out for new people in church, to make them feel warmly welcomed and at home. If you’re able to do it occasionally, invite a new person home for a meal after church. Don’t make a huge fuss over having your house in perfect order, or you’ll never get around to hospitality. On the other hand, if your house is a perpetual disaster zone, the first step toward becoming more hospitable might be to get your house in reasonable order.
Here are a few action points:
(1) Do a financial inventory in light of being a manager of God’s resources. Are you managing things in light of His kingdom purposes? Are you thinking in terms of biblical priorities when it comes to money and possessions? Are you spending too much on non-essentials in light of eternity? Do you need to get out of debt? Are you giving generously and wisely?
(2) Evaluate how you’re doing at hospitality. Are you using your home often as a place to make others feel welcome and accepted? On Sundays, are you focusing on welcoming new people into the church?
(3) Do some reading. In addition to When Helping Hurts and Giving Wisely, try David Platt’s Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream [Multnomah Books]. You may not agree with all of it, but he will make you think! Randy Alcorn’s The Treasure Principle is a short, provocative, and convicting read. Also, there is a short article by the late Roberta Winter, “The Non-Essentials of Life.” We have a few hard copies here or you can read it at: reconsecration.org/pdf/NonEssentials.pdf.
(4) Take the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University course that we offer here and begin applying his principles.
To glorify our gracious God, we need to be motivated by His mercies to be generous and hospitable.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
My task is to talk to you about something that I have almost no experience with and neither do most of you. Paul tells us (Rom. 12:14), “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.” Most of us in America have not experienced anything comparable to the persecution that our brothers and sisters in other countries are facing. In Nigeria, the extremist Muslim group, Boko Haram, has been slaughtering Christians and destroying churches. In many other countries, numerous Christians have been imprisoned, killed or forced to leave their homes and flee for their lives.
Some of you may have been ostracized at work or suffered discrimination when it came time for a promotion because of your Christian faith. Perhaps family members have been mean to you because you’re a Christian. Maybe a professor at the university ridiculed you in front of the class because you believe in God as the creator or you believe that homosexuality is sin. While I’m not belittling such persecution, I think you’d readily agree that it does not compare to seeing your loved ones slaughtered or having your house burned down and being forced to flee with only the clothes on your back. But we may be facing increased persecution and difficult times in the future here in America, so we need to understand how to respond to persecution in a way that pleases God.
In addition to persecution, Paul jumps to two other topics (sympathy and humility) that seem unrelated (12:15-16): “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation.”
Are these just random thoughts that Paul throws out without any connection with each other? Perhaps, but there do seem to be some connecting factors. For one thing, each of these commands reflects transformed attitudes. Back in 12:2, Paul said, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” Now he is showing what this transformed, renewed mind looks like. It blesses enemies who have persecuted them, it sympathizes with others in their joys and sorrows and it demonstrates genuine humility.
There is another connection between these three seemingly disjointed verses: they all are rooted in selflessness or self-denial. We can only bless our persecutors and not curse them if we are more concerned about their eternal welfare than we are about our suffering. We can only rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep if our focus is off ourselves and on their situation. We can only be of the same mind with one another and not be haughty or wise in our own estimation if our eyes are on the Lord and others, not on ourselves. Selflessness is the thread that ties all three verses together.
Also, there is the connection that if someone persecutes you and then something bad happens to him, you may rejoice at his suffering: “I’m glad that he got what he deserved!” Or, if your persecutor has something good happen to him, you might be angry, not rejoicing, at his good fortune. For example, if someone at work who has slandered you and turned other workers against you, gets a promotion, you wouldn’t be rejoicing. But God commands you to bless your persecutor, not to rejoice at his downfall or be unhappy about his success. So verse 15 has a practical link with verse 14.
But how can we possibly rejoice at a persecutor’s success or be sorrowful at his troubles? Paul isn’t talking about faking it, where you smile at the news of your enemy’s promotion, while in your heart you’re thinking, “I hope that dirty rat gets what’s coming to him!” No, Paul is talking about genuinely rejoicing with those who rejoice and weeping with those who weep. How can we do that from the heart? Verse 16 shows that the only way we can do that is to grow in genuine humility
I also add that while verse 14 may relate to persecution from those outside the church, whereas the next two qualities may apply more to relationships within the church, that isn’t necessarily so. Sometimes those who are in the church can wound you much worse than those outside. You kind of expect that outsiders may give you trouble, but you don’t expect that those in the church would deliberately try to hurt you. But, sadly, it happens! So these verses are applicable both to situations in the world and in the church. Paul is saying,
The mercies of God call us to bless our enemies, sympathize with others, and practice humility.
You can tell a lot about a person by his or her attitude, especially when he is going through difficult times. The test of genuine change is when our attitudes change. This is especially true when we are treated wrongly and our attitudes reflect the character of Christ. Thus Paul’s first command is not easy, but it is one that we need if we want to be like Christ:
Romans 12:14: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.” Paul repeats the command to bless for emphasis, adding the second time, “Do not curse.” This verse assumes that we will face persecution as believers. As Paul wrote (2 Tim. 3:12), “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” The reason people persecute Christians is that people hate God, and we represent God to them. Even when we do what is right, they hate us for it (1 Pet. 3:13-17). So rather than wonder, “What’s wrong?” when others mistreat us because of our faith, we should expect such mistreatment. If they hated our Lord, they will hate us, too (John 15:18-21).
By “blessing,” Paul means genuinely praying for and seeking the well-being of the persecutor. He means asking God to save the one who has mistreated us, which is the greatest blessing of all. By not cursing, he doesn’t mean not swearing at him, but rather, not calling down a curse from God on him. We should not wish that the persecutor rot in hell for what he did. It’s not enough just to refrain from retaliating or to get rid of our desire for vengeance. Rather, we are to ask God to bless him. As we have opportunity, we are to seek ways of helping the one who wronged us. We should not speak evil about him or get delight in thinking of evil things that could happen to him. We should bless him. Needless to say, this is not a natural or easy thing to do!
Paul is reflecting the words of our Lord Jesus. He said (Matt. 5:44), “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” In Luke 6:27-28 Jesus put it this way: “But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” A few verses later, He added (Luke 6:35-36), “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” In Matthew 5:11-12, He said, “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
Regarding his own ministry, Paul said (1 Cor. 4:12b-13), “When we are reviled, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure; when we are slandered, we try to conciliate; we have become as the scum of the world, the dregs of all things, even until now.” Peter also held up the example of Jesus to his readers who were suffering unjustly as slaves (1 Pet. 2:19-23):
For this finds favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly. For what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God. For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth; and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously.
Peter also said that our response to evil should be (1 Pet. 3:9), “not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead; for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing.” These verses show that the uniform teaching of the New Testament runs contrary to our natural reaction when we’re mistreated. We are to respond not only by not retaliating, but positively by blessing those who persecute us.
The reason we should seek to respond to persecution by blessing our persecutors is that we are seeking to reflect the character of Christ to them. We want God to be glorified as we reflect His grace and love to sinners. As Jesus said (Luke 6:35), “He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.”
A great help in obeying this command is to keep in mind that God was gracious to me when I was a sinner. He continues to be gracious to me when I sin, even as His child. And so I should be gracious to those in Satan’s domain of darkness, who are slaves to sin. My blessing those who persecute me may be the startling behavior that opens them up to the Savior.
This is a story that I’ve shared with you before, but I’ve never forgotten it since I read it over 30 years ago. And the author, Josephine Ligon, had not forgotten it, although it had happened to her as a young girl. There was a family named Parsons in her hometown that preached and practiced forgiveness. On one occasion, Josephine and some of her third-grade friends put a handful of pencil shavings into the Parsons girl’s sandwich, just to be mean and to make her mad. But she didn’t get mad. Instead, the next day, without any sign of repentance from her persecutors, the Parsons girl brought everyone in the class a large, beautiful, hand-decorated cookie that said, “Jesus loves you.” With her mother’s help, that little girl blessed her persecutors, and those third graders remembered it for the rest of their lives! (“Your Daffodils are Pretty,” Christianity Today [3/2/1979], p. 18)
You may wonder whether the New Testament is commanding total pacifism in the face of aggressors. Is it wrong to defend yourself against a bully or an intruder or robber? Is there a place for praying the imprecatory psalms against our persecutors, calling down the judgment of God on them? I can only comment briefly. My understanding is that there is a rightful place for defending your family or your own person from a violent aggressor. If possible, call the police and let them defend you. But if there is not time, it is not wrong to protect yourself or your family against a lawbreaker. But you should use the least amount of force necessary to restrain him and you should not seek to retaliate later.
Regarding the imprecatory psalms, it is important to realize that they were judicial and national, rather than personal cries for vengeance. On a personal level, David often refrained from taking vengeance on his enemies. But as the king over God’s people, David was crying out for God to bring justice on evildoers. Also, they reflect the fact that one day Christ will bring judgment on all who do not repent. When we pray for God’s kingdom to come, we are praying that He will either save or judge the wicked. So an appropriate prayer for those who have persecuted us may be, “Lord, would You please save him, but if not, I know that You will judge him righteously.” The transformed attitude that we are to reflect is: because God was merciful to me while I was His enemy, I need to bless those who have treated me wrongfully.
Romans 12:15, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.” This command is not as difficult as verse 14, but still it isn’t necessarily easy, because it requires self-denial. To enter sincerely into others’ joys and sorrows, you have to take the focus off yourself. You have to tune in and really listen to what they are saying, both verbally and non-verbally. You have to take the time to understand what they are going through.
To rejoice with those who rejoice sounds easy, but it’s often difficult. Chrysostom thought that Paul put it first because it is the more difficult of the two commands. We naturally weep with those who weep, but envy, pride, and a spirit of competition can keep us from rejoicing with those who rejoice. If you think that you deserved the success or blessings that they are enjoying, it takes selflessness and grace to truly rejoice with them. Self is always the major problem that we must battle.
But it’s not easy, either, to weep with those who weep. We feel the need to say something wise or appropriate, but we often end up saying something that we shouldn’t say. Job’s three friends did well when they sat silently with him for a week. They got into trouble when they tried to explain to him why he was suffering. Fewer words are usually better and wiser. Paul doesn’t say, “Counsel those who weep,” but “Weep with those who weep.”
A little girl lost a playmate in death. One day she told her parents that she had gone to comfort the grieving mother. “What did you say?” her parents asked. “Nothing,” she replied. “I just climbed up on her lap and cried with her.” She was a wise comforter!
Joseph Bayly and his wife lost three of their seven children in death. He wrote (The Last Thing We Talk About [David C. Cook], pp. 55-56), “I was sitting, torn by grief. Someone came and talked to me of God’s dealings, of why it happened, of hope beyond the grave. He talked constantly. He said things I knew were true.
“I was unmoved, except to wish he’d go away. He finally did.
“Another came and sat beside me. He didn’t talk. He didn’t ask me leading questions. He just sat beside me for an hour and more, listened when I said something, answered briefly, prayed simply, left.
“I was moved. I was comforted. I hated to see him go.”
The mercies of God call us to sympathize with others in both their joys and their sorrows.
Romans 12:16: “Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation.” Paul keeps hammering this theme. In 11:20 he warned the Gentile believers, “Do not be conceited, but fear.” In 11:25, he explained, “For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery—so that you will not be wise in your own estimation—that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.” In 12:3, he hits it again: “For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”
The command, “Be of the same mind toward one another” is one that Paul often repeated. He will repeat it in Romans 15:5, “Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus.” He repeats the idea three times in the short letter to the Philippians. In 1:27, he writes, “Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel.” In 2:2, he repeats, “Make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.” And again in 4:2 he says, “I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to live in harmony in the Lord.” “Live in harmony” is literally, in the Greek text, “to think the same thing.” (See, also, 1 Cor. 1:10; 2 Cor. 13:11.)
Paul is not insisting that we all think alike or agree on every issue, which isn’t going to happen in this life. Rather, he is calling us to unity based on our common salvation, our shared purpose in the gospel, and our shared hope in Christ. His command does not suggest that we set aside essential doctrinal truth for the sake of unity, which would be to compromise the gospel. Rather, as in Ephesians 4:2-3, he is saying, “With all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
When he says (Rom. 12:16b), “Do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly,” he could mean either lowly things or lowly people, or both. The verb, “associate with,” is literally, “to be carried away by,” as a flood that sweeps someone away (it is used in Gal. 2:13; 2 Pet. 3:17). So the idea is not to resist doing lowly tasks, but to be carried away with doing them. If you see trash on the floor at church, pick it up and throw it away. If you see that the trash bags are full at a church function, carry them out. Or, as applied to people who may be beneath your economic or educational level, reach out in love and make them feel accepted. Put yourself on the same level and relate graciously to them as you would want to be related to if you were in their shoes.
“Do not be wise in your own estimation” comes from Proverbs 3:7, “Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and turn away from evil.” Leon Morris (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 451) observes, “The person who is wise in his own eyes is rarely so in the eyes of other people.” Even some unbelievers get this. Jay Leno was asked what the secret was to his long marriage. He said (Parade, 5/20/12), “If you don’t fool around, it’s not that hard. I think the key to life is low self-esteem—believing you’re not the smartest or most handsome person in the room. All the people who have high self-esteem are criminals and actors.”
Paul is warning us of the danger of intellectual pride. This was the sin that Adam and Eve fell to in the garden, when they thought that by eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they could be like God (Gen. 3:5-6). It is the sin that Paul referred to in Romans 1, of those who “suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” “Professing to be wise, they became fools” (1:22). Through Jeremiah (9:23-24), the Lord warns, ‘“Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,’ declares the Lord.”
How transformed are your attitudes? Are you blessing those who have wronged you? Are you sympathizing with others in their joys and sorrows? Are you practicing humility through true Christian unity, through being quick to take on lowly jobs or to befriend people of no earthly status, and through not being impressed with your own wisdom? If you need to grow in any of these, go often to the foot of the cross, where Christ humbled Himself for your sake (Phil. 2:5-11).
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
What I said last week also applies to this message: I’m speaking on a subject about which I have almost no experience: Doing right when you’re wronged. I’ve had many instances where people did wrong things to me, of course, but rarely anything traumatic. My parents loved me, brought me to faith in Christ, and taught me His ways. I had a relatively easy childhood.
But some of you have suffered traumatic wrongs. You may have had parents who were emotionally, physically, or even sexually abusive. Some of you have suffered (or perhaps are currently suffering) in an abusive marriage. You live daily under a barrage of verbal and emotional attacks that include either threats of physical harm or actual physical abuse. Or, perhaps your mate was unfaithful and you struggle with bitterness over being betrayed.
Some of you have been victims of major fraud or theft. A few may have been the victim of a violent crime, such as rape or assault. Perhaps a loved one was murdered. Some may have suffered injury or trauma serving our country in the military.
But here in America, few of us have suffered as much as our brothers and sisters in countries where there is open hostility toward the gospel. John Piper (“Do not Avenge Yourselves, but Give Place to Wrath,” on DesiringGod.org) tells the story of the martyrdom of Graham Staines and his two sons:
In January, 1999 Graham Staines and his two sons, Phillip (10) and Timothy (6) were mobbed by radical Hindus, trapped inside their vehicle in … India, and burned alive. The three charred bodies were recovered clinging to each other. Graham Staines had spent 34 years serving the people of India in the name of Jesus. He was the director of the Leprosy Mission in Baripada, Orissa.
He left behind his widow Gladys and daughter Esther. … Her response was in every paper in India to the glory of Christ. She said, a few days after the martyrdom of her husband and sons, “I have only one message for the people of India. I’m not bitter. Neither am I angry. But I have one great desire: that each citizen of this country should establish a personal relationship with Jesus Christ who gave his life for their sins … let us burn hatred and spread the flame of Christ’s love.”
Everyone thought she would move back to Australia. No. She said God had called them to India, and she would not leave. She said, “My husband and our children have sacrificed their lives for this nation; India is my home. I hope to be here and continue to serve the needy.” Then, perhaps most remarkable of all—listen to this all you who are teenagers—her daughter Esther was asked how she felt about the murder of her dad, and the thirteen year old, said, “I praise the Lord that He found my father worthy to die for Him.”
Wow! That is a God-thing! There is no other way to explain it. A similar thing happened in 2007 in Turkey, where Islamic militants mutilated and murdered German missionary Tilman Geske, a father of three, and two Turkish believers, one of whom had two young children. Geske’s widow also publicly forgave the murderers and vowed to continue her ministry in Turkey.
That’s the high biblical standard that we’re called to! I’m not going to tell you that I could respond as those godly widows did, unless God gave me unusual grace. But we need to understand how God wants us to respond when we are wronged, whether in a relatively minor or in a major way. We need to practice with the minor wrongs that we suffer so that we’ll be prepared for the major wrongs. In Romans 12:17-21, Paul teaches that…
The Christian response to being wronged is to do right toward your enemy, leaving all vengeance with God.
As with the previous section (12:14-16), the thread of selflessness or self-denial runs through our text. Our aim must be (as Paul’s was; Phil. 1:20), to exalt Christ in our bodies, whether by life or by death. Our desire should be that our enemy would come to know the same mercy and grace that we found at the cross. And so, rather than responding to the evil done against us with evil or with vengeance, we are commanded to respond with the radical love of Christ that overcomes evil with good. The world says, “Don’t get mad; get even!” But our Lord says (Luke 6:27), “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.”
Paul says this three times in slightly different ways for emphasis: Romans 12:17a: “Never pay back evil for evil to anyone.” Verse 19a, “Never take your own revenge, beloved….” Verse 21, “Do not be overcome by evil….” Paul gives a similar command in 1 Thessalonians 5:15, “ See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another and for all people.” (See, also, 1 Peter 3:9.)
John Calvin points out that returning evil for evil may not be as severe as seeking revenge, but it is still forbidden. For example, your husband snaps unkindly at you and you respond by being cold to him or by not speaking to him. You aren’t plotting revenge, but you’re not exactly blessing him. You’re returning evil for evil. Or, if someone makes a cutting remark and you try to counter it, even in jest, you’re returning evil for evil.
I still remember when the Lord convicted me of this. When I was in college, a bunch of guys met weekly for dinner and Bible study. While we were waiting for dinner and exchanging small talk, it often devolved into a “chop” session, where one guy would make a humorous put-down about another guy, and he would respond with a funny put-down of the first guy. We all would laugh and sometimes pile on with more humorous put-downs.
Then one night, a newer Christian in our group said with a serious look on his face, “Guys, we’re sinning to talk like this.” We all jumped on him with our excuses: “Come on, we’re just having fun.” But he stood his ground and cited verses like Ephesians 4:29, “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.” One by one, we all finally admitted that he was right. We asked forgiveness of one another and the chop sessions ended that night.
Revenge, which goes a step beyond returning evil for evil, is motivated by pride. Someone’s sinful actions against us wound our pride, so we want to get even to restore our honor. Many cultures around the world are driven by these honor codes. One family or tribe offends another tribe, so the offended party retaliates by inflicting revenge. This momentarily puts them on top, but only until their rival can devise a way to get even. Sometimes these feuds go on for centuries, resulting in needless bloodshed and warfare. The same mindset is behind the Muslim “honor killings,” where a family member who shames the family is killed to restore the family’s honor. It all stems from sinful pride.
Pastor Bob Deffinbaugh (bible.org, “Loving Your Enemies: Overcoming Evil with Good”) shows four reasons from these verses that it is always wrong to take your own revenge. (1) “Revenge runs contrary to what society deems to be right.” Note verse 17b: “Respect what is right in the sight of all men.” Our laws prohibit vigilante justice, where one person takes it upon himself to right some perceived wrong. And, while we sometimes chuckle at the absurd extremes that people take to get revenge, at least our culture usually knows that their behavior is wrong. The world generally knows that revenge solves nothing.
(2) “Revenge does not promote peace but incites men to hostility.” In verse 18, Paul says, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.” Vengeance doesn’t lead to peace, but to further vengeance. It keeps the vicious cycle going.
(3) “Revenge usurps a task which belongs only to God.” In verse 19, Paul says, “Leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord.” We are incompetent to carry out personal vengeance, because we cannot know all of the motives and circumstances that were behind a person’s wrongful action towards us. Besides, our emotions get involved and cloud our judgment. Only God, who knows all things, is a competent and righteous Judge.
(4) “Revenge succumbs to evil rather than overcoming evil with good.” As Paul commands (12:21), “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” To take revenge is to respond to sin with more sin. It puts you on the same level as the one who sinned against you.
And so, as difficult as it is (and it is difficult!), it is always wrong to respond to wrong with more wrong. Paying back evil for evil or taking revenge is always motivated by selfishness or pride. It does not honor our merciful God. It will not lead to the conversion of the one who sinned against you. So you have to determine in advance that when you are wronged, you will not retaliate with more wrong.
Paul states the right response to wrong several times for emphasis: Romans 12:17b: “Respect what is right in the sight of all men.” Verse 18: “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.” Verse 20: “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink ….” Verse 21b: “Overcome evil with good.”
Again, I would emphasize that this is not our natural reaction. Our natural reaction is: He hit me; I’ll hit him back even harder! He yelled at me; I’ll yell at him even louder! He cussed me out; I’ll let that no good bum hear a few choice words from me! It requires submission to the indwelling Spirit of God to respond to wrongs by doing what is right.
Verse 17b should literally be translated, “Take thought in advance for what is visibly good in the sight of all people.” In New Testament Greek there are two words that convey the idea of goodness. One refers to inherent goodness. The other, the word used here, refers to external or visible goodness. It means good “in the sense of right, fair, noble, honorable” (A Manual Lexicon of the Greek New Testament, G. Abbott-Smith [Charles Scribner’s Sons], p. 229).
When Paul says that we should take thought for what is right in the sight of all people, he does not mean that we should determine our behavior by public opinion. Public opinion may run contrary to God’s Word. Rather, he means that we should think about our testimony to a watching world. What idea of the Christian faith will the world form when it sees or hears about how we responded to the wrong that was done to us? If we react with rage, we’re not being a good witness. If we stop to think about our witness, we can then respond in a Christlike manner.
Somewhere in his writings (I could not find the exact source) the late Chinese sufferer for Christ, Watchman Nee, tells of two Chinese terrace farmers. The farmer whose field was higher up the hill was a Christian. He would get up early and work hard to pump water by hand for his crops. But his shifty neighbor below him would cut a path through his upper neighbor’s dikes and let the water flow down to his lower field. This happened more than once and the Christian farmer was quite irritated with his lazy neighbor.
But rather than going down and yelling at his neighbor, the Christian farmer started pumping water first for his neighbor’s field and then for his own. As I recall the story, the lazy neighbor soon came under conviction, went to the Christian and apologized, and then listened to the Christian’s witness about Christ and came to faith in Christ himself.
You may wonder, what should I do if I’ve already blown it? Maybe you didn’t stop to think about how you should respond and so you exploded in anger at a difficult neighbor or family member. You pretty much ruined your testimony. Now what?
The answer is, humble yourself, go to the person you wronged, and ask forgiveness. Don’t try to use your apology to witness to him, because he will think you’re just apologizing so that you can give him the religious pitch. Just ask forgiveness and leave it with him to ask about your faith.
I’ve told you before about my own embarrassing failure. In California, we had a collie that was a good dog, except that whenever the neighbor drove by in his truck or the UPS truck went by, this dog would go into a frenzy of barking. It must have really bugged our neighbor, because one morning when our daughter Christa, who was about 12, went out to feed the dog, the neighbor came outside and started yelling at her, with a lot of profanity, to keep our dog quiet.
I was inside and could hear what was going on and it made me mad that he would use such foul language on my sweet daughter. So I went outside and yelled back at him to keep his filthy mouth shut around my kids. He yelled back at me and I went back inside.
This was Sunday morning and I had to preach God’s Word in a few minutes! God was convicting me about my angry exchange with my neighbor. The church was only about a quarter mile away, so I walked to church. As I came out of the house with my tie on and briefcase in hand, the neighbor and his daughter’s live-in boyfriend drove by. The dog was going crazy. I raised my hand to signal my neighbor to stop. He and the boyfriend looked like they were ready to pile out of the truck for a fight. Before they did, I said to the neighbor, “I’m really sorry that I yelled at you as I did, and I’m sorry about our dog. I ask your forgiveness. I don’t know how to get him to stop barking at your truck.”
His countenance changed instantly. He apologized for yelling at our daughter. And from then on, we always exchanged a friendly wave whenever we crossed paths. I never got to share the gospel with him, but I’m sure that he knew I was a pastor. At least he knew that I wasn’t a religious hypocrite. Give thought to what is right in the sight of all men.
Romans 12:18: “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.” Sometimes in spite of all that we do, the other person does not want to make peace. He’s mad at God and you represent God to him. But Paul’s point is, don’t provoke a quarrel by your obnoxious behavior and then claim that you’re being persecuted for righteousness’ sake. Bend over backwards to make peace. Let the difficult person know that you want to be on friendly terms. If he rejects it, at least it’s not your fault.
I should add that seeking peace does not include compromising key biblical truth for the sake of peace. Paul would not make peace with the Judaizers, who insisted on circumcision in addition to faith for salvation. He confronted Peter over his hypocrisy in trying to stay on their good side. Sometimes it is sin to make peace. We need wisdom and discernment to know when to stand firm.
Romans 12:20: “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink ….” Feeding your enemy or giving him a drink represents all kind deeds that you can do to meet your enemy’s needs. Deeds often speak louder than words.
During a time of terrible atrocities in Armenia, a Turkish soldier pursued a young woman and her brother down a street. He cornered them and then mercilessly shot the brother and let the sister go free, but only after she saw her brother’s brutal murder.
Later, the woman was working as a nurse in a military hospital when the Turkish soldier who had shot her brother was brought into her ward. He was critically wounded and if she had left him alone, he would have died. At first, she wrestled with the desire for vengeance. But she realized that the Lord wanted her to treat this man with kindness, so she gently nursed him back to health.
One day the Turk, who recognized her, said, “Why didn’t you let me die?” She replied, “I am a follower of Jesus and He said, ‘Love your enemies.’” The man was silent for a long time, but finally said, “I never knew that anyone could have such a faith. If that’s what it does, tell me more about it. I want it.” (“Our Daily Bread,” 11/81)
So the wrong response to being wronged is to pay it back with wrong. The right response when you are wronged is to do what is right toward your enemy. Finally,
Paul’s command (12:19) not to take vengeance relates to personal revenge, not to utilizing proper authorities for protection or redress. If someone is breaking the law, it is right to report him to the authorities (as Paul discusses in the very next section). In the local church, the elders sometimes must discipline members who sin against others and refuse to repent. And Paul’s point is that God is the final judge who will repay all that do not repent. So you can leave your case in His hands, knowing that He will be righteous and just in punishing those who have sinned against you. So your aim should be to bless your persecutors (12:14) and do right towards them (12:17). But if they refuse to repent, you don’t have to seek revenge, because God will right all wrongs at the judgment.
What does Paul mean, though, when he cites Proverbs 25:21-22 about your good deeds heaping burning coals on your enemy’s head? Most commentators say that the burning coals are burning pangs of shame that may bring the wrongdoer to repentance. In light of the context, which urges us to overcome evil with good, they argue that it could not mean that our good deeds will result in greater judgment for our enemy.
But John Piper (“Christ Overcame Evil with Good—Do the Same” on DesiringGod.org) and Thomas Schreiner (Romans [Baker], pp. 674-676) argue that all of the Old Testament references to burning coals refer to God’s judgment on His enemies, not to bringing the shame of guilt or repentance on them. For example, in Psalm 140:10, David cries out with regard to his enemies, “May burning coals fall upon them ….” So the meaning of Romans 12:20 would be that if you do good toward your enemy and he doesn’t repent, you can rest assured that God will one day redress your wrong by bringing severe judgment on your enemy.
Your motive in doing the good deeds is not to increase your enemy’s judgment, but prayerfully to bring him to repentance. But if he doesn’t repent, you can know that God will ultimately bring him to justice. In that sense, the righteous will rejoice when God brings judgment on the wicked (Deut. 32:43; Ps. 58:10-11; Rev. 6:10; 18:20). But our job is to bear witness to Christ by doing good towards our enemies and leaving all vengeance with God.
So the hard question that this Scripture leaves us with is, have I paid back evil with evil to anyone? Is this my pattern with my spouse? Is this the way I deal with my kids? How are my relationships with my extended family? Is this how I deal with difficult people at work or in my neighborhood? If so, first ask God’s forgiveness. Then figure out a way to ask forgiveness of those you have wronged. Even if they don’t repent, think about ways that you can bless them with kindness. That’s how to do right when you’ve been wronged.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Imagine that you are a Christian farmer, living peacefully in colonial America, when word comes that a bunch of politicians in Philadelphia have declared independence from Great Britain. You are aware of what Paul teaches in Romans 13 about being in submission to the governing authorities. What should you do? Which side should you take? What if General Washington later conscripts you to join his revolutionary army?
Or, you’re living in Germany in the 1930’s when Adolph Hitler came to power. You watch with growing horror as he begins systematically exterminating the Jews. Some of your Jewish neighbors, who were good friends, are herded off to the death camps, never to be seen alive again. Then you hear about a plot to assassinate Hitler and you’re invited to join the conspiracy. If Hitler could be killed, it could conceivably save the lives of millions of Jews. But you’re aware of Romans 13, which commands you to be subject to the governing authorities. What should you do?
How should Christians relate to their government? If you think that I’m going to be able to give easy answers to these issues, thank you for your confidence in my wisdom, but I’m afraid that you’re too optimistic! Hopefully, none of us will ever face dilemmas as difficult as the ones I’ve described. But Romans 13:1-7 raises these and other important issues concerning our relationship as Christians with the government. When (if ever) is civil disobedience justifiable? What about armed rebellion or revolution against a corrupt government? What about capital punishment? Should Christians withhold part of their taxes to protest government misuse of our tax dollars?
At first glance, Romans 13:1-7 may seem to be out of context. Paul shifts subjects with no transition or introduction. But in the context, Paul is speaking about how believers are to live in love and to get along peaceably with all people. He has just forbidden taking vengeance and advocated treating with kindness those who mistreat us. This raises the questions, “Is it wrong to report those who mistreat us to civil authorities for prosecution? Is it wrong to use force to resist an aggressor?” So Paul shows that it is proper for the government to protect law-abiding citizens and to punish evildoers.
Also, Paul was writing to Christians, some of whom were Jews, in the capital of the Roman Empire. Claudius, the previous emperor, had expelled the Jews from Rome a few years before because he viewed them as dangerous (Acts 18:2). The Jews hated being under Roman rule. The Romans often viewed Christians as a Jewish sect, so that suspicion of revolution was always a concern in the minds of the rulers. Also, Christians easily could have taken Jesus’ teaching about the coming kingdom of God to mean that they should work for the overthrow of the secular, morally corrupt government in order to help bring in Christ’s kingdom. In fact, when Paul wrote Romans, Nero, one of the most evil rulers of all time, was on the throne. What a time for a revolution!
So Paul wanted the Roman Christians to be clear on how they should relate to the civil government. In Paul’s day, there was no Christian consensus or Christian-based constitutional law. There was no Jewish theocracy, as in the Old Testament. But these principles, inspired by the Holy Spirit, apply to believers down through the ages, living under various forms of government. Contrary to what many Americans may think, the Bible never mandates one type of government over another. While arguably a constitutional democracy with a balance of powers is the best form of government, the Bible does not ordain it or forbid monarchy or other forms of government. We can sum up Romans 13:1-7:
Because God has ordained government authority for our good, we must be subject to our government.
This week, I’m going to work through these verses. Next week I hope to give an overview from all of Scripture on to what extent Christians and the church should be involved in politics.
First, I’ll give a brief overview of Paul’s flow of thought and then we’ll explore four principles stemming from the text. First (13:1) Paul states that every person is to be subject to the governing authorities, because God is the sovereign who ordains all human governments. Then (13:2) he draws the implication: If you resist government authority, which God has established, you are opposing God Himself and you’ll come under judgment. Then (13:3-4) Paul explains that the purpose of civil government is to protect law-abiding citizens and punish law-breakers. As such, the government is acting as a minister of God in avenging wrong. Thus (13:5) there are two reasons to be in subjection to the government: Fear of punishment and conscience before God, who has ordained the government. Finally (13:6-7), Paul applies it by showing why we should pay taxes, namely, because government officials are servants of God. Thus they deserve our taxes as well as our respect.
Paul first lays down a general principle (13:1a), “Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities.” Then (13:1b) he explains the reason behind this principle: “For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.” He follows this (13:2) with a logical conclusion: “Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.”
God has ordained various spheres of authority for the blessing and protection of those under authority: the government, the local church, the family, and employment. Due to sin, those in authority are often prone to misuse their authority for their own benefit, not for the benefit of those under their authority. But Paul, writing under wicked Nero, does not allow for exceptions. He states categorically (13:1b), “For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.” Therefore every person is to be subject to their civil government.
Some do not want to go so far as to say that God established or ordained wicked tyrants like Nero. So they say that God ordained the institution of government, not the individual rulers. But that is a weak attempt to dodge a problem that Scripture repeatedly affirms. For example, Jeroboam, who rebelled against Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, subsequently set up false gods and a false worship center so that his people would not go to Jerusalem. Yet his rebellion and kingdom was “a turn of events from the Lord,” to establish His prophecy through Ahijah (1 Kings 12:15).
Nebuchadnezzar’s army destroyed Jerusalem, including the temple, slaughtered many Jewish people, and carried most of the survivors to Babylon. But God calls him His “servant” and says that He gave all of the land he conquered into his hand (Jer. 27:6).
Pilate was a pagan Roman governor who allowed Jesus to be crucified. Note this interesting exchange between Pilate and Jesus (John 19:10-11): “So Pilate said to Him, ‘You do not speak to me? Do You not know that I have authority to release You, and I have authority to crucify You?’ Jesus answered, ‘You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above; for this reason he who delivered Me to you has the greater sin.’”
Even the wicked dragon (Satan) and the beast (Antichrist) do not thwart God’s purpose for the ages. They are under His sovereign authority, even when they persecute the saints (Rev. 13). Daniel’s testimony to both Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar was consistent and clear: “The Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever He wishes” (Dan. 4:17, 25, 32; 5:21).
When Paul says (13:2) that those who disobey government authority “will receive condemnation upon themselves,” I understand him primarily to be referring to the judgment that the government brings on law-breakers. In verse 4 he says that the government “bears the sword,” which refers to the authority to punish law-breakers. He also calls it “an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.” These expressions do not refer to God’s eternal wrath, but to His temporal wrath inflicted by the government on evildoers so that it can uphold law and order.
Thus, because the government is God’s minister to inflict punishment on those who do evil, Christians must be in subjection to the government. But this raises the questions, “What about civil disobedience against corrupt governments or bad laws? What about armed rebellion against evil, tyrannical governments?”
Regarding civil disobedience, when the government commands us to do something that is disobedient to God’s Word, we must resist the government and obey God. When the Sanhedrin commanded Peter and John to stop speaking in the name of Jesus, they replied (Acts 4:19-20), “Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge; for we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.” Later, when the command was repeated, Peter answered (Acts 5:29), “We must obey God rather than men.” Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego refused to bow before Nebuchadnezzar’s idol (Dan. 3). In defiance of the king’s edict, Daniel continued to pray (Dan. 6).
If the government forced us to abort babies to maintain population control, we should resist. If the government forbad us to gather as believers, we should gather anyway. If the government banned the Bible, we should own and distribute Bibles anyway. If the government commanded us not to say anything against homosexual behavior, we should teach what the Bible says anyway.
Should Christians ever take up arms against the government or attempt to assassinate a wicked ruler, such as Hitler? Were the thirteen colonies right to declare independence from Britain? These are difficult questions that must be prayerfully thought through in each situation. Godly believers differ in their conclusions.
While I would agree that it is wrong to murder an abortionist, which would be overcoming evil by evil (Rom. 12:21), I must admit that if I had lived in Nazi Germany and had had an opportunity to take out Hitler, it would have been very tempting. As you know, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was arrested and subsequently hanged because he was part of a plot to assassinate Hitler. Killing Hitler would have saved the lives of millions of Jews. I realize that by the same logic it could be argued that killing an abortionist saves hundreds of babies. So I’m being a bit inconsistent. But Hitler was so horrifically evil that, as I said, it would have been tempting to kill him.
Regarding revolution against the government, I agree with Sam Storms, who writes (on EnjoyingGodMinistries.com), “Armed revolution is justified … only if the state has become totally opposed to the purpose for which God ordained it, and if there is no other recourse available to prevent massive evil.” Obviously, this involves a judgment call. Some justify the American Revolution on the principle “that it is morally right for a lower government official to protect the citizens in his care from a higher official who is committing crimes against these citizens” (cited by Wayne Grudem, Politics According to the Bible [Zondervan], p. 89, italics his). This view goes back to Calvin’s Institutes (ibid.).
But in my judgment, I cannot justify the American Revolution on biblical grounds, although I am thankful for our nation and our freedoms. While King George was corrupt and repressive, I don’t think he was so bad as to justify rebellion. Again, I realize that godly thinkers disagree on this. It’s not an easy issue! But the general principle is clear and exceptions to it must be weighed very carefully: Since God has ordained government authority, we must be in subjection to it or we are in rebellion against God Himself.
Romans 13:3-4: “For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.”
Paul is presenting the general purpose and practice of government: to protect those who do right and to punish those who do wrong. Granted, there have been many exceptions throughout history. Corrupt governments punish law-abiding citizens who speak out against the corruption and they reward scoundrels who help keep them in power. John Calvin argues (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 480) that God uses wicked rulers as His scourge to punish the sins of the people. In other words, we get the rulers that we deserve! But when governments function as they are supposed to, they protect law-abiding citizens and punish law-breakers.
To do this, the government must legislate morality. You often hear that we should not legislate morality, but that is absurd. I had an exchange in the local newspaper earlier this year with an opinion piece where the author argued that imposing “personal, moralistic beliefs” challenges our freedom by disregarding the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I pointed out in my response that we impose personal, moralistic beliefs all the time. We have laws against rape, wife-beating, honor killings, stealing, assault, murder, pedophilia, and many other immoral behaviors, and rightly so. We forcefully impose these “moralistic” beliefs on all in our society, even though they go against the personal beliefs of a minority.
The responses to my article were unbelievable. One man argued that “murder, rape, pedophilia, and assault are crimes, not bad morals.” Hello? Another lamented, “It is true that our laws are informed by our collective beliefs. Unfortunately, those beliefs are often derived from a jumble of ancient religious texts.” But he is hopeful, as he continues, “Fortunately, more and more people are discarding those antiquated religious beliefs in favor of a morality based on science and reason.” He goes on to state proudly that he is in favor of women being allowed to kill their babies (he calls it “pro-choice”) and that he chooses “science, reason and freedom.” What delusion! Sadly, that man used to attend this church!
If God’s purpose for civil governments is to protect law-abiding citizens and punish law-breakers, then it follows that we should use civil authorities for protection and due process. Paul himself did this in Philippi, where he was unjustly beaten and imprisoned without a trial, although he was a Roman citizen. When the authorities realized their error and wanted to quietly usher him out of town, Paul wouldn’t stand for it (Acts 16:35-40). He also invoked his Roman citizenship to avoid a scouring and to appeal to Caesar rather than face a kangaroo court (Acts 22:25; 25:11).
This means that if someone is physically or sexually abusing you, you should report it to the proper authorities. If your husband is physically abusive, call the police. If he is a church member, let the elders know so that we can implement church discipline. If you are being defrauded by a church member, first attempt to resolve the matter in the church (1 Cor. 6:1-8). If it can’t be resolved, you may have to take your case to secular courts. The purpose of government is to protect law-abiding people and punish evildoers.
What about capital punishment? Paul mentions the government “bearing the sword.” As far back as the covenant with Noah, God ordained that if someone deliberately takes another person’s life, his life should be taken (Gen. 9:6). Under the Mosaic covenant, there were many other crimes punishable by death. But those laws applied specifically to Israel under the law.
My understanding is that capital punishment is still fitting for first degree murder. It upholds the sanctity of human life to impose the penalty of life for life. But the way that our government practices capital punishment is inept. Murderers are allowed to live on death row for decades while they file appeal after appeal, often on technicalities. My view is that if a criminal is guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt, he should be executed immediately after his trial. Ecclesiastes 8:11 states, “Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil.” To argue that a criminal should not be executed because he is insane is insane. To insist that we must execute him as painlessly as possible is insane. The issue is that he ruthlessly murdered innocent people. The punishment for that crime should be quick, painful death. Anything else cheapens the lives that he slaughtered.
The general principle is that since God has ordained government authority, we must be subject to it. The purpose for government is to protect law-abiding citizens and punish law-breakers.
Romans 13:5: “Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ sake.” Paul means that we should be subject to our government not only because we fear punishment if we break the law, but also because we fear God, who knows our hearts. This makes keeping the laws of our land not just a matter of outward compliance, but also of inward obedience to God. With outward compliance, you are honest on your income tax forms because you’re afraid that if you aren’t, you might get caught. With inward obedience, you are honest because you want to have a clear conscience before God, who reads your tax forms before you send them in!
Romans 13:6-7: “For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor.”
For the third time Paul mentions that government officials are servants of God, but this time he uses a different word that is sometimes used for those who serve in the temple and also of angels (Heb. 1:7). This may hint that these officials are performing a sacred function, although that may be reading too much into the use of the word here (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 804). But by saying that they are “servants of God,” Paul wants us to see the importance of submitting to them, paying taxes, and giving them proper honor.
Paul uses two words for taxes. The first refers to direct taxes paid by subject nations, such as property tax and income tax. The second word refers to more indirect tax, such as sales tax and customs (Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], p. 686). The point is, although we often disagree with how our government spends our tax dollars, we should pay our taxes conscientiously before the Lord. We can protest our taxes through proper channels and we can vote for those who might lower our taxes, but we aren’t free to opt out of paying our taxes.
“Fear” should probably be translated “respect” here. In the context, Paul is not speaking about fearing God, but about the proper respect given to government leaders. We should confront the evil behavior of rulers. John the Baptist confronted Herod’s taking his brother’s wife (Matt. 14:4). Jesus called Herod “that fox” (Luke 13:32), which referred either to his deceptiveness or his destructiveness (Darrell Bock, Luke [Baker], 2:1247). Our current President promotes evil views on abortion and homosexuality. It is right to confront him on this. My understanding is that all civil authorities are worthy of respect because of their office. But honor is only due to those who deserve it because they are honorable in their personal integrity, morals, and in the way that they serve.
Our text rests on the assumption that you are in subjection to God and want to please Him. Paul is not promoting moralism, but rather submission to the lordship of Jesus Christ. He is showing us how that submission plays out in our relationship to our government. So before you get right with the government, you’ve got to get right with God by repenting of your sins and trusting in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Your relationship with Christ provides the basis for proper submission toward the government.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
While I’m glad that Mr. Reagan was re-elected, I must respectfully disagree with Mr. LaHaye. I do not think that any election is the second most important day of my life. Granted, if our religious freedoms are taken away, life would become very difficult. But, Christianity survived and even thrived under Maoist China, so I think that it would survive here in spite of attempts to eradicate it.
Before we leave Romans 13:1-7, which is the longest New Testament passage dealing with Christians and the government, I wanted to address the topic of to what extent Christians and the church should be involved in politics. Some, such as John MacArthur (whom I greatly respect), argue that we should preach the gospel, but not be much involved in politics (Why the Government Can’t Save You [Word]). Others, such as Tim LaHaye, imply that getting conservative Christian candidates elected is of utmost importance. So I want to explore the implications of what it means to have Christ as Lord of our politics.
I must make several disclaimers. The first is that I cannot possibly be comprehensive in one message. I must limit my comments on many points where, if time permitted, much more could be said. If you want to read a more comprehensive, biblically-based book, I’d recommend Wayne Grudem’s Politics According to the Bible [Zondervan, 2010, 619 pages].
Second, my goal is not to give you pre-packaged answers on every issue, but rather to lay down some guidelines to help you think biblically about the subject of politics. And thirdly, I am still in process on some of these matters. Feel free to interact or disagree with me and we can help each other grow in this area.
I’m going to make a foundational proposition; then I’ll talk about the nature of civil government in the Scriptures (a quick review of last week); the relationship of the church and the government; and finally, the relationship of individual Christian citizens and the government. My foundational proposition is:
Christ must be Lord of our political views.
That may sound obvious, but it is anything but obvious in practice. People whose lives are otherwise in submission to Christ have a tendency to forget about His lordship when the subject turns to politics. They haven’t thought through what the Bible says about politics and our involvement in that area. But if Christ is Lord of all of life and if the Bible speaks about political matters, then we must allow Him to be Lord of our political views.
The Scriptures teach that government is ordained of God and thus accountable to God.
We saw this last time in Romans 13:1b, “For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.” When Paul wrote this, the godless Nero was the emperor. Since he obviously fell far short of the ideal ruler, we must conclude that there are no exceptions to the principle laid down here, namely, that God has ordained government authority as a part of His plan for this earth. God’s purposes for government can be boiled down to two broad areas:
God does this by protecting law-abiding citizens and punishing law-breakers (1 Pet. 2:14). Romans 13:4 talks about the government being a minister of God for good to those who do good, but it bears the sword as “an avenger who brings wrath upon the one who practices evil.” That points to the power of the state to use both capital punishment and (by implication) lesser punishments to promote justice for all.
We also saw last time that the government does this (in part) by legislating morality. Laws against murder, theft, rape, assault, and many other crimes are moral issues commanded in the Bible. Laws should protect citizens from destructive sins (e.g. prostitution, drugs, etc.). The fact that something is illegal will restrain many who otherwise may be tempted to engage in that activity. The real debate is, which moral standards should we legislate? (I’ll say more on that in a moment.)
Paul says (1 Tim. 2:1-2) that we should pray for kings and those in authority “in order that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.” This means that the government must maintain adequate national defense so that we are not overrun by a foreign power that would rob us of peace and liberty. On the local level, there must be adequate law enforcement to maintain peace and order. There should be adequate regulation of commerce, medicine, and other areas to protect citizens. Since the government has been ordained of God to promote justice and peace, it follows that…
As we saw last week, Daniel’s testimony to both Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar was consistent and clear: “The Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever He wishes” (Dan. 4:17, 25, 32; 5:21). And, Jesus told Pilate (John 19:11), “You would have no authority over me, unless it had been given you from above.” Neither of these rulers were believers in God or part of the covenant nation. And yet Daniel and the Lord Jesus reminded these pagan rulers that their authority was not autonomous. God gave it to them and the implication is, they would have to give an account to Him someday. Part of our role as believers, as we have opportunity, is to remind even pagan government authorities that they rule under God and are accountable to Him. That leads to the thorny issue of…
The ACLU and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State are trying to use the First Amendment to mean that religion cannot have any part in government matters. That amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” As you know, these groups have gone to absurd lengths to eradicate any mention of religion in schools, the military, and government.
But the intent of that amendment was not to keep religion out of the government, but to keep the government out of religion. As you know, the phrase “a wall of separation between church and state” is not in the U.S. Constitution. It occurs in a letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association on January 1, 1802 and it reflects Jefferson’s interpretation of the First Amendment. Originally the first amendment was added to insure that the federal government have nothing to do with state religious affairs and that the federal government be prohibited from establishing a national church (such as the Church of England). Several of the colonies had state churches. That was not in question.
The same Congress which drafted the Constitution reaffirmed the Northwest Ordinance in 1789 which states, “Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of learning shall forever be encouraged” (wikipedia.org). Thus religion and morality (based on religion) were a part of the foundation of our nation’s educational system. The founding fathers would be aghast at the current interpretation of the First Amendment which excludes any mention of God or the Bible from public schools and the government.
Since part of the government’s God-ordained function is to promote justice, and since, by necessity, that involves legislating morality, it is absurd to talk about a total separation of church and state. The church concerns itself with morality, and so there is much overlap. Freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion. Church leaders and individual Christians should not withdraw from the government or public education under the guise of separation of church and state. On the other hand …
We need to remember several things in this regard.
If we forget this, we fall into the trap of liberal theologians who promote the social gospel. Since the major problems in this world stem from sin in individual hearts, the only real solution is to see people brought into a right relationship with God. Jesus didn’t command us to go and win political races; He did command us to go and disciple all nations. We need to keep this as our main focus. Our hope should be in God and the gospel, not in political power.
Dr. Grudem (pp. 49-51) points out many ways that Christians have influenced governments positively throughout history. These changes have also facilitated the spread of the gospel. These changes include outlawing infanticide, child abandonment, and abortion in the Roman Empire; outlawing the gladiator battles in Rome; outlawing branding the faces of prisoners; instituting humane prison reforms; stopping human sacrifice; outlawing pedophilia; granting property rights and other protections to women; banning polygamy; prohibiting the burning alive of widows in India (due to William Carey’s influence); outlawing the crippling practice of binding women’s feet in China; advancing the idea of compulsory education for all children in Europe; and abolishing slavery.
Thus to say that preaching the gospel is our only business and that the church should not influence the culture through promoting just and righteous laws is out of balance. It is often through Christian efforts to promote justice for the oppressed that God opens the door for the proclamation of the gospel.
We need to be careful not to become overly enamored with a particular political party or candidate. The church should not posture itself as Republican or Democrat. Neither party is thoroughly biblical. There is a mixture of good and evil in both parties. And all candidates (even if they are Christians) are fallen sinners who are susceptible to the lust for power and prestige. We also need to realize that candidates of both parties posture themselves to appeal to large blocks of voters, such as “the Religious Right.” We should not be duped or overly optimistic that a candidate who says that he holds to “conservative family values” will actually promote those values once he is in office.
But when one party (or its presidential candidate) endorses abortion and homosexual rights, and the other party (or its candidate) stands on the opposite side, I don’t see how a Christian in good conscience can vote for the pro-abortion, pro-homosexual rights candidate. These are moral issues, not political issues. The current president has appointed two Supreme Court justices who will invariably rule against Christian moral values. The next president will appoint at least one, if not several, Supreme Court justices who will tilt the Court in one direction or the other. These rulings do affect our country for good or ill, as the infamous Roe v. Wade decision proves. Over 50 million lives have been snuffed out because of that tragic ruling. If the Court rules in favor of “homosexual marriage,” it will have devastating consequences for America.
So while the gospel is our main focus, electing officials who will enact laws or appoint judges in line with Christian values is important. The gospel is essential for lasting change, but God has also ordained that righteous laws protect our society. Thus the relationship between church and state is not one of total separation nor one of total identification. Rather, it is:
In the Old Testament the prophets called the kings to account on these matters. In the New Testament, John the Baptist and Jesus confronted the religious and political leaders. The Apostle Paul confronted Felix, the governor, concerning righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come (Acts 24:25).
This brings up the difficult question: How far can we push Christian morality (legislatively) in a secular society? During the colonial days, some states punished people who traveled on Sunday. I remember going into grocery stores in Texas in the late sixties where you could not purchase certain items on Sunday. Obviously, we don’t want to go that far (most of us would be guilty!). A few (thankfully, not many!) advocate imposing the Mosaic Law on our culture, including stoning adulterers, homosexuals, and rebellious children. But how far should we go?
I do not have all the answers on this! Wayne Grudem does an admirable job of addressing an extensive list of specific issues: protection of life (abortion; euthanasia; capital punishment; self-defense and gun ownership); marriage (including incest, adultery, homosexuality; polygamy; divorce; pornography); the family (including child-rearing and education); economics (including taxes; Social Security; health care); the environment (including global warming); national defense (including war; pacifism; homosexuals in the military); foreign policy (including immigration); freedom of speech; freedom of religion; and, a number of other special topics, such as affirmative action, farm subsidies, the National Education Association, Native Americans, and gambling.
Obviously, I can’t begin to deal with all of these specific issues here, but I want to lay out a few guidelines. (I’m relying on theologian John Warwick Montgomery, Christianity Today [1/23/81], pp. 60, 63; although I’ve modified his approach slightly.)
Abortion is clear-cut. I do not see how any Bible-believing Christian can argue in favor of abortion, except to save the physical life of the mother. On other issues (economics, the environment, foreign policy, etc.), committed, godly believers differ. On such gray areas you may argue for your position as a Christian citizen, but have the grace to acknowledge that other godly Christians disagree. Also, prioritize your issues. Some things, such as outlawing abortion, save human lives. Other issues, such as divorce laws or environmental issues or economic policy, may be important, but not as crucial as saving the lives of unborn babies.
We don’t want to prosecute blasphemers or adulterers, even though such things violate God’s law. To force unbelievers to abide by such laws would be counter-productive in the long run in that eventually people would rebel against Christianity and cast off all influence of the church. This happened with Prohibition.
Laws against abortion; laws protecting women, the handicapped, and the elderly; laws against pornography and child abuse; can all be argued for on the grounds of broad social appeal, even for the non-Christian. Our reason for arguing for such laws is because God’s Word is clear on these matters. But these and many other values can be agreed upon by a broad coalition of people, many of whom would not accept Christ as Lord or the Bible as God’s Word. If we argue these issues on the basis of scientific, social, and ethical grounds (such as the Golden Rule) which even the non-believer can accept, then if the matter becomes the law of the land, the unbeliever who disagrees with it is less likely to feel that a particular religion has been forced upon him.
I am not saying that we compromise our moral standards. I am saying that in a fallen world, where we’re dealing with unbelievers, we may have to settle for less than God’s best. In the area of abortion, for example, although I believe that it is immoral to kill a developing baby simply because it is the result of rape or incest or because it is deformed, I would be quick to settle for an amendment banning abortions except in those cases rather than in holding out for an amendment which bans all abortions. By accepting the compromise we would end 95 percent or more of all current abortions. Then we can go to work on the other 5 percent. So I’m not saying that we compromise our standards. I am saying that we need to be politically wise.
We have talked about: 1. The nature of government: God ordained and accountable; and, 2. The relationship between the church and the government: not total separation nor total identification, but education and confrontation.
Here I’m not focusing on the church as a bloc, but on the individual Christian citizen. First I’ll show what is required of all Christians; then what is optional according to gifts and calling.
The Bible does not address voting directly because democracy was not practiced then. Some Christians argue that we are citizens of heaven and thus should not get involved at all in politics. But we are also citizens of this earth. Since we are given a say in who rules over us, not to vote is to allow the ungodly to win.
Not all of us have the time to stay informed. If you are so gifted and led, help us out. Let us know about important petitions that we can sign to endorse moral legislation.
This is not required of every believer, but it may be the legitimate calling of some.
Again, this must be a matter of personal calling before God. It may be on a local level (school board, city council, etc.) or on a state or national level. The church ought to be supplying the government with men and women of integrity who fear God. Government is a difficult place to maintain a strong testimony for Christ. But there are two notable examples in the Bible of men who served well in pagan governments: Joseph in Egypt, and Daniel in Babylon.
Let me return to my foundational proposition:
Christ must be Lord of our political views.
I trust that you now have some tracks to run on as you think through the implications of that statement for your own life.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
A Roman nobleman died, leaving enormous debts that he had successfully concealed during his lifetime. When the estate was put up for auction, Caesar Augustus instructed his agent to buy the man’s pillow. When some expressed surprise at the order, he explained, “That pillow must be particularly conducive to sleep, if its late owner, in spite of all his debts, could sleep on it.” (The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes, ed. by Clifton Fadiman [Little, Brown and Company, p. 28)
Debt creates pressure and no one likes pressure. But there is one debt that you will always owe and never be able to pay off fully: The debt of love to others. You’ll never reach the place where you can say, “Now I love others as much as I ought to.” And so, no matter how long you’ve been a Christian and how much you have grown as a Christian, you still have room to grow in love.
The biblical emphasis on love is not exactly minor or infrequent! Jesus said that love is the distinguishing mark of His followers (John 13:34-35): “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” In case they missed it, in the same discourse He added (John 15:12), “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.” Then, in case they missed it again, five verses later He repeated (John 15:17), “This I command you, that you love one another.”
The apostle Paul frequently hammered on the same note. He said (Rom. 12:9, 10), “Let love be without hypocrisy…. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.” Again (1 Cor. 16:14), “Let all that you do be done in love.” In the same vein as our text, he wrote (Gal. 5:14), “For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” He told the Ephesians (5:2), “And walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us ….” He wrote to the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 4:9), “Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another ….” And, of course, he wrote the great love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13. In addition, in Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, and 1 & 2 John there are repeated commands to love one another (Heb. 10:24; 13:1; James 2:8; 1 Pet. 1:22; 4:8; 1 John 3:11, 23; 4:7-21; 2 John 5).
The revival preacher, Jonathan Edwards, in trying to determine the reality of the many professions of faith that were made during the First Great Awakening, put love at the top of the list for determining whether someone’s faith was genuine. He believed “that evidences of love (or their absence) were the best test by which ‘Christians may try their experience whether it be real Christian experience’” (George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life [Yale University Press], p. 190).
Would you pass the test? Or, more importantly, would your family or those you live with say, “Yes, he (or she) is a loving person”? Granted, it’s a lifelong growth process and we all often fail to love as we ought. But love should be your diligent focus and over time there should be progress. In our text, Paul tells us,
As Christians, we should pay our debts, including the debt of love for others, because love fulfills God’s law.
The flow of thought (going back to Rom. 12:1-2) is: based on the mercies of God, we should present our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice to God. Rather than being conformed to this evil age, we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, so that we prove in practice God’s good, acceptable, and perfect will. The renewed mind will be humble (12:3) and will serve as a gifted member of the body of Christ (12:4-8). Love, even toward those who mistreat us, will be our aim (12:9-21). Our obligation as believers also includes living in subjection to the governing powers, including paying our taxes (13:1-7). “Did I say, ‘Pay your taxes’? Also, pay your debts. But there is one debt that you always will have and always need to be paying, namely, the debt of love. This debt sums up all the commandments and fulfills God’s law.”
Don’t miss that the foundation for loving others must always be that you have experienced God’s love in Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:35-39). If you try to love others when you have not experienced the love of God in Christ, you are just into moralism. You mistakenly think that your good deeds will commend you to God. But the Bible is clear that by nature, we all are selfish (Rom. 3:10-18). Our attempts to love others are based on wrong motives. We may love others because we want to get something from them or because of what love does for us. It’s only after we have come to the cross as guilty sinners and received God’s gift of eternal life that we have the capacity to deny ourselves and to love others as we should. Only then will our motive be to glorify the God who loved us while we were yet sinners (Rom. 5:8).
But before we look at Paul’s instruction on love, we need to consider his brief phrase regarding debt.
Romans 13:8a: “Owe nothing to anyone ….” Although some godly Christians, such as George Muller, believed that this phrase prohibits all borrowing, I could not find a single commentator who agreed. There are many Scriptures that regulate, but do not prohibit, debt and borrowing (Ex. 22:25; Lev. 25:35-37; Deut. 15:7-9; Neh. 5:7; Ps. 15:5; 37:21, 26; Ezek. 22:12; Matt. 5:42; Luke 6:34). In the parable of the talents, the lazy servant at least should have put his money into the bank and given it back with interest (Matt. 25:27). Implicit in that story is that the bank pays interest by loaning money. Jesus didn’t condemn that system, but rather condemned the slave for not using the system to earn a profit. And so all commentators agree that Paul isn’t forbidding all debt. Rather he is saying that we must pay our debts when they are due.
At the same time, the Bible warns against the dangers of debt. Proverbs 22:7 says, “The borrower becomes the lender’s slave.” Often debt reveals underlying greed that drives us to buy things that we can’t afford. Or it reveals that we love the world and the things that are in the world (1 John 2:15). We want the status that goes with having nice things, and so we go into debt to get those things. If we borrow too much and have to declare bankruptcy, it is not a good witness and is tantamount to stealing. Also, if you’re in debt, you’re not free to give generously to the Lord’s work. And so we need to be very cautious about taking on debt, especially for depreciating items. Never incur debts that you cannot pay on time.
Paul uses the transition from “pay your taxes and pay your debts” to say that there is one debt you will always owe:
Romans 13:8: “Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.”
Certainly “one another” includes those who are believers, but this command extends to all people. “His neighbor” (13:8) is literally, “the other,” which includes any other person. In the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37), Jesus showed that the command (Lev. 19:18), “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” extends even to strangers in need. It applies to people whom we may not especially like and to those who have wronged us. We do not necessarily have to like them, but we do need to love them. We need to treat them as we treat ourselves.
You may wonder, “How did we incur this debt of love to others?” They haven’t given us anything to put us in their debt. We may not even know these people! We find a clue to this question back in Romans 1:14, where Paul wrote, “I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.” “Under obligation” is literally, “I am a debtor.” Paul’s debt was to preach the gospel to all people (Rom. 1:16). The reason he incurred that debt is that he received God’s gracious love while he was yet a sinner (Rom. 5:8).
Even so, if you have received the gracious gift of eternal life, then you owe a debt of love to all people. But you don’t have to pay it out of your own meager store of love. Rather, you pay it out of the limitless overflow of God’s love toward you. As the Lord enables you to be rooted and grounded in love and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge (Eph. 3:17-19), that abundant love of God spills over onto others. That’s why I emphasized a moment ago that you must have experienced the love of God in Christ before you can love others as you should.
You may also wonder why Paul does not mention here the first great commandment, that we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Matt. 22:37). The answer is twofold: First, Paul’s focus here is on our relationships with others, not directly on our relationship with God. Second, he is assuming that you’ve been reading Romans 1-11, where he spelled out in detail God’s great love for us, which is the source and motivation for our love for God and for others.
In the past 40 years, it has often been taught that your relational problems stem from your low self-esteem and because you don’t love yourself enough. So you must first learn to love yourself before you can properly love others. But hopefully that teaching is dying out. It does not come from the second great commandment or from anywhere else in the Bible. It came to us from worldly psychologists who do not know God.
There are only two great commandments, not three: Love God and love your neighbor. Self-love is the assumed standard by which to measure your love for others. We all love ourselves quite well. We all take care of ourselves. We give ourselves the benefit of a doubt in every situation. I’ve noticed that the guy who drives faster than I is a complete idiot who is going to cause an accident. And the guy who drives slower than I needs to take some driving lessons or get off the road. But I drive just right! Or, if my wife and kids would just get their acts together, our family would run just fine. But me? Hey, I don’t need to change!
William Hendriksen (cited by Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 469, note 60) astutely remarks, “It is a certain thing that a person will love himself, and it is also certain that he will do so in spite of the fact that the self he loves has many faults.” So Moses (in Lev. 19:18), Jesus (Matt. 22:39), and Paul are saying, “Extend the same grace to other faulty sinners that you extend to yourself as a faulty sinner.” Love your neighbor as you do in fact love yourself.
Paying off debts is hard work. It requires discipline. You’d really enjoy that $4 latte at your favorite coffee shop, but you’re trying to get your credit card debt paid off, so you say no. You’d really like to get that latest computer gadget or smart phone, but you can’t afford it, so you wait. It’s not easy to get out of debt because it requires denying yourself in order to reach your goal.
It’s the same with the debt of love, except that you never will get it paid off. You’ll never get to the point where you can honestly say, “I love my wife as much as I should. I don’t need to work at it any longer.” The reason that it’s difficult to love others is that it always requires self-sacrifice or self-denial. I’d really rather sit there and watch the news or a sports program on TV than get up and help my wife with the kids or with the dishes. Besides, doesn’t she realize that I worked hard all day (as if she didn’t!)? Or at church, you’re so focused on talking with your friends that you don’t notice a visitor who is standing there all alone. You have to take your focus off yourself and put it on others and their needs in order to work at this debt of love that you owe.
I’m countering the popular notion that love is spontaneous and effortless. We talk about “falling” in love. Falling doesn’t take much effort. And if we’ve fallen out of love, there doesn’t seem to be much that we can do about it. But according to the Bible, that’s nonsense. The Bible commands us to love others, which implies that we can do it even though it requires some thought and effort.
While love, especially in marriage, should involve our feelings, at its core it’s not a feeling but rather a commitment that results in action. Love is the commitment that we make to sacrifice ourselves in order to seek the highest good of the one loved. The highest good for every person is that he or she comes to know Jesus Christ and grow to be more like Him. So with a total stranger, love may be the commitment to sacrifice our time or our comfort level to tell him about Christ. Love may be the thoughtfulness to recognize a need and take action to meet that need without any request from the other person. Love may realize that a brother in Christ is drifting spiritually or is in sin and so you take the initiative to try to help restore him to the Lord.
In our text, Paul cites four of the Ten Commandments to show what love does not do. First, he cites the seventh commandment (13:9), “You shall not commit adultery.” Although those who commit adultery convince themselves that they love the new partner, they are deceived. They love themselves and mistakenly think that the new partner will make them happy or meet their needs. But they aren’t loving the new partner, because they are not committed to helping that partner know Christ and grow in Him. They certainly aren’t loving their present spouse or their children.
Then Paul cites the sixth commandment, “You shall not murder.” (He may have been following a LXX manuscript which reverses the sixth and seventh commandments in Deut. 5:17-18.) While most of us have never actually murdered anyone, Jesus pointed out that our anger towards others violates this command (Matt. 5:21-22). If you are angry at your mate or at your kids, you’re not loving them.
Then Paul cites the eighth commandment, “You shall not steal.” Obviously, taking what belongs to others is not loving them. It is loving yourself above them, because you think that you have a right to what they own.
Finally, Paul cites the tenth commandment, “You shall not covet.” Coveting or desiring what others have is the attitude that lies beneath stealing. It’s based on self-love, not on the love of God and others. When I covet, I want what others have because I mistakenly think that it will make me happy. I’m not thinking about how it will make them feel if I take it from them.
Paul is not being exhaustive and so he adds (13:9), “And if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” Since he has been citing the Ten Commandments, which are negative, he summarizes negatively (13:10a), “Love does no wrong to a neighbor.”
Thus love involves concrete actions, often positive, but sometimes negative, towards others. It requires continual self-denial in order to meet the needs of others. Since self-denial runs counter to my flesh, love requires constant effort and thought. I have to take my focus off myself and think about how the other person must feel or what the other person may need.
Paul says this twice explicitly (13:8, “he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law”; 13:10, “love is the fulfillment of the law”) and a third time implicitly (“it is summed up,” 13:9).
Why does Paul bring up God’s law here? Earlier in Romans (6:14) he has made the point that we are not under law, but under grace. We have died to the law in Christ (7:4). He has said (10:4) that “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” So, why does he now bring up the law and cite from the Ten Commandments?
In my estimation, this is one of the most difficult theological issues in the Bible. Most Reformed scholars say (and I used to teach) that the Mosaic Law is divided into three areas: civil, ceremonial, and moral. In Christ, the civil and ceremonial laws for Israel are done away with, but God’s moral law is still binding on us. While there is some truth to that, in that there is a moral aspect to God’s law, the problem is that the law isn’t neatly divided into these three areas and so it’s difficult to sort out which is which. Also, the law is a unity, and thus you can’t pick and choose which parts of it you place yourself under. For Paul, either you’re under the law in its entirety or you’re not (Douglas Moo, in Five Views on Law and Gospel [Zondervan], p. 363).
So my understanding here (Rom. 13:8-10) is that Paul is countering his critics who accused him of abandoning the law and promoting licentiousness (Rom. 3:8; 6:1). He is showing them that when believers in Christ love others, they are fulfilling the law of Moses. And while we always fall short of perfectly loving others, Christ, who is our righteousness, did perfectly fulfill the law on our behalf. But as we practice true biblical love, which is to seek the highest good of those we love, we will not commit adultery or murder or theft or coveting. We will obey God’s holy commandments. Thus we fulfill the law through love.
So the question that Paul asks us here is, “Are you paying your debts?” Are you working at paying the debt that you will always owe, the debt of love for others? Are you making the effort to sacrifice your comfort and convenience to meet the highest good of others? If you’re married, begin with your mate. If you have children, practice on them. We all have difficult members of our extended families who need God’s love and we may be the only channel for it to flow to them. It may be someone at work. Love’s aim is their highest good, which is to know Christ and be conformed to Him. It will take effort. But we owe such love to them, both in good deeds and in sharing the gospel as opportunities arise.
If you ask, “How can I develop this quality?” Paul’s answer is, “Walk in the Spirit.” Love is the first fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:16, 22). If you ask, “How can I know whether I am acting in love?” Paul gets pretty specific (1 Cor. 13:4-7):
Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
That’s our debt to all people! Are you working on paying it off?
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Think back over this past week. How much of what you did was motivated by your conscious awareness of the coming of the Lord? If you’re like me, you’ll have to admit, “Not much.” I often get so caught up with daily pressures and deadlines that I forget the big picture. I forget that Jesus is coming and that I should be living each day in light of that great future event.
Romans 12:1-2 exhorted us to live in the present in light of God’s past mercies to us. Romans 13:11-14 exhorts us to live in the present in light of the future return of Jesus Christ. This is a frequent theme in the New Testament. Jesus warned (Matt. 24:42-44),
“Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming. But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will.”
In a paragraph that contains language and imagery quite similar to our text, Paul writes (1 Thess. 5:1-10):
Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness; so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober. For those who sleep do their sleeping at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night. But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him.
Many other verses also use the promise of the Lord’s coming to motivate us to holy living (e.g., Phil. 4:4-7; Titus 2:11-13; Heb. 10:24-25; James 5:7-8; 1 Pet. 4:7-11; 2 Pet. 3:11-14; 1 John 3:2-3).
In our text, Paul begins with a short phrase that most scholars interpret as an imperative: “Do this.” Then (13:11-12a) he gives some indicatives: “knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. The night is almost gone, and the day is near.” Then he gives more imperatives, calling us to action in light of the time (13:12b-14): “Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.” To sum up, he is saying,
The approaching day of the Lord should cause us, in contrast to this evil world, to walk in holiness.
First let’s look at the great contrast between believers and those who are in the world; then we’ll look at the motivation for why we should live differently than the world lives.
Paul’s phrase, “Do this” is literally, “And this.” It gathers up all that he has been saying and sets it before us in one collective package before he adds something else. Paul uses the same phrase in Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God ….” “And that” refers back to the entire package of being saved by grace through faith. Paul gathers it into one phrase so that he can say, “That salvation by grace through faith is not of yourselves. Rather it is God’s gift so that no one can boast.”
So here Paul is saying, “All that I have been saying about presenting your bodies to God as a living sacrifice and not being conformed to this world and being transformed by the renewing of your minds, and all that I’ve been saying about living in love, do all of this in light of the time in which we live. The day of the Lord is near.” And so as those looking forward to that great day, we should be distinct in our behavior from those who live with a temporal viewpoint only.
Paul uses several metaphors to make his point: Unbelievers are sleeping and walking in the darkness of night. Believers are supposed to be awake and walking in the light of day, because we are looking for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Have you ever tried to walk in the dark? Maybe it was in the middle of the night and you got up to get something in the kitchen. You didn’t want to be startled awake by the light, so you were groping your way along when suddenly your shin whacked against a child’s chair that was not where it was supposed to be. Ouch!
The Bible often describes this sinful world and those who live in it as darkness. Satan and his evil forces are described as “the world forces of this darkness” (Eph. 6:12). His territory is the “domain of darkness” (Col. 1:13). Unbelievers are “darkened in their understanding” (Eph. 4:18) because the god of this world has blinded them (2 Cor. 4:4). Jesus said that men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil (John 3:19). He is the Light of the world. If we follow Him, we “will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life” (John 8:12; see, also John 12:35).
In contrasting believers with unbelievers, Paul asks rhetorically (2 Cor. 6:14-15), “What fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?” Peter draws the contrast by saying that God has called us “out of darkness and into His marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9).
It is crucial to keep this in mind, because the world always sells itself as enlightened, bright, and progressive, whereas it portrays Christians as being in the dark. According to the world, if you believe in moral absolutes, you’re from the dark ages! Every educated person knows that moral standards vary from culture to culture. It’s ignorant and arrogant to claim that your culture’s standards are the only right ones. Or the world can’t believe that any thinking person would believe in judgment and hell. How could a God of love judge good people who try to do their best? If you believe that an ancient book about Hebrew religious customs and beliefs has any relevance for these enlightened times in which we live, you need to get an education! So the world thinks.
But the Bible declares just the opposite. The world is in utter darkness concerning God. It does not know Him as He has revealed Himself in His Word (John 17:25). It is also in the dark concerning man. It assumes that men are basically good, whereas the Bible tells us that there are none righteous or good (Rom. 3:10-17). The world is in the dark concerning our purpose for living. It thinks that the goal in life is to collect all the money and stuff that you can so that you’ll be happy. But Jesus says that even when one has an abundance, his life does not consist of his possessions. He says that the person who stores up treasures on earth, but is not rich toward God, is a fool (Luke 12:15, 21). The world is also in darkness concerning death and eternity. It thinks that death will usher us into a peaceful place and that almost all people will go there. But as Martyn Lloyd-Jones points out (Romans: Life in Two Kingdoms [Banner of Truth], p. 237), “The world would not go on living as it does for a second if it knew something about the judgment to come.”
Paul spells out the world’s deeds of darkness with three couplets of sinful behavior. These are not comprehensive, but representative. Also, the fact that he commands Christians to lay aside these deeds of darkness shows that we are not immune from doing them. As believers, we must be on guard so that we are not enticed by these sins.
First, the deeds of darkness consist in carousing and drunkenness. The Greek word translated “carousing” was used generally of “feasts and drinking parties that are protracted till late at night and indulge in revelry” (Joseph Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament [Harper and Brothers, 1887], p. 367). Many first century believers came out of backgrounds where they had “pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries” (1 Pet. 4:3). Paul lists drunkenness and carousing as deeds of the flesh (Gal. 5:21). But such things are not appropriate for believers.
I’ve always had trouble understanding why people go to wild parties and get drunk. To me such parties are superficial and stupid. But venturing a guess, it helps them, at least for an evening, forget about their troubles. From hearing them brag about how wasted they got, it must give them some sense of being cool, at least with their fellow drunks. And, it often lowers inhibitions and leads to sexual encounters, which appeal to those who do not have satisfying marital relationships. But I’ve known a few who claim to be believers, but they still go out partying and drinking. But these are deeds of darkness, not fitting for children of light.
Second, the deeds of darkness consist in sexual promiscuity and sensuality. The first word refers here to sexual intercourse outside of marriage. The second word means licentiousness and unrestrained lust. It is also a deed of the flesh (Gal. 5:19), characteristic of unbelievers, not of believers (Eph. 4:19-20). God has given the marriage relationship as the proper place for sexual relations. To engage in any sexual activity outside of marriage is to participate in the deeds of darkness (Eph. 5:3-12).
Let me remind you that no one who is walking in the light suddenly and without warning falls into sexual immorality. Sexual sin always begins when we toy it in our minds. We relish lustful glances by replaying them in our thoughts. We sneak a peak at pornography, which leads to more frequent and longer looks. Eventually, the temptation to flirt with a tempting woman comes and it sucks us into the fatal act (see Proverbs 7). The key to avoiding it is to judge every sinful thought as quickly as it happens and to make no provision for the lusts of the flesh. Much of our sin can be traced to the fact that we made provision for it by toying with it.
Third, the deeds of darkness consist in strife and jealousy. These are relational sins that we often shrug off as no big deal. But they are opposed to the second greatest commandment, which is to love others as we love ourselves. Leon Morris observes (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 473), “Both indicate a determination to have one’s own way, a self-willed readiness to quarrel. All six of these vices stem from self-will; they are all the outreach of a determined selfishness that seeks only one’s own pleasure.” They are all a failure to love. By way of contrast …
Rather than calling it the deeds of light, Paul refers to the armor of light, which calls attention to the reality of the spiritual conflict that we face every day. As Paul points out in Ephesians 6:12-13, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.”
It’s easy to forget this as we go about our daily routines, because it is an unseen battle. If our eyes were open to see the demonic forces that are trying to bring us down, we’d probably die of fright! But even though these hideous enemies are unseen, they are very real and dangerous. The fact that Paul gives this command to believers implies that we are not immune to the sins he has just listed. The lusts of the flesh still war in our hearts, even after we have walked with Christ for many years. And so we need to be aware of the enemy’s schemes (2 Cor. 2:11) and put on the full armor of God (Eph. 6:14-17; 1 Thess. 5:8).
By calling it the armor of light, Paul is calling attention to holiness or righteousness. It is important to remember that the command to love one another (13:8-10) is not just an amorphous feeling. Love means obedience to Christ’s commandments. He said (John 14:15), “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” It is not legalism to obey the commandments of the New Testament. Putting on the armor of light means that we walk in obedience or holiness. We turn from temptation and sin and we follow the teaching and example of our Lord Jesus Christ. If there is not a significant behavioral difference between you and the world, you need to engage in some sober self-examination. The difference between how the world lives and how Christians live should be as stark as the difference between night and day.
The motivational factor is brought out by the therefore that begins verse 12. Note the flow of thought (Rom. 13:11-12): “Do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.”
Paul’s word for time denotes the present age, the time between the first and second comings of Jesus Christ. He came the first time to bring salvation for all who will believe. He will come again in power and glory for judgment on unbelievers and to consummate final salvation for us who believe. Thus “salvation is nearer to us than when we believed.” The time in which we live is still dark, but the night (this present evil age; Gal. 1:4) is almost gone and the day (of the Lord) is near. The possibility that Christ could come at any time and the certainty that He will come at some time should motivate us to holy living right now.
Some have questioned the validity of Paul’s view of the end times by saying that he mistakenly thought that Christ would come during his lifetime or shortly thereafter. It is probably correct to say that Paul did not expect the Lord’s return to be delayed for 2,000 years. But neither did he teach that it would happen in his lifetime, but rather that it could happen in his lifetime (1 Thess. 4:17). Thomas Schreiner explains (Romans [Baker], p. 698), “He argued in light of the certainty of the end, and the possibility that it could come soon, that believers should always be morally ready.” Henry Alford put it (cited by Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 822, italics his), “On the certainty of the event, our faith is grounded: by the uncertainty of the time, our hope is stimulated and our watchfulness aroused.”
When I was in seminary, Marla and I used to baby sit for some wealthy Dallas families while the parents went away for several days. We knew approximately when the parents would return, but we didn’t know exactly when they would return. So as the time drew closer, we made sure that the house was in decent order. As believers, we know that Christ could come (or we could die) at any time, although we don’t know exactly when. But knowing that we will be with Him when He comes should motivate us to clean up our lives so that we are ready for that certain day.
If you have believed in Christ, you have been saved in the past; you are being saved in the present; and you will be completely saved in the future when you meet the Lord. It is that third aspect of salvation that Paul refers to here when he says, “Now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed.”
But to walk in holiness, we have to shake off spiritual drowsiness. Last week, Marla and I left our daughter Joy’s apartment in central Asia at 4:30 a.m. Monday (3:30 p.m. Sunday in Arizona). Neither of us sleep well on airplanes, so when we arrived at our house at 10 p.m. Monday (it was then 11 a.m. Tuesday in Asia), we were exhausted. On the drive home from the Phoenix airport, I was beginning to swerve on the road and I couldn’t keep my eyes focused, so I finally pulled over and let Marla drive, since she wasn’t quite as groggy as I was. But we both were very drowsy!
Paul implies that his readers are prone to spiritual drowsiness. I confess that I’m often spiritually drowsy. I’m not alert when opportunities to share the gospel come up and so I miss them. I’m half asleep when temptation hits and don’t flee or resist as I should. Or I waste time on trivial matters because I’m not alert to the shortness of time. But as Jesus said (John 9:4), “We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work.”
In verse 12, Paul tells us to put on the armor of light. But in verse 14 he says, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.” The way that we put on the armor of light is, positively to put on the Lord Jesus Christ and negatively to make no provision for the lusts of the flesh. In one sense, we already put on Christ at the moment of salvation when we were identified or clothed with Him (Rom. 6:3-6; Gal. 3:27). But in another sense, we need to put on Christ moment by moment by yielding to His lordship. This means “that we are consciously to embrace Christ in such a way that his character is manifested in all that we do and say” (Moo, pp. 825-826).
Although this text is not directly evangelistic, it is the text that God used to save Augustine. He had been a promiscuous young man and had lived for some years with a mistress. He had come under conviction of sin and wanted to be saved, but he had not yet gained assurance of God’s forgiveness. He was weeping over his spiritual condition as he sat in the garden of a friend when he heard a child singing, “Take up and read! Take up and read!” He picked up a scroll that lay nearby and his eyes fell on the words, “Not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.” At that point, he said (Confessions, 8.12), “Instantly, as the sentence ended—by a light, as it were, of security infused into my heart—all the gloom of doubt vanished away.”
May the reality of the approaching day of the Lord weigh upon us every day, so that we trust in Him as Savior and walk in holiness before Him as Lord!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
H. A. Ironside (Illustrations of Bible Truth [Moody Press], p. 115) relates a story that the late Bishop Potter of New York used to tell on himself. The bishop was sailing for Europe and found that he was to share a cabin with another passenger whom he did not know. After he had met his cabin mate, he went to the ship’s purser and asked if he could leave his gold watch and other valuables in the ship’s safe. He explained that normally he would not do that, but he had been to his cabin and had met the man who was in the other berth. He said that judging from his appearance, he was afraid that he might not be trustworthy.
The purser took his valuables to store in the safe and said, “I’ll be glad to take care of them for you, bishop. The other man has already been up here and left his valuables for the same reason.”
We’re all prone to judge others, aren’t we! But Jesus’ words (Matt. 7:1), “Do not judge so that you will not be judged,” are frequently misapplied. I once sat on a jury where the defendant had twice the legal blood alcohol level. But one woman on the jury would not vote to convict the obviously guilty young woman. When I asked why she wouldn’t vote to convict, the woman replied, “Because the Bible says, ‘Judge not, lest ye be judged’”!
If people would keep reading Matthew 7, they would see that in verse 6 Jesus tells us not to give what is holy to dogs and not to cast our pearls before swine. He isn’t talking about animals, but about people who are dogs and swine. Obviously, we have to make some judgments to obey that command! And in verse 15 Jesus warns about false prophets, who come to us as wolves in sheep’s clothing. Again, to spot a wolf in sheep’s clothing, you have to make some careful judgments.
So Jesus was not telling us that we should not make any judgments. Rather, we should judge ourselves by taking the log out of our own eye before we help our brother with his speck. The Bible repeatedly teaches that we must be discerning in terms of judging other people’s character so that we can either avoid their company (1 Cor. 15:33; 2 Cor. 6:14-18; 2 Tim. 3:5; 4:14-15) or try to help them grow in the Lord (2 Tim. 2:24-26). And we must be discerning of true and false doctrine so that we are not deceived by it (Matt. 7:15; 2 Tim. 4:3; Titus 1:9).
But, having said that, there is still the danger that we wrongly judge one another, which can lead to all sorts of problems in the local church. A younger believer might come into the church and his appearance is very different than that of the older believers. If they judge him so that he feels unwelcome, he may never come back to the place where he should have felt loved and accepted, where he could grow in the things of God. Or, he may conclude that Christian maturity consists in conforming to certain standards of dress or appearance, and so be led astray from the heart of the faith, which is to love God and love one another.
So the apostle Paul was very concerned that the believers in Rome not judge one another on non-essential matters where the Bible does not give specific commands. He has just made it clear that Christians are never to be involved in carousing and drunkenness, sexual promiscuity and sensuality, or strife and jealousy (13:13). Those are clear moral commands that we all must follow. But there are many other areas that the Bible does not address or where it allows liberty of conscience. In these matters, Paul repeatedly says that we are not to judge one another or regard one another with contempt (14:1, 3, 4, 10). Rather, we are to accept one another, just as Christ has accepted us (14:1, 3; 15:7). He’s saying,
In the church, we are to accept and not judge one another when we differ on matters where the Bible does not give specific commandments.
You may wonder why in Romans Paul urges tolerance and acceptance of those who have scruples over food and drink and observing certain days, but in Galatians and Colossians, he denounces in no uncertain terms those who do such things. The difference is that in Galatians, those who urged observing certain days (Gal. 4:10) were saying that in addition to trusting in Christ as Savior, you must keep the Law of Moses to be saved. They were perverting the gospel of salvation by God’s grace through faith alone. In Colossians, the heresy seems to have been a form of Gnostic asceticism, where the false teachers said that by abstaining from certain foods or by keeping certain holy days, you could be more godly. But they were not holding fast to Christ and our position in Him. But in Romans, the weaker believers who did not eat meat and who observed certain days did not hold to these heretical views that undermined the gospel. And so Paul deals with them quite differently (see John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], 2:172-173).
Also, while there are some similarities between Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8, where Paul deals with the problem of eating meat sacrificed to idols, the two situations were different. Scholars are not sure exactly who these people in Rome were who were not eating meat or drinking wine (14:21) and observing certain holy days. Some argue that they may (as in Corinth) have been Gentile believers, but most contend that they were mostly Jewish believers who had not let go of their continuing loyalty to the Mosaic Law (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 829; Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], pp. 708-710). They were immature in their understanding and needed to grow. But they were not promoting heresy that undermined the gospel. So Paul’s main concern was the potential divisions among Christians because they were wrongly judging one another over secondary matters where the Bible does not give specific commandments.
Here are five observations that I hope will explain and apply these verses to our church:
The weak brother here is “weak in faith,” or “weak in the faith.” (The Greek text has the article.) This does not mean that he does not trust in Christ as his Savior or that he is confused about the gospel. Rather, Paul specifies that the one who is weak in faith eats vegetables only (14:2), apparently for religious reasons, not for health reasons. He thinks that eating meat somehow would damage his relationship to God. He has not yet understood the full ramifications of faith in Christ that frees us from the law (Rom. 7:1-6). The strong brother (Paul puts himself in that camp, 15:1) knows that eating or not eating meat has no effect on one’s relationship with God, so it doesn’t bother his conscience to eat a good steak or, for that matter, a slice of ham or bacon.
Paul says that the weaker brother is not to judge the brother who eats meat, “for God has accepted him” (14:3). He assumes that both the weak and the strong are the Lord’s servants and that they are doing what they do out of a desire to please the Lord (14:4, 6). These non-essential matters do not determine whether a person is saved or not. A person is saved if God has accepted him. God accepts sinners when they turn from trusting in their own good works and trust in the blood of Christ to cover all their sins. Those who have been accepted by God inevitably then live to please God. They may need teaching regarding what pleases God, but pleasing Him is their motive and aim.
So we need biblical discernment. We should not immediately jump to the conclusion that someone who does things that we do not approve of is not saved. He may be a weaker brother or he may be stronger than I am and his behavior shows me where I need to grow. But unless he is knowingly denying some cardinal doctrine of the faith or living in unrepentant sin, I should not accuse him of not being saved. He may need to grow, but so do I. He and I may never agree on the particular issue, but if it’s a secondary matter where Scripture is not specific, then we may need to agree to disagree. But we should not accuse each other of not being saved.
James Boice (Romans: The New Humanity [Baker], pp. 1723-1724) points out that the subject of how we get along with those who disagree with us on non-essential matters must have been of supreme importance to Paul, because he spends the longest part of the application portion of Romans on it. He only spends two verses (12:1-2) on developing a Christian mind. He spends six verses (12:3-8) on having a right estimate of ourselves and of others in the body of Christ. He spends 13 verses (12:9-21) on love and seven (13:1-7) on church and state. He gives three more verses on love (13:8-10) and four more on godly living in light of Christ’s return (13:11-14). But now he spends 35 verses (14:1-15:13) on how we are to accept and not judge one another on non-essential matters where we differ. It was very important to Paul!
There are probably several reasons that this was so important to Paul and should be important to us. For one thing, the unity of the body of Christ is at stake. If we separate from those who differ from us on minor matters, we will soon be left all alone. In fact, I don’t always even agree with myself! Again, we need discernment to determine whether a matter is crucial to the gospel and vital to a person’s spiritual health, or whether it’s relatively minor. It’s sad to say, but Christians divide far more often over relatively minor issues than over major doctrinal or moral reasons.
Also, the body of Christ is to be an earthly example and demonstration to the world of the love of Christ. Jesus said (John 13:35), “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” If we quarrel and divide over minor issues, we damage the testimony of Christ and the gospel to a watching world. So it’s very important that we learn to work through relational differences and get along when we disagree over minor issues.
The word “accept” (14:1, 3, 15:7) does not mean that you just tolerate someone who differs with you, but you avoid being around him. It’s the word used of God’s acceptance of us in Christ (14:3; 15:7). Leon Morris (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 478) writes,
The verb means more than “allow to remain in the membership”; it has the notion of welcome, of taking to oneself and so taking into friendship. The weak are not to be made to feel that they are barely tolerated and seen as second-class members. They are to be received with warmth and true fellowship. Christian love demands no less.
Pride is usually at the root of divisions over minor issues. We baptize our pride by claiming that we’re defending the truth of God’s Word. We’re protecting the church from heresy. But the truth is, we’re proud that we are right (so we think!) on some minor point on which other souls have not yet seen the light. Or we take pride in keeping some manmade rules that “less spiritual” believers do not keep. By judging others, we feel superior to them. But this is just pride.
So it’s very important that we get along with one another in spite of our differences. It always grieves me when I hear that someone is no longer coming to the fellowship here because they had a falling out with another believer over some difference between them. Yes, it is hard and often threatening to work through our differences and to learn to accept one another. But we need to do it. The testimony of Christ is at stake.
Some in Rome were weak; some were strong. The danger for the stronger believers was to look with contempt on the weaker believers (14:3): “If they only had the biblical knowledge that I have, they would see how silly their views are!” The danger for the weaker brothers was to judge the stronger brothers: “How could a born again Christian do what he is doing? He must not be saved!”
It’s important to recognize that in every church there will be inevitable differences between believers and that we’re careful to deal with these differences with humility and love. We have different temperaments. God does not change our basic personality when we get saved. Some by nature are more prone to worry and anxiety. They’re easily bothered by things that may just roll off you. While they need to grow and God may eventually use you to help them grow, you need to be kind and patient toward them so that the door might open for you to help them grow. Others may be more prone to depression than you are. Again, you need to come alongside and accept them or you’ll not be able to help them become more joyful. If you judge them because they aren’t like you are, you’re acting in pride. Depression may not be your weakness, but you’ve got other weaknesses.
Also, we’re different in our natural and spiritual gifts. Rather than being threatened by another person’s strengths or differences, we should rejoice in them and learn from them. As we saw in chapter 12, we’re the body of Christ, each having different gifts that we should use to build up one another.
We’ve all had different experiences along the way. Some have come to Christ out of very difficult backgrounds, whereas others grew up in loving homes. Some have gone through horrible trials, whereas others have had relatively few traumatic things happen to them. Before you judge the other person, get to know him. Find out his background. Listen to his testimony. Often you’ll be humbled and enriched to hear how God has worked in his life.
We’re also at different stages of growth in our Christian walks. Some are weaker, new believers, babes in Christ. You don’t expect babies to take on the responsibilities of an adult. Babies need time to grow and they need teaching and guidance. Of course, if a baby is doing something that could seriously injure him (about to pull an iron off on his head), you give a strong warning and do everything you can to protect him. If a spiritual baby is doing something that could damage his relationship with Christ, warn him! But if he’s just acting immaturely, as babies do, accept him and try to show him a better way so that he will grow.
We need discernment to know whether this is the right time to speak with the person about a matter where he may need to grow. Paul’s statement (14:1), that we should “accept the one who is weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions,” does not mean that we should never bring up the weaker brother’s opinion so as to help him grow. Rather, he is dealing with the spirit or manner in which we go about it. I’ll not help him grow if my aim is to set him straight or to prove that I’m right and he’s wrong. The weaker brother will probably be more open to correction if I’ve established a relationship with him and he knows that I care about him. If I flaunt my liberty in Christ or if I show contempt for the weaker brother’s views or I insensitively try to prove that he’s wrong, I’m not acting in love and I’ll harm the weaker brother’s walk with God (14:15).
So the point is, we’re all different in many ways, so we need to learn how to accept one another, to encourage one another, and in the proper time and manner, if need be, correct one another. If we judge one another or show contempt for one another, we’ll only cause harm.
I repeat this so that we’re all clear. Paul does not mean that we should not judge others on matters where the Bible speaks clearly. We should judge sin in others as sin. In 1 Corinthians 5, he rebuked the church because they accepted and did not judge a man who was involved immorally with his father’s wife. We should judge and not accept serious doctrinal error. In Galatians, Paul did not accept the Judaizers’ view that you must obey the Law of Moses in addition to faith in Christ to be saved. He said that they were damned if they taught such a false “gospel” (Gal. 1:6-9). So the Bible is clear that we are to hold to sound doctrine and condemn false doctrine on core issues. We are to make moral judgments on matters where Scripture gives commandments. We must speak out if a matter threatens the truth of the gospel or the spiritual health of a church or an individual.
But then there are many issues where the Bible either is silent or not clear about what to do. Often we can apply biblical principles to figure out what to do. On some issues, godly men differ. We might debate our case vigorously, but we need to be gracious toward those who differ with us.
In Paul’s day, eating or not eating meat and keeping certain holy days were big issues. What are some of the issues in our day? I’m sure that you could come up with many more, but here are a few that I thought of where Christians wrongly judge one another:
Either you home school your children or you are being negligent of your duties as a Christian parent.
The King James Bible is the only acceptable translation.
You should dress up for church as you would if you were going to meet the President.
Contemporary music accompanied by guitars and drums is from the devil! We should only sing hymns accompanied on the piano and organ.
It is sin for Christians to drink any alcoholic beverages or use tobacco!
Sunday is the Christian Sabbath. You should not read the newspaper, watch sports, or go to a restaurant or a store on Sunday.
Christians should have nothing to do with Christmas and Easter, which are pagan holidays.
The list could go on an on!
Paul says (14:4), “Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.” In other words, I didn’t save the one with whom I differ; God did. I’m not the one who will keep him and perfect him for the day of Christ Jesus; God is. I’m not that man’s Lord and Judge; God is. So I need to let God be God and trust that He will deal with my brother on these non-essential matters if He thinks that they need correcting. But my job is to love my brother, accept him in Christ, and trust God to work in his life.
When I was in seminary, a classmate of mine told me after we had become acquainted that when he first met me, he questioned whether I was even a Christian. I asked him why he thought that. He replied, “Because you have a mustache and you mentioned that you had gone to some movies.” (I would have had a beard, but the seminary wouldn’t allow it!) He had grown up in an ultra-conservative church where being clean-shaven and not going to movies apparently were marks of the new birth! The truth is, I probably would have judged some of the ultra-conservative brothers for not being as free in Christ as I was.
We’re all prone to judge those who are different than we are. But we need to learn to accept one another and love one another in spite of our differences over minor matters where the Bible does not give specific commandments.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Years ago, when ice cream was a bit cheaper than now, a 10-year-old boy approached the counter of a soda shop and asked the waitress, “What does an ice cream sundae cost?”
“Fifty cents,” she answered.
The boy reached deep into his pockets and pulled out an assortment of change, counting it carefully as the waitress grew impatient. In her mind, she had “bigger” customers to wait on.
“Well, how much would just plain ice cream be?” the boy asked.
With noticeable irritation, the waitress answered, “Thirty-five cents.”
Again the boy slowly counted his money. “Then may I have some plain ice cream in a dish, please?” He gave the waitress the correct amount and she brought him the ice cream.
Later, the waitress returned to clear the boy’s dish and when she picked it up, she felt a lump in her throat. There on the counter the boy had left two nickels and five pennies. She realized that he had had enough money for the sundae, but sacrificed it so that he could leave her a tip (adapted from A Lifetime of Success [Revell], by Pat Williams).
That story shows that we often treat people wrongly because we judged them wrongly. We need to treat all people with respect and kindness, because we don’t know all the facts. Especially, we don’t know what’s in their hearts. We don’t know their motives.
As we saw last time, the apostle Paul was very concerned that the believers in Rome learned to accept and not judge one another. He spends more time on this in the application part of Romans than on any other subject. After mentioning the issue of eating or not eating meat, Paul brings up a second matter where believers in Rome wrongly were judging one another: observing certain days as holy (14:5). Then, mentioning both issues, Paul deals with the motives behind those who do or do not do these non-essential things. He assumes that they are doing or not doing them “for the Lord” (14:6). Then he explains that all believers are under the lordship of Jesus Christ (14:7-9). As Lord of all, He also will be the Judge of all, to whom each of us will give an account (14:10-12). Thus, we are wrong to judge our brothers and sisters.
So that we’re clear, I repeat what I said last week, that Paul is not condemning all judgment. Rather, he is dealing with the subject of judging others on non-essential matters where the Bible gives no commands. Paul corrected the Corinthians because they did not judge a sinning man in the church (1 Cor. 5). And Paul was not tolerant of the damnable doctrinal error of the Judaizers (Gal. 1:6-9; see, also, Rom. 16:17-18).
So on moral issues where the Bible gives clear commands or on essential doctrinal truth, we would be wrong not to judge others. But there are many other secondary areas where we must be gracious and tolerant with those who differ with us. We are not to judge them or treat them with contempt. In our text, Paul is saying,
Since Jesus is Lord and we all will give an account to Him, we must not judge other believers on non-essential matters where the Bible gives no commands.
Note four things:
Paul brings up (14:5) the matter of one person regarding one day above another, whereas another regards every day alike. Then he adds, “Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind.” Paul never would have said such a thing if he had been talking about the clear moral commands or essential doctrines of Scripture. Can you imagine him saying, “One person thinks that to have sexual relations outside of marriage is a sin, whereas others don’t have a problem with that; each person must be fully convinced in his own mind”? Or do you think he would have said, “Some say that we are justified by grace through faith alone, whereas others say that we must add our good works; each person must be fully convinced in his own mind”? Hardly!
Rather, Paul is dealing here with non-essential matters where the Bible does not give specific commands or clear teaching. These matters may have an effect on how you live your Christian life. Paul calls those who abstain from eating foods “weak in faith” (14:1) and he would put those who observe certain days as holy in the same camp. Obviously, weaker believers need to grow stronger in their understanding and practice. But these non-essential areas do not affect one’s salvation. Both the weaker and the stronger believers have been accepted by God (14:3) on the basis of faith in Christ. Both are servants of the Lord (14:4). And both are seeking to please the Lord (14:6). But they hold to different views on these secondary matters.
There are some pastors and commentators whom I greatly respect, but with whom I differ on their understanding of verse 5. They argue that Paul was referring to some of the Jewish festivals, but that he could not possibly have been referring to keeping Sunday holy as the Christian Sabbath because that is a part of God’s moral law, the Ten Commandments. Since God’s moral law is never abrogated, Paul could not have been referring here (or in Gal. 4:10 or Col. 2:16) to observing Sunday as the Christian Sabbath. They also argue that the Sabbath was a creation ordinance, stemming from God’s resting on the seventh day. Thus it applies to us today.
But I find these arguments unconvincing for several reasons. First, regarding the Sabbath being a creation ordinance, there is no commandment or example of anyone before Moses’ time keeping the seventh day holy to the Lord. God commanded Abraham regarding circumcision, but He never mentioned keeping the Sabbath. Although it is mentioned in Exodus 16 (before the Ten Commandments, Exod. 20:8-11), the Sabbath was unique to Israel as God’s covenant people.
With regard to the Ten Commandments being God’s moral law, the Jews would have viewed all of the commandments in the Mosaic Law as being morally binding. They would not have divided the law into moral, civil, and ceremonial categories, as many scholars do (I formerly did so, also). For the Jew, the law was a whole. To reject any of it would have been unthinkable. Also, commands that we might label as “moral” are often mixed together with other laws that we might view as “ceremonial” (e.g., Lev. 18:19 & Ezek. 18:6 in context). But the Old Testament does not label any laws according to various categories. So if we’re under the “moral law,” then we’re under the entire law. You can’t break it up into pieces.
But Paul is clear that we are not under the Mosaic Law as a system of relating to God (Rom. 6:14; 7:1-6; 2 Cor. 3:6-18; Gal. 2:19; 3:10; cf. also, Heb. 8:6-13). If the Sabbath commandment were still in effect, it is incredible that in writing to Gentile believers, who did not understand the Mosaic law, Paul would say (Col. 2:16), “No one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day.” Surely he would have put in an explanatory note, so that the Gentile Christians would not be confused. And if the Sabbath law was still binding, how could Paul have said what he says in Romans 14:5 without some note of clarification? In light of the strong emphasis on the Sabbath in the Old Testament, why is there not a single command in the New Testament to Gentile churches to observe Sunday as the Christian Sabbath?
Also, I have observed that when Christians emphasize keeping Sunday as the Christian Sabbath, they easily fall into the same kind of legalism that plagued the Jews with regard to the Sabbath. By Jesus’ time, the Jews had devised all sorts of ridiculous rules about what you could and could not do on the Sabbath. Jesus often deliberately violated their rules to show them their errors and to teach that He is the Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:27). I have read well-meaning books that argue that Christians should observe Sunday as the Sabbath, but invariably they get into lists of what is permissible on Sundays: To think or talk about anything other than spiritual subjects is to violate the Sabbath. To stop by the store for a gallon of milk on your way home from church is to violate the Sabbath. Pretty soon, we rival the Pharisees!
Having said that, I must point out that the Lord Jesus appeared to the disciples on the first Sunday when He arose and on the following Sunday. The early Christians met on the first day of the week (Sunday; Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2), arguably to testify to Christ’s resurrection. The apostle John refers to “the Lord’s day” (Rev. 1:10), which everyone acknowledges to be Sunday. The author of Hebrews (10:25) exhorts us not to forsake assembling together, as is the habit of some.
Thus there is the principle that we should regularly gather on Sunday, the Lord’s day, for worship, teaching, the Lord’s Supper, fellowship, and prayer (Acts 2:42). It’s also profitable to use the Lord’s day to seek and serve Him in ways that the other busy six days of the week do not allow. Set aside your normal work and chores and spend more time in the Word, in prayer, and in reading good Christian books. Visit shut-ins, have other believers over for a meal and fellowship. Do things to refresh your soul with the Lord. (For more on this, see my sermon, “God’s Day of Rest,” from Gen. 2:1-3, on the church web site.)
But Paul allows for a measure of freedom on this matter. The key thing, he says (14:5), is, “Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind.” This means that you shouldn’t just do what you do by habit or because everyone else does it. Rather, take the time and effort to study the Scriptures and to think it through biblically. Do what you do because you believe that it glorifies God, it’s not sinful, and you’re applying biblical principles to this non-essential issue as best as you can.
It’s important that you not violate your conscience, because to do so is not to act in faith, which is sin (14:22-23). As you grow in your knowledge of the Word, your conscience becomes more informed. You will see that keeping or not keeping certain days is not the issue; rather glorifying God in all that you do is the issue (1 Cor. 10:31). But on these non-essential matters, don’t judge your brother; judge yourself. Obey God as you understand His Word, seeking Him for more understanding.
Romans 14:6: “He who observes the day, observes it for the Lord, and he who eats, does so for the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who eats not, for the Lord he does not eat, and gives thanks to God.”
The recurring phrases here are, “for the Lord” and “gives thanks to God.” As believers, we belong to the Lord and we live for the Lord. Our aim is always to please Him. If you observe a special day as holy, such as Christmas or Easter (neither of which are commanded in the Bible), you should do it as unto the Lord. If you don’t feel compelled to observe special days, you still should live every day as unto the Lord. The same applies to feasting or fasting: you should do it as unto the Lord with a thankful heart. It’s your motive that matters. Unlike the pagans, who do not honor God or give Him thanks (Rom. 1:21), believers live for God’s glory with thankful hearts.
When Paul says (14:7-8), “For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself; for if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s,” he means that all of life, including dying, is to be lived with a God-ward focus. When you get saved, Jesus becomes your Lord. You recognize that He is the sovereign over your circumstances. Nothing happens to you apart from His kind and loving will. Nothing, whether “tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword,” can separate us from the love of Christ (Rom. 8:35). So, rather than living to please ourselves, as we did before we met Christ, now we live every day for Him (2 Cor. 5:9, 15). Since He has all of our days numbered (Ps. 139:16), when it comes time to die, we die for Him.
By the way, this means that suicide is never right. God is the sovereign over life and death. As believers, we should want to glorify Him in our dying as much as we have glorified Him by our lives. The Puritans used to talk about “dying well.” They did not have modern medications to dull their pain, but they wanted to glorify God in their suffering and with their dying breath.
To come back to the principle of our motives in these non-essential matters, here’s how it applies. You ask, “Can I go to a movie that contains profanity, sexual immorality, or violence?” The answer is, “Can you go to that movie ‘for the Lord’? Will going there help your relationship with Him? Will it glorify Him?” You ask, “What kind of music should I listen to?” “Which TV programs and how much TV should I watch?” “How should I spend Sundays?” “Which Bible-believing church should I join?” “How should I spend my free time?” Apply this principle to any non-essential matter where the Bible does not give a direct command: Can I do it for the Lord and His glory? Your motive is crucial.
Romans 14:9: “For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.” Christ, of course, was the Lord of all before He came to this earth. He is the eternal Son of God. But in coming to this earth as a man, Jesus subjected Himself to death on our behalf. When God raised Him from the dead, He conquered death once and for all. God highly exalted Him to His right hand and put all things in subjection to Him as the crucified and risen Lord (Eph. 1:19-23; Phil. 2:5-11). By virtue of His death and resurrection, He is “Lord both of the dead and of the living” (14:9).
This means that He is the Judge of the living and the dead (Acts 10:42; 2 Tim. 4:1; 1 Pet. 4:5). As Paul told the Athenians (Acts 17:31), God “has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.” Or, as Jesus Himself told the Jews (John 5:22-23), “For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.” By the way, that is a strong claim of Jesus’ deity. You see the same thing in our text, where Paul freely moves between “Lord” (referring to Jesus) and “God” (referring to the Father).
In Romans 14:10, Paul says (according to the best manuscripts), “For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.” In 2 Corinthians 5:10, he says, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ ….” Since God and Christ are one (John 10:30), it’s the same judgment seat. We all will give an account of ourselves to God and Christ.
Perhaps you’re thinking, “But I thought that there is no condemnation for Christians (Rom. 8:1). I thought that we will not come into judgment (John 5:24). How is it, then, that we all will stand before the judgment seat of God?”
Paul cites first a phrase from Isaiah 49:18, “‘As I live,’ says the Lord,” followed by Isaiah 45:23, “Every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall give praise to God.” Then Paul concludes (14:12), “So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God.” The point is, God is the sovereign Lord of all and hence He has the right to judge all, including believers. For believers, it will not be a determination of heaven or hell, but rather a judgment of our works. Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 3:12-15:
Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
I’m not sure what it means to “suffer loss” at the judgment, but I don’t want it to happen to me! It must involve a moment of deep regret and shame over what I have done or not done with the spiritual gifts that God has entrusted to me. But, clearly, I should live in light of that certain day ahead when I will stand before the Lord to give an account. Have I lived in light of His purposes? Have I used my time, talents, and treasure to seek first His kingdom and righteousness (Matt. 6:33)? Will I be able to say, with Paul (2 Tim. 4:7), “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith”?
Romans 14:10, “But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.” Again, this does not refer to judging our brothers over matters of sin or serious doctrinal error. We must judge one another on these matters. In this context, it refers to not judging one another over non-essential matters where the Bible gives no commands. This calls for discernment. The fact that I will stand before the judgment seat of God gives me the courage to confront a believer who is in sin or who is promoting serious error when by nature I would not do anything (Ezek. 33:1-10). It gives me the courage to teach difficult truths from God’s Word that I would be prone to skip.
But the fact that I will stand before God’s judgment seat should also cause me to refrain from speaking against a brother who may be doing or saying something that is not clearly commanded in Scripture. If I think that what he is doing or saying is spiritually immature or will cause him or others spiritual harm, I may need gently to come alongside and offer correction at the proper time. But if it’s a neutral matter, then I should assume that he is doing it for the Lord and let the Lord be his judge.
A traveler, between flights at an airport, bought a small package of cookies. Then she sat down and began reading a newspaper. Gradually, she became aware of a rustling noise. From behind her paper, she was flabbergasted to see a neatly dressed man helping himself to her cookies. Not wanting to make a scene, she leaned over and took a cookie herself.
A minute or two passed, and then came more rustling. He was helping himself to another cookie! By this time, they had come to the end of the package, but she was so angry she didn’t dare allow herself to say anything. Then, as if to add insult to injury, the man broke the remaining cookie in two, pushed half across to her, ate the other half, and left.
Still fuming some time later when her flight was announced, the woman opened her handbag to get her ticket. To her shock and embarrassment, there she found her pack of unopened cookies! Sometimes, we judge others very wrongly! (Leadership, Spring, 1991, p. 45.)
Perhaps our text can best be summed up by saying, “Don’t judge your brother on non-essential matters, because God will judge him. Judge yourself, because God will judge you” (paraphrased from F. Godet, Commentary on Romans [Kregel], p. 459).
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
In a sermon on our text, Pastor Ligon Duncan commented that someone needs to write a book, Romans 14 for Dummies, and he would be the first to buy it, because this is a difficult text to understand and apply in its context. I’d buy one, too! We’re not concerned in our day about the spiritual implications of eating or not eating meat, which is the main issue Paul was addressing. He also mentions keeping certain days as holy (14:5) and drinking wine (14:21), which may be a bit more relevant. But even so, it’s difficult to apply these verses in a way that is true to the text.
For example, I’ve heard of older believers who wrongly use this text to lay unbiblical rules on younger believers. They tell them, “As a Christian, you can’t dress or look like worldly young people do. You need to dress and look as I do. If you don’t, you’re causing me to stumble.” In some strict Christian circles, women are not allowed to wear any makeup. Sometimes men are not allowed to grow beards, but in other groups, all the men must grow beards. And so it goes!
One of the most ridiculous church splits that I’ve ever heard of happened years ago when a preacher was trying to make a point with a strong gesture and his hand got caught in his necktie. Of course this distracted the congregation from his point, so he tore off his necktie and declared that ties are from the devil. Others disagreed, and so they split into the non-tie church and the tie-wearing church. My sentiments are definitely with the non-tie brothers (I think that ties are strangulation devices), but obviously this is not a biblical reason for splitting a church!
In Romans 14:1-12, Paul’s main point is that we are to accept one another and not judge or look with contempt on those who differ with us over non-essential matters. He was talking both to weaker and stronger believers. The weaker believers were not weak in the sense of not being able to resist temptation. That kind of weakness is sin. Rather, they were weak in that they were hung up with scruples about things that the Bible does not command or with stipulations of the Jewish law that were fulfilled in Christ and thus no longer in effect. They tended to judge the Gentile believers who were not bound by these scruples. The stronger brothers (Paul classed himself with them, 15:1) realized that we are no longer under the Mosaic Law, and so they didn’t have a problem eating non-kosher meat. They realized (1 Cor. 8:8), “But food will not commend us to God; we are neither the worse if we do not eat, nor the better if we do eat.” But their tendency was to look with contempt on their Jewish brothers, belittling them for their petty rules.
Now (14:13-23), after an introductory summary that goes out to both sides (not to judge one another), Paul turns mostly to the stronger believers. He was concerned that they would flaunt their liberty in Christ to the detriment of weaker believers, who may be influenced to violate their consciences. Paul tells the stronger believers that love for their brothers should trump their use of liberty. As he states (14:15), “For if because of food your brother is hurt, you are no longer walking according to love.” So the principle is:
Love for others should govern our exercise of liberty in Christ when our liberty would cause a weaker brother to stumble.
Our main focus should not be on our liberty or our rights, but on loving our brother. Love gladly yields its rights when it is necessary to keep a weaker brother from stumbling. But while the overall principle is fairly clear, the difficulty is in the details. Let’s work through these verses, looking at four things that love does not do.
Romans 14:13: “Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this—not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way.” Paul uses a play on words here: the word translated “determine” is the same word translated “judge” earlier in the sentence. We might paraphrase, “Don’t judge your brother; rather, judge yourself so that you don’t put an obstacle or stumbling block in your brother’s way.” Keep in mind that in this chapter, Paul is talking about non-moral matters where the Bible does not give clear commands. He is not talking about judging your brother regarding sin or serious doctrinal error (which we need to do), but rather on non-moral or secondary matters.
Not judging your brother means that you do not condemn him or question his salvation over matters of doctrine where the Bible is not clear or behavior where it gives no direct commands. You can have your own convictions before God by working through the issue biblically (14:5, 22), but let your brother work out his convictions. You aren’t his judge; God is his judge and your judge, too!
The words “obstacle” and “stumbling block” are basically synonymous. “Obstacle” refers to anything that would trip up your brother. “Stumbling block” originally referred to a trap. Here it refers to any cause of spiritual downfall or ruin. Paul (Rom. 9:32-33) uses both words of Jesus, who is the “stone of stumbling” and “rock of offense” for those who try to be justified by their works. The cross of Christ offends the self-righteous because it tells them that their works can never commend them to the holy God.
To put an obstacle or stumbling block in your brother’s way would be to do something in front of a weaker brother that for you is a matter of liberty in Christ, but it’s not something that he feels free to do. When he sees you doing it, he joins you in doing it, but it violates his conscience. Perhaps he goes along with you because he wants your approval, but he gets his eyes off of living to please the Lord. He sins because he is not acting in faith (14:23). He is disobeying the Lord.
It’s difficult to come up with modern examples, but perhaps one example would be having a glass of wine or beer. The Bible does not prohibit drinking alcoholic beverages, as long as you do not get drunk and you’re not depending on the alcohol to escape from your problems. But perhaps you’re with a new believer who had a problem with alcohol before he got saved. Because of the devastating effects alcohol had on his life, he now believes that it’s wrong to have even one drink. You’re out to dinner with him and you order a beer or a glass of wine with your meal. Your brother sees this and wants to fit in, so he orders a drink with his food, but in so doing, he violates his conscience. His guilt causes him to fall away from the Lord. Perhaps he begins drinking to excess again. You have put a stumbling block in your brother’s way.
Does this mean that you must become a teetotaler? Well, there may be good reasons to do that, but not necessarily. The entire church is not limited by the conscience of the weakest believers in its midst. But you should not flaunt your liberty in front of a weaker believer when you know that it’s an issue for him (see 1 Cor. 10:23-30). Out of love for him, limit your liberty in his presence. As the Lord gives opportunity, you may teach him about true liberty in Christ. But don’t do anything that would cause him to violate his conscience by following your example. That’s the next point, which Paul explains in verse 14:
Romans 14:14: “I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.” “Nothing” here is limited by the context. Paul is not saying that you can do anything you feel like doing! The Bible gives clear, absolute, binding moral commandments. To violate these commands is to disobey God and defile yourself. Paul is talking about non-moral matters, where Scripture is silent. He is especially talking here about the matter of eating or not eating certain foods. He is saying (and this was radical for a former Pharisee like Paul!) that the Old Testament laws for clean and unclean foods were no longer in effect.
Paul underlines what he says with strong conviction: “I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus.” This could mean that the Lord had revealed these things directly to Paul, perhaps during his time in Arabia shortly after his conversion. Or, perhaps he knew what Jesus said (Mark 7:18-23), that it is not what goes into a man’s mouth that defiles him, but what comes out of his heart that defiles him. Mark (7:19) adds his own editorial comment, “(Thus He declared all foods clean.)” God showed Peter the same truth through a vision before he went to preach the gospel at the house of the Gentile centurion, Cornelius (Acts 10:15), “What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.” Paul mentions the same thing in relation to food (1 Tim. 4:4-5), “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude; for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.” (See, also, 1 Cor. 8:4-8.)
Okay, if Paul is so convinced that we’re free to eat anything, then what’s the big deal? Just eat what you want and don’t worry about it! No, because Paul adds, “but to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.” In other words, it is wrong to violate your conscience, even if your conscience is not completely in line with Scripture. God gave the conscience as an inner “faults alarm.” It goes off when you think you’re at fault. As Paul said (Rom. 2:15), even the Gentiles who do not have the law of God have a conscience that either accuses or defends them. They will be guilty before God someday because when they violated their conscience, in their heart they were disobeying God.
Again, it’s important to keep in mind here that the weaker brother is not a legalist who would never be tempted to do what he sees you doing as you exercise your liberty in Christ. To use the drinking illustration, the weaker brother is not the teetotaler who would never touch a drop of alcohol even if he was dying of thirst. Rather, it’s the brother for whom to drink a beer would violate his conscience. He does not have the liberty in Christ to do what you are free to do. But he sees you drinking and it tempts him to join in, even though he thinks that he shouldn’t. So out of love don’t flaunt your liberty in front of him and cause him to sin.
But you may be thinking, “Don’t I have a right to drink a beer or a glass of wine? Why should I have to limit my freedom because of the weaker brother’s hang-ups? Why doesn’t he just grow up?”
Romans 14:15: “For if because of food your brother is hurt, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not destroy with your food him for whom Christ died.” The argument here is, “If Christ loved this brother enough to die for him on the cross, then don’t you think that you should love him enough to be willing to give up your ham sandwich (or glass of wine) so that you don’t lead him into sin?” In other words, get some perspective: Your sacrifice of some liberty is nothing compared to Christ’s sacrifice of His very life! Since Jesus called us to love one another as He loved us, the least you can do is to give up your right to certain liberties for the sake of your weaker brother.
But what does Paul mean when he talks about destroying your brother? He uses the same Greek word (translated “ruined”) in 1 Cor. 8:11: “For through your knowledge he who is weak is ruined, the brother for whose sake Christ died.” It’s a very strong word, used most often to refer to eternal damnation. Paul uses it this way in Romans 2:12, “For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law ….” It’s also translated “perish” to refer to damnation in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
Because of this, a number of scholars who believe in the eternal security of believers nonetheless argue that Paul is saying that if you cause a weaker brother to sin by violating his conscience, you could cause his damnation. They explain this by saying that if the weaker brother falls away so as to perish, then he was a “brother” in name only, not in actual fact. Also, since Jesus will not lose any of His sheep for whom He laid down His life (John 10:28-29; 17:2, 12), they have to say that Christ didn’t actually die as a substitute for this so-called brother. It only appeared for a while that this weaker brother was one of God’s elect. But his falling away proves that he was not.
Also, they explain that God uses severe warnings in Scripture to cause the elect to persevere. For example, Paul says that Christ has reconciled you and will present you holy and blameless before God (Col. 1:23), “if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel ….” The warning passages in Hebrews sound as if true believers could perish, but the severity of the warnings causes true believers to turn from sin and continue in the faith.
One example of this use of means to accomplish God’s promises is when Paul was on the boat about to be shipwrecked. The angel of the Lord appeared to him and promised that none on the ship would perish. But a short time later when the sailors tried to escape on the ship’s small boat, Paul told the centurion that unless these men remained on board the ship, the centurion and his men would not be saved (Acts 27:22-24, 31). Paul’s warning was heeded, the sailors stayed on board, and all were saved.
While I greatly respect these scholars who say that the word destroy here means eternal destruction and I agree with some of the arguments that they put forth in other contexts, it seems to me that the context here overrides the usual meaning of the word and that here Paul means that flaunting your liberty will damage your brother’s walk with God, not that you will cause a professing believer to go to eternal damnation. It’s still a serious matter—we shouldn’t minimize how bad it is to hurt a brother’s walk with God. But I think that it goes too far here to insist on the usual meaning of destroy. Here are some reasons why I think as I do:
First as John Stott says, (pp. 365-366, cited by Sam Storms on enjoyingGodministries.com), “Are we really to believe that a Christian brother’s single act against his own conscience—which in any case is not his fault but the fault of the strong who have misled him, and which is therefore an unintentional mistake, not a deliberate disobedience—merits eternal condemnation? No, hell is reserved only for the stubborn, the impenitent, those who willfully persist in wrongdoing.” Granted, perhaps this act of violating his conscience could lead to further violations, until finally he makes shipwreck of his faith (1 Tim. 1:19). So if we’ve caused a brother to stumble, we need to do all that we can to restore him. But our one sin that resulted in our brother’s sin does not cause him to perish.
Also (as Martyn Lloyd-Jones argues, Romans: Liberty and Conscience [Banner of Truth], p. 191), the ultimate destiny of another soul is never in our hands. If we could cause anyone to be eternally lost, then our power would be greater than God’s, who alone is able both to save and to keep us for eternity (Rom. 8:31-39). Also (Lloyd-Jones, p. 192), if sinning against our conscience results in perishing, we all would perish, because we’ve all sinned in this manner. But the Lord promises that those to whom He gives eternal life can never perish (John 10:28).
The practical application is that we should be very sensitive about not doing anything that might cause a weaker believer to violate his conscience. If we have sinned in this way, we should do all that we can to help get him back on track with the Lord. Love does not insist on its rights if doing so would damage a weaker brother’s walk with God.
Thus love does not judge others on non-essential matters, but rather determines not to put a stumbling block in a brother’s way. Love does not cause a weaker brother to violate his conscience. Love does not insist on its rights to the point of destroying a weaker brother’s walk with God. Finally,
Romans 14:16: “Therefore do not let what is for you a good thing be spoken of as evil; …” Some say that the “good thing” refers to the gospel, but in the context it seems to refer to the liberty that we enjoy in Christ as a result of the gospel. Paul does not say who it is that speaks evil of your liberty that has caused harm to a brother. It may be other weak believers, who say, “Look at what your liberty in Christ did! You have liberty, but where’s your love?” Or it could be unbelievers, who see that you’re not walking in love and scoff at the message behind your liberty, namely, the gospel. Either way, the testimony of Christ, which is supposed to result in believers loving one another, will be damaged.
The late Bible teacher, H. A. Ironside, was once at a Sunday School picnic in Detroit where a former Muslim from India who had come to know Christ was present. His name was Mohammed Ali (not the boxer!) and he ran his father’s tea business in the States. As Ironside and he were chatting, a young woman came by passing out sandwiches. Ironside helped himself to several of them, but when Mr. Ali learned that they were all pork or ham, he refused to take any. The young woman laughingly said, “Why, Mr. Ali, you surprise me. Are you so under law that you can’t eat pork? Don’t you know that a Christian is at liberty to eat any kind of meat?”
“I am at liberty to eat it,” he said, “but I am also at liberty to let it alone. You know that I was brought up a strict Muslim. My old father, nearly eighty years of age now, is still a Muslim. Every three years I go back to India to give an account of the business and to visit the folks at home. Always I know how I will be greeted. The friends will be sitting inside. My father will come to the door and say, ‘Mohammed, have those infidels taught you to eat the filthy hog meat yet?’ ‘No, father,’ I will say. ‘Pork has never passed my lips.’ Then I can go in and have the opportunity to preach Christ to them. If I took one of your sandwiches, I could not preach Christ to my father the next time I go home.” (Edited from H. A. Ironside, 1 Corinthians [Loizeaux Brothers], pp. 244-246.)
That converted Muslim was willing to limit his liberty in Christ for the sake of the gospel. Whether towards unbelievers or toward weaker Christians, out of love we should not insist on our rights if it would damage the testimony of Christ.
As I said, it is difficult to extrapolate the principles that Paul sets forth here into modern situations. The first thing to determine is whether the Bible speaks directly to the situation. If so, obey what it commands. If not, don’t think first about your rights to liberty. Rather, think about your weaker brother’s spiritual growth. Love trumps liberty. Love says, “My liberty is no big deal. The big deal is that my brother grows in his walk with Christ.”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Stephen Covey and Roger and Rebecca Merrill begin their book on time management, First Things First [Fireside/Simon & Schuster], with a chapter titled, “How Many People on Their Deathbed Wish They’d Spent More Time at the Office?” The subtitle is, “The enemy of the ‘best’ is the ‘good’” (p. 17). Toward the end of the book (p. 301, italics his), Mr. Covey writes, “I deeply believe that if we attend to all other duties and responsibilities in life and neglect the family it would be analogous to straightening deck chairs on the Titanic.”
One of the most poignant books that I have read is Days of Glory, Seasons of Night [Zondervan, 1984], by Marilee Pierce Dunker. It’s the story of her father, Bob Pierce, who founded the well-known Christian relief organization, World Vision. He was a successful evangelist, seeing thousands make professions of faith at crusades that he held in the Far East. He was highly respected in Christian circles as a great leader. He raised millions to help the needy in Asia. And yet he abandoned his family for the ministry. One daughter committed suicide. He and his wife eventually divorced. And World Vision, the organization that he founded, had to fire him because of his explosive temper and his refusal to work well with others. He was very successful at some good things, but he failed at the main thing.
Many other Christians have done the same thing: succeeded in their careers, only to fail at home. Some have built hugely successful ministries, only to succumb to pride or immorality. They failed to keep their relationship with God as the main thing. Even in less dramatic ways, it’s easy in the local church to get enamored with numbers, but to run roughshod over people. It’s easy to get into a battle over some minor issue and forget the cause of the gospel.
In the Roman church, some were flaunting their liberty in Christ to eat whatever they wanted to eat, but they were not sensitive about how their actions affected their weaker brothers, who had not let go of the food regulations in the Law of Moses. The stronger brothers were putting their liberty above love, which should have been the main thing.
So Paul appealed to the stronger brothers not to hurt their weaker brothers by causing them to violate their consciences by eating food that they believed was wrong to eat. In Romans 14:16, he says, “Therefore do not let what is for you a good thing be spoken of as evil.” In other words, don’t let your liberty in Christ (a good thing) be the cause of your brother’s spiritual downfall. Then (14:17-18), he explains, “For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who in this way serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men.” He’s saying,
God’s kingdom is the main thing and it centers not on external matters, but on our relationship with God and with others.
Paul is saying, “Keep the main thing as your main thing.” He gives us this warning because …
Ray Stedman in one of his books said that he once heard of a church that got into an argument over whether they ought to have a Christmas tree at their Christmas programs. Some thought a tree was fine and they understood it in a Christian sense. Others thought no, Christmas trees are of pagan origin and you should not have any Christmas trees. And so when the time came for the party, one group brought in a Christmas tree. The other group dragged the tree out. The first group dragged it back in again. They got into a squabble and finally actually some fist fights broke out at the Christmas party over the Christmas tree. Eventually, the whole thing was in the newspapers because they ended up suing each other. Ray said, “What else could non-Christians conclude but that the gospel consists in whether you have a Christmas tree or not?” (From a sermon by S. Lewis Johnson, “No Stumbling Blocks,” on Romans 14:13-23, sljinstitute.net)
The Pharisees in Jesus’ time are a classic example of focusing on secondary matters and missing the main thing. Jesus reamed them out (Matt. 23:23-24), “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!” The law commanded tithing, but these men had gotten so carried away with tithing that they even counted out a tenth of their table spices! All the while, Jesus says, they neglected the heart of the law, which was justice, mercy, and faithfulness.
The apostle John brings out the same contradiction with exquisite irony when he points out (John 18:28) that when the Jewish leaders led Jesus to Pilate so that they could crucify Him, they would not go into the Praetorium so that they would not be defiled, because they wanted to eat the Passover! Here they were, crucifying the sinless Son of God, but they didn’t want to defile themselves by walking on Gentile ground so that they could observe their religious ritual!
Of course, Paul himself had been the same way. He was so zealous for the Law that he was persecuting anyone who was a Jewish follower of Jesus. He was imprisoning and even killing Christians in the name of religion, but he had missed the main thing, which is to know Jesus Christ (see Phil. 3:4-11).
What are some ways that we’re prone to focus on secondary matters and neglect the main thing? I’ve seen some who are at church every time the door is open. They give hours every week to serving, which is a good thing. But their personal walk with God is virtually non-existent. Often there are serious problems in their families, which they dodge by serving at church.
Others are hung up on external matters to the neglect of a person’s relationship with God. I read of a father who would brag to his friends about how his three daughters didn’t drink, smoke, dance, play cards, or go to movies. But there was severe conflict between the man and his daughters, because they felt like he was forcing them to be freaks. They weren’t abstaining from these things because they loved God and wanted to honor Him. That dad was majoring on the minors, but missing the main thing. As soon as the girls were old enough, they rebelled and left the church.
I knew another father who forced his adopted teenage daughter to have a daily quiet time. It’s a good thing to have a daily quiet time, if you’re motivated by the desire to know Christ better. The dad meant well, but in effect, he was making a secondary thing the main thing. The daughter hated being forced to have a quiet time, along with all the other rules that her parents laid on her. Eventually she sued her parents and the state took her away from them. The parents were on a Focus on the Family program telling of how the state was usurping parental rights. I think that the crisis could have been averted if they had kept the main thing as the main thing. So, what is the main thing?
This is Paul’s only reference to God’s “kingdom” in Romans. He only uses the word 14 times in all of his letters (here; 1 Cor. 4:20; 6:9, 10; 15:24, 50; Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:5; Col. 1:13, 4:11; 1 Thess. 2:12; 2 Thess. 1:5; 2 Tim. 4:1, 18). Here Paul is saying that the main thing is not exercising your liberty in Christ or your rights. The main thing is God’s kingdom. But what does he mean by “the kingdom of God”?
George Ladd wrote (Evangelical Dictionary of Theology [Baker], ed. by Walter Elwell, p. 608), “The ‘kingdom of God’ means primarily the rule of God, the divine kingly authority.” In the New Testament, he explains (ibid.), “The kingdom of God is the divine authority and rule given by the Father to the Son (Luke 22:29). Christ will exercise this rule until he has subdued all that is hostile to God. When he has put all enemies under his feet, he will return the kingdom—his messianic authority—to the Father (1 Cor. 15:24-28).”
A kingdom has a king, and Jesus is God’s anointed King (Ps. 2:6-7). We are either in Satan’s domain of darkness (Matt. 4:8; 12:26) or in God’s kingdom, subject to His King. Paul said (Col. 1:13), “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Jesus said that we can only enter God’s kingdom through the new birth (John 3:3, 5). Thus He preached (Mark 1:15), “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” The gospel (good news) is that God sent His only Son to bear the punishment that we deserve for our sins. He forgives all our sins and imputes the righteousness of Jesus Christ to those who believe in Him. As we’ve seen, the gospel of God is the main theme of the book of Romans (1:1, 16, 17). So God’s kingdom exists now wherever Jesus reigns in the hearts of His people who submit to His rule.
But Jesus also spoke about His kingdom that would come in fullness in the future when He returns. He taught us to pray (Matt. 6:10), “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” As He gave them the cup, Jesus told the disciples at the last supper (Matt. 26:29), “But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.” That kingdom will come when Jesus comes again bodily, in His glory. Some (amillennialists) believe that Jesus’ Second Coming will usher in the new heavens and new earth, also called the eternal state. They view the 1,000 years in Revelation 20:1-10 as symbolic for this age when Christ reigns over the church. Others (premillennialists, I am of this persuasion) believe that Jesus will reign on earth for a thousand years in fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel.
So I understand God’s kingdom to be an already, but not yet, sort of thing. It already exists wherever people surrender to Jesus Christ as Lord. We experience a taste of His kingdom rule now. But when He returns in power and glory, He will subdue all of His enemies, including Satan, who will be bound and cast into a pit for the 1,000 years (Rev. 20:2). During that time, Jesus will rule the nations with a rod of iron (Rev. 19:15). God’s kingdom will then reign on earth through Jesus in its fullness. At the end of the 1,000 years, Satan will be released for a final rebellion. He will then be finally defeated and thrown into the lake of fire, along with all who have not submitted to Christ (Rev. 20:7-10). Then will come the new heavens and earth, in which righteousness dwells (Rev. 21:1; 2 Pet. 3:13).
So the crucial question is, “Are you in God’s kingdom right now?” Have you trusted in Jesus Christ as your Savior? Are you in submission to Him as your King, or Lord? That’s the main thing! Don’t major on the minors. Keep the main thing as the main thing. Make sure that your life, beginning on the thought level, is subject to Jesus Christ as your King!
Romans 14:17, “For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Godly scholars divide into two camps over the interpretation of these three qualities, righteousness, peace, and joy. Is Paul describing our standing or position in Christ, or is he describing practical righteousness, relational peace, and the joy we experience with one another as we live in harmony? I agree with Leon Morris (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 489) who writes, “It seems likely that Paul is not differentiating sharply between these two views and that he is using the expression in a way that suggests both.” He also thinks that the concluding words, “in the Holy Spirit,” apply to all three qualities, not just to “joy.”
Here’s why I agree with Morris: First, earlier in Romans, Paul emphasizes that the gospel is all about the righteousness of God being imputed to those who believe in Jesus as the sacrifice for their sins (1:16-17; 3:21-26; 4:1-25). In 5:1-2, Paul mentions these three qualities: “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God.” To be “justified by faith” is to be declared righteous by God. This brings us into peace with God, leading to our exulting (“joy”) in the hope of the glory of God. Since all three qualities are produced by (or in the sphere of) the Holy Spirit and are characteristic of God’s kingdom, they must at least in part refer to our relationship with God.
But our relationship with God necessarily affects our relationship with our fellow members in His kingdom. Because of our new standing as righteous before God, we seek to practice righteousness (Rom. 6:13, 18; 1 John 2:29; 3:7). Because we have peace with God, we are to pursue peace with others (Rom. 14:19; Eph. 2:14-22). Because we know the joy of God’s salvation, we love to share our joy with others who enjoy the same blessings. Also, verse 18 argues for these three terms applying both to our standing before God and our relationships with one another: “For he who in this way serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men.” We are acceptable to God because He has imputed Christ’s righteousness to us. We are approved by men as they see our practical righteousness, our desire for peace, and our joy in the Holy Spirit. So I think that Paul is saying that our righteous standing before God through faith in Christ, the peace that we enjoy with God because of being reconciled to Him, and the joy of our salvation are the basis for our righteous deeds, our peace with our brothers and sisters in Christ, and our shared joy in the Lord.
So these three qualities serve as a summary of being in God’s kingdom: we are rightly related to God and to one another, which are the two great commandments. These qualities are a benchmark by which you can evaluate whether you are focused on the main thing. Do you know that you are in right standing with God, that all of your sins are forgiven, and that you are clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ? Do you know that you are at peace with God? The answer to these questions is another question: Have you let go of the pride of trying to establish your own righteousness and instead trusted in Christ alone (Rom. 9:30-10:4)? As Paul states (sness to everyone who believes.”
If you have trusted in Christ, then ask yourself, “Am I consistently experiencing the joy of my salvation?” If not, there could be a number of reasons. You may not be spending enough time thinking about God’s abundant grace that you received in the gospel. You may not be processing your trials through the lens of the hope of the gospel (Rom. 5:1-5; James 1:2-4; 1 Pet. 1:3-9). Or, you may be yielding to temptation and sin, which always robs you of joy in your relationship with God. But your relationship with God as a subject of His kingdom is the main thing. Follow the practice of the godly George Muller, who used to make the first business of every day to seek to be truly at rest and happy in God (George Muller of Bristol, by A. T. Pierson [Revell], p. 257).
Then evaluate your relationships with others, especially with your brothers and sisters in God’s kingdom. Are you practicing righteousness in your relationships? Do you think of others’ needs and how you can serve them? Are you at peace with others? If you have offended or wronged someone, have you sought to make it right? Have you asked forgiveness for your wrongs and granted forgiveness to those who have wronged you? Do you enjoy sharing in the things of God with His people?
All of these qualities grow in us as we walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. Righteousness (overcoming sin) is the opposite of the deeds of the flesh and is promised to those who walk in the Spirit (Gal. 5:16-21). Love, joy, and peace are His fruits (Gal. 5:22). All of the fruits of the Spirit have a relational dimension. To walk in the Spirit is to yield to the Spirit on a moment by moment basis. It is to trust in the Spirit’s power for victory over sin.
Having healthy, godly relationships that flow from our relationship with God is the main thing. You can win arguments about theology, but shred relationships. You’re off track. You can prove that you’re right and your mate is wrong, but you’re off track. You can take pride in what you do for the Lord, but you’re off track. The main thing is God’s kingdom, where He rules and you submit. God’s kingdom centers on your relationship with Him and with others. Keep that as the main thing!
Romans 14:18: “For he who in this way serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men.” “This way” refers to the way that Paul has just described in verse 17: You serve Christ by focusing on righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. To serve in a way that is “acceptable to God” goes back to Romans 12:1-2, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
To be “approved by men” stands in contrast to verse 16, where others speak evil of those who have hurt their brothers by flaunting their liberty. But how can we be approved by men? Jesus said that the world will hate us because we’re not like them and because He chose us out of the world (John 15:18-19). He told us to expect opposition from the world (John 16:2). So how do we harmonize this with being approved by men?
Paul seems to mean here that if we lay aside our rights and demonstrate genuine concern and love for our brothers and sisters in Christ, the world must at least acknowledge that we are genuine. They won’t be able to accuse us of being hypocrites. It’s the same as Paul said of elders, that they must have a good reputation with those outside of the church (1 Tim. 3:7). If he is a businessman, he must have a reputation for being honest. He must treat others with respect and kindness. Even if they don’t agree with your Christian faith, they must admit that you treated them rightly (see 1 Cor. 10:32-33).
Years ago, Donald Grey Barnhouse was teaching about Christians being in the world, but not of the world. He concluded by saying, “You may be sure that if nobody thinks you are strange and out of step, you are not a good Christian.” After the message, a friend who had been present added wisely, “However, you should also say that if everybody thinks you are strange and out of step, you are not a good Christian” (told by James Boice, Romans: The New Humanity [Baker], 4:1784).
So don’t spend your life arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Keep the main thing as your main thing. God’s kingdom is the main thing and it centers not on external matters, but on our relationship with Him and with others.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
I’ve told you before about my college physics professor who would begin every class by explaining his teaching method. He would say, “Class, I’m going to tell you what I’m going to tell you. Then I’m going to tell you. Then I’ll tell you what I told you. Then I’ll review.” He knew that repetition is the key to teaching well.
The apostle Paul was a master teacher, and so he often follows the method of my physics professor. The verses that we’re going to look at today don’t say much that is new. Instead, they say one more time what Paul has already said. But since the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to repeat these concepts, rather than tuning out, we need to tune in. Apparently these are things that we may be prone to forget and so we need to hear them again.
The content is arranged in a loose chiastic (ABCC’B’A’) format (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 850, points this out, although I’ve expanded his analysis somewhat).
A: 14:5: Be fully convinced in your own mind.
B: 14:13: Don’t put a stumbling block in your brother’s way.
C: 14:14: Nothing (no food) is unclean.
D: 14:15: Do not destroy your brother.
E: 14:16: Do not let your good (liberty) be spoken of as evil.
F: 14:17: The kingdom of God is … peace.
F’: 14:19: Pursue the things that make for peace.
E’: 14:20: Your clean food becomes evil if you hurt a brother.
D’: 14:20: Do not tear down the work of God.
C’: 14:20: All things indeed are clean.
B’: 14:21: Don’t do anything by which your brother stumbles.
A’: 14:22: Have your own conviction before God.
The practical heart of the passage is 14:17, 19: “For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit…. So then let us pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another.” There is a textual variant of one letter in verse 19 that changes the subjunctive, “let us pursue” (old NASB) into the indicative, “we pursue” (updated NASB). But most commentators argue that the context demands the subjunctive. In other words, Paul is urging us not to put our rights or minor issues in place of the main issue, which is God’s kingdom and the relationships that we are to promote as members of that kingdom. I’d like to go over Paul’s “review” by pointing out four things:
As Christians, we should pursue godly relationships, preserve godly priorities, develop godly convictions, and maintain a good conscience.
Romans 14:19: “So then let us pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another.” In the context, Paul is mainly addressing the need for Gentile and Jewish believers to get along so that the church would not be fragmented along racial lines. The Jewish believers tended to cling to the Law of Moses, including its regulations about clean and unclean foods. It was difficult for them to let those things go. But the Gentile believers, coming to Christ out of paganism, didn’t understand why there was all the fuss over food. They had no problem eating a steak that had been offered to an idol in the pagan temple before it showed up at the meat market. So the Gentile Christians tended to look with contempt on the Jewish believers for being legalistic, whereas the Jews tended to judge the Gentiles for being licentious.
The problem had two ramifications. First, if a Jewish Christian saw a Gentile Christian eating what to the Jew was “defiled” meat, it could lead to a break in their relationship. The Jew might think, “I’m not going to have anything to do with a so-called Christian who is so licentious!” Or, the Gentile believer might think, “I’m not going to be friends with a person who is hung up over such legalism. He needs to grow up!” And so their personal relationship would be ruptured.
In a worst case scenario, the entire church could be divided along the lines of the meat eater faction and the vegetarian or kosher meat only faction. But for Paul, it was central to the very concept of the church that it was composed of “Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman,” with Christ as “all and in all” (Col. 3:11). To divide over secondary matters would send the wrong message about the power of the gospel and the testimony of Christ to the watching world.
By the way, this is one reason that I refuse to divide up the church into a “traditional” (sometimes called, “classic”) service and a “contemporary” service. This effectively divides a church along age lines. The older folks were raised on the traditional hymns, accompanied by the organ and piano. It warms their hearts to sing the familiar old hymns. So they all flock to the traditional service. Younger believers who were not raised in the church can’t relate to the old hymns. They sound archaic to them. So they flock to the service with newer music. And so the church is divided.
But I think that God wants the church to be like a family, where there are grandparents, parents, and grandkids all coming together to enjoy one another’s company and learn from each other. The younger people can benefit by learning some of the great hymns. Granted, some of those old hymns need to be put to rest, but some of them need to be passed on to the next generation. Perhaps the tunes need to be updated, but the words are rich and spiritually nourishing. And the older people should rejoice when they see young people coming to Christ and let their youthful zeal warm their hearts afresh with the power of the gospel. So we need to yield to each other and be committed to preserving “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3). But especially the stronger, more mature believers need to yield their rights to the younger saints. That is the thrust of Romans 14:13-23.
The second aspect of the problem was that if a Jewish Christian saw a Gentile Christian eating “defiled” meat and because of this the Jewish Christian went against his conscience and ate the same meat, he would be sinning. Also, the Gentile Christian would be sinning by influencing his weaker brother to violate his conscience. Since sin always has devastating consequences, Paul does not want either side to fall into sin.
So Paul gives this exhortation (14:19): “So then let us pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another.” “Pursue” is not a passive concept. You don’t pursue something accidentally. It takes deliberate effort and persistence. “Pursue” is the same word that is sometimes translated “persecute.” We saw the word used in the two senses in Romans 12:13-14, where Paul said (literally), “pursuing hospitality,” and then, “Bless those who persecute you.” We are to go after hospitality with the same determination that a persecutor goes after his victim. Here (14:19) we should determine to go after the things that make for peace and the building up of one another. We aren’t to be laid back about it, thinking, “Well, if it happens, that’s cool!” Rather, we are to go after these things with determined zeal.
A mother with a scout troop said to her son, “I will not take any of you to the zoo if you don’t forgive Billy for stealing your candy bar.”
“But Billy doesn’t want to be forgiven,” her son complained. “He won’t even listen.”
“Then make him,” his irate mother demanded.
Suddenly, her son chased Billy, knocked him to the ground, sat on him, and yelled, “I forgive you for stealing my candy bar, but I’d sure find it easier to forget if you’d wipe the chocolate off your face!” (Josephine Ligon, “Your Daffodils are Pretty,” Christianity Today [3/2/1979], p. 18)
Well, we aren’t to be that aggressive in pursuing peace, but we are to pursue it! Do you do this? Do you do all that you can to try to make peace with your brother or sister in Christ when you’re at odds? Before you speak, do you pause to consider, “What will build him (or her) up in Christ?” As Paul says (Eph. 4:29), “Let no unwholesome [lit., rotten] word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.” What about with your mate? If husbands and wives would pursue the things that make for peace and the building up of one another, the air in our homes would be filled with the fragrant peace of Christ!
You may be thinking, “Yeah, but if you only knew how rude he was to me!” “If you had heard what he said to me!” “If you knew how she nags me and snaps at me!” “Don’t I have a right to be treated with some kindness and love?”
But the Bible doesn’t give us those kinds of loopholes: “Pursue peace and building up one another, except when you’ve been treated wrongly!!” “Go after peace and building up the other person except when he deserves the silent treatment!”
Maybe you’re thinking, “Am I just supposed to be a doormat? Am I just supposed to absorb his abusive speech? If I don’t fight back, I’ll get trampled!” The biblical answer is that sometimes you are supposed to just absorb it. I’m not talking about physical abuse, but about times when someone is rude or mean or insensitive. At other times, especially in marriage, you should try to talk about it in a way that will not lead to more conflict. Approach it from the standpoint of, “I love you and I want our relationship to be all that God wants it to be. But when you say such and such or you treat me like that, it makes me want to pull away from you. So could we communicate in a way that builds up one another?” Here are God’s inspired commands (1 Pet. 3:8-12):
To sum up, all of you be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit; not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead; for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing. For, ‘The one who desires life, to live and see good days, must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. He must turn away from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and His ears attend to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.’”
In other words, if you seek peace and pursue it when you’re wronged, the Lord notices. He will listen to your prayers. He will take up your cause against those who have wronged you. But your job is to pursue peace and the things that build up the other person. This does not mean “peace at any cost,” because often that does not build up the other person. If the other person is sinning or is embracing seriously wrong doctrine, you are not building him up to ignore his behavior. But, our aim should be to pursue godly relationships. Love for one another is the second greatest command in God’s kingdom.
Romans 14:20-21: “Do not tear down the work of God for the sake of food. All things indeed are clean, but they are evil for the man who eats and gives offense. It is good not to eat meat or to drink wine, or to do anything by which your brother stumbles.”
Paul is repeating here that the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking (14:17). Also, he is repeating that all foods are clean (14:14), as Jesus said (Mark 7:18-23). But that doesn’t mean that the stronger brother can ignore the scruples of his weaker brother. The priority is not our right to eat or drink whatever we want. The priority is the work of God, His kingdom. If you ignore that and pursue your “rights” to the disregard of your weaker brother, your food or drink becomes evil.
The phrase at the end of verse 20 is ambiguous. It is literally, “but they are evil for the man who eats with offense.” Some understand this to refer to the weaker brother, who sins by eating meat against his conscience. But in the context, it refers to the stronger brother who eats and causes his weaker brother to stumble. Eating whatever you want or drinking a glass of wine or a beer is not sin in and of itself. But if a weaker brother sees you doing what you’re at liberty to do and he is led to violate his conscience by doing the same, your eating and drinking becomes sin for you. As Paul said (14:15), “you are no longer walking according to love.”
The phrase “the work of God” is unusual. It’s only found one other place in the New Testament (John 6:29), and then with a different sense. Scholars are divided here over whether it refers to tearing down an individual Christian or to damaging the church. In the context, Paul has been emphasizing that we are not to do anything to cause a brother to stumble, so it must refer on a primary level to the individual. But hurting a brother can also lead to damaging the entire church. His friends will take up his cause and your friends take up your cause, and soon the church is at war, leading to divisions over secondary matters. It’s frightening to realize that by our selfish behavior, we can damage a brother who is a work of God, a new creation in Christ (Eph. 2:10; 2 Cor. 5:17). And our selfishness could ultimately damage the church for which Christ died (1 Cor. 3:16-17).
So Paul’s point in these verses is that if we selfishly put our rights above a brother’s spiritual growth and above God’s kingdom, relationships will suffer and God’s work will be damaged. People will speak evil of what for us is a good thing (14:16). And so we need to preserve the godly priority of His kingdom, which focuses on our relationship with Him and with others, rather than on our rights with regard to secondary issues.
Romans 14:22: “The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves.” Paul is repeating here what he stated in 14:5b, “Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind.” Again, he is not talking about matters where the Bible gives clear moral commands. He is not saying, “If you think that adultery is okay, just be convinced in your own mind.” Or, “If you think that stealing is allowed in certain circumstances, just have that as your own conviction before God.” Adultery, stealing, and many other things are always sin for all people in all circumstances. Your conviction to the contrary does not make them okay. God’s Word, not our opinion, defines what is sinful.
Rather, Paul is talking about developing convictions in areas where the Bible does not give direct commands. The Bible never says, for instance, “You shall not watch movies.” It doesn’t say, “You shall not play computer games or watch TV for hours every day.” It does not say, “All alcoholic beverages are sinful,” although it does say that we should not get drunk or depend on alcohol for relief. You have to develop convictions about these and many other things by extrapolating biblical principles that apply.
You will change in your understanding of these things as you grow in Christ. As a newer believer, you may not be bothered by going to movies that are filled with profanity, sexual scenes, or violence. But as you grow in your understanding of God’s Word, you will realize that certain kinds of movies are defiling and do not help your growth in Christ. So you develop a conviction that for you, those movies are off limits. As you grow in the Lord, it will dawn on you that you are wasting gobs of time that you could be spending furthering God’s kingdom purposes playing computer games. And so you’ll limit your time in that activity. It becomes your conviction before God. It isn’t a legalistic rule. Rather, you are applying Paul’s counsel (1 Cor. 10:23), “All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify.”
Paul says that you are happy (“blessed” is a better translation) if you do not condemn yourself in any non-biblical activities that you believe God allows you to do. He means that if you have a conviction that it’s okay to do (or not to do) something (in an area where the Bible gives no command), then you’re blessed to hold and follow such convictions. It shows that you have thought things through biblically. You’re not just following the crowd. And, you’re not violating your conscience, which is his last point:
Romans 14:23: “But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and whatever is not from faith is sin.” Paul refers here to the weak brother, but he’s still speaking to the strong brother, showing him why he needs to be careful with his liberty. If by his exercising his liberty, the strong brother causes a weak Christian to go against his conscience, he’s influencing the weaker brother to sin. When Paul says, “he who doubts is condemned,” I do not agree with those who say that Paul is referring here to eternal condemnation. Rather, Paul means it in the sense that Peter stood condemned (a different Greek word, but the same idea) when he acted with hypocrisy in Antioch (Gal. 2:11; see 1 John 3:20-21). He was guilty of sin. If a weak Christian violates his conscience, he has sinned.
Paul explains that the reason he has sinned is “because his eating is not from faith; and whatever is not from faith is sin.” While it’s a general principle that we sin if we do not trust God in every situation, in this context Paul’s meaning is more focused. “Faith” here refers to a person’s conviction before God (14:22). As Douglas Moo explains (ibid., p. 863), “What he here labels ‘sin,’ … is any act that does not match our sincerely held convictions about what our Christian faith allows us to do and prohibits us from doing.” He adds (pp. 863-864), “Violation of the dictates of the conscience, even when the conscience does not conform perfectly with God’s will, is sinful.”
Over time, you should educate your conscience through a diligent study of God’s Word. Your convictions will become progressively conformed to the principles of Scripture. But you should not go against your conscience, even if you see other Christians doing something that you think is wrong or even if they tell you that you’re free to do it, because that isn’t your conviction yet. If you act against your conscience, you’re doing something that you think God doesn’t want you to do. You’re not acting in the faith which you have as your own conviction before God. That, for you, is sin.
Since “Professor” Paul goes over it one more time, let me go over it one more time: First, as Christians, we should pursue godly relationships by diligently working for peace and doing the things that build up one another. Are you doing that, beginning at home? Second, as Christians, we should preserve godly priorities. Keep the main thing as the main thing. Don’t tear down the work of God in a brother or in Christ’s church over secondary matters. Don’t put your rights ahead of helping other Christians grow. Third, as Christians, we should develop godly convictions. Don’t go with the flow of our culture, even if it’s our Christian culture. Study the Word continually to see how it applies to modern issues. Finally, as Christians we must maintain a good conscience. Don’t do anything that you think is wrong. As Paul put it (Acts 24:16), “Do [your] best to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before men.” These four things will appear on the final exam! Class dismissed!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Here are a couple of phrases that you will never need to teach your toddler: “That’s mine!” and “Me first!” Because of the fall, we all come pre-wired to put ourselves in first place. We never hear a three-year-old naturally say, “You can have the last cookie,” or, “Please, go ahead of me.” When I was a boy and was acting selfishly toward my sister or brother, my mother would always say, “The way you spell ‘joy’ is, Jesus first, Others next, and Yourself last.” I always hated to hear that because in my heart I knew that she was right. But at the moment, it never seemed like the way to be happy or joyful.
But Jesus taught that self-denial is the path to true joy. He said to His disciples (Matt. 16:24-25), “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” The way to true and lasting joy is for Jesus’ sake to deny yourself for others.
In our text, Paul continues his discussion of how those who are strong in their understanding of Christian liberty should relate to those in the church who are weak. The stronger believers (Paul classes himself with them in 15:1) knew that the Mosaic dietary laws had been fulfilled in Christ. They also knew that the Sabbath law was fulfilled in Christ. We’re not under obligation to keep the Sabbath in line with the strict Old Testament rules. And they knew that they were free to drink wine, even if it had been used in pagan temple sacrifices, as long as they did not get drunk.
But in the church were weaker believers, probably from Jewish backgrounds, whose consciences would be bothered if they ate certain foods or violated the Sabbath (or other Jewish feast days) or if they drank pagan wine. So Paul’s direction to the strong was that they should not flaunt their liberty to do any of these things if in so doing it caused a weaker brother or sister to follow their example in violation of his or her conscience. He sums it up (14:21), “It is good not to eat meat or to drink wine, or to do anything by which your brother stumbles.” In other words, love for your weaker brother should trump your exercise of liberty in matters where the Bible does not give direct commands.
Now as Paul continues to emphasize the need to consider the spiritual welfare of our brother, he brings in Jesus Christ as the great example. First and foremost, Christ is our Savior and Lord; but also He is our example of self-denial for the good of others. To sum up Paul’s message here:
Following Christ’s example, we who are strong in the Lord should not live selfishly, but sacrificially to build up others.
I offer four observations:
This observation comes not only from these verses, but also from the fact that Paul has been hammering on this theme pretty much from 12:3 on. In that verse, he emphasizes the need for humility, since pride invariably damages relationships. He went on (12:4-8) to talk about how each of us is a gifted member of the body of Christ and that we are to use our gifts to build up others. Then he developed the theme of love, extending it even toward those who persecute you (12:9-21). After showing how Christians should relate to government authorities (13:1-7), Paul picked up again with the theme of love, saying that it is the debt or obligation which you never will be free from (13:8-10). Then (13:11-14) he showed how we should be morally pure in light of the Lord’s coming. And then (14:1-23) he shows at length how the weak and the strong are to avoid judging or showing contempt for one another. In all of this, Paul’s great concern was for love and unity in a church made up of people from very different and naturally antagonistic backgrounds: Jew and Gentile.
But why was Paul so concerned about healthy relationships in the church? Why should we be very concerned about this? Was it just so that everyone would be happy? No, Paul’s ultimate concern was that we would have healthy relationships in the church and, by implication, in our homes, so that God would be glorified. He writes (15:6-7), “so that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God.” He brings it up again (15:9), “and for the Gentiles to glorify God for His mercy….”
To glorify God through our relationships means to treat one another with such uncommon love and consideration that we make God look good as He truly is. Unbelievers should observe how we love one another and marvel, “How can this be?” Our answer is, “God has changed our hearts from being selfish to being concerned for the good of others. Because of His love in our hearts, we now gladly lay down our rights to help our brothers and sisters in Christ.” So God gets the glory.
On the contrary, if we damage our relationships with others in the body of Christ, we damage God’s reputation. That’s true not only when we get angry with others or argue or say abusive things to them or about them. It’s also true when we are just indifferent toward those whom we may not like. We don’t care how they feel. We don’t care about their needs. When we are indifferent or unloving toward those for whom Christ died, we tear down the work of God and He does not get the glory that He deserves.
So we need to put a premium on our relationships, beginning with our immediate family members and extending outward to those in the local church. Sometimes, even those who do not profess to know Christ recognize the importance of healthy relationships. They aren’t doing it for the glory of God, of course, but rather for the personal benefits. But occasionally they do see it. The October, 2012 Money magazine has an interview (pp. 97-100) with Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, who is one of the most influential thinkers in management today. He recently co-authored How Will You Measure Your Life? in which he applies business-school theories to finding happiness and integrity in life. I don’t know whether he is a believer in Christ or not, but he says (p. 98), “I believe that the source of our deepest happiness comes from investments we make in intimate relationships with our spouse, children, and close friends.” He adds, “The way I ought to measure my life is in terms of the others I helped to become better and happier people. That’s the biggest thing to think about if you’re not happy.” So in the church, godly relationships are of utmost importance.
Rather than pleasing ourselves (v. 1), Paul says (15:2), “Each of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to his edification.” By “pleasing ourselves,” Paul means standing up for our rights no matter how it affects a weaker brother. He may also be thinking, as I said, of just being indifferent or insensitive toward others’ needs as we pursue our own agendas.
By using “neighbor,” Paul calls to mind the command from Leviticus 19:18, cited in Romans 13:9, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Paul uses “neighbor” in 13:8, 9, & 10.) “Neighbor” also extends the command beyond the church to any person we have regular contact with. In 1 Corinthians 10:31-33 Paul also incorporates the idea of glorifying God by pleasing others, even those outside the church: “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense either to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God; just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit but the profit of the many, so that they may be saved.”
You may wonder how Paul’s statement that he pleased all men fits with his comments elsewhere about not living to please others. In Galatians 1:10 he says, “For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.” In 1 Thessalonians 2:4, he writes, “but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who examines our hearts.” How do these verses harmonize with pleasing all men in all things?
The explanation is: when you have to choose between pleasing others or pleasing yourself, deny yourself and seek to please others. Don’t do anything needlessly to offend them. While the gospel message may be offensive, you shouldn’t be! But if you compromise the gospel by toning down sin or repentance or if in your attempt to please others you do anything that would displease God (such as joining unbelievers in their sin), then displease others and please God.
So by pleasing our neighbor, Paul does not mean pleasing them at any cost. He doesn’t mean avoiding or watering down the truth, because it might offend the other person. He doesn’t mean avoiding confrontation that might upset your neighbor. He clarifies this by adding (15:2), “for his good, to his edification.” It may be for your neighbor’s good and edification to let him suffer the consequences of his sin. It may be for his good to let him fail even when you could bail him out, so that he learns to be responsible for his actions. It may be for his good to confront him with his sin and to show him from God’s Word that his sin will lead him to judgment if he does not repent. But you should never do this out of a desire to get even or “make him pay.” Rather, your sincere motive should always be for him to get saved and to grow in his relationship with Jesus Christ. Love sincerely seeks the highest good of the one loved, which is that he be conformed to Christ.
So a major key to godly relationships is that we consider others above our rights and needs. Most relational problems in our homes or in the church just stem from plain old selfishness. I want my way and if I don’t get my way, I get angry or assertive. I demand my rights! When Cain grew angry and depressed before he killed Abel, God conducted the first “counseling session” in the Bible. He asked Cain (Gen. 4:6-7), “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”
Keep in mind that God never asks a question in order to get information. Rather, He wanted Cain to think about the answer. Sadly, Cain did not respond properly, but God’s question is a good one to ask yourself when you get angry or depressed about a relational problem: Why am I angry or depressed? How can I do well in this situation? What are the needs of the other person? How can I meet those needs to help him or her grow in Christ?
The interview with the Harvard Business School professor that I referred to earlier ends on an interesting note. Professor Christensen, who is 60, shares that four years ago he had a heart attack. Then it was discovered that he had advanced cancer that put him into chemotherapy. Then two years ago he had a stroke. He had to learn to speak again one word at a time. He shares what he learned through these difficult trials:
“The more I focused on the problems in my life, the more miserable I was. And then somehow I realized focusing on myself and my problems wasn’t making me happier. I started to say, ‘Every day of my life I need to find somebody else who I could help to become a better person and a happier person.’ Once I started to reorient my life in this direction, the happiness returned.
“So if you look at retirement and you think, ‘Oh, finally I can focus on myself,’ you run the risk of becoming very bored very quickly. The most important piece of planning for retirement most of us need to think about—of course you need enough money to survive—is, How are we still going to orient our lives on helping other people become better people?”
Again, I don’t know whether this man is a believer in Jesus Christ or not, but his counsel certainly reflects both what Jesus and Paul taught. Don’t live selfishly, but consider the needs of others above your rights and your needs. This is the way to true joy.
Thus, godly relationships in the body of Christ are of utmost importance. A major key to godly relationships is that we consider others above our rights and our needs.
Romans 15:1: “Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves.” That statement acknowledges that there are going to be differences among members in the body of Christ. Some are strong; some are weak. Also, we have different ages, different genders, different races, different family backgrounds, different life experiences, and different spiritual gifts and natural abilities. All of those factors mean that healthy relationships do not just happen by accident. We have to work at them and learn to understand one another and accept one another (Rom. 15:7).
But Paul here especially puts the burden on the stronger believers to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please themselves. His exhortation implies that even strong believers have a propensity to live for themselves. In other words, becoming more mature in Christ does not annihilate the tendency toward selfishness that we all battle due to the fall. One key mark of spiritual strength toward which we all ought to aim is to be servants, rather than to expect to be served. As Jesus said of Himself (Mark 10:45), “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” If we aim to be like Jesus, we should aim to become servants of others for His sake. You will turn a corner in your Christian life when you come to church with the outlook, “How can I serve?” rather than, “How can the church serve me?”
But in families there are babies who need to be served. They can’t take care of themselves, let alone be expected to care for others. The aim and hope is that eventually they will grow up, learn to take responsibility for their own lives, and learn to serve others. Maybe someday, instead of crying when they’re hungry and expecting to be fed, they will learn how to fix their own food and feed themselves. Eventually, maybe they’ll even earn enough to buy their own food and, with a few miracles, learn to clean up after the meal! I know that sounds impossible, but that’s the goal! But until that day arrives, the stronger have to help serve the weaker, both in the family and in the church.
Paul uses the same verb here (“ought”) that he used in 13:8, “Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another.” The strong are indebted to help the weak because in the past those who are strong now were weak and someone helped them. That’s just the way that families work, including the family of God.
“Bear” does not mean “bear with,” in the sense of “put up with,” while you roll your eyes and think demeaning things about the weaker person. Rather, it means to carry or support, much as an older brother might pick up his younger brother who is too tired to walk any farther. Paul uses the word in Galatians 6:2, “Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.” Just three verses later (6:5) he balances this by saying, “For each one will bear his own load.” The idea is, we are to help the weak with things that are beyond their ability to bear alone, but we are not to do for them things that they are capable of doing for themselves.
Since the tendency of the strong is to look with contempt on those who are weak (14:3), I would advise you to sit down and listen to the weaker believer’s situation before you either offer help or write them off as hopeless. Sometimes weaker Christians are carrying heavy burdens from the past. They may have been abused or neglected as children. They may be plagued with past or present sins that have deeply wounded them. They may have mental or personality issues that hinder their growth. Before you can help a weaker brother or sister, you have to understand compassionately where they’re at.
But perhaps some of the stronger believers would complain that it’s unfair that they should have to bear the weaknesses of those without strength. They might impatiently complain, “Why don’t they just grow up?” Granted, they should grow up eventually. But meanwhile, we are not to condemn or reject those who are weak, but patiently bear with them. To help us do that, Paul points us to our Savior, who laid aside His rights for our sake and for God’s glory.
Romans 15:3: “For even Christ did not please Himself; but as it is written, ‘The reproaches of those who reproached You fell on Me.’” Just think how different life would be if Jesus had lived to please Himself! He wouldn’t have submitted to the cross, with its horrible insults, pain, and separation from the Father. I realize that it was for the joy set before Him that He endured the cross (Heb. 12:2), but it was not joy in the short run! But He did it for God’s glory and out of love for you and me.
To support his point, Paul does not refer to any incident in Jesus’ life, but rather he cites Psalm 69:9. That psalm is cited or alluded to often in the New Testament with reference to Christ (Matt. 27:34-35 [parallels, Mark 15:35-36; Luke 23:36; John 19:28-29]; John 2:17; 15:25; with reference to Christ’s betrayers or enemies, Acts 1:20; Rom. 11:9). The application is: In light of what Jesus was willing to bear for your salvation, shouldn’t you be willing to give up your rights to help your weaker brother or sister? Isn’t it worth denying your selfishness to help others grow in their walk with Christ?
Shortly after the end of the Civil War, General Sherman’s victorious army was scheduled to march in a victory parade in a large city. The night before, General Sherman called General Oliver Howard to his room and said, “General, you were at the head of one of the divisions that marched with me through Georgia and you ought rightly to ride at the head of your division in the parade tomorrow. But I’ve been asked to let the general who preceded you in command represent the division. I don’t know what to do.”
General Howard replied, “I think I am entitled to represent my division, since I led them to victory.” “Yes, you are,” said Sherman. “But I believe you are a Christian, and I was wondering if Christian considerations might lead you to yield your rights for the sake of peace.”
“Oh,” said Howard, “in that case, of course I’ll yield.” “All right,” said General Sherman. “I will so arrange. And will you please report to me in the morning at 9? You will be riding with me at the head of the army.” General Howard’s willingness to deny himself his rightful place led to the position of greatest honor (from “Our Daily Bread,” June-August, 1983).
Are you looking for ways to serve others or is your focus on how others should serve you? Think about where you may be acting selfishly or standing on your rights. Focus instead on how you can sacrificially serve others and you will have rewards in heaven.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Years ago at the church I pastored in California, I referred in a sermon to the story of when Sennacherib had surrounded Jerusalem with his army. He sent a threatening letter to King Hezekiah, which the king took to the temple and spread out before the Lord, praying for deliverance. As I referred to that story, I could tell from the looks on people’s faces that many had no clue of what I was talking about.
So I asked everyone to bow their heads and close their eyes. Then I asked everyone who had never read that story to raise their hands. More than half of the hands in the congregation went up. I was stunned. That isn’t an obscure story in the Bible. It occurs in three different places (2 Kings 18-19; 2 Chron. 32; Isa. 36-37). That meager show of hands told me that my people were not reading the Old Testament.
I won’t ask for a show of hands today, but I suspect that many of you have not read through the Old Testament. Maybe you’ve read the Psalms or Proverbs, or perhaps a few other favorite parts. But you don’t regularly read through the Old Testament over and over. If that describes you, then you’re not reading the Bible of Jesus, Paul, and the other apostles. The Old Testament was the only Bible that they knew. The teaching of Jesus and the apostles is built on the Old Testament. They assumed that those they taught were familiar with its stories and teaching. It’s safe to say that if you don’t have a basic grasp of the Old Testament, you cannot adequately understand the New Testament. It was primarily to the Old Testament that Paul referred when he wrote to Timothy (2 Tim. 3:15-17),
… from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
Without the Old Testament you lack a major part of God’s revelation that He gave for teaching about Himself, about man, sin, and salvation. You lack much of what God gave for reproof and correction of your sins. You’re not adequate, equipped for every good work. In short, you lack an understanding of God’s ways.
I can anticipate your objections: “I tried reading the Old Testament, but I died in Leviticus. I skipped ahead to Numbers, but that really did me in!” I feel your pain. I’m not telling you that the Old Testament is always easy to read or understand. I’ll be honest in saying that I find parts of it tedious to read. I bog down reading the dimensions and descriptions of the tabernacle and the temple. I fog over reading the boundaries of the twelve tribes in the land. I find the long lists of genealogies just as irrelevant as you do. I struggle every time I come to the chapters where the prophets pronounce judgment on all of Israel’s enemies. I sometimes wonder why God put these things in the Bible.
But I keep working at it, prayerfully reading it through over and over, because it is God’s written revelation to us. True, there are parts that I still do not understand, but I remember the comment of Mark Twain: “It’s not the parts of the Bible that I don’t understand that bother me; it’s the parts that I do understand!” In our text, Paul tells us why we need the Old Testament:
You need the Old Testament because it points us to Christ and instructs us in godly living, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
Romans 15:4: “For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” The result of learning what is written in the Old Testament is that we might have hope. And we all need hope! About one in ten Americans suffers from depression and depressed people need hope. To overcome our problems and to live joyfully in this troubled world, we need hope from God. Paul says that such hope comes from the instruction of the Old Testament. Note five things:
“For” points back to the previous verse, where Paul cited Psalm 69:9, “The reproaches of those who reproached You fell on Me.” It’s amazing that to present Christ as our example of self-sacrificing service, rather than pointing to an incident in the life of Christ, Paul points to Scripture. Then he detours for one verse (15:4) to emphasize the importance of Scripture to instruct us so that we can endure trials with encouragement and hope.
The major point of the Old Testament is to testify to Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah. Jesus rebuked the Jews for not reading the Old Testament in light of Him (John 5:39-40): “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.” After His resurrection, He told the two men on the Emmaus Road (Luke 24:25-27),
“O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.
Later He told the disciples (Luke 24:44), “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”
This means that every part of the Old Testament must be interpreted in light of the person and work of Jesus Christ. It may not directly relate to Christ, but it is part of a larger context that must be understood in light of who He is and what He came to do. Some things are obvious: the sacrificial system points to Christ as the final and complete Lamb of God, who bore our sins on the cross. The Exodus illustrates and has many parallels with how God redeems us from slavery to sin. Some are less obvious. But it has been said that there are over 300 specific Old Testament prophecies that Christ fulfilled.
Years ago, math professor Peter Stoner (Science Speaks [Moody Pres, 1963], pp. 99-112) calculated the odds for just eight of these prophecies being fulfilled by one man who has lived since the time of Christ. Taking a conservative approach, he came up with the number, 1 in 1017. To visualize this, he said that 1017 silver dollars would cover the state of Texas two feet deep. Mark one, blindfold a man, and let him go wherever in the state he wished, but he had to pick the one marked silver dollar. That is the probability that Christ could have fulfilled just the eight prophecies that Professor Stoner used. Then Professor Stoner doubles it to 16 prophecies and the number of silver dollars becomes a sphere extending from earth in all directions more than 30 times as far as from the earth to the sun! Picking the right silver dollar would be the odds that Jesus fulfilled just 16 Old Testament prophecies. But He fulfilled more than 300!
But, it’s not always easy to draw a line from an Old Testament text to Christ. So you may ask, “How does the main point of the Old Testament text find its fulfillment in Christ?” David King suggests six ways (“Christ in the Old Testament,” 9marks.org/media/ Christ-old-testament):
The earliest of these is Genesis 3:15, where God said to the serpent: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you will bruise Him on the heel.” It is the first promise of a Savior who would conquer Satan. But there are many more such promises throughout the Old Testament (e.g., Ps. 2; Isa. 53).
Any time you read a general instruction (especially in the Law and wisdom literature), you’re reading about Jesus because He kept all these laws. He read the Old Testament and it shaped Him. Jesus often cited the Old Testament in His moral teaching (Matt. 5:21, 27, 31, 33, 38, 43).
How does the story help make progress to Jesus? How is God keeping His redemptive promises that lead to Jesus? The Book of Ruth is an example here. (Read, The Jesus Story Book Bible, by Sally Lloyd-Jones.)
How does the text show our need for the Savior? Every sin, failure, defeat, or problem in the Old Testament points us to Jesus.
A type is a theological shadow in which a greater reality is the substance. Adam is a type of Christ (Rom. 5:14). Special days, such as the Passover and the Day of Atonement, point to Christ (Col. 2:16-17). The Temple was a type of Christ (John 2:19-21), who is now the dwelling place of God with His people. Are there Old Testament types that are not mentioned in the New Testament? We need to be careful, but the answer is probably, yes. Joseph, who was rejected by his brothers, but later became their “savior,” is in many ways a type of Christ.
There are many themes in the Old Testament, such as justice, wrath, mercy, holiness, etc. As you read, ask how is the theme fulfilled in Jesus Christ?
Also, I would advise you to read the Old Testament in an accurate modern translation (either ESV or NASB) study Bible, such as The ESV Study Bible or The MacArthur Study Bible. Or, use a small Bible Handbook as you read. These tools will give you the historical setting of the book, the author, the outline, and explanations of difficult verses or issues that you will encounter as you read. As you read the Old Testament, look for Christ.
Romans 15:4: “For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction ….” Unbelievers are ignorant about God and His ways, so they live in futility, sensuality, and greediness (Eph. 4:17-19). To avoid the ways of the world, we need instruction in godly living. God has provided this for us not only in the New Testament, but also in the Old. As we’ve seen (2 Tim. 3:16-17), the Scriptures are profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness so that we will be adequate, equipped for every good work. After mentioning how Israel in the wilderness disobeyed God, Paul concludes (1 Cor. 10:11), “Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” Hebrews 11 traces the lives of men and women of faith, as found in the Old Testament, so that we can benefit from their examples.
The historical sections of the Old Testament show us how people succeeded through faith and obedience or failed through unbelief and disobedience. The wisdom books (Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes) show us how to think and live rightly. The Psalms teach us to worship God and how to cry out to Him in prayer in all our trials. The prophets warn us of the devastating consequences of sin and the threat of God’s judgment if we do not repent. They also encourage us with the truth that God will judge those who persist in evil and He will reward the righteous.
Don’t miss the word “written” in our text; it occurs twice: “For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction….” God saw fit to have His revelation put into written form. This means that to grow in knowing God and His ways, you must become a reader. This implies becoming a thinker and a student so that you can understand the written Word. You must use your mind in dependence upon the Holy Spirit to grow in understanding the truths of the Word. As we saw in Romans 12:2, Paul tells us that the way not to be conformed to the present evil age is to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. The fact that God communicated His revelation to us in written form appeals to us to use our minds so that we become biblical thinkers. Don’t neglect reading and studying the Word.
Also, note that wherever the gospel has gone throughout the world, schools and colleges have sprung up. Harvard, Yale, and Princeton were founded to train godly pastors! While the simple gospel message can save illiterate, uneducated people who believe, it does not leave them in that condition. The fact that the Word of God is written urges us to develop our minds.
We’ve seen in Romans that chapters 1-11, the so-called “doctrinal” portion of the letter, are the foundation for the “practical” section that follows (12-16). Even so, teaching and doctrine are foundational for godly living. You can’t jump down to “hope” at the end of verse 4 if you bypass “instruction” at the beginning.
Strictly speaking, the Greek grammar of verse 4 separates “perseverance” from the phrase “of the Scriptures.” The word “through” is repeated twice, so that the verse should read, “through perseverance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” This might be saying that we gain hope through our perseverance and through the encouragement that comes from the Scriptures.
But I think Dr. James Boice is right when he says (Romans: The New Humanity [Baker], 4:1807), “… this is a place where it may be wrong to read too much into a fine point of Greek grammar.” He argues that Paul surely was thinking that through the Scriptures God produces perseverance in us (see verse 5). And we know from other Scriptures (James 5:10-11; Heb. 11; etc.) and from our own experience that the examples of perseverance in the Old Testament encourage us to persevere through our trials.
As you read about how Abraham persevered in faith for over 25 years before God granted the promise of a son, and how he died in faith without owning any part of the Promised Land, except for a burial plot, it strengthens your faith to endure through times when God does not immediately answer your prayers. Or as you read the story of Joseph in prison, falsely accused of a crime he did not commit, but how God eventually worked it out for His good and sovereign purpose, it encourages you to trust God when you’ve been maligned. As you learn both through the narrative portions of the Old Testament and through the Psalms how David cried out to God when enemies were trying to kill him, you learn how to take your own problems to the Lord and how to praise Him in the midst of those problems.
But also, there is a sense in which you must persevere in order to gain the benefits of the Old Testament. It’s not always easy to read, as I’ve already said. There are many parts of it that are difficult to understand, both from the standpoint of ancient customs that we don’t comprehend and difficult incidents that seem harsh by today’s standards: A man is stoned to death for gathering firewood on the Sabbath (Num. 15:32-36). God commands the Jews to exterminate the Canaanites, including women and children (Deut. 20:16). The seven sons of Saul are hanged to stop a famine (2 Sam. 21:1-14). There are many such issues where you have to seek God for understanding and submit to His Word, even when you don’t understand. So it’s true that we gain perseverance from the Old Testament, but also we need perseverance to study the Old Testament to gain the hope that it brings.
The main encouragement that comes from the Old Testament is that God promises a Savior to Adam and Eve in the Garden right after their rebellion—and He keeps His promise! All of the Old Testament shows God working through human history to bring the Savior not just for Israel, but also for the Gentiles (see Rom. 15:8-12). As the godly Simeon exclaims when he holds the baby Jesus in his arms in the Temple (Luke 2:29-32), “Now, Lord, You are releasing Your bond-servant to depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation, which You have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light of revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.”
The Old Testament also gives us encouragement as it reveals to us who God is and how He deals with fallen sinners. In one of the first revelations of Himself, God proclaims to Moses (Exod. 34:6-7), “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.” That description of God is repeated about a dozen times throughout the Old Testament (Num. 14:18; Deut. 4:31; 2 Chron. 30:9; Neh. 9:17; Psalms 86:15; 103:8; 111:4; 112:4; 145:8; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2; Nah. 1:3). When you see how the Lord deals graciously with imperfect sinners who made some terrible mistakes—Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, and others—it gives you encouragement that He will also be gracious to you when you fail.
“Hope” has the article here: “the hope.” Paul wrote about this hope (Rom. 5:1-5):
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
Biblical hope is not uncertain, as when we say, “I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow.” We don’t know whether it will rain or not, but we’re expressing our wish. Biblical hope is certain because it’s based on the promises of God, who cannot lie; but it’s still future.
During World War II, some men in a German prisoner of war camp received a secret message that Germany had surrendered to the Allies, but it was three more days before the Germans heard that news. During those three days, their grim circumstances were no different than before, but their spirits were uplifted because they now had hope. The news was certain, but not yet realized.
Reading the Old Testament should give you hope because it shows you that in spite of your trials, in spite of what seem like unanswered prayers, in spite of years of waiting on God without seeing any change in your circumstances, God is faithful to His promises. As the angel announced to the shepherds in Bethlehem (Luke 2:10-11), “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
This means that if you’re not reading the Old Testament, you’re missing a major source for hope in the midst of your trials. Or if you are reading the Old Testament, but it’s not changing how you think, how you process your trials, and how you feel in the midst of your trials, you’re not reading it rightly. You need the Old Testament because it points you to Christ, who is your sufficiency in all of life. You need it because it instructs you in godly living in the midst of an ungodly world. You need it to give you perseverance, encouragement, and hope in the midst of your trials. I encourage you to make reading the Old Testament a regular part of your time alone with God each day!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Some time ago, a Kudzu cartoon showed a church league softball game where the fundamentalists call, “Strike one! Yer out!” Those from the more liberal churches laugh at the punch line: “Boy, they’re strict!”
Then in another Kudzu cartoon, the umpire yells, “Strike three!” Then, “Strike four!” And, “Strike five!” “What’s going on,” a teammate asks the Rev. Will B. Dunn. “Isn’t anyone going to enforce the rules?” The Reverend says nothing. Then in the last frame of the cartoon, the ump bellows, “Strike 96!” Rev. Will exclaims, “I love playing the Unitarians!”
As those cartoons humorously point out, some Christians are so narrow-minded and strict that they would rewrite the rules so that you’re out after one strike rather than three. For others, who are not really Christians at all, anything goes. But those cartoons raise a more serious matter: How narrowly or widely should Christians draw the lines of fellowship? Should we be so strict that if you don’t believe exactly as we do, we won’t associate with you? Or should we allow four strikes or five—or 96?
Each year there are “unity services” held in Flagstaff in an attempt to bring many of the churches together. I’m usually not enthusiastic about these services and sometimes I’ve been asked why I don’t promote them. “After all,” the argument goes, “Jesus didn’t say that the world will know that we are Christians by our doctrinal agreement, but by our love and unity. So shouldn’t we set aside our differences and come together with other churches to show our unity?” Since this is an important issue, we need to think biblically about the matter of true Christian unity. How broadly or narrowly should we draw the lines of Christian fellowship?
It has been estimated that in the early 1980’s, there were between 21,000-23,000 Protestant denominations in the world. A more recent estimate puts the number at over 41,000. The Roman Catholic Church often uses this as an argument against Protestants, since there is only one Catholic Church worldwide. There are also about 60 different Orthodox Churches, stemming from the Great Schism of 1054. Should we all just set aside our differences and come together under one umbrella? If so, which (or whose) umbrella should that be? What is the essence of true Christian unity?
First, we should remember that the Lord Jesus, in His prayer just before He went to the cross, emphasized unity among His followers. In John 17:20-23, He prayed,
“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.”
Evidently, the unity for which Jesus prayed was not just an invisible, spiritual unity, but also a unity that the world can see. This visible unity among believers will make the world know that Jesus was sent to earth by the Father and that believers are the special objects of the Father’s love. So this is an important subject for us to think about clearly. The testimony of Christ is at stake!
As we’ve seen, from Romans 14:1 through 15:13, Paul addresses the potentially divisive issue of how the stronger and weaker believers in Rome should learn to get along and build up one another. The stronger believers were mostly Gentiles who understood that in Christ, we have been freed from observing the Mosaic Law. They did not have scruples regarding kosher meat or Sabbath laws. But the weaker believers (mostly Jewish Christians) could not shake off these things with a clear conscience. And so a potential split could have divided the church along racial lines.
But for Paul, it was crucial that there not be separate Gentile and Jewish churches. It is to God’s glory when “Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman” (Col. 3:11) could set aside their differences and all come together in Christ as their all in all. So in our text, Paul offers what we might call a “prayer-wish” or a God-ward wish that God would grant the strong and the weak in Rome to be of the same mind so that they might with one voice glorify God. He’s saying that…
True Christian unity comes from God, is based on Christ Jesus, and results in glory to God.
Romans 15:5: “Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus ….” To say that true unity comes from God is not to say that we have no responsibility in the matter. As we’ve seen, we need to work at harmonious relationships, whether in the home or in the church. They do not happen automatically. We are responsible to pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another (14:19). We must be careful not to put stumbling blocks in a brother’s way. We must be sensitive and gracious toward one another. But, having said all of that, true unity is not something that we can achieve by our efforts. True unity must come from God. So we must seek Him for it.
True unity is not primarily organizational unity. Organizations such as the World Council of Churches, the National Council of Churches, and the National Association of Evangelicals attempt to forge a type of organizational unity among various denominations. The World Council and National Council have always been theologically liberal, bringing together denominations with a wide spectrum of doctrinal beliefs. The National Association of Evangelicals generally has been more conservative, although their membership includes a denomination whose beliefs include “soul sleep” for believers after death and the complete annihilation of the wicked, rather than eternal punishment. While organizational unity can perhaps achieve some common goals, at its essence, true Christian unity is not organizational.
True unity is not primarily ethnic unity. Sometimes churches unite around a common ethnic heritage or language. While this is understandable if language is an issue, as Paul emphasizes (Col. 3:11), true unity goes beyond ethnic boundaries.
True unity is not primarily cultural unity. Years ago, the church growth movement came out with the homogeneous unit principle, which is that people like to go to church with others who are culturally similar. So if you want a growing church, you need to target a certain niche and shape your church to reach that niche. So you aim at young urban professionals or at Gen-X’ers or whatever different groups are out there. This helps to bring unity to your church by eliminating the “worship wars,” where some like to sing hymns to organ accompaniment, whereas others like ear-splitting rock music. But biblical unity is not primarily cultural unity.
True unity is not primarily outward conformity. Some churches have spoken or unspoken dress codes, where everyone is expected to dress or look a certain way. When we were in Dallas, the elders of the church we attended called me in to tell me that my dress slacks and dress shirt were unacceptable when I taught the young couples class. I needed to add a coat and tie. I told them that they were violating the spirit of James 2 and were excluding people who did not wear that type of clothing. True unity isn’t a matter of outward conformity.
True unity comes from God, who gives perseverance and encouragement. The phrase “the God who gives [lit., of] perseverance and encouragement” ties back to verse 4, where Paul says that these qualities come from Scripture. This makes it clear that God is the ultimate author of Scripture and that our unity must come from the God who has revealed Himself in Scripture as we grow in obedience to Scripture. Paul’s repeated use of “perseverance and encouragement” in connection with his prayer for unity implies what I have already stated, that unity is not automatic. Perseverance implies that there will be difficulties in relationships that need to be patiently worked through. We will need encouragement from God, since there will be discouragements and setbacks. For us to “be of the same mind with one another,” we must grow in the fruit of the Spirit as we work through our differences in dependence on God.
Paul prays that God may “grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus ….” C. H. Spurgeon put it (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 47:552), “We shall be likeminded with one another when we become likeminded with Christ; but not till then.” But, what does Paul mean when he prays that God would grant us “to be of the same mind”?
We have already encountered this phrase in Romans 12:16, where Paul commanded, “Be of the same mind toward one another.” (He also uses it or similar expressions in 1 Cor. 1:10; 2 Cor. 13:11; Phil. 1:27; 2:2; 4:2.) He was not insisting that we all think alike or agree on every issue, which he knew would never happen in this life. Paul and Barnabas did not agree on whether to take Mark on the second missionary journey (Acts 15:36-40). Here in Romans 14 & 15, Paul recognized that differences would exist between the weak and the strong. He has not urged them to come to total agreement on every issue, but rather to be considerate of one another (15:2). So he is calling us to a unity that is based on our common salvation in Christ, our shared purpose in the gospel, and our shared hope in Christ. Thus …
But even here we need to be careful. The Mormons claim to be “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.” We would also claim to be the church of Jesus Christ and we believe that we are saints who are living in the last days. So are we one with them in Christ? Hardly! The Jehovah’s Witnesses also profess to believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, but they deny His deity. Are we one with them? Although one popular preacher who always smiles and doesn’t judge anyone says that these groups are following the same Jesus, I hope that you realize that we’re not one with them!
It’s helpful to note the distinction that Paul draws in Ephesians 4 between two types of unity. In verse 3 he says that we are to be diligent “to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” But in verses 11-12 he says that the work of pastors and teachers in equipping the saints for the work of ministry is (4:13) “until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” The unity of the Spirit already exists through the new birth. We are exhorted to preserve it in the bond of peace. The unity of the faith is something that we attain to as we mature in our knowledge of Jesus Christ. The unity of the Spirit is true of all believers by virtue of the fact that the Holy Spirit has baptized us into the one body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13). The unity of the faith grows over time as believers grow in their understanding of biblical truth about Christ.
It’s also helpful to understand that there are different degrees of importance among biblical doctrines (Matt. 22:34-40; 23:23-24). Some doctrines are absolutely essential for salvation. I don’t mean that you must understand all these truths to get saved. A person gets saved by believing in Jesus as his Savior and Lord. I mean that to deny these truths knowingly is to deny the Christian faith. All true believers affirm these truths, which include:
The divine inspiration and authority of the Bible; the triune nature of the one God as three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; God as the creator of all that is; the full deity and true humanity of Jesus Christ; the sinfulness of the human race; the necessity of the new birth; Christ’s substitutionary atonement for our sins; salvation by grace through faith alone, apart from works; the necessity of growth in holiness for all believers; Jesus’ bodily resurrection from the dead; His bodily second coming in power and glory to judge the living and the dead; eternal glory with Him in heaven for believers and eternal punishment in hell for unbelievers; and, the personality and work of Satan. We are not unified with anyone who denies these essential truths.
Then there are other doctrines that are important for the Christian life, but they are areas where true believers disagree. There are varying degrees of importance with regard to these doctrines: some border on the essential, while others are less important. I would argue that what you believe about the more important issues will impact the way you understand God and His ways and the way you live out your Christian life.
These important doctrines include biblical views on: the specifics of the creation account; God’s sovereignty in choosing us for salvation apart from any foreseen faith on our part; the security of salvation for God’s elect; how to deal with trials; how to gain victory over sin; the role of psychology in Christian counseling; Christian marriage and family roles; the role of men and women in the church; church government; the place (if any) for the charismatic gifts; the meaning, mode, and subjects of baptism; the meaning of the Lord’s Supper; various methods to use in Christian work; and, biblical details about the end times.
Our level of agreement on these issues may determine how close of a personal friendship we may form with another believer. On a church-wide level, we have to think through whether the church should accept into membership the person who differs on one or more of these matters. Will accepting the person into membership lead to dissension or factions in the church? And as a church we need to decide on a case by case basis how closely we can work in areas like evangelism, pro-life causes, or help for the homeless with other churches that differ on some of these matters. I admit that this is not always easy to sort out!
Then there is a third level of doctrine that we could call interesting, but not essential or important. These doctrines won’t affect the way you live your Christian life. They include minor details of interpretation of difficult or obscure texts. We should study these matters because they’re in the Bible and we may hold personal opinions on them, but we should not divide from other believers over them. Some examples include: Who were the sons of God and daughters of men in Genesis 6? When will the battle in Ezekiel 38 and 39 take place? Did Christ descend into hell between His death and resurrection (1 Pet. 3:19-20)? What was Paul’s thorn in the flesh (2 Cor. 12:7)? Did Paul write Galatians to north or south Galatia?
But the main point is, true Christian unity is based on Christ Jesus. We are “to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus.”
Romans 15:6: “… so that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Note two things here:
“With one accord” points toward the heart level. In other words, our unity should not be an outward show, while our hearts are at odds with one another. God looks on the heart. As Paul put it (Rom. 12:9), our love must be without hypocrisy. But then flowing out of hearts that are in one accord, we should express our common salvation in God-glorifying worship: “you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
For Paul, the main reason that we should be of the same mind with one another is not so that we all will be happy and get along with one another, although that is important. The main reason for true Christian unity is that it results in glory to God. When people from diverse backgrounds and personalities and ages join together in unified worship, the world will marvel, “How is it that these people who are so different all love one another?” So unified, God-glorifying worship is important for our testimony to a world that is so fractured and contentious.
Jonathan Edwards rightly argued that the purpose for which God created the world is His own glory (see John Piper, God’s Passion for His Glory [Crossway Books]). If that is so, we must evaluate everything in our personal lives and in our corporate church life by the criterion, “Does this glorify God?” As Paul puts it (1 Cor. 10:31), “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Does my thought life glorify God? Do my attitudes glorify God? Do my words glorify God? Does how I spend my time glorify God? Does my behavior glorify God? Do my relationships at home and at church glorify God? Does my management of the resources God has entrusted to me glorify Him? Does my commitment to the church and my worship with God’s saints glorify Him?
Paul says that we are to “glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul uses that same expression elsewhere (2 Cor. 1:3; 11:31; Eph. 1:3; cf., also, Col. 1:3; 1 Pet. 1:3). But why does he put it that way here? It seems to me that this emphasizes the fact that we are to worship not only in spirit (“with one accord,” “with one voice”), but also in truth (John 4:24). We do not truly glorify God unless we worship Him as He has revealed Himself to us in His Word.
The phrase emphasizes the priority of God the Father in the trinity; and both the deity and the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. While the three members of the trinity are all equally God, there is a hierarchy in which the Son submits to the Father and the Spirit submits to the Father and the Son. Jesus is the eternal Son of God the Father, which shows that He is God (John 5:18). Paul’s reference to “our Lord Jesus Christ” also calls attention to His deity and His humanity. He had to be both God (“our Lord”) and man (“Jesus”) to secure our salvation.
During His earthly ministry, Jesus normally called God “Father,” although He also called Him “my God” (Matt. 27:46; John 20:17; cf. Eph. 1:17; Heb. 1:9), showing His true humanity and His dependence on God. When Jesus was on earth, He glorified the Father (John 17:4), which we are now to do. Just as God the Father and God the Son are one, so we glorify Him through our unified worship in spirit and in truth. So we cannot join in unity with any who deny the trinity or the two natures of Christ, because they cannot worship Him in truth.
During World War II, a missionary who served in Calcutta was profoundly influenced by a communion service she attended. The leader was a Swedish minister. Among those present were a Chinese pastor, a Japanese teacher, a German doctor, several English citizens, and a small group of Indian believers. The missionary recalled that as she looked at that diverse company she felt a closeness to each person, especially when they partook of the bread and the cup. That bond of Christian fellowship was real, even though some of those people were from countries that were enemies in that brutal war (“Our Daily Bread,” Winter, 1980-81).
True Christian unity transcends differences in race, culture, age, gender, and background. It transcends differences over secondary doctrines or practices. True Christian unity comes from God, is based on Christ Jesus, and results in glory to God. May we all grow in our understanding and practice of true Christian unity to God’s glory!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
As you know, in the late 1960’s there was a lot of cultural upheaval that resulted in a wide gap between the younger and older generations, both in attitude and appearance. Hudson Armerding was the president of Wheaton College at the time. He had fought for our country during World War II, and as a member of that generation, was conservative in his grooming and attire. He also despised the counter-culture movement, because to him it represented unpatriotic draft-resisters, flag burners, and the like. So he did not like it when students dressed in the grubby counter-cultural fashion. Also, he thought that it was biblically inappropriate for men to have long hair. But the staff at Wheaton was trying to permit a degree of liberty among the students on this matter.
One day Armerding was scheduled to speak in chapel. Just before the service, they gathered for prayer. Just before they began, a young man walked in who had a beard and long hair, and was wearing a sash around his waist, with sandals on his feet. Armerding looked at him and was sorry that he had come in. Worse yet, the student sat down right next to the president. When they started praying, Armerding did not have a very good attitude.
Then the young man began to pray: “Dear Lord, you know how much I admire Dr. Armerding, how I appreciate his walk with you. I am grateful for what a man of God he is, and how he loves you and loves your people. Lord, bless him today. Give him liberty in the Holy Spirit and make him a real blessing to all of us in the student body. Help us to have open hearts to hear what he has to say, and may we do what you want us to do.”
As Armerding walked down the steps to go into the chapel, the Lord spoke to him about his attitude. After giving his message, he asked the young man to come to the platform. A ripple of whispering went through the students, many of whom thought that the president was going to dismiss the young man from school as an example to the rest of the students. But rather than rebuking him or dismissing him, everyone including the young man was surprised when Dr. Armerding put his arms around him and embraced him as a brother in Christ. It broke up the chapel service, as students stood and applauded, cried and embraced one another.
God used that simple act of one man laying aside his prejudice to turn the mood on campus to greater love and acceptance of one another. Dr. Armerding later learned that this young man had adopted his appearance in order to reach some of his generation who were alienated from God and the church (Hudson Armerding, Leadership [Tyndale], pp. 166-168).
Dr. Armerding put into practice what Paul tells us all to do (Rom. 15:7), “Therefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God.” Paul is concluding his appeal to the (mostly Gentile) strong and the (mostly Jewish) weak factions in the church of Rome to show the love of Christ to each other. In 14:1, he told those who were strong to accept those who were weak in faith, but here he extends the command to both sides.
As a side note, in 14:3 Paul told the weaker believers not to judge the strong because God has accepted him. Here he tells both sides to accept one another because Christ has accepted them. For Paul, Christ is clearly God. But Paul’s goal in the section we are studying here is that the Gentile and Jewish believers in Rome would not only genuinely accept one another in their daily relationships, but also that they would join together in fervent worship to God for His mercy in accepting us through Jesus Christ.
Accept others (especially those who are different than you) for the glory of God because Christ accepted you and all peoples for the glory of God.
Verse 7 is the summary of what Paul has already said and the topic verse for this final paragraph of this section:
Scholars are divided over whether the phrase, “to the glory of God,” modifies Christ’s acceptance of us or our acceptance of one another. I agree with those who say that it applies to both phrases. God was glorified when Christ accepted us and He is glorified when we accept one another. Also, there is a textual variant where the NASB reads “us,” but most scholars prefer “you” (plural). It doesn’t make much difference as to the meaning of the command. The idea is that both Jews and Gentiles or whatever other different types of people are in the local church are to accept one another. “Accept” means much more than merely to tolerate. It has the notion of warmly welcoming others, especially those who are different than you are, into the fellowship of the local church.
If you look for a church that is made up of people who are “your kind of people,” people who are just like you in their cultural background, their appearance, and their likes and dislikes, you’re missing the radical nature of Paul’s command here. In the context, the “one another” represented those from conservative, religious, Jewish backgrounds, who ate only kosher meat, who carefully observed Jewish holy days, and who had been taught from childhood not to defile themselves with any contact with “Gentile dogs.” It also included Gentiles from pagan, idolatrous backgrounds, who formerly “worshiped” with temple prostitutes, who had no problem eating any kind of food set before them, and who thought that the Jews were a bunch of legalistic, hyper-religious prudes. In other words, the other person whom you are to accept is precisely the person who is radically different than you are in almost every way!
Have you ever noticed how easy it is to accept your own personality quirks and habits? Comedienne Merrill Markoe observed, “It’s just like magic. When you live by yourself, all of your annoying habits are gone” (Reader’s Digest [2/07], p. 107). But then you get married and discover that your mate has some rather annoying quirks and habits that you hadn’t noticed when you were dating! And then you have little kids who somehow picked up their mother’s most irritating quirks and habits! If only everyone in the family could be just like I am, things would go much more smoothly!
And then you join a local church that is made up of hundreds of weirdos! Where did all of these crazy people come from? Sometimes you can identify with Achish, king of Gath, when David faked insanity in front of him to protect himself. Achish told his servants (1 Sam. 21:14-15), “Behold, you see the man behaving as a madman. Why do you bring him to me? Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this one to act the madman in my presence?” But Paul tells us to warmly welcome and accept those who are different from us in the local church. He isn’t talking about accepting those who are in unrepentant sin, of course (1 Cor. 5:9-13). But he is talking about the more mature believers accepting the immature and the immature accepting the more mature who may seem very strange in their eyes.
Several scholars (Cranfield, Moo, Schreiner) say that the Greek word that is normally translated, “just as,” should here be translated “because.” If so, Paul is giving the reason why we should accept one another, namely, because Christ accepted us. But we can’t divorce the fact that He accepted us from the way that He accepted us. He died for us while we were yet sinners (Rom. 5:8). We were His enemies (Rom. 5:10). We were not seeking after Him (Rom. 3:11). He came looking for us in our lost, helpless condition (Luke 15:4). He didn’t require that we clean up our lives or make vows to change or do anything to deserve His love. Like the father of the prodigal son, Jesus ran to us, embraced us, and welcomed us into His family, in spite of our smell and dirty rags! He promises (John 6:37b), “… the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.” That’s how we are to accept one another.
As I said, I think that the phrase, “to the glory of God,” applies both to Christ’s accepting us and to our accepting one another. If Christ had only accepted those who had achieved a high level of righteousness, no one would marvel. That’s how the world system works. You earn your way. You get what you deserve. But the fact that Christ accepts sinners who come to Him for mercy and forgiveness glorifies God and His abundant grace. When God converted a proud, self-righteous Jew, who hated Gentiles and killed Christians, and turned him into the apostle to the Gentiles, that glorified God! When God opened your eyes and mine to see that our own self-righteousness is worthless trash so that we embraced Christ as our righteousness, that glorified God!
Now, we are to extend the same mercy that we received to other sinners, some of whom may already be saints in the local church. Granted, they may not yet be as sanctified as you are. True, they may have a long list of shortcomings and defects. But when we show the love of Christ to one another, even when the other person doesn’t deserve it, God gets the glory. That’s the aim behind accepting one another. It’s not just so that we all get along, as wonderful as that is. It’s so that God gets the glory!
Ligon Duncan (fpcjackson.org, “Accept One Another”) points out that we often think that to glorify God, we must go to the mission field or perform some exceptional spiritual feat. But Paul says that to glorify God we should accept those who are different than we are. Leon Morris puts it (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 503): “God’s glory was promoted when Christ received us sinners, and it is further advanced when we who are by nature sinners and wrapped up in our own concerns instead receive our brothers and sisters in Christ with warmth and love.”
Paul goes on to show how Christ accepted both Jews and Gentiles, and then to back it up (especially the Gentile part, which would have been difficult for the Jews) with Scripture.
Romans 15:8-9a: “For I say that Christ has become a servant to the circumcision on behalf of the truth of God to confirm the promises given to the fathers, and for the Gentiles to glorify God for His mercy ….” Verses 8 & 9 explain how Christ accepted both Jews and Gentiles: He became a servant to the circumcision (the Jews) to confirm the promises made to the fathers (15:8); and, He became a servant so that the Gentiles would glorify God for His mercy (15:9a). Verse 8 is a reminder to the Gentiles in Rome that God had given priority to Israel, as Paul explained at length in chapter 11. The Gentiles are grafted in to the olive tree and so must not become arrogant (11:17-20). The following quotes (15:9b-12) from the Old Testament remind the Jews that the promises to the Jewish fathers included the reception of the Gentiles. Thus neither group should look down on the other.
Paul uses the word “circumcision” to refer to the Jews because it was the sign of the covenant to Abraham (Rom. 4:11). The “truth of God” here refers to His covenant faithfulness by which He remains true to His promises to Israel through the patriarchs (as Paul has already discussed in chapters 9-11). God did not fulfill His promises to Israel because of Israel’s faithfulness to God. He did it on the basis of grace, not performance.
In like manner, we are to extend acceptance to others in the church family on the basis of God’s grace. If you think, “Yeah, but he doesn’t deserve to be accepted,” the reply to you should be, “Neither did you!” I’m not suggesting that we overlook or not confront sin in other believers. If they have sinned against you, you should go in a spirit of humility and gentleness and seek to restore them (Gal. 6:1). But God’s grace demands that you go as a sinner who has received mercy and point the other sinner to the same source of mercy, the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Isn’t it amazing that our Savior came as a servant! He easily and rightly could have come as the conquering King, wiping out His enemies. He will do that when He comes again. But in His first coming He came as a humble servant (Mark 10:45). As His disciples, we are to serve one another, especially those who are different than we are, in love.
The Gentiles did not receive any covenant promises from God in the Old Testament, yet He graciously included them in His promises to the fathers (Gen. 12:1-3) and in many other Old Testament references (Rom. 15:9b-12). When we receive God’s mercy rather than His deserved judgment, it causes us to glorify Him. Now we are to demonstrate God’s mercy in our relationships with those in the church who are different than we are. We all deserve His judgment, but the church should be a place where everyone can find and experience God’s abundant mercy. This means that we are to be gracious and merciful towards one another, especially when someone has offended us or acted insensitively toward us. Thus Christ’s servant ministry to Israel and His mercy to the Gentiles serve as our example of what it means to accept one another.
Paul knew that the Jewish believers in Rome would be likely to be judgmental towards their Gentile brothers (14:3b). So he backs up his claim that Christ’s ministry will lead to the Gentiles glorifying God for His mercy with four Old Testament quotes. The first quote (15:9b) and the third (15:11) come from the Psalms. The second quote (15:10) comes from the Law. The fourth quote (15:12) comes from the prophets. The Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms (or Writings) constitute the three major divisions of the Hebrew Bible. Thus Paul is showing that all of God’s revealed Word has always predicted that the Gentiles would also be included in God’s people, to the praise of the glory of His grace. For Paul, an appeal to Scripture settles the matter, because Scripture is authoritative.
Romans 15:9b cites Psalm 18:49: “Therefore I will give praise to You among the Gentiles, and I will sing to Your name.” David wrote this psalm to thank the Lord for delivering him from all of his enemies. Towards the end of the psalm, he declares not only that he will praise God to the Gentiles, but among them, implying that they will be praising God along with David. But David’s declaration also points ahead to Messiah’s declaration (God’s Anointed, Ps. 18:50). Christ will praise God among the nations gathered around His throne, as they praise God for His mercy.
Romans 15:10 cites from the song of Moses (Deut. 32:43), “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people.” Paul has already cited from another verse in this song (Rom. 10:19). This verse advances on Psalm 18:49, where David (and Messiah) was praising God among the Gentiles. Now the Gentiles are called on to rejoice along with the Jews, because God has brought the blessings of salvation to both groups (Morris, p. 505).
Romans 15:11: “And again, ‘Praise the Lord all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples praise Him.’” This quote from Psalm 117:1 advances on the previous two in that Israel isn’t even mentioned. The psalmist directly calls on the Gentiles to praise God for His great lovingkindness and enduring truth (Ps. 117:2).
Romans 15:12: “Again Isaiah says, ‘There shall come the root of Jesse, and He who arises to rule over the Gentiles, in Him shall the Gentiles hope.’” This prophecy refers to Jesus as the promised descendant of David. We might expect “root” to refer to the origin of Jesse, rather than to his descendant. But the root in Jewish thinking referred not only to the root itself, but to that which springs from it (Morris, p. 506). Paul began Romans (1:3) by referring to Jesus as God’s “Son, who was born of a descendant of David.” God kept His covenant promise to David when Jesus was born of David’s descendants in Bethlehem, the city of David.
At first glance, the fact that Jesus would rule over the Gentiles might lead us to think the next line should read, “And under His rule, the Gentiles will chafe.” But rather we read that under His rule, the Gentiles will hope! They hope in Him because He is the perfect, gentle, just, and loving ruler. When Jesus is your Ruler and Lord, you hope in Him. And, as we’ll see in verse 13, God’s faithfulness to all of His promises in Christ are so that we may be filled with all joy and peace in believing, so that we will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. These Scriptures confirm that God’s mercy to the Gentiles brings glory to Him, along with joy and hope to all sinners who trust in Christ.
I conclude with another powerful example of what it means to accept one another to the glory of God. Rebecca Manley Pippert concludes her book, Out of the Salt Shaker & into the World [IVP, 1979], pp. 177-178) with this story. When she first went to Portland, Oregon, to work with a campus ministry, she met a student named Bill. He was always disheveled in his appearance and he never wore shoes. Rain, sleet, or snow, Bill was always barefoot.
Bill became a Christian, but his appearance didn’t change. Near the campus was a church made up of mostly well-dressed, middle-class people. One Sunday, Bill decided to worship there. He walked into church with his messy hair, blue jeans, tee shirt, and barefoot. People looked a bit uncomfortable, but no one said anything. Bill began walking down the aisle, looking for a seat. But the church was quite crowded that day, so he got all the way down front without finding a seat. So he just plopped on the carpet, which was fine for a college Bible study, but a bit unnerving for this rather formal church. You could feel the tension in the air.
Suddenly, an elderly man began walking down the aisle toward Bill. Was he going to scold him about how you’re supposed to look when you come to church? People thought, “You can’t blame him for what he’s going to do. His world is far removed from that boy’s world for him to understand.”
As the man kept walking slowly down the aisle, all eyes were on him. You could hear a pin drop. When the man reached Bill, with some difficulty he lowered himself and sat down next to Bill on the carpet. He and Bill worshiped together on the carpet that day. There was not a dry eye in that church.
That elderly man was practicing what Paul is talking about here. He was accepting a young man who appeared to be very different than he was because he recognized that Christ had accepted him. When we do that, God is glorified.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Romans 15:13 is a wonderful prayer that Paul wants every believer to experience: “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
When you read a verse like that, you must ask yourself, “Does that verse even come close to describing me? Can I honestly say that my life is filled with all joy and peace in believing? Do I abound in hope?” And, since we all tend to give ourselves the benefit of a doubt in these matters, I need to ask, “Would my family or good friends describe me as being filled with all joy and peace in believing and abounding in hope?”
To varying degrees we all fall short of experiencing that verse and so we all can benefit by thinking about what it means and how we can grow in these qualities. I can’t imagine anyone saying, “I’m not interested in having joy and peace. I don’t want to abound in hope.” We all want and need these qualities, and yet even among believers, very few can legitimately claim to be filled with all joy and peace and to be abounding in hope.
A common factor among those who are depressed is that they lack hope. Discouraged people and those who are apathetic about life also lack hope. While the following statistics (upliftprogram.com/depression_stats) describe the American population at large, I would guess that they would not be much different for evangelicals:
Depressive disorders affect approximately 9.5% of the U.S. population age 18 and older in a given year…. Pre-schoolers are the fastest-growing market for antidepressants. At least four percent of preschoolers … are clinically depressed…. 30% of women are depressed. Men’s figures were previously thought to be half that of women, but new estimates are higher…. 15% of depressed people will commit suicide…. Depression will be the second largest killer after heart disease by 2020—and studies show depression is a contributory factor to fatal coronary disease.
Those are depressing statistics! I realize that there are often complex factors that cause depression, including various physiological components, so I’m not suggesting an easy, one-size-fits-all solution. If you are severely depressed, you should get a medical check-up. But before you turn to anti-depressant drugs (which have some serious risks; see web site mentioned above), consider seriously seeking God to fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is a most practical verse for us all as we navigate life’s trials!
The God of hope wants us to be filled with all joy and peace in believing, so that we will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
We’ll look at the source of this abundant hope; the foundation for it; the human and divine means for abounding in it; and, some practical strategies for growing in God’s joy, peace, and hope.
By “the God of hope,” Paul means that God is the source or giver of hope. He is also the object of our hope, but here the focus is on God as the source of hope. In Romans 15:5, he describes God as (lit.), “the God of perseverance and encouragement.” He gives those qualities to those who seek Him. In 15:33 & 16:20 Paul describes Him as “the God of peace.” He gives peace to His people. Thus if we lack hope, the first place we should look for it is God, who is the source of true hope. Beat on His door like the friend asking for bread at midnight (Luke 11:5-8) until He gives it to you. And remember, biblical hope is not uncertain, like when I say that I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow because I have plans to be outside. Rather, biblical hope is certain because it rests on God’s promises; but we haven’t experienced the fulfillment yet.
The word hope in verse 13 links back with hope in verse 12c (citing Isa. 11:10), “In Him shall the Gentiles hope.” Him refers to Jesus Christ and the promise of salvation that comes to all peoples through Him. This means that if you have not come to Jesus Christ as a guilty sinner and put your trust in Him as your only hope for eternal life, then (as Paul puts it in Eph. 2:12), you have no hope and are without God in the world. What a bleak description of life without Christ!
I have a book by humorist Dave Barry titled, “Stay Fit and Healthy until You’re Dead.” He pokes fun at the fitness craze in America, but his title also uncovers the raw truth that we all tend to suppress: It is 100 percent certain that you’re going to die, no matter how fit and healthy you are. Unless you have Christ as your hope, you don’t have any true hope beyond the grave (1 Thess. 4:13), but only “the terrifying expectation of judgment” (Heb. 10:27). Put your trust in Christ as your Savior today!
It’s significant that the theme of Romans is “the gospel of God” (1:1, 16, 17; 15:16) and Paul mentions hope in Romans more than in any of his other letters. In 4:18 we read of Abraham with reference to God’s promise that he would have a son and become the father of many nations, “In hope against hope he believed, so that he might become a father of many nations according to that which had been spoken, ‘So shall your descendants be.’” In 5:1-5, Paul elaborates on our hope through the gospel:
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
In 8:20-21, Paul mentions the hope of the fallen creation as it waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God: “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” Then he adds with regard to our waiting eagerly for the future redemption of our bodies (8:24-25):
For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.
In 12:12, we are to rejoice in hope as we persevere in our tribulations. In 15:4, we have hope through the perseverance and encouragement of the Scriptures. And, as 15:12 indicates, Jesus Christ is the object of all our hope. He is the Savior who has freed us from condemnation. He has given us eternal life as a free gift. Our hope rests completely in Him and the promise of His coming (Titus 2:13). As the apostle John tells us (1 John 3:2-3),
Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.
So if you’re lacking hope, you know where to find it: Seek the God who is the source of all true hope and put your hope in Christ as your Savior and Lord.
Paul doesn’t pray that you will have a little bit of joy and peace trickling into your life now and then. Rather, he prays that the God of hope will fill you with all joy and peace so that you will abound in hope. He piles up these superlatives to show us what God can give us and wants to give us. Have you ever stopped to fill your water jugs at the spring that’s on the side of the road at the top of Oak Creek Canyon? There are two spigots that flow 24-7, 365 days per year with that delicious, cool spring water. Paul wants our “jugs” of joy and peace to be overflowing so that we are continually abounding in hope in God. Again, while we all fall short of this, don’t settle for an empty or partially full jug. Ask God to fill you to the brim with His joy and peace and hope.
Paul has already mentioned joy and peace (in reverse order and also in connection with the Holy Spirit) in 14:17, “for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Both joy and peace are listed as part of the fruit that the Holy Spirit produces in the believer who walks in the Spirit (Gal. 5:16, 22). As qualities that the Spirit of God produces in us, the joy and peace Paul is talking about do not come from having a certain personality type. A person with Holy Spirit-produced joy is not just a person with a bubbly, optimistic personality. A person with Holy Spirit-produced peace is not just a laid back guy who never gets ruffled at anything. Rather, these are qualities that are not natural. And they do not come from being in favorable circumstances where just about anyone would be joyful and full of peace. In fact, they are often most noticeable when a person is in a situation where almost everyone would be depressed or anxious, but the Spirit-filled believer is full of joy and peace in God.
It’s also important to understand that the joy and peace that Paul is talking about are not a “Pollyanna positive” outlook that denies the reality of sorrow, grief, or genuine concern. Paul had great sorrow and unceasing grief in his heart over the great number of Jews who were rejecting Christ (9:2), yet he could write here about being filled with all joy. As I’ve pointed out before, the shortest verse in the Greek New Testament is, “Rejoice always” (1 Thess. 5:16), but the shortest verse in the English New Testament is, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). There is no contradiction. Paul described himself as “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Cor. 6:10a). By the way, Paul mentions joy 21 times in his letters; the next closest is John with nine times. It’s especially helpful to study joy in Philippians, where Paul was in prison and being wrongly criticized by fellow believers, and yet he was rejoicing always in the Lord.
We also need a realistic view of Spirit-produced peace. It does not mean that we glibly shrug off concern for difficult problems. Paul was filled with peace and yet he mentions the daily pressure on him “of concern for all the churches” (2 Cor. 11:28). So we’re not talking about a “who cares, whatever” kind of peace, where a person irresponsibly shrugs off every concern. Biblical peace comes from taking all of our anxieties to God in thankful prayer (Phil. 4:6-7): “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Thus biblical joy is an inner delight in God and His sure promises that gives us comfort and contentment in every trial. It comes from knowing that our sovereign God will work all things, including tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword, together for our good because we love Him and are called according to His purpose (8:28, 35). Biblical peace is the inner contentment and freedom from crippling anxiety and fear that comes from being reconciled to God and, as much as it depends on us, being at peace with others (5:1; 12:18). As we’ve seen, it comes through taking every concern to God in thankful prayer. Being filled with God’s joy and peace is the foundation or platform that results in abounding in hope.
We all want this kind of joy and peace so that we will abound in hope, but how do we get these qualities? Paul mentions a human means and a divine means:
“Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing ….” Paul does not specify the object of our faith, but obviously it is the same as the object of our hope (15:12), Christ, “the root of Jesse who arises to rule over the Gentiles.” In the Bible, hope and faith are sometimes virtual synonyms. Hebrews 11:1 tells us, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Psalm 71:5, “For You are my hope; O Lord God, You are my confidence from my youth.” So to hope in Christ is to believe in Christ. It is to look to Him alone to fulfill all the promises of God to us. We find those promises in Scripture, which is why Paul said (15:4) that the Scriptures give us hope. Or, as he said (10:17), “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” To have and increase in abundant hope, we must believe and keep on believing in God and His Word.
But you may wonder, “How do I get this kind of faith that helps me abound in hope even in the midst of trials?” Part of the answer is to know your God and His ways through His Word. The Word shows God to be faithful to His people in all sorts of trials. Quite often, He delivered them as they trusted in Him, but sometimes He permitted them to suffer and die, promising rewards in heaven. In Hebrews 11:33-38, the author mentions those …
who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection; [then, without missing a beat, he continues] and others were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection; and others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground.
Knowing God and His ways through His Word will show you that He is completely trustworthy. Even if you suffer a martyr’s death, He will give you the crown of life (Rev. 2:10).
The other part of having this kind of faith is to choose to believe God in spite of horrible circumstances that seem to be contrary to His promises. After Nebuchadnezzar’s army destroyed Jerusalem and the temple and slaughtered many Israelites, Jeremiah grieved and lamented, but then he directed his thoughts toward God (Lam. 3:21-24):
This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I have hope in Him.”
Or, as I’ve already mentioned with Abraham, whose body and whose wife’s body, were beyond the physical ability to conceive a son according to God’s promise (Rom. 4:18): “In hope after hope he believed ….” He chose to believe God’s promise in spite of circumstances to the contrary. The human means of growing in abundant hope is to believe and keep believing in God.
“… so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Did you notice that the three members of the trinity are all mentioned in the context here? God the Father is the God of hope. The object of our hope is Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God who is also the root of Jesse. The power for joy, peace, and abundant hope comes from the Holy Spirit.
The power of the Holy Spirit is, of course, nothing less than the power of God that created the universe! He spoke and it was done (Ps. 33:9). The Spirit’s power is the resurrection power that gives new life to dead sinners (John 3:6-8). The Holy Spirit opens our minds so that we can understand the truths of God’s Word (1 Cor. 2:9-13). The Holy Spirit is the power that produces His holiness in us as we walk in dependence on Him (Gal. 5:16-23; 1 Cor. 6:11). The Spirit confirms our adoption as children of God and helps us as we struggle to pray (Rom. 8:15-17, 26). The Spirit strengthens us with power in the inner man so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith (Eph. 3:16-17). The Holy Spirit seals every believer so that we are kept for the day of redemption (Eph. 1:13-14; 4:30). And so, as Paul says here, the Holy Spirit is the power who produces in us His fruit of joy and peace as we trust in Him, so that we abound in hope.
I conclude with some practical strategies for growing in God’s joy, peace, and abundant hope:
Begin each morning by spending 20-30 minutes (minimum) in God’s presence, reading and meditating on His Word, praying, and singing.
As I’ve told you before, the godly George Muller, who trusted in God to provide for over 2,000 orphans at once through prayer alone, used to make it the first business of every day to have his soul delighted in God. If you lack joy and peace and hope, ask God to fill you with these qualities for His glory.
Memorize some of God’s wonderful promises that kindle joy, peace, and hope in your soul so that you can meditate on them throughout the day.
Romans 15:13, 8:28, 8:32, and many other verses like them will help you to set your mind on the things above rather than on the problems that are getting you down (Col. 3:1-4). The Psalms are loaded with verses of trust in God in the midst of life-threatening situations.
Immediately confess all grumbling as sin and instead deliberately think each day of things that you can thank God for.
Begin by thanking Him each morning for sending His beloved Son to save you from your sins. Thank Him that you have His Word to guide and sustain you. Thank Him for all your blessings and even for your trials (1 Thess. 5:18), which help you to grow.
When you feel overwhelmed with despair or depression, talk to yourself: Tell yourself again and again to hope in God.
The depressed psalmist did this repeatedly (Ps. 42:5): “Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him for the help of His presence.” Psalm 42:11: “Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God.” Psalm 43:5: “Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God.”
Read the biographies of godly saints who have run the race before you.
As I’ve often said, I’ve gained more from reading Christian biographies than from any other source outside of the Bible. Read how William Carey, Hudson Taylor, George Muller, Charles Spurgeon, Adoniram Judson, and many more men and women of faith trusted God in the midst of overwhelming trials.
Here’s a parting quote from Judson, as he suffered horrible torture and deprivation in a squalid Burmese prison. A friend sent him a letter and asked, “Judson, how’s the outlook?” Judson replied, “The outlook is as bright as the promises of God” (exact source unknown, but you can find the quote on the Internet). Judson was abounding in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit. So can you!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
You may have seen the title of this message, “Principles for Your Ministry,” and thought, “Well, this message doesn’t apply to me because I’m not in the ministry.” If you thought that, you may not understand the New Testament truth that as a Christian God has given you spiritual gifts that you are to use in serving (“ministering” for) Him. There are no useless or inactive parts in the body of Christ. Every believer is a priest with a ministry to fulfill.
Or you may think that you’re not “in the ministry” because you’re not financially supported in your ministry. You work in a secular job. But so did Paul—he made tents to support his ministry. All of us are just as much “in the ministry” as Paul was. Someday we all will give an account to God of how well we fulfilled the ministry that He gave us.
The only way you can rightly say that this message doesn’t apply to you is if you are not saved. If you have not been born again, you cannot serve God. In fact, you cannot do anything for God to try to earn your salvation. If you try to earn your salvation by serving God in some way, you’re only going farther down the path away from God. You could do as many good deeds as Mother Teresa did, but if you think that those good deeds will get you into heaven, you will be shocked on the day of judgment. Good deeds can never erase the guilt of your sins. If they could, then Jesus did not need to die. It is only when you confess the pride of your self-righteousness and trust in Christ alone as your Savior from sin that you then can serve God. So if you’re not saved, the application of this message for you is, trust in Christ right now!
Since all of us who have trusted in Christ will give an account to God for how well we served Him with the gifts that He gave us, we need to know some biblical principles for how to carry out our ministries. In our text, Paul gives us at least a dozen such principles. (Don’t panic—we’ll only cover six today!) Paul has just completed the major doctrinal and practical parts of this letter. He now turns to some personal matters that extend to the end of the letter. This is the longest closing section of any of Paul’s letters, perhaps because he had not yet visited the church in Rome and he wanted to lay the groundwork for a possible future visit. In 15:14-21 he describes his past ministry. In 15:22-33 he shares his future ministry plans. In 16:1-16 he gives extended greetings to those whom he knew in Rome, followed by a final exhortation and encouragement (16:17-20), greetings from those who were with him in Corinth (16:21-24), and a final benediction (16:25-27).
It’s kind of difficult to sum up verses 14-21 in a single sentence, but here’s a stab at it:
Following Paul’s example, we should affirm the ministries of others while serving the Lord in line with our gifts and calling, giving Him the glory for any results.
Verses 14-21 fall into two sections: In 15:14, Paul affirms the gifts and ministries of the Roman believers, while in 15:15-21 he explains why he has written to them so boldly and how God has used him in ministry to the Gentiles.
Romans 15:14: “And concerning you, my brethren, I myself also am convinced that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able also to admonish one another.” In this verse, Paul is being sensitive about presuming to write as boldly as he just has (in 12:1-15:13) to a church that he had neither founded nor pastored (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 887). He is aware that there may be some resistance to his ministry from some in Rome, and so he is being careful not to offend them by assuming a role over them that they would not accept (ibid.). At the same time, he goes on (15:15-19) to show them why they should accept his ministry, namely because God appointed him as an apostle to the Gentiles. This was confirmed by what God had accomplished through him. But in verse 14, there are at least four ministry principles that apply to us:
Ministry Principle 1: If you’re a Christian, you’re in the ministry.
Paul affirms that the entire Roman church (not just the pastors) is “full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able also to admonish one another.” In other words, they are competent to minister to one another. In 1970, Jay Adams wrote a book based on this verse, Competent to Counsel [Baker], arguing against psychological counseling and in favor of biblical counseling. He called this “nouthetic” counseling, based on the Greek verb that is here translated “admonish.” It means to admonish, warn, or instruct, usually in a corrective sense. It implies that there is a problem, whether immaturity or sin, in the life of the other person that needs to be overcome. Several times Paul uses the word to describe his ministry. He told the Ephesian elders (Acts 20:31), “Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears.” In Colossians 1:28 he wrote, “We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.”
He wrote to the Thessalonian church (1 Thess. 5:14), “We urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone.” They were all to exercise this ministry of admonishing fellow believers who were “unruly” or “out of step.”
In our text, Paul says that he is confident that the Roman believers are capable of exercising this ministry toward one another. While the elders may need to get involved at times, this is a ministry that the body is to engage in on a regular basis. If you know of a Christian who is drifting or going astray, it’s your responsibility to try to restore him to the Lord (Gal. 6:1). If you’re not sure how to go about it, ask an elder to coach you. But your relationship with the straying brother usually means that you are the most effective member of the body to try to restore him. You are your brother’s keeper. If you’re a Christian, you’re in the ministry.
Ministry Principle 2: To minister effectively to others, you must know and personally apply biblical truth in your walk with the Lord.
The reason Paul believed that the Roman believers could admonish one another was that he was convinced that they were “full of goodness” and “filled with all knowledge.” Paul is not using flattery here, but he is being courteous (C. E. B. Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans [T & T Clark], 2:752) by assuming that the Roman believers were relatively mature both in their knowledge of Christian truth and in their practice of that truth. “Goodness” is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22) and denotes uprightness in conduct (Eph. 5:9) or kindness and generosity towards others (2 Thess. 1:11; Moo, p. 888). “Knowledge” refers to knowing biblical truth.
When Paul says that the Roman believers are full of goodness and all knowledge, he does not mean that they were sinless in their behavior and qualified to teach at the seminary level in their knowledge of biblical truth. If that were so, he wouldn’t have needed to write all of the doctrinal and practical sections of Romans! Rather, he is assuming the best about the church as a whole. They are overall marked by moral virtue and they have a grasp of basic biblical truth. You don’t have to have arrived at spiritual perfection for God to use you in ministering to others. But you do need to be obedient to God’s Word (“goodness”) and you need to have a basic understanding of biblical truth (“knowledge”).
The two qualities must go together. There are morally good people who have no understanding of biblical truth, and so they cannot minister effectively to others. And there are people who know impressive amounts of biblical truth, but they don’t apply it personally. Their lives are not marked by godly conduct or unselfish, loving behavior. So they are not able to minister effectively, either. But if you know God’s truth and you’re applying it personally, then you’re able to admonish others. Your life backs up your message, and both are grounded in God’s Word.
Ministry Principle 3: Trust God to work through others in the body and affirm their ministries.
Verse 14 probably especially relates back to the problems between the stronger and weaker believers that Paul has addressed (14:1-15:13). Paul was confident that the Roman Christians could work through these issues under the guidelines that he has given. He has already expressed his confidence in them in Romans lthough Paul was an apostle with unusual gifts and ministry experience, he did not see ministry as a one-way street from him to others. He also affirmed that others could minister to him and that they could minister to one another without him.
I’ve heard of pastors who were threatened if their flock listened to other preachers. Some pastors feel the need to control every ministry in the church, as if they are the only one in the church capable of teaching the truth or dealing with problems. I’ve also seen Christian parents who jealously guard their children from any spiritual input from other believers. But that mentality stems from pride and cripples the ministry of the body. If another Christian can teach my children, Hallelujah! If any of you learn God’s truth from another pastor, Praise God! If you can minister without me, wonderful! God works through the gifted body of Christ, not just through one leader. If you see someone in the body who is having an effective ministry, encourage him by telling him that you appreciate his ministry.
Ministry Principle 4: Be sensitive towards others.
Paul was sensitive as to how the Roman believers may have taken his bold admonitions that he has just written. So he expresses his confidence in their ability to minister to one another and he goes on to explain why he had written as boldly as he had. His sensitivity did not mean that he held back in his boldness, as we’ll see in the next principle. But it did mean that he was aware of how his boldness might affect his readers. So he does not blast them or assume that they would welcome his admonition. He was careful to explain things in a sensitive, affirming manner.
One way to be sensitive in ministering to others, especially if you need to admonish or correct them, is to stop and think, “If I were in their place, how would I want to be treated?” If someone is in sin, he needs to be corrected, but with sensitivity and gentleness (Gal. 6:1; 2 Tim. 2:24-26). Don’t come down on him as if you’re the righteous one and you can’t understand how he could do what he’s doing. Rather, come alongside as a fellow sinner who has found mercy from the Lord, as one prone to temptation, and express your concern that his sin is going to destroy his life if he doesn’t gain victory over it. Minister sensitively!
To sum up the next section:
Romans 15:15-16: “But I have written very boldly to you on some points so as to remind you again, because of the grace that was given me from God, to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest the gospel of God, so that my offering of the Gentiles may become acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.”
Paul goes on to explain that his reason for writing so boldly on some points was to remind the Romans of the grace that God had given to him as a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. He uses an illustration or analogy that the Jewish believers would have understood: Paul pictures himself as a Jewish priest, offering up the Gentiles as an acceptable sacrifice to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit (see Isa. 66:18-20). This last phrase, “sanctified by the Holy Spirit,” would have countered some of Paul’s Jewish critics, who would have argued that the Gentiles were unclean. Rather, Paul says, when the Gentiles become obedient to the gospel (15:18), it shows that God has cleansed them.
Paul is not negating the priesthood of all believers or setting up a special class of Christian priests, who are intermediaries between the “common” people and God. That would negate what he says in Ephesians 2:18, “for through Him [Christ] we both [Jewish and Gentile believers] have our access in one Spirit to the Father.” Jesus alone is our high priest. We all have direct access to God’s throne through Him (Heb. 4:14-16). Rather, Paul is giving us an illustration of how we all should serve the Lord: as believer priests, we should offer up as worship to Him any results or fruit of our ministries that God gives us through the gospel.
These verses give us two more ministry principles:
Ministry Principle 5: Don’t hesitate to be bold in challenging others or in reminding them of what they already know.
Although Paul was sensitive (15:14), he also could be bold (15:15). Even though he assumed that the Romans were “full of goodness,” Paul was bold to confront a number of problems that existed in the church there. Although he knew that they had “all knowledge,” he didn’t assume that they always remembered what they knew, and so he reminded them of it again and again.
At a couple of points in my life, the Lord has used someone who was bold and direct to change my direction. When I was 18, a Christian friend who was 23 asked me what Christian books I was reading. I told him that I only read what I had to read to get through college. He looked at me and bluntly said, “If you don’t read, you won’t grow as a Christian.” God used that bold comment to get me going as a reader, and reading has been the main way that I have grown in my walk with God.
About a year later, I was debating about whether to go to a 10-day training conference at Campus Crusade’s Arrowhead Springs headquarters. A staff member challenged me to go, but I told him that I needed to work to earn money for school the next year. He countered, “If you don’t step out and trust God for the funds now, when are you going to start trusting Him?” Wham! His bold challenge prompted me to go and the training I received there redirected my spiritual life. So be sensitive in ministering to others, but sometimes be bold to challenge them to change!
Ministry Principle 6: Offer your ministry to God as an act of worship, pleasing to Him.
While ministry helps others either to get saved or to grow in Christ, your primary aim in ministry should not be to help others, but to minister to the Lord (see Acts 13:2; 2 Sam. 6:14-21). You want your service to be an offering that is acceptable to Him, “sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” You don’t serve for the praise that you get from others or even primarily for the satisfaction of seeing others helped. You do it as an act of worship to God.
Focusing on ministry as worship guards you from becoming a people-pleaser and it helps you to process criticism. I’ve seen people in ministry devastated because people didn’t like them or criticized them. Of course if the criticism is legitimate, you need to thank the critic and make appropriate changes. But if you’re being disliked or criticized because you confronted sin or tried to correct a problem (Gal. 4:16), and your focus is on doing it as an act of worship to God, then you can absorb the rejection and criticism from people, knowing that you pleased the Lord. Some day you will hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
There are six more ministry principles in these verses that will have to wait until next time. You will be doing well to absorb these six principles that we have covered, let alone piling on six more! I hope that you will think through and apply these as the Lord impresses them on your heart. To review, they are:
Ministry Principle 1: If you’re a Christian, you’re in the ministry.
Ministry Principle 2: To minister effectively to others, you must know and personally apply biblical truth in your walk with the Lord.
Ministry Principle 3: Trust God to work through others in the body and affirm their ministries.
Ministry Principle 4: Be sensitive towards others.
Ministry Principle 5: Don’t hesitate to be bold in challenging others or in reminding them of what they already know.
Ministry Principle 6: Offer your ministry to God as an act of worship, pleasing to Him.
In his book, Finishing Well in Life and Ministry [Leadership Resources, 1997], written with Craig Parro, pp. 189-190), Bill Mills tells of a time several years ago when he taught a seminar on “The Ministry of God’s Word” at a Wycliffe Bible Translators center in South America. He had a wonderful time, but he didn’t realize the significance of what God was doing until his last evening there. As he ate dinner with the director and his wife, she said, “I have to tell you what God has done in my heart during these days. When we came to South America many years ago, we were assigned an Indian tribe and began translating the Scriptures into their language.”
Mills explains the difficult process that this entails, of first learning the spoken language, then developing an alphabet and a written language, translating the Scriptures, and teaching the people to read. Although it’s somewhat quicker today with the use of computers, it used to take about 20 years. It’s a long and tedious job.
The director’s wife continued, “We lived at the Indian village and spent as much time with the people as we could. We were teaching the Scriptures to them as we were translating. A church was being born in their midst. As we came toward the end of the project, the people were becoming more and more involved in the production of drugs and less and less interested in the Scriptures. When we finished the translation of the New Testament in their language and scheduled the dedication service, not one person even came! I have been so angry and bitter. We gave our lives so that they could have the Word of God in their language. When we concluded what was almost a life’s work, they did not even want it! I have not been able to handle the bitterness of this disappointment in my heart.”
Then she said this with regard to Bill’s ministry of the Word that week: “God has been speaking to me in these days by His Word and His Spirit. He has been doing something beautiful in my heart. It is as though God has been washing His Word over my soul and healing me, and He has opened my eyes to see this all from His perspective. I am just beginning to realize now that we did it for Him! That is the only thing that makes any sense in all of this. We did it for God!”
Mills rightly concludes, “That is the only thing that makes any sense in ministry. We do it for Him.”
If you’re not involved in any ministry, first make sure that you know Christ as your Savior and Lord through faith in Him alone. Then, ask Him where and how He wants you serve Him. You don’t have to be perfect—just growing in goodness and knowledge. Whatever He gives you to do, whether it’s rearing your children or serving your family or working in a mundane job or being a witness in your neighborhood or at work by your life and words or serving in some capacity at church—do it as worship for Him.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
I’ve told you before about a recurring dream that I’ve had ever since my college days. Some of you have told me that you’ve had the same dream. Apparently, college is stressful, since many of us have had this same anxious dream. The basic format of the dream is that I’m in college and it’s near the end of the semester. Final exams are looming and I suddenly realize that there is a class that I am enrolled in, but I have not been attending. Now with the final exam staring me in the face I realize that I’m doomed. I can’t possibly prepare for the exam in a class that I didn’t even know that I was enrolled in. What a relief to wake up and realize that it was only a bad dream!
But what if it’s true and the exam not only affects whether I pass a college class, but how I will spend all eternity? I didn’t know that I was enrolled in this class, but now I’m standing before God who says, “Let’s see how you did. Hmm, you never attended class! You skipped the midterm! You didn’t do any of the assignments! In fact, you didn’t show up for the final! I’m afraid that I can’t give you a passing grade!”
You don’t want the day of judgment to be that kind of nightmare come true! As I said last week, whether you know it or not, if you’re a Christian, you’re in the ministry just as much as Paul was in the ministry or I’m in the ministry. True, you may not get paid to allow you to devote full time to your ministry. But God has given you spiritual gifts and a certain amount of time to employ those gifts for His kingdom purposes. As Paul says (Rom. 14:10, 12), “For we all will stand before the judgment seat of God…. So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God.” So as a gifted member of the body of Christ, you’re enrolled in the course. You’ll be graded on how well you did. You don’t want to get to the big final in the sky and realize that you haven’t been going to class or doing the assignments. You need to realize that you are in the ministry and you need conscientiously to be doing what God has given you to do.
Last time I summed up verses 14-21:
Following Paul’s example, we should affirm the ministries of others while serving the Lord in line with our gifts and calling, giving Him the glory for any results.
We saw:
Ministry Principle 1: If you’re a Christian, you’re in the ministry.
Ministry Principle 2: To minister effectively to others, you must know and personally apply biblical truth in your walk with the Lord.
Ministry Principle 3: Trust God to work through others in the body and affirm their ministries.
Ministry Principle 4: Be sensitive towards others.
Ministry Principle 5: Don’t hesitate to be bold in challenging others or in reminding them of what they already know.
Ministry Principle 6: Offer your ministry to God as an act of worship, pleasing to Him.
There are six more ministry principles in these verses that we need to explore. But first, let me read and explain 15:17-19:
Therefore in Christ Jesus I have found reason for boasting in things pertaining to God. For I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed, in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Spirit; so that from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.
Paul is explaining further his ministry to the Gentiles, giving the reasons why he could write so boldly to this largely Gentile church and why he could glory in ministering as a priest the gospel of God, offering up the Gentiles as an acceptable sacrifice (15:15, 16). So the “boast” of verse 17 refers back to verse 16 (C. E. B. Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans [T & T Clark], 2:757). Paul is boasting or glorying in his role of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles and in offering up the Gentile converts to God as an acceptable offering. This goes back to 12:1, where Paul said that we are to present our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is our spiritual service of worship.
But why does Paul mention boasting at all? Back in 3:27 he said that faith excludes all boasting. Boasting or pride is the root of all sins. So why is Paul boasting here? The answer is that he’s doing here what he wrote (2 Cor. 10:17; citing Jer. 9:24), “But he who boasts is to boast in the Lord.” It’s wrong to boast in ourselves, but it’s right to boast in the Lord, so that He gets the glory for what He has done through weak human instruments, or “earthen vessels,” as Paul refers to us (2 Cor. 4:7). Paul’s boast here is “in Christ Jesus … in things pertaining to God” (15:17). He is glorying in what God has done through him, which is all “because of the grace that was given [him] from God” (15:15). As he goes on to explain further (15:18), he is only boasting of what Christ has accomplished through him, “resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles.”
“By word and deed” (15:18) is a summary of how God used Paul to bring about the obedience of the Gentiles. “Word” refers to preaching the gospel, which is the power of God for salvation (1:16). Verse 19 shows that the deeds included “the power of signs and wonders,” which were done “in the power of the Spirit.” Paul uses “obedience” for “faith” because saving faith is obedient faith (Rom. 1:5; 16:26).
The “signs and wonders” refer to miracles from different points of view. “Signs” points to the spiritual significance or purpose of the miracles, to point to the truth of the gospel. “Wonders” looks at the response that miracles produce in people, who recognize that God is behind them. Paul uses the phrase “signs and wonders” just two other times. In 2 Corinthians 12:12 he says, “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles.” The miracles that Paul did authenticated him as a true apostle. But in 2 Thessalonians 2:9, he uses the term to refer to the activity of the man of lawlessness (antichrist), “whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders ….” He will use miracles to deceive those who perish. So we need to be discerning, because those performing signs and wonders may be from God, but they may be from Satan.
This raises the whole question of whether we should expect signs and wonders to accompany the preaching of the gospel today. Some claim that we should expect miracles as normative and if we aren’t experiencing miracles, we must not be trusting in God.
First, we need to acknowledge that God is the Almighty Creator and He can do miracles if and when He chooses to do them. So we should not limit His power by our unbelief (Mark 6:5-6). At the same time, we should recognize that in the Bible, miracles tend to be clustered around the exodus, the ministries of Elijah and Elisha, a few at the time of Daniel, and many during the ministries of Christ and the apostles. The purpose of miracles in those situations was to authenticate the truth of God’s Word at key points in history. In between these times, there are occasional miracles, but they do not seem to be the norm.
Also, as the apostolic era wound down, the number of miracles seems to have waned. In the early days of the gospel, both Peter and Paul saw frequent, extraordinary miracles (Acts 5:12-16; 9:36-42; 13:9-12; 19:11-12). But later, Paul seems to have been unable to heal Epaphroditus, although God mercifully spared him (Phil. 2:25-27). He didn’t tell Timothy to claim healing for his frequent stomach problems, but rather to drink some wine (1 Tim. 5:23). Paul didn’t heal Trophimus, but left him sick at Miletus (2 Tim. 4:20). And, writing to a second generation church, the author of Hebrews explains how the Lord testified through the apostles with signs and wonders and various gifts of the Holy Spirit as confirmation of the gospel (Heb. 2:3-4). If those things were normative in the second generation, he would have appealed to their current experience as proof of the gospel. But rather, he points them back to what God did through the apostles. Obviously the miracles that God did through Paul were genuine and well-known, or his claims would have been refuted by eyewitnesses. But those miracles did seem to be unique to authenticate the gospel in the early days.
So the application for us is that we should pray for miracles and believe that God is able to do miracles if it is His will. But to say that miracles are normative for the present day goes too far.
Before we look at the final six ministry principles, let me also comment on the last half of verse 19, where Paul says that from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum he has fully preached the gospel of Christ. Illyricum is the area presently known as Albania and the Balkan countries (former Yugoslavia). We don’t know whether Paul went into that area (perhaps from Macedonia, just to the east) or whether he means to the border of Illyricum. We might say, “I traveled from Mexico to Canada,” but the meaning is ambiguous. Did I travel from Chiapas (far southern Mexico) to the Northwest Territories, or did I travel from southern Texas to northern Minnesota? So we don’t know exactly what Paul means, except that he had preached the gospel from its point of origin in Jerusalem to the Gentile areas far northwest of there.
Also, by “fully preaching the gospel,” Paul doesn’t mean that he preached in every village and city in those regions. Rather, he had planted strategic churches in those areas, so that from them the gospel could go out into the surrounding areas. For example, Paul spent two years teaching the disciples in Ephesus, with the result that “all who lived in Asia heard the gospel” (Acts 19:10).
With that explanation of verses 17-19, let’s draw out some principles for your ministry:
Ministry Principle 7: Deflect all glory in your ministry to God, because all results come from His grace (15:15, 17-18).
It is always wrong to boast in ourselves, but it is right to boast in the Lord. Paul is at pains to make it clear that his ministry was (15:15) “because of the grace that was given me from God.” His boast was “in Christ Jesus,” in “things pertaining to God” (15:17). In case we missed it, he clarifies (15:18), “For I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me ….” Paul never got over the wonder that God would save and then choose to use a former persecutor and blasphemer like him (1 Tim. 1:12-16). Neither should we. If God uses you to do anything for His kingdom, it is all because of His grace.
So, what should you do when someone comes up and gushes about something that you did that helped him spiritually? It comes across as false humility if you say, “Please, it wasn’t me—it was the Lord!” I think you should say, “Thank you! It’s encouraging to hear how the Lord worked in your life through what I did. Thanks for encouraging me.” If they keep gushing, however, it may be time to interject, “Really, I appreciate your encouragement, but it was the Lord. I was just the imperfect instrument that He used, so give Him the glory.”
And in your heart, no matter how much people may praise you, remember the wit and wisdom of Winston Churchill. He was once sitting on an outside platform waiting to speak to crowds who had packed the streets to hear him. The chairlady of the proceedings leaned over and said, “Doesn’t it thrill you, Mr. Churchill, to see all those people out there who came just to see you?” Churchill replied, “It is quite flattering, but whenever I feel this way I always remember that if instead of making a political speech I was being hanged, the crowd would be twice as big.” (James Humes, Churchill: Speaker of the Century [Stein and Day], p. 289)
Ministry Principle 8: There is a legitimate sense of satisfaction that comes from realizing that God has used you (15:17).
Paul knew that he was merely a servant of God by His grace. When the Corinthians were dividing into camps following Apollos or Paul, Paul wrote (1 Cor. 3:5-6), “What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.” He always knew that he was just a servant by God’s grace.
And yet, he also felt a sense of satisfaction at what God by His grace had accomplished through him. In 1 Corinthians 15:9-10, he wrote, “For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” And in our text (v. 18), Paul has a sense of satisfaction that God has used him to bring the pagan Gentiles into obedience to Jesus Christ.
The older I get and the longer I’m in ministry, the more I have to battle discouragement and a sense of failure. I often feel like quitting because I think, “I am not seeing anywhere near the results that men like John MacArthur and John Piper and R. C. Sproul see.” But then the Lord graciously gives me an encouraging email from someone who has been reading my sermons online or someone in the church tells me how God is changing them through His Word, and it revives me to keep going.
Ministry Principle 9: The goal in your ministry should be to proclaim the gospel so as to produce genuinely converted, obedient disciples (15:18).
Romans is all about “the gospel of God” (1:1; 15:16; “gospel of Christ,” 15:19; “gospel,” 15:20), which results in obedience to God in the hearts of those who respond in faith. The gospel “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (1:16). So the gospel is central to all ministry.
This means that you need to be able to give the gospel in a clear, succinct manner: “The bad news is, we all have sinned and are under God’s righteous judgment (Rom. 3:23; 6:23). We cannot be reconciled to a holy God by our good deeds. The penalty for our sins must be paid. The good news is, God sent His own Son to pay the penalty that we deserved. Jesus’ death on the cross satisfied God’s justice. But He didn’t pay the penalty for everyone, but only for those who will believe in Him (John 3:16). If you will turn from your sin and self-righteousness and trust in Christ alone, God will be merciful to forgive all your sins and freely give you eternal life (Eph. 2:8-9). Will you trust in Christ right now?”
Also, when you’re dealing with someone, do not assume that he is clear about the gospel or that he has trusted in Christ, even if he professes to be a Christian. Ask him, “If you were to die and stand before God and He asked you why He should let you into heaven, what would you say?” His answer will tell you what he’s trusting in for eternal life. Some give the right answer, but their lives contradict their profession. They need to know that saving faith is obedient faith. If someone isn’t growing in obedience, his claim to believe is suspect (1 John 2:4; 3:4-10).
Then Paul continues (15:20-21), “And thus I aspired to preach the gospel, not where Christ was already named, so that I would not build on another man’s foundation; but as it is written, ‘They who had no news of Him shall see, and they who have not heard shall understand.’” Paul’s aim in his mission was to preach the gospel where Christ had not yet been named, as Isaiah 52:15 prophesied.
Paul’s ambition to preach where Christ was not yet known so that he would not build on another man’s foundation did not prevent him from ministering to the church in Rome, which he had not founded. Rather, it reflects Paul’s overall calling and his general philosophy of ministry. He was called to plant new churches and move on. He was a pioneer evangelist, who felt “crowded” by too many Christians (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 896). Others were called to stay with those new churches and shepherd them. Both are needed. These verses lead to three final ministry principles:
Ministry Principle 10: Understand how your ministry fits into the big picture of what God is doing (10:20).
Some are called to pioneer, but others need to stay long term in one location to build the church there. Some are gifted evangelists who can’t rest at night if they haven’t given the gospel to someone that day. Others see God use them more in encouraging and building up believers who are struggling. This doesn’t mean that the evangelist doesn’t disciple Christians or that the guy who focuses on discipling Christians doesn’t evangelize. It only helps you to know where to focus. You can’t do it all and you’re most effective when you’re doing what God has gifted you to do.
Ministry Principle 11: Until the gospel has gone out to all people, we all should pray, support, and work toward completing the Great Commission (10:21).
John Piper wrote (Let the Nations be Glad [Baker, 2nd ed.], p. 17), “Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t.” Our passion should be that God’s glory be known so that He is worshipped around the globe. Piper also has said, “You’re either a goer, a sender, or disobedient.” If you’re not passionate about missions, it may be because you’re not passionate about God.
Ministry Principle 12: Base your philosophy of ministry on scripture, not on modern business or marketing techniques (15:21).
Paul cites Isaiah 52:15 to back his philosophy of taking the gospel to those who have yet to hear. That text comes out of Isaiah’s fourth “servant” passage, which points to Christ, the suffering servant. Paul saw his ministry to the Gentiles as a part of fulfilling the Old Testament prediction about the Gentiles coming to see and understand the good news about the Servant of the Lord (Moo, pp. 897-898). Paul based his ministry on Scripture.
In our day, there is a strong appeal to build your ministry on the latest business or marketing techniques. After all, these are “proven” principles that work. Successful pastors vouch for them. But you have to ask, “But are they biblical methods? Is it a philosophy of ministry based on Scripture?” If not, we should not follow it, even if it “works.” One example that I gave when we were studying chapters 14 & 15 is that the church growth movement urges pastors to utilize what they call the “homogeneous unit principle.” This is based on the philosophy that people want to be a part of a larger group that is just like they are. So you tailor one service for the older folks and another that appeals to the younger crowd. In other words, you design a product that appeals to your target audience. The only problem is, it isn’t biblical!
As I said, if you know Christ, you are enrolled in the lifelong class called “Ministry.” You will be graded on your performance. The final exam is coming. I pray that we all will take these ministry principles to heart so that we will hear one day (Matt. 25:21), “Well done, good and faithful slave…. Enter into the joy of your master.”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
December 16, 2012
In Don’t Waste Your Life ([Crossway], pp. 45-46), which you all should read, John Piper contrasts two stories. The first story is about two women, one over eighty, the other in her late seventies, who had given their lives to make Jesus Christ known among the unreached people of Cameroon. In April, 2000, their brakes failed, their car went over a cliff, and they were both killed instantly. Piper asks, “Was that a tragedy?” He answers, “No, that is not a tragedy. That is a glory. These lives were not wasted. And these lives were not lost. ‘Whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it’ (Mark 8:35).”
The second story shows how to waste your life. The February, 1998, Reader’s Digest, told of a couple who took early retirement when he was 59 and she was 51. They moved to Florida where they cruise on their boat, play softball, and collect shells. At first Piper thought that the story was a spoof on the American Dream, but then he realized that this is the dream: “Come to the end of your life—your one and only precious, God-given life—and let the last great work of your life, before you give an account to your Creator, be this: playing softball and collecting shells.” “That,” says Piper, “is a tragedy.”
It’s especially tragic when Christians waste their lives in light of eternity. Far too many Christians have been sucked into the American dream: to retire as young as possible and then devote your final years to living for yourself. The justification is, “I’ve worked hard for many years, so now it’s my turn to indulge myself for a while.”
I agree that we need to provide adequate financial resources for the time when we’re no longer able to work. I also understand the need for more leisure time as we get older, especially for spending more time with grandkids before they’re grown. But it seems to me that as those who are commanded by our Lord Jesus to seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness (Matt. 6:33), we ought to think and even dream about how God might use our few remaining years on earth for His purposes. If you no longer have to work 40-60 hours a week to earn a living, shouldn’t you give some thought to how you could use at least 20-30 hours a week to help fulfill the Great Commission?
If anyone deserved a retirement condo near the golf course or seashore, it was the apostle Paul. The man had endured threats on his life, beatings, imprisonment, being stoned, three shipwrecks, and numerous other dangers and hardships for the sake of the gospel (2 Cor. 11:23-28). “Slow down, Paul! At least take a little vacation time! You’re not getting any younger!” But, here he is telling the Roman Christians that he wants to visit them, but he won’t be staying long. He wants to go to Spain to preach the gospel there. His driving ambition was to keep preaching the gospel where Christ was not yet known (15:20). As he looked toward the final years of his life, he was still dreaming big for God. Following Paul’s example here …
Dream big and plan for how God might use you, but submit to God’s will and seek His blessing in the outworking of your plans.
If God has left you on this planet, He has a purpose for you to fulfill. Perhaps due to bodily weakness, all you can do is pray. Then pray! Perhaps you can give to the cause of missions. Then give! But you may be able to do much more. Then do it! I just read in a missionary newsletter of a woman who recently retired to Green Valley, Arizona. While still in the Chicago area, she had been asking God how she could honor Him in her retirement, and she kept hearing the words, “Green Valley Mall.” She didn’t know what that meant until she met this missionary and a co-worker with the Scriptures in Use mission. She asked them if they needed a volunteer in their office. She didn’t know it at the time, but the office is located in the Green Valley Mall, where she now serves with Scriptures in Use. There are three lessons that we can draw out of Paul’s future plans and dreams:
Romans 15:22-24: “For this reason I have often been prevented from coming to you; but now, with no further place for me in these regions, and since I have had for many years a longing to come to you whenever I go to Spain—for I hope to see you in passing, and to be helped on my way there by you, when I have first enjoyed your company for a while—”
Paul wanted to see Rome (Acts 19:21) and spend a little while with the saints there, but he didn’t want to stay for very long. He wanted to use Rome as a base to reach further west into Spain, at the edge of the Roman Empire. Did Paul ever get there? We don’t know for sure. Some scholars doubt it, but others think that he did. About 96 A.D., Clement of Rome wrote to the church of Corinth and mentioned that Paul had reached “the limit of the west” before he died. For someone who lived in Rome, “the limit of the west” arguably could have referred to Spain. Another work dating from the late second century, the Muratorian fragment, takes Paul’s Spanish journey for granted (F. F. Bruce, Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free [Eerdmans], pp. 447-449). So it’s possible but not certain that after his first Roman imprisonment, Paul was released and went to Spain before returning to Rome, where he was arrested again and finally executed.
We can draw four applications from these verses:
Have a holy ambition to see God use you in ways beyond what you can ask or think. We spend time thinking about how we can enjoy our retirement years. We plan and talk and dream about where we can go and what we can do. But why not spend time thinking about how God could use your retirement years to advance His kingdom?
William Carey was a self-educated shoe cobbler in England who had a vision of taking the gospel to India. When he shared that idea with some ministers, one seasoned pastor called him a “miserable enthusiast” and told him that God would reach the heathen in His own way without human aid (William Carey [Zondervan], Mary Drewery, p. 31). But Carey persisted and overcame setback after setback. He eventually got to India, learned and translated the Bible into almost 40 languages, founded a university that still exists, and saw God make a substantial impact on the Indian subcontinent (see The Legacy of William Carey [Crossway], Vishal and Ruth Mangalwadi). Carey’s motto was, “Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God” (Drewery, p. 39).
Maybe you’re thinking, “But I don’t have those kinds of talents. I can barely speak English, let alone learn another language! I don’t have much to offer in terms of advancing God’s kingdom.” But remember, in Jesus’ parable of the talents, the slave who received five talents and the one who received two talents both invested those funds on behalf of their master. The slave who only received one talent buried it and felt the wrath of his master (Matt. 25:14-30). Surely one lesson to take away from that story is that if you think that you don’t have much that you can do for the Master, you’re the one most in danger of doing nothing. And remember the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 from a boy’s meager lunch of five loaves and two fishes: Little becomes much when you yield it to the Lord Jesus.
So where should you begin? First, consider the local church. Talk to one of the pastors or our children’s coordinator about how you could use your gifts in ministry here. Become a mentor to younger men or women. Think about what you could do to reach others in your neighborhood for Christ. Volunteer to help tutor kids who need help in school or teach reading through the library literacy program and tell your students about Jesus. Help out at Sunshine Rescue Mission or Hope Cottage. Also, there are several local mission organizations that could probably use some help. If you can use a computer, there are ministries that will feed you contacts of those who want to know more about the faith. Use your creativity and your interests and ask God to use you to make an impact for His kingdom.
Paul wanted to get to Rome and that was a good desire. But something better had kept him from getting there, namely, preaching the gospel from Jerusalem to Illyricum. And while Paul wanted to visit Rome, there was something better that meant that he could not stay long, namely, going to Spain.
It’s difficult to understand Paul’s comment (15:23), “with no further place for me in these regions.” Surely Paul could find much to do in those regions! But as Everett Harrison explains (The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. by Frank Gaebelein [Zondervan], 10:157), we can only understand his comment in light of Paul’s “restless pioneer spirit.” There were plenty of good things that Paul could have done in those regions. But in light of his gifts and calling, the best thing that he could do was to press on to areas where Christ had not yet been named, such as Spain.
So ask yourself, “What is the unique contribution that I can make to the cause of Christ in light of my gifts and resources? Where can I best be used of God?” Don’t let good things crowd out the best way that God can use you.
Paul had a desire and plan to go to Jerusalem with the Gentile gift for the poor Jewish believers, then to visit the saints in Rome, and then to move on to Spain. As we know, things didn’t work out exactly as Paul had envisioned, in that he got arrested in Jerusalem, spent several years in custody, and finally went to Rome as a prisoner. But he wasn’t wrong to lay out a plan in line with the desires that God had put into his heart.
Sometimes Christians have the mistaken notion that if you hate the thought of going to the jungle to a primitive tribe as a missionary, then that’s what God will have you do. Maybe the idea is that it is more spiritual to do something that grates against your will! While it’s true that God wants you to be yielded to whatever His will for your life may be, He’s not a sadist who delights to make you miserable! He’s a loving Father who wants to see His children happy and fulfilled. He gives us the desires and personality bents that we have. If He calls you to go to a primitive jungle tribe, He will give you the grace to live there. I’m not saying that it will be easy, but at least you’ll be able to shrug off the inconveniences and hardship and love what you’re doing. When we were in Central Asia for a month this summer, there were things about the culture that grated on us. But the missionaries who have been called to serve there just shrugged these things off with a laugh.
So God works through our desires or gives us the grace to endure hardship cheerfully. Work out a plan for how He might use you in line with your desires and abilities.
Paul always worked in conjunction with others. We’ll see this in 16:21-23, where he sends greetings to Rome from eight men who were with him, along with greetings from the whole church. Part of Paul’s strategy in stopping for a while at Rome was to get them on board as his western base to reach out to Spain. He may have hoped to recruit one or more brothers from Rome to accompany him to Spain.
When Paul says (15:24), “to be helped on my way there by you,” many commentators think that at least in part he is asking for financial help. But I respectfully disagree. In my seminary master’s thesis (which the faculty accepted!), I argued that Paul had a fixed policy of not asking for personal support or making his own financial needs known to potential donors. When he ran out of funds, he went to work making tents. When support came in, he devoted himself more fully to the ministry (Acts 18:3, 5; Phil. 4:10-18).
But what about this phrase, “to be helped on my way there by you”? This (or a similar phrase) occurs eight other times (Acts 15:3; 20:38; 21:5; 1 Cor. 16:6, 11; 2 Cor. 1:16; Titus 3:13; 2 John 6). In 2 Corinthians 1:16, Paul tells the church there that perhaps they can help him on his way to Judea. But he is not suggesting that they provide him with financial support, because he resolutely states later that he will not accept such support from them (2 Cor. 11:9, 12; 12:14). William Sanday & Arthur Headlam (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [T & T Clark, fifth ed.], p. 411) say that this phrase “need not mean more than to be sent forward on a journey with prayers and good wishes.” It was the custom for people to escort a respected guest for a short distance on his journey.
But here in Romans the phrase could be Paul’s asking the church there to partner with him in prayer (at the least) and perhaps for someone in Rome to go with him to Spain. Paul always worked with a team. So should we. Look for a local church or a mission agency that you can partner with.
So the first lesson from Paul’s future plans is, “Dream big and make plans for how God might use you in serving Him.”
Romans 15:25-28: “but now, I am going to Jerusalem serving the saints. For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem. Yes, they were pleased to do so, and they are indebted to them. For if the Gentiles have shared in their spiritual things, they are indebted to minister to them also in material things. Therefore, when I have finished this, and have put my seal on this fruit of theirs, I will go on by way of you to Spain.”
When you read Paul’s letters, you realize that this gift from the mostly Gentile churches for the poor saints in Jerusalem was a really big deal to Paul. He spends two chapters in 2 Corinthians (8 & 9) urging them to be generous in this effort. He spent several months that ended up (when he got arrested) being several years diverting his efforts from his normal priority of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles in order to administer this gift and make sure it got to Jerusalem safely. He could have delegated this to a trusted associate, but he felt that it was important enough to go personally. He even went against two warnings from believers that Luke says came from the Holy Spirit (Acts 21:4, 10-14) not to set foot in Jerusalem. Although most commentators would not agree with me, I think that Paul was so intent on going to Jerusalem that he wrongly ignored God’s direct warnings not to go. So you have to ask, “Why was this so important to Paul?”
My answer is that he thought that taking the gift to Jerusalem would have maximum impact for Christ’s church. In 15:25 he puts it, “serving the saints.” He saw it as putting his seal on this fruit of the Gentile churches (15:28). I think he means that this gift confirmed the bond of unity between the Gentile and Jewish factions of the church. Paul insisted that in Christ there is no Jew or Gentile (Gal. 3:28). The gift also authenticated the reality of the conversion of the Gentiles to the Jewish believers in Israel, who tended to be skeptical of Paul’s Gentile mission. It showed the power of the gospel to bring these former pagans to obedience to Christ and it authenticated Paul’s gospel. Also, it fulfilled the commitment that Paul had made to James, Peter, and John to remember the poor as he went to the Gentiles (Gal. 2:10). And, perhaps Paul saw it, at least in part, as fulfilling the Old Testament prophecies that the Gentiles would bring their wealth to Jerusalem (Isa. 2:2-3; 45:14; 60:5-17; 61:6; from Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], p. 776).
There are several helpful principles of giving in these verses that I do not have time to develop. Note briefly that giving is both a duty and a delight. It is a duty to share in material things with those who have shared with you in spiritual things (15:27). And yet Paul mentions twice (15:26, 27) that the Gentiles were pleased to do it—it was a delight. The idea that the Gentiles are indebted spiritually to the Jews is the major theme of Romans 11. Also, note that giving is a form of fellowship. The Greek word translated “contribution” (15:26) is koinonia, “fellowship,” or sharing together. Giving to missionaries or to needy saints builds a bond of fellowship between you.
But the overall principle is, as you dream and plan for how God might use you, consider what will have maximum impact for Christ’s church. Finally,
Romans 15:29: “I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ.”
Paul is probably referring both to the spiritual blessings that he hoped to impart to the Romans and to the blessings that they would impart to him (see 1:11-12, 15). But in Paul’s case, it didn’t happen in quite the pleasant way that he envisioned! His trip to Rome was as a prisoner via a shipwreck. After he got there, some mean-spirited believers in Rome preached Christ out of envy and strife, thinking to cause Paul distress in his imprisonment (Phil. 1:15, 17). The point is that while Paul sought for and expected God’s blessing, he had to submit to God’s sovereign will in the outworking of what those blessings actually entailed. As Proverbs 16:9 says, “The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” Or as the saying goes, “Man proposes; God disposes.”
So we should seek God’s blessing in all that we dream and plan for how He might use us, but we have to submit to how all of that actually works out. It may not go according to our plans, but if we walk with God and submit to Him, He will use us for His glory.
To take action on these verses, first ask God to show you how to spend your life (both now and in the future) in light of eternity. Don’t waste your life! With Moses (Ps. 90:12), pray, “So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom.” He concludes that psalm with the repeated plea (90:17), “And confirm for us the work of our hands; yes, confirm the work of our hands.” Give some thought to what abilities and desires He has given you to use for His purpose. If you’re married, talk about it with your mate. Think ahead to when you’ll be 75 or 80 and dream about how you would like for God to have used you by that time. Life is short—don’t waste it!
Then educate yourself about the needs of the world in light of the gospel. How can you strategically use your gifts and desires to have maximum impact for Christ’s kingdom? Work out some plans that will take you in that direction. Perhaps it will be to pray for and support missionaries or national believers to reach the unreached. But for some of you, it may be to go to the unreached with the good news of the Savior who has come. Whatever you do, dream big for God and use what He has entrusted to you for His kingdom and glory!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2012, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Whenever I speak about prayer, I want you to know that I speak as a fellow-struggler in the trenches. I’ve never found prayer to be easy. Also, many messages and books on prayer lay a guilt trip on the listener or reader for not praying enough. They tell about how Martin Luther was so busy that he had to spend four hours every morning in prayer. Somehow that is supposed to motivate me to get out of bed at 3 a.m. to pray, but it doesn’t work for me. So I don’t want this message to imply that I’ve got it together when it comes to prayer or to increase your guilt level.
But I do want for us all to learn how to pray rightly and be motivated to pray more by Paul’s request here that the Roman Christians pray for him. If we want God to use us individually and as a church in this New Year, we need to be people who depend on Him more in prayer. John Piper wrote (Let the Nations be Glad [Baker], p. 66),
Not only has God made the accomplishment of his purposes hang on the preaching of the Word, but he has also made the success of that preaching hang on prayer. God’s goal to be glorified will not succeed without the powerful proclamation of the gospel. And that gospel will not be proclaimed in power to all the nations without the prevailing, earnest, faith-filled prayers of God’s people.
I have a hunch that most of us would have to admit that our prayers usually focus on our needs or the needs of our immediate family. Of course we should take our needs and our family’s needs to the Lord in prayer. But in the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:9-13), Jesus teaches us first to pray that God’s name would be treated as holy, that His kingdom would come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. After this He teaches us to pray for our own needs. So to pray rightly, the Lord’s glory (“hallowed be Your name”) and the Lord’s work (“Your kingdom come, Your will be done”) should be uppermost in our prayers. The lesson for us from Paul’s request here is:
To pray rightly, pray for the Lord’s work with the right motivation, the right mindset, the right understanding, and the right relationship.
Romans 15:30: “Now I urge you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God for me….” This verse teaches us four things about praying with the right motivation:
“Urge” is the same word that Paul used in Romans 12:1, “Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice ….” The English Standard Version translates it, “I appeal to you.” The Holman Christian Standard Version reads, “I implore you.” Putting aside the debate about whether Paul was right to go to Jerusalem, he knew that he faced some severe difficulties there. The Holy Spirit had warned him that bonds and afflictions awaited him at the hands of the Jews (Acts 20:23; 21:4, 11). He knew that even among the believers in Jerusalem, many were prejudiced against his ministry to the Gentiles (Acts 21:20-21). They might not accept the gift of financial help that he was bringing from the Gentile churches. And so he urges the Roman believers to pray for two things (15:31): that he would be rescued from the disobedient in Judea; and that his service for Jerusalem (the gift) would prove acceptable to the saints.
Paul often asked for prayer in his letters because he was constantly aware of his desperate need for God to work if his efforts for the gospel were to amount to anything. He asked the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 5:25), “Brethren, pray for us.” More specifically, he asked them to pray that the word of the Lord would spread rapidly and be glorified and that he would be rescued from evil men (2 Thess. 3:1-2). He asked the Philippians to pray that he would be delivered from prison, but that whatever the outcome, Christ would be exalted through him (Phil. 1:19-20) He asked the Ephesians (6:19-20) and the Colossians (4:3-4) to pray that he would have opportunities to preach the gospel and that he would do so with boldness and clarity. He asked the Corinthians to pray that God would deliver him from the peril of death (2 Cor. 1:9-11).
These repeated requests for prayer are all the more significant when you remember that Paul was one of the most gifted and godly men who ever lived. If there was ever anyone who seemed to “have it together,” it was Paul! Sometimes such great men come across as if they don’t have any needs. They try to project an image of self-confidence so that others will follow their leadership. But Paul freely and repeatedly let the churches know that he desperately needed their prayers. For Paul, prayer wasn’t a nice thing to do; it was a necessity for survival.
In his excellent book, A Praying Life [NavPress], p. 65), Paul Miller observes, “You don’t need self-discipline to pray continuously; you just need to be poor in spirit.” In other words, to be motivated to pray, don’t focus on more discipline; focus rather on how needy you and those you pray for really are. Unless God works, nothing will happen of any lasting spiritual significance.
Paul urges us to pray “by our Lord Jesus Christ,” which is an appeal to Christ’s authority (C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [T & T Clark], 2:776). When Jesus gave the Great Commission just before He ascended into heaven, He said (Matt. 28:18), “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” That doesn’t leave any place where Jesus does not have authority (see Eph. 1:21-22)! So we can pray to God in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ with the confidence that He has the power and authority to answer our prayers that are in accord with His will.
If you’ve ever had a difficult matter to resolve, you know that if you try to go through a lower level bureaucrat, your chances of getting what you’re after are slim. But if you know someone in a position of authority and you can do directly to him or her, you have a much better chance of success. As Christians, we can go directly to the God of the universe through the authority of His Son, who has all authority in heaven and on earth! That should motivate us to pray.
Paul urges them to pray “by the love of the Spirit.” While grammatically this could refer to the Spirit’s love for us or to our love for the Spirit, I agree with the majority of commentators who argue that this refers to the love that the Holy Spirit produces in all who walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:16, 22). Paul is saying, “If the Holy Spirit has produced His fruit of love in you, show that love by striving together with me in your prayers to God for me.”
If you love people, you’ll pray for them. You pray for your kids because you love them. You pray for other family members (even if they frustrate you at times) because you love them. If you care about someone’s eternal destiny, you’ll pray for his salvation. If you care about a couple that is struggling in their marriage, you’ll pray for them. While Paul knew many of the believers in Rome (16:1-16), there were many there whom he did not know. But by reading this letter to them, they could sense Paul’s love for them. Even though they had not seen Paul, the love that the Spirit put in their hearts for all who love the Lord Jesus should prompt them to pray for him. So when we hear of fellow believers who are in great need, the love of the Spirit should motivate us to pray for them.
Paul mentions all three members of the trinity in this verse: We pray by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit to God, who of course is the heavenly Father. Jesus taught us to pray (Matt. 6:9), “Our Father who is in heaven.” What a great privilege that we can come to the God who spoke the universe into existence by His great power and address Him as “Father”! When we come to His throne through our great high priest, we can draw near with confidence, knowing that it is a throne of grace where we receive mercy and find grace to help in our time of need (Heb. 4:14-16). So to pray rightly for the Lord’s work, pray with the right motivation: We have great needs and we have a great triune God.
Paul urges the Roman Christians (15:30), “strive together with me in your prayers to God for me.” There are two things here:
This is the only time this compound verb (“strive together”) is used in the New Testament, but Paul uses the root verb with reference to prayer in Colossians 4:12, “Epaphras, who is one of your number, a bondslave of Jesus Christ, sends you his greetings, always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers, that you may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God.” We get our word “agonize” from the Greek verb. It was used of athletic contests. Paul uses the noun most likely in reference to his own prayers for the Colossians (Col. 2:1), “For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf and for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not personally seen my face.”
Paul describes his ministry as (Col. 1:29), “For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.” He sums up his entire ministry by using both the noun and the verb (2 Tim. 4:7), “I have fought the good fight.” Although he doesn’t use the same word, the same idea lies behind Paul’s description of spiritual warfare (Eph. 6:12), “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”
These verses all fly in the face of the popular teaching that the Christian life is an effortless matter of “letting go and letting God.” I’ve heard Bible teachers say, “If you’re struggling, you’re not resting in Christ.” I guess Paul needed to learn some things from them! He struggled, he strived, he wrestled, he fought.
This means that if you don’t find prayer to be easy, welcome to the Christian life! It requires striving and wrestling against the forces of darkness and against the desires of the flesh. If you have the mindset that prayer is easy and effortless, you won’t do much praying. Prayer requires striving.
Paul was already striving in prayer for his upcoming trip to Jerusalem, but he asks them to join him in the battle. Sometimes I’ve heard Christians try to rally large numbers to pray for some urgent need and it seems as if the mentality is, “If we just get enough people praying, it will tip the scales and God will have to answer.” But that’s not why we should strive together with others in our prayers. The effective prayers of a righteous man (singular) can accomplish much (James 5:16).
Rather, when more people pray, God gets more glory when He answers. Also, when more pray and God answers, it strengthens the faith of all those who prayed. And, it lightens the load of the person who is praying if others come along and help carry the burden. It helps to know that others care enough to pray for your need. Since prayer is warfare, it’s better to go into battle with as many troops as you can muster, rather than by yourself.
John Piper has often pointed out that our prayers are often ineffective because we wrongly view prayer as calling for the butler to bring us another glass of iced tea, rather than rightly viewing it as a walkie-talkie to call in more supplies and ammunition to the front lines of the battle. In other words, our prayers should not be focused on trivial things to make us more comfortable, but rather on crucial things to advance the cause of Christ against the enemy.
So to pray rightly, pray for the Lord’s work with the right motivation: We have great needs and we have a great God. Pray with the right mentality: Prayer is warfare.
Paul asks for two specific things: to be delivered from the disobedient in Judea (unbelievers); and that his service (gift) to the saints would prove acceptable. Those requests teach us two things:
Paul assumes that in response to his and the Romans’ prayers, God can restrain the disobedient Jews from killing him and that God can work in the hearts of the prejudiced and untaught believers in Jerusalem so that they will accept the gift from the Gentiles. The fact that the Romans were over a thousand miles away from Jerusalem and didn’t know either the disobedient Jews or the prejudiced saints made no difference. God was in both places and He is powerful to restrain sinners and change the hearts of believers. The fact that people have a “free will” to do as they choose makes no difference. Without robbing people of their freedom to choose and their responsibility for their choices, God works all things after the counsel of His will (Eph. 1:11; Ps. 103:19; Ps. 115:3; Prov. 21:1). He uses our prayers as a part of that process!
If salvation depends ultimately on the “free will” of lost, sinful people, then you should quit praying for their salvation, because God’s hands are tied! But if salvation is from the Lord, then pray that He will soften hard hearts, open blind eyes, raise dead sinners, and cause them to respond willingly to the gospel. It’s true that they must choose to believe in Christ, but it’s also true that no one can come to Jesus unless the Father draws him (John 6:44). So pray with the assurance that in some mysterious way that we cannot understand, God’s mighty power to restrain evil, to save the lost, and to sanctify the saints flows through our prayers.
Some of the “Word-faith” preachers arrogantly teach that we are to command God in our prayers and that He must do as we say! What blasphemy! God is sovereign; we are not. We should pray as specifically as we can in line with what we understand to be God’s will for His glory, but we have to submit to His sovereignty in how He answers.
Were Paul’s prayers here answered? Yes, sort of, but not exactly in the way that he probably was thinking when he asked for prayer. He was rescued from the disobedient in Judea, but only by becoming a Roman prisoner for the next four years. His service to Jerusalem seems to have been accepted (Acts 21:17), but the account is clear that many of the Jerusalem saints had a decidedly Jewish view of Christianity that wouldn’t have been enthusiastic about uncircumcised Gentiles being on equal footing with them in the church (Acts 21:20-21). They may have thought that by accepting the gift, they would be giving tacit endorsement of Paul’s work among the Gentiles. Or, they might have viewed Paul’s gift as a bribe to try to get them to endorse his breaches of the law among the Gentiles. Or, some may have been too ethnocentric to accept any help from the Gentiles. So we really don’t know to what extent Paul’s second request was answered.
Verse 32 expresses not a third request, but rather the desired result if the first two requests were answered. Paul wanted to “come to you in joy by the will of God and find refreshing rest in your company.” Even though the first two requests were perhaps not answered exactly as Paul envisioned, and he arrived in Rome as a prisoner via a shipwreck, he did come to them in joy (Philippians, which is full of joy in the Lord, was written during his Roman imprisonment) and with fresh encouragement in the Lord because of the warm welcome he received (Acts 28:15).
As a side note, as a church, we should make sure that visiting missionaries who come to us find refreshing rest in our company. Have them in your home and ask them about their work. I’ve talked with missionaries who visited a church where no one even bothered to ask about their work or how they could pray for them. They’ve been living in a difficult place, facing loneliness, hardships, and discouragements. It would encourage them to know that we’ve been praying and that we want to know how things have been going on the front lines. But the main lesson is: Pray with the right understanding, that prayer is powerful, but we must submit to God’s sovereignty in the outcome. Finally,
Verse 33 is Paul’s benediction or prayer for the Roman saints. It’s the third benediction of this chapter. Paul has prayed that the God of perseverance and encouragement would grant them to be of the same mind with one another (15:5). He prayed that the God of hope would fill them with all joy and peace in believing (15:13). Now he prays that the God of peace will be with them. In 16:20 he assures them that the God of peace will soon crush Satan under their feet.
Since God is with all believers, Paul’s prayer here must mean that he wants them to experience God’s presence as the God of peace. Because of the cross, we have peace with God (Rom. 5:1). We also should experience peace with other believers, especially with those who are different than we are (Rom. 14:1-15:6; Eph. mstances as we bring our requests to Him in thankful prayer (Phil. 4:6-7). So we pray rightly when we are in right relationship with the God of peace.
So to pray rightly, pray for the Lord’s work with the right motivation: We have great needs and we have a great God. Pray with the right mindset: Prayer is warfare. Pray with the right understanding: Prayer is powerful, but we must submit to God’s sovereign will. And, pray with the right relationship: “The God of peace be with you all.” Let me suggest a few ways that you all can join with me in praying for our church in this coming year. (If you need ideas on specifically what to pray for family members, pastors, missionaries, or yourself, see “What should I pray?” under “Resources” on the church web site.)
Pray for conversions, both through the witness of our people and through the Word preached (here on Sundays and online).
Pray for all our missionaries.
Pray through the church directory. As you do, pray for harmonious marriages and pray for the conversion, growth in grace, and protection of our children.
Pray for health, strength, growth, encouragement, and wisdom for our ministry staff and our support staff.
Pray for healthy, spiritually nourishing relationships to flourish through our small groups.
Pray that all who come here would be serving, disciple-making disciples.
Pray for God to put on the hearts of some to devote their lives to reaching the unreached.
Pray for adequate finances, the sale of the Equestrian Estates property, and the purchase of the parking lot across the street.
Pray that our worship services would be marked by sincere, wholehearted worship in spirit and in truth.
May this be a year when we see God do great things through our prayers!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
When you come to a section of Scripture like Romans 16 with its long list of names, it’s good to keep in mind Paul’s words in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” These verses, along with the lists of genealogies in the Bible, are inspired by God for our spiritual profit to equip us for every good work. So rather than skip over them quickly, we need to think about, “What food for my soul is here for me?” You have to dig a bit, but when you do you come up with some nuggets that make the search worthwhile.
Paul isn’t deliberately teaching here. Rather, he is greeting his friends in Rome and sending greetings from some who were with him in Corinth. But the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write these greetings to teach us. What we have here is a snapshot of these two churches that teaches us much about what our church ought to be. And the individuals greeted here can motivate and encourage each of us to be all that God wants us to be. We learn that…
The church is made up of ordinary, diverse people who know the Lord, are growing in Him, serve Him, and love one another.
I can’t comment on every name, but I want to point out seven features of this snapshot. But before I do, let me say that this chapter dispels the notion that Paul was a non-relational theologian who was so wrapped up in his study that he didn’t care about people. These verses show that Paul knew many of the saints in Rome by name and some of them closely, even though he had not yet visited Rome. The chapter brims with personal relationships that reflect Paul’s love for people. The best theologians are those who can form loving relationships. Let’s look at the snapshot:
Paul commends to the Romans “our sister Phoebe, who is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea” (16:1). Most scholars think that she was the one who carried the letter to Rome. She was probably a single, wealthy business woman (she was a “helper” or “patroness” or “benefactor” of many, including Paul). Her name comes from Greek mythology, and so she was probably saved out of a Gentile pagan background.
In fact a majority of the names in this list are Gentile, indicating the Gentile majority in the church (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 918). And the majority of the names are those of either slaves or freedmen (freed slaves). Some in the list may have been a part of Caesar’s household (see Phil. 4:22, written from Rome). Aristobulus (16:10) was a grandson of Herod the Great and was a close friend of the Emperor Claudius. He was not a believer. When he died, his slaves would have become the property of the emperor, but would still be called “the household of Aristobulus.” The following name, Herodion, probably refers to a Jewish slave or freedman who was a part of that larger household of Aristobulus now in the emperor’s service (see J. B. Lightfoot, Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians [Zondervan], p. 175).
The household of Narcissus (16:11) also probably referred to the slaves belonging to a wealthy, wicked freedman who was also friends with the Emperor Claudius. When Nero came to the throne, his mother Agrippina forced Narcissus to commit suicide (three or four years before Romans was written), so his slaves also would be part of the royal household.
Tertius, Paul’s secretary in Corinth (16:22), and Quartus, whom Paul simply calls “the brother” (16:23), were probably slaves. Their names mean “Third” and “Fourth.” They weren’t even the number one or number two slaves. Although they were third and fourth, they were members of the church (James Boice, Romans: The New Humanity [Baker], 4:1952, 1956). Tertius had the very important task of accurately recording Paul’s dictated words. Quartus is no longer just the fourth nameless slave, but is “the brother,” a noble designation.
In the same breath Paul mentions Erastus, the city treasurer, an important public position. An inscription has been found in Corinth mentioning an Erastus who was the public works administrator. It may refer to an earlier or later job of this same man who was now city treasurer. So in the church in Corinth you had low-level slaves right next to Erastus the important official.
Prisca and Aquila (16:3) were fellow tentmakers and fellow Jews with Paul, as were the others in this chapter whom he calls “my kinsmen” (16:7, 11, 21). As we’ve seen, there were tensions between the Gentile and Jewish segments of the church in Rome. Paul desperately wanted these diverse groups to work out their differences and grow in love as one body in Christ.
One other man who was probably a Jew was Rufus (16:13). A “Rufus” is also mentioned in Mark 15:21, where Mark says that his father was Simon of Cyrene, who was forced to carry Jesus’ cross. Since Mark’s gospel was probably written for the Romans, the Rufus there may be the one Paul greets here. If so, Rufus’ father was a Jew from Cyrene (modern Libya), who had gone to Jerusalem for the Passover. Through his forced encounter with Christ and the cross, he came to faith in Jesus as His Savior and Lord. Luke mentions that when the gospel first went to Antioch, it was men from Cyprus and Cyrene who first preached it there (Acts 11:20). It’s possible (although not certain) that Simon of Cyrene was one of those men. His son Rufus was now a prominent member of the church in Rome.
We don’t know why Paul singles him out as “a choice man in the Lord.” The Greek term is, “elect” or “chosen” in the Lord, which is true of all believers. John Piper suggests that maybe Paul and Rufus had had a long discussion about God’s sovereign election. Also, perhaps they had talked about how God’s sovereignty had brought Rufus’ father in contact with Christ, so that the truth of election was now especially precious to him.
So the church in Rome was made up of these ordinary but diverse people. Some were slaves, others were blue collar workers, and still others were wealthy. Some were men, but Paul mentions a number of women. What drew them together and united them? We find the answer in a phrase that Paul repeats eleven times in these verses: “in the Lord” or “in Christ.” He asks the Romans to receive Phoebe “in the Lord” (16:2). He commends Prisca and Aquila as his “fellow workers in Christ Jesus” (16:3). He says that Andronicus and Junias “were in Christ before me” (16:7). He calls Ampliatus “my beloved in the Lord” (16:8). Urbanus is “our fellow worker in Christ” (16:9). Apelles is “the approved in Christ” (16:10). Perhaps he had endured some difficult trial in a commendable way. Paul sends greetings to those of the household of Narcissus, “who are in the Lord” (16:11). Tryphaena and Tryphosa are “workers in the Lord” (16:12). Persis the beloved “has worked hard in the Lord” (16:12). Rufus is “chosen in the Lord” (16:13). And Tertius, Paul’s secretary, sends his greetings “in the Lord” (16:22).
As we’ve seen in Romans, being “in Christ” through faith is the most important designation that can be true of anyone. Paul begins Romans 8 by stating (8:1), “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” He ends that chapter by saying (8:39) that there is nothing that “will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Whether you are wealthy or poor, ordinary or important, male or female, no matter what your background, those eternal blessings are offered to you in Christ Jesus if you will trust in Him as your Savior. What a tribute to the glorious gospel that saves ordinary, diverse people from every walk of life and places them “in Christ”!
It’s significant that although Romans is the most doctrinally deep letter in the New Testament, it was written to help common people, many of them slaves, to know Christ and grow in their walk with Him. Leon Morris (The Epistle to the Romans [Apollos/Eerdmans], p. 527) observes,
It was a letter to real people and, as far as we can see, to ordinary people; it was not written to professional theologians (although through the centuries scholars have found the epistle a happy hunting ground). As we consider the weighty matters Paul deals with, we are apt to overlook the fact that it was addressed to people like Ampliatus and Tryphena and Rufus. Clearly Paul expected this kind of person to be helped by what he wrote, a fact which modern experts sometimes overlook.
We live in a day when doctrine is shoved aside because supposedly it is either divisive or impractical. But Paul would have vigorously disagreed. He spends 11 chapters laying a solid doctrinal foundation before he gets around to the so-called practical section of this letter. And as noted, it was written for ordinary Christians, not just for theologians or scholars. It takes some mental effort to grapple with these profound truths, but it’s well worth the work!
There are over 30 names in these two sections and it’s likely that Paul knew most of them personally. He mentions four of them as being especially close (“my beloved” or “the beloved”; 16:5, 8, 9, 12), including Epaenetus, who was the first convert in Asia. He calls Phoebe “our sister” (16:1) and Quartus “the brother” (16:23). He mentions Rufus’ mother as being his own mother (16:13). Apparently she had ministered to Paul as a mother would, perhaps when he was ill. Prisca and Aquila had risked their lives for Paul. We don’t know when this happened, but obviously there was a close bond between them because of this. He also directs the believers in Rome to greet one another with a holy kiss (16:16), a common custom in that culture (1 Cor. 16:20; 2 Cor. 13:12; 1 Thess. 5:26; 1 Pet. 5:14). It would have been men with men and women with women. It’s a holy kiss! Be careful about being too physical in greeting members of the opposite sex!
All of these personal, warm greetings reflect the love between Paul and these believers and between all believers. It’s amazing that he could remember all of these names! Clearly, he took a personal interest in people, and so should we. We are not called to be Christians in isolation, but rather in relationship with one another. I realize that some of you have been burned in relationships and that makes you hesitant to risk getting burned again. But Paul got burned too (2 Tim. 1:15; 4:10, 14), but that didn’t keep him from pursuing close relationships with other believers.
Paul urges the church to extend hospitality to Phoebe, whom he calls “our sister.” She was family. Quartus was “the brother.” Prisca and Aquila opened their home to host the gatherings of the church (16:5), which they also did in Ephesus (1 Cor. 16:19). Probably the two groups mentioned in 16:14 & 15 represented other house churches, which could perhaps hold as many as 70 or 80 people (Moo, p. 919). In Corinth, Gaius apparently hosted a church in his house (16:23).
For at least the first two centuries, churches had to meet in homes due to persecution. There is a renewed interest in house churches in our day. They have the advantage of forming close relationships, allowing for closer shepherding, and involving every member in ministry. They have the disadvantages of lacking solid teaching and getting off track doctrinally if they lack trained leaders. They can also spawn relational conflicts that come from being overly involved in one another’s personal affairs. Also, if they don’t maintain an emphasis on outreach and healthy growth by division, they can become ingrown. Our home fellowships provide all of these advantages and disadvantages!. But they’re worth the risk. I encourage you to plug in to one. This snapshot also reveals that…
Paul repeatedly mentions how these people were involved in serving the Lord. Phoebe was “a servant of the church in Cenchrea,” a port city near Corinth (16:1). She may have held an official position as a deaconess (1 Tim. 3:11), although some scholars dispute this. But even though she probably was busy as a single business woman, she was devoted to serving the church.
Paul calls Prisca and Aquila “my fellow workers in Christ Jesus” (16:3). Paul had met them in Corinth, where they worked together as tentmakers after they had been forced to leave Rome when Claudius expelled the Jews (Acts 18:1-3). By the way, Paul always calls her Prisca, the more formal name. Luke uses Priscilla, which was the diminutive nickname (like Liz for Elizabeth). They later accompanied Paul to Ephesus, where after Paul left they helped Apollos get straightened out in his doctrine (Acts 18:24-26). Now they had moved back to Rome. Still later, they would move back to Ephesus again (2 Tim. 4:19). Wherever they went, their hearts were for building up the church. Husbands and wives can find great joy in working together for the Lord. Husbands, if you and your wife host a home fellowship, help her with the work!
Paul also mentions Mary, “who has worked hard for you” (16:6). He calls Urbanus “our fellow worker in Christ” (16:9). Tryphaena and Tryphosa (probably sisters, whose names mean Delicate and Dainty) were not fragile—they were “workers in the Lord” (16:12)! Persis (another woman) “has worked hard in the Lord” (16:12). And he calls Timothy “my fellow worker” (16:21).
As we saw in chapter 12, every believer has been given at least one spiritual gift that he or she is to use in serving the Lord. There should be no benchwarmers in the body of Christ. First Peter 4:10-11 puts it like this:
As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
So the church is made up of ordinary, diverse people who are “in Christ.” These ordinary people are growing to know the Lord through sound doctrine, such as the Epistle to the Romans. They are deepening their relationships with one another, being hospitable and helpful to one another as family. They work hard together for the Lord.
In the male-dominated culture of that day, it is significant that Paul mentions four women who worked hard in the Lord (16:6, 12), plus Prisca who along with her husband Aquila were “fellow workers in Christ Jesus” (16:3). Paul entrusted probably the only copy of this precious letter to a woman, Phoebe, for safe delivery to Rome. In all, Paul mentions seven women by name, plus Rufus’ mother (16:13) and Nereus’ sister (16:15). Obviously Paul believed that women have an important role to play in serving the Lord.
But at the same time, we need to be careful not to “overinterpret this evidence” (Moo, p. 927). Those who argue for erasing all role distinctions in the church bring up two matters to support their cause. First, Prisca is mentioned before her husband in four out of six references in Scripture, which was against the common custom. We don’t know why. She may have been the more dominant personality of the two, the more gifted, the more socially prominent, or the one who was most significant in their home-based ministry (Moo, p. 919, note 11).
Second, although scholars for centuries have been divided over whether Junias (16:7) was a man or a woman, most today argue that it refers to the wife of Andronicus. “Outstanding among the apostles” could mean that the apostles regarded this couple as outstanding, or more likely it means that among those who were apostles, this couple stood out. So feminists argue that we have here a female apostle.
But if this is so, Paul was using “apostles” to refer to traveling missionaries (Moo, p. 924), not to those with special authority over the churches as was given to the twelve and to Paul. But to build a case on an unclear reference here to argue that Paul is going against what he clearly states in other contexts about men being in roles of teaching and leadership in the local church (1 Tim. 2:8-15; 1 Cor. 11:3-16; 14:34-38) is not sound interpretation (Moo, p. 927; Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], p. 797).
So the point is, women can and should have significant ministries in the local church and in the cause of world missions in biblically appropriate roles. In his book, What’s the Difference? ([Crossway], pp. 57-58) John Piper lists dozens of ministries that women can serve in. But the roles of teaching men and overall leadership in the church are restricted to men.
Paul mentions two households (16:10, 11), which referred to both the biological family members and the servants, plus Rufus’ mother and Nereus’ sister (16:13, 15). In the Book of Acts, we see whole households coming to faith (2:39, “you and your children”; 10:1-48, Cornelius; 16:15, Lydia; 16:31-34, the Philippian jailer). If you’re in one of our home fellowships, you’re familiar with the concept that Pastor Tom Mercer sets forth in his book, 8 to 15: Your World Delivered. He says that we all have between 8 and 15 people that we have natural bridges to, whether as biological family or people that we rub shoulders with every day. They’re the ones that we should pray for and, as God opens the door, share the gospel with. So make a prayer list of these 8-15 people and ask God to show them their need of Christ and to give you an opportunity to tell them the good news.
None of the people listed in Romans 16 were famous or powerful in the world’s eyes. None of them knew that their names would be enshrined in Scripture for millions of Christians down through the ages to read. Even though our names will never be in Scripture and none of us will probably be recognized or remembered by the world, God knows your name and you are important to Him. He sent His Son to rescue you from sin and judgment. He has given you an important role to play in His kingdom purposes. It may be to be a loving homemaker and to rear your children to love and follow Christ. It may be to set a godly example as a loving husband and father. It may include serving in some capacity in the local church or in the cause of world missions. It may be to tell your neighbor the good news of Jesus Christ and to explain to him (or her) how he can have his sins forgiven and go to heaven.
Whatever your gifts and calling, the most important thing is that you know that Christ has saved you from eternal judgment because you have put your trust in Him as Savior and Lord. Then look for ways that you can serve the Lord, as these people did. Read through the descriptions again and ask yourself, “How would Paul have described me if he had known me?”
William Barclay observes (The Letter to the Romans [Westminster, rev. ed.], p. 220), “It is a great thing to go down to history as the man with the open house or as the man with the brotherly heart. Some day people will sum us up in one sentence. What will that sentence be?”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Years ago, a seminary professor told his class at the beginning of the semester that they would work together on one major project during that semester. They would move systematically through the New Testament to categorize every area of truth and determine how many times each area is addressed. Their goal was to find what one thing is emphasized more than any other in the New Testament. When they completed the project, they were amazed to see that warning against false doctrine is emphasized more than any other thing, even more than love, unity, and experience (Renald Showers, in “Israel My Glory,” [April/May, 1995], pp. 24-25).
I have not verified their conclusion, but they’re probably right. Jesus warned (Matt. 7:15), “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” Much of His ministry consisted of confronting the false teaching of the religious leaders of His day (cf. Matt. 16:11-12; 23:1-39). In His discourse on things to come, He warned (Matt. 24:4-5), “See to it that no one misleads you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will mislead many.”
The apostle Peter devotes most of 2 Peter to warning against false teachers. Jude devotes his entire short letter to the same theme. John in his epistles repeatedly warns of false teachers. Paul’s final words to the Ephesian elders warned them (Acts 20:28-30),
Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.
His final letters to Timothy and Titus repeatedly emphasize the need for sound doctrine. He told Titus (1:9) that an elder must hold “fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict.” He goes on to explain that there are many empty talkers and deceivers who are upsetting whole households through their false teaching. In his final charge to Timothy, after telling him to preach the word, he explained (2 Tim. 4:3-4), “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.”
So it should not surprise us that as Paul concludes his letter to the Romans, in the midst of giving and sending warm greetings to the saints, he breaks in with this warning to beware of false teachers. Some liberal commentators have thought that this paragraph is so abrupt and out of context that it must have been added by a later scribe. But Paul was constantly battling false teachers who hounded his steps and perverted the truth of the gospel. He was writing from Corinth, where false apostles posing as servants of righteousness had caused much damage (2 Cor. 11:3-15). As he thought of his many dear friends in Rome, he didn’t want them to be led astray. He had heard that they were doing well in the Lord (16:19a), but the present is no guarantee for the future. So his love for them prompted him to insert this warning against the dangers of false teachers.
Paul’s words here are totally out of sync with our current culture that holds tolerance as the chief virtue. Even many professing evangelicals argue that we should set aside all doctrinal differences, even with the Roman Catholic Church, and come together in the areas where we agree. They say, “Jesus didn’t say that the world will know we are Christians by our correct doctrine, but by our love.” And so they hold unity services with those who deny the gospel and other core biblical truths. In its most extreme form, they hold interfaith services with those who believe in other religions, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam.
Even the respected evangelist Billy Graham fell into this serious error. He was always known for cooperating with Roman Catholics in his crusades. But even worse, as far back as 1978 McCall’s magazine quoted Graham as having said, “I used to believe that pagans in far countries were lost if they did not have the gospel of Christ preached to them. I no longer believe that.” (Cited by Iain Murray, Evangelicalism Divided [Banner of Truth], p. 73.) In May, 1997, in a TV interview with Robert Schuller, Graham said,
I think that everybody that loves or knows Christ, whether they are conscious of it or not, they are members of the body of Christ…. God’s purpose for this age is to call out a people for his name. And that is what he is doing today. He is calling people out of the world for his name, whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world or the non-believing world, they are members of the Body of Christ because they have been called by God. They may not know the name of Jesus but they know in their hearts that they need something they do not have, and they turn to the only light they have, and I think that they are saved and they are going to be with us in heaven (ibid., pp. 73-74).
Schuller was surprised by Graham’s words and asked for clarification, “What, what I hear you saying, that it’s possible for Jesus Christ to come into human hearts and soul and life, even if they have been born in darkness and have never had exposure to the Bible. Is that a correct interpretation of what you are saying?”
“Yes, it is,” Graham responded decidedly. At which point, Schuller exclaimed, ‘I’m so thrilled to hear you say this: “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy”.’ To which Graham added, ‘There is. There definitely is” (ibid., p. 74).
Of course there is a wideness in God’s mercy. As Romans 10:13 states, “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” But Jesus Christ is that Lord and He said (John 14:6), “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” So when a Christian leader as respected and popular as Billy Graham says that people of other religions will be in heaven apart from faith in Christ, it shows why we need to pay close attention to Paul’s warning here to be on guard against false teachers. He’s saying,
Even obedient Christians need to be on guard against false teachers who deceive others for their own gain.
Paul makes three points: First, believers need to be on guard against false teachers (16:17-18). Second, even obedient Christians need to be on guard against false teachers (16:19). Third, ultimately, it’s the God of peace and His grace that protect us from falling prey to false teachers (16:20).
“Urge” (Rom. 12:1; 15:30) is a word of strong appeal. Paul is talking to believers (“brethren”) and he shows us how to recognize these false teachers and how to respond when we encounter them.
Scholars debate exactly who these false teachers were. Apparently, they had not yet arrived in Rome, so Paul is giving a heads up so that when they arrived, the believers would be able to spot them. We cannot be certain, but since the Judaizers dogged Paul’s steps and tried to bring Gentile believers under the regulations of the Mosaic Law, they may be the ones in view (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 929; Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], p. 803). But the warning is generic enough that it applies to a wide range of false teachers. Paul lists four marks to identify false teachers:
Romans 16:17: “Keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned….” We need to understand that Paul is not saying that true teachers avoid all controversy! Jesus Himself provoked a lot of dissension by confronting the hypocritical religious leaders (Matt. 10:34-36; 23:1-36). Paul contended vigorously with the Judaizers in Galatians, where he tells how he confronted Peter publicly because he had come under their sway (Gal. 2:11-15). When the gospel or other core biblical truth was at stake, Paul believed in the necessity to contend strongly for the faith. In fact he sums up his entire ministry by saying that he had fought the good fight (2 Tim. 4:7). He was not opposed to controversy when the gospel was at stake.
But the word that Paul uses here translated “dissensions” is a deed of the flesh (Gal. 5:20). And these dissensions are “contrary to the teaching which you learned.” This dissension stems from self-centered, self-exalting motives. False teachers attempt to build a following because they love promoting themselves and being the center of attention. They’re after power, fame, money, or sinful sexual gratification. They don’t seek to exalt Christ and Him crucified. They don’t hold firmly to the gospel of justification by faith alone. By adding the word “stumbling blocks” (9:33; 11:9), Paul shows that these men created dissension by teaching damnable heresies. Invariably, those who stood for the gospel would rightly oppose them. The result was dissension in the churches. But at the root of it, these false teachers were motivated by promoting themselves, not Christ.
Their message was “contrary to the teaching which you learned.” Paul is mainly referring to the truth of the gospel which the Romans had believed and which Paul had set forth so clearly in this letter. There are many areas of doctrine where godly Christians may differ and yet still be saved, such as various views of prophecy, baptism, church government, spiritual gifts, and other secondary issues. But there are core doctrines where all true Christians must agree or you cease to be Christian in any biblical sense of the word. All of the cults promote a way of salvation by works that detracts from God’s glory through the cross of Christ. All false teachers undermine the person and work of Christ. If you abandon these core doctrines for the sake of unity, the unity you end up with is not Christian unity. So pay attention to the message.
Paul explains (16:18), “For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ, but of their own appetites.” False teachers are in the ministry for their own profit or gain. They take people’s money so that they can live lavishly. They love power and being in the limelight. Often false teachers take advantage of women in their congregation for their own sexual gratification. But they do not preach or live in submission to Christ as Lord. By the way, “our Lord Christ” clearly affirms the deity of Jesus Christ. True teachers seek to submit every area of their lives to Christ as Lord and God.
False teachers are usually nice, likeable, and winsome. They flatter you by telling you what you want to hear. They smile a lot as they tell you how great you are and how you can have your best life now. They don’t talk about anything negative, like sin and the coming judgment. They say, “People are beat down enough as it is. When they come to church, they need to hear a positive message, like God’s love and acceptance” (apart from repentance, of course). They use biblical verses (often out of context) and biblical language, but they often change the meaning of the terms. For example, both the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses talk about believing in Jesus as Savior and Lord, but their “Jesus” is not the Jesus of the Bible.
Arius (d. 336), was a heretic who denied the deity of Christ and was the forerunner of the modern Jehovah’s Witnesses. He gained a huge following. The courageous Athanasius battled against him. Parker Williamson describes Arius (Standing Firm: Reclaiming the Chastain Faith in Times of Controversy [Lenoir, North Carolina: PLC Publications, 1996], p. 31, cited by John Piper, “Watch Out for Those Who Lead You Away from the Truth,” on DesiringGod.org):
Here was a bright, energetic, attractive fellow, the kind of citizen whom any Rotary Club would welcome. Singing sea chanties in dockside pubs and teaching Bible stories to the Wednesday night faithful, this was an immensely popular man. His story reminds us that heresy does not bludgeon us into belief. We are seduced.
Note also that the deception takes place on the heart level, which refers both to the mind and the emotions. Deceivers know how to manipulate people’s feelings. They tell you stories that tug on your heart. They get you laughing. They often ridicule those who stand firm for biblical truth and portray them as mean, angry, and unloving. They appeal to greed and the desire that we all have to be healthy. If you’ll just send them a gift, they’ll pray for your prosperity and healing. By preying on your feelings, they lure you into their web of deception. So to recognize false teachers, watch their motives, their message, their master, and their methods.
Paul says, “Keep your eye on them and turn away from them.” The noun related to the verb “keep your eye on” is used in Ezekiel 3:17 (LXX) to refer to the watchman on the wall. His job was to keep his eye peeled for the enemy and to sound the alarm when he saw them coming so that they could prepare for battle. Since these false teachers often disguise themselves as “servants of righteousness” (2 Cor. 11:15) or as “wolves in sheep’s clothing” (Matt. 7:15), you have to be discerning to spot them.
Paul does not tell us to engage in dialogue with them or to invite them into our church to see if we can find some common ground as we discuss their ideas. Sometimes division or separation is both the necessary and the godly thing to do. Christian leaders especially have to be careful here. For example, when Billy Graham invited Roman Catholic leaders to sit on the platform with him at his crusades and he used the Catholic Church to follow up with those from Catholic backgrounds who responded to his message, he sent a strong message to the untaught that the Catholic Church preaches the same gospel that we preach. The problem is, they don’t. They preach salvation by grace through faith plus works, which is precisely the Galatian heresy. Paul preached salvation by grace through faith alone. The difference is not minor, because Paul said that the Galatian heretics were damned (Gal. 1:6-9)!
Should you invite cultists who knock on your door to come in and discuss their beliefs so that you might lead them to Christ? Maybe, but be very careful! The cults do a better job of training their people than we do. They can take you to every verse that seems to support their errors. If you’re not knowledgeable, they will confuse you and draw you into their heresies. I usually tell them that I have studied the Bible seriously for over 40 years now. If they’re seeking the truth of how to know God and go to heaven, I’d be glad to talk with them. But if their aim is to convert me to their errors, they’re wasting both their time and mine. Almost always, they say, “Thank you, have a good day,” and walk away.
So believers need to be on guard against false teachers. Also,
Romans 16:19: “For the report of your obedience has reached to all; therefore I am rejoicing over you, but I want you to be wise in what is good and innocent in what is evil.” Why does Paul begin this verse with “for,” which seems to be explaining the warning of verse 18? The sense seems to be that Paul rejoiced to hear about the obedience of the Roman believers to the gospel, but that obedience also made them a prime target for these false teachers. False teachers rarely make converts out of raw pagans. Rather, they go for unsuspecting Christians who lack discernment.
Paul also says, “I want you to be wise in what is good and innocent in what is evil.” J. B. Phillips paraphrases it, “I want to see you experts in good, and not even beginners in evil.” Or, in Jesus words (Matt. 10:16, ESV), “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” In the context, “good” refers to sound doctrine in line with the gospel. “Evil” refers to the corrupt doctrine of the false teachers. While it’s helpful to have a basic knowledge of what the cults and other false religions teach so that you can avoid their errors and witness to them, it’s not edifying to study these errors in depth. Some who are targeting a particular false religious group may need to study their teachings more thoroughly. But our focus should be on being wise in the Scriptures. Knowing the truth will equip you to refute the errors of false teachers.
Paul concludes with a promise and a blessing:
Romans 16:20: “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.”
This is Paul’s first mention of Satan in Romans. He is no doubt thinking of the first temptation in the garden, when the serpent deceived Eve. God promised that her seed (Christ) would crush the serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15). The implication is that Satan is behind these false teachers who deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting, just as he deceived Eve. Note that in this context of spiritual warfare, where God will crush Satan, Paul calls Him “the God of peace.” He makes peace both between us and Him and peace between believers through the cross of Jesus Christ (Eph. 2:14).
Satan was defeated at the cross (Col. 2:15). But until Christ returns the battle rages as the enemy seeks to deceive and devour Christians. We win the battles against him as we put on the full armor of God and resist his evil schemes (Eph. 6:10-20; 2 Cor. 2:11; James 4:7; Rev. 12:11). He will be finally defeated when Christ throws him into the lake of fire (1 Cor. 15:25; Rev. 20:10). While we should not ignore Satan and we should respect his cunning and power, we should not fear him. The Bible is clear that God will finally triumph and Satan will lose (1 John 4:4).
“Grace” takes us back to Romans 1:7: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Grace really is the theme of Romans because God’s grace is at the heart of the gospel. False teachers invariably subvert the grace of God, either by teaching salvation by works (legalism) or by promoting licentiousness. Knowing and experiencing God’s grace sustains us in the battle against the enemy. His grace motivates us to study His Word of truth, which protects us against the deceptive lies of false teachers.
J. C. Ryle was a champion for the truth in the Church of England during the 19th century. I’d recommend that you read him. In Warnings to the Churches ([Banner of Truth], p. 110), he wrote about how difficult yet necessary controversy in the church is. Then he added, “But there is one thing which is even worse than controversy, and that is false doctrine tolerated, allowed, and permitted without protest or molestation.”
After acknowledging that many would view what he writes as exceedingly distasteful, he states (p. 111), “Three things there are which men never ought to trifle with—a little poison, a little false doctrine, and a little sin.” Amen!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
How do you end a letter like Romans that has often been called the greatest letter ever written and the greatest book in the Bible? Normally, Paul ends his letters with a benediction, such as (1 Cor. 16:23), “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you.” (See the end of each of his letters.) He has already given such a benediction in Romans 16:20 (16:24 is probably not in the original text). So now, as he thinks back over what he has written, Paul wells up with praise toward God, who has provided such a glorious gospel for people from all nations.
The problem is, in his burst of emotion, Paul piles up phrase after phrase and doesn’t supply a verb (in the original), so that the structure of the paragraph is difficult to decipher. I would not want the assignment of diagramming it! But many commentators observe that this short outburst of praise sums up all the great ideas of this epistle. William Sanday and Arthur Headlam (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [T. & T. Clark], p. 436) state,
The doxology sums up all the great ideas of the Epistle. The power of the Gospel which St. Paul was commissioned to preach; the revelation in it of the eternal purpose of God; its contents, faith; its sphere, all the nations of the earth; its author, the one wise God, whose wisdom is thus vindicated—all these thoughts had been continually dwelt on.
They go on to suggest that Paul wished to end the letter with its former loftiness and thus perhaps wrote these verses with his own hand, bringing his argument to this eloquent conclusion.
We saw a similar outburst of praise in Romans 11:33-36, as Paul thought on the glorious truths that he had been writing on:
Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor? Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.
We saw there as we see here that the goal of theology is doxology. The goal of sound doctrine is a heart that overflows in praise to God. Paul reminds us in this conclusion that the goal of the gospel is not only our happiness. Certainly, we should be exuberant that God has rescued us from judgment and bestowed on us every blessing in the heavenly places in Christ (Eph. 1:3). But our happiness is not the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal of the gospel is God’s eternal glory. We can sum up our text:
The goal of the gospel is that we would glorify the only wise God through Jesus Christ as we live in obedient faith and proclaim Him to the nations.
As you know, the Westminster Shorter Catechism states, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” To glorify God, in simple language, is to make God look good as He truly is. J. Dwight Pentecost states (The Glory of God [Multnomah Press], p. 8), “Glory is displayed excellence.” Wayne Grudem (Systematic Theology [Zondervan], p. 221) states that God’s glory “is the visible manifestation of the excellence of God’s character.” Robert Reymond (A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith [Thomas Nelson Publishers], p. 165, italics his) puts it, “God’s glory is the sum total of all of his attributes as well as any one of his attributes.” John Piper (“To Him be the Glory Forevermore,” on DesiringGod.org, italics his) defines God’s glory as, “The glory of God is the infinite beauty and greatness of his manifold perfections.”
This concept, that the ultimate goal of the gospel is not about us, but rather about God’s glory, is a crucial and practical paradigm shift from the commonly held notion that the gospel is all about us. It affects, for example, our view of suffering. If the gospel is all about us and our happiness, then how do you deal with suffering and death, which aren’t happy experiences? But if the gospel is not ultimately about our happiness, but rather about God’s glory, then you can even face possible martyrdom as Paul did, with the goal that (Phil. 1:20) “Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.”
Of course, as John Piper has often pointed out, our happiness and God’s glory are not at odds, because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. And we are most satisfied in Him when we get a glimpse of His “infinite beauty and [the] greatness of His manifold perfections.” Just as when you view a spectacular sunset at the Grand Canyon, you exclaim, “Wow!” so when you see the beauty and greatness of God, you spontaneously praise Him. That’s the goal of the gospel.
Let’s break our text into three parts:
In other words, we need to believe the gospel and our faith must translate into a lifestyle of obedience to Christ in thought, word, and deed, so that others will see how great God is through us. We’ll look at five aspects of being established in the gospel:
Romans 16:25a: “Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel….” The gospel is the good news that while we were yet sinners, God graciously sent His only Son to bear the penalty that we deserved. He rescues us from sin and judgment when we turn from our sins and trust in Christ alone. Paul calls it “my gospel” not because his gospel was different than the gospel of Christ and the apostles, but because Paul had received the gospel through direct revelation from Christ (Gal. 1:11-15). Thus he was certain of its content and truth. The other apostles later confirmed Paul’s gospel as authentic (Gal. 2:1-9).
He says that God is “able to establish you according to my gospel.” Other literal versions translate “establish” with the word “strengthen.” It originally meant to “fix something so that it stands upright and immovable” (Gunther Harder, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. by G. Friedrich, trans. by Geoffrey Bromiley [Eerdmans], 7:653). “The effect or aim of strengthening is the impregnability of Christian faith in spite of the troubles which have to be endured” (ibid., 7:656). In view of Romans 16:17-20, it especially means being established so that you will not fall prey to false teachers (John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], 2:240). C. E. B. Cranfield (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [T. & T. Clark], p. 809) says that it means that God is able “to confirm you in your belief in, in your obedience to, the gospel.”
There are two sides to this strengthening or establishing us in the gospel. In Romans 1:11, Paul used this word to emphasize the human side of it: “For I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, that you may be established.” Through Paul’s ministry, he hoped that they would be established in the gospel. Peter uses the related noun (“steadfastness”) also to put the emphasis on human responsibility (2 Pet. 3:17-18): “You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.” Peter is emphasizing the same truth, that as we are steadfast or established in the gospel and resist the errors of false teachers, God will be glorified.
But in Romans 16:25, Paul’s emphasis is on the God-ward side of things: God is able to establish or strengthen us according to the gospel. As Paul puts it (Phil. 1:6), “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” Since it took God’s resurrection power to raise us from spiritual death to life (Eph. 2:1-5), God is able to sustain and keep us so that our lives glorify Him.
Before you can be established according to the gospel you must have believed the gospel. Make sure that you have turned from your sins and trusted in Christ and His death on the cross as the only payment for your sins. This means repenting of trusting in your good works to contribute to your salvation. If you had anything to do with your salvation, then you have reason to boast in yourself. But there is no room for boasting if all you did was to receive an undeserved gift that God provided at Christ’s expense. Once you have trusted in Christ, you never outgrow your need for the gospel. Meditate on it and let it warm your heart every day: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me”! Glory to God!
That phrase has two possible interpretations. It could mean that Christ is the one doing the preaching, either during His earthly ministry or through Paul. Or, more likely, it means that Jesus Christ is the one whom Paul preached. The gospel is the message about Jesus Christ. In 1 Corinthians 1:23, Paul said, “But we preach Christ crucified.” In 2 Corinthians 4:5 he put it, “For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake.” In Colossians 1:28 Paul explained his ministry: “We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.”
Preaching Jesus Christ does not mean focusing on Christ to the exclusion of practical matters. In 1 Corinthians, where Paul said (2:2), “For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified,” he went on to talk about how to deal with an immoral man in the church, lawsuits between believers, singleness, marriage, divorce, and many other practical topics. But in each practical area, Paul always brought things back to Jesus Christ as Lord. He didn’t just dispense helpful hints for happy living that could easily have appeared in Reader’s Digest. He related all matters to the gospel and to the lordship of Christ.
By the way, you don’t have to be a preacher to “preach Christ.” You should preach Christ to yourself as you read God’s Word each day: “What does this text tell me about Jesus Christ and His lordship over my life? What does it tell me about His love, His grace, His authority, His holiness, or His promises?”
And if you get an opportunity to talk to others about the gospel, focus on the person and work of Jesus Christ. People will try to divert you onto side issues: “What about evolution? What about all the errors in the Bible? How can a loving God allow all the evil in the world?” Etc. I’m not suggesting that you totally dodge these questions, but don’t get bogged down with them. At some point, turn the conversation back to Christ by asking, “Who do you think Jesus Christ is? Have you ever read the gospels to discover who Christ claimed to be and why He came to this earth? Have you considered the evidence that supports His bodily resurrection from the dead?” You can also ask, “If I can give you a reasonable answer to your questions, are you saying that you will turn from your sin, put your trust in Jesus Christ, and follow Him as your Lord?” Jesus Christ is the issue everyone has to face!
This phrase could refer to another means by which God establishes us, parallel with, “according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ.” Or, it could be modifying those two phrases Murray, ibid., p. 2:241). If so, by “the mystery” Paul is referring to the gospel, which God planned before the foundation of the world.
In the New Testament, “mystery” does not refer to something mysterious or to a puzzle that needs to be solved, but rather to something previously hidden that is now revealed. The problem is, if Paul is referring here to the gospel, then how it was kept secret for long ages past? After all, we see it in type when the Lord slaughtered an animal and clothed Adam and Eve after they sinned. The Lord prophesied about the gospel in Genesis 3:15, where He promised that the seed of the woman would bruise or crush the serpent’s head. We again see it in promise when God tells Abraham that He will bless all the families of the earth through him. It’s implicit in the story of God providing the ram as a substitute sacrifice before Abraham has to slay Isaac. It’s pictured in the Jewish sacrificial system as set forth in the Law of Moses. So how was the gospel kept secret in long ages past?
There are perhaps two answers. First, even though we can now look back on these Old Testament texts and clearly see the gospel, it wasn’t always so clear to the people then. They knew that God promised to send a Savior, but even the disciples who believed in Jesus as that Savior did not understand beforehand why He had to die (Matt. 16:21-23). Concerning the inspired writers of the Old Testament, 1 Peter 1:10-11 states, “As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow.” So in that sense, the gospel is “the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifested.” We can see it much more clearly looking back than they could looking forward.
But Paul may be referring to a further aspect of the gospel here, namely, that the message would go out to the Gentiles and that they would be on equal standing with the Jews in the body of Christ. Paul has stressed this truth throughout Romans, especially in chapters 9-11. The Old Testament reveals in many places that the gospel would go to the Gentiles, so that was not a mystery. But the Old Testament never reveals that through the gospel the Gentiles would be fellow-heirs on equal footing with the Jews. God revealed this mystery to the apostle Paul (Eph. 3:4-6). That aspect of the gospel was often a stumbling block to the racially proud Jews. But it’s radically good news for the Gentiles. It strengthens and establishes us to know that God has given us equal standing with the Jews before Him through the gospel.
This raises the question, “How could the gospel be kept secret in the ages past and at the same time be revealed by the Old Testament prophets?” The answer lies in the first aspect of the mystery that I just explained. There is a sense in which the gospel that we see clearly in the Old Testament on this side of Christ was in the shadows for those before Christ. It was in the prophets all along, but it didn’t come into sharp focus until after the death and resurrection of Jesus (Luke 24:25-27, 44-45).
The way that the Old Testament prophets establish us in the gospel is, as you read the Old Testament, look for Christ. Ask, “What does this text tell me about the sufferings of Christ and the glory to follow?” (You can refer back to my message, “Why You Need the Old Testament,” on Romans 15:4, for further detail.)
The gospel leads to “obedience of faith.” We saw this phrase in Romans 1:5, where Paul said that his aim as an apostle was “to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name’s sake.” Paul does not mean that we are saved by faith plus our works. That would be contrary to everything he wrote about the gospel in Romans 3 & 4. Rather, he means that genuine saving faith always results in a life of obedience to Jesus Christ. Jesus was clear that if we say, “Lord, Lord” and even do miracles in His name, but don’t obey Him, our faith is worthless (Matt. 7:21-23). James 2 makes the same point, that faith without works is dead faith, not saving faith. 1 John 2:3 plainly states, “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.” Those who profess to know Christ, but who live in perpetual disobedience, do not glorify Him. To glorify God, we must be established according to the gospel and live in obedient faith.
Paul writes (16:26b), “according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations….” Although some understand “the commandment” here to refer to the Great Commission, it probably rather refers to “God’s own determination to make known the mystery at the time that he did” (Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], p. 940). For reasons that we cannot fully know, before Christ came, God mostly restricted the gospel to His chosen people, the Jews. But after His resurrection, Christ commanded us to take the good news to the nations. Even then, the apostles were a bit leery of Peter going into the house of a Gentile centurion and preaching the gospel (Acts 10-11). But then God saved the militant Jew, Paul, and commissioned him as the apostle to the Gentiles.
When Paul says that the gospel “has been made known to all the nations,” he is not saying that the missionary task has been completed. He has just stated how he aimed to go to Spain (15:24, 28). Rather, he is emphasizing “the universal applicability of the gospel” (Moo, ibid.). God is glorified when people from every tongue, tribe, and nation believe in and obey Jesus Christ. We all need to labor to that end.
Again Paul marvels at the wisdom of God, as he did in Romans 11:33, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” When he says that God is “the only wise God,” he is not implying that there are some dumb gods out there, too! He is the only God and He is infinitely wise. His plan of salvation is not something that men could have thought up. It is not the composite of the best thoughts of all the religious geniuses down through the ages. We never could have come up with it on our own. Rather, God planned and revealed the gospel in accordance with His infinite wisdom to bring Him eternal glory through Jesus Christ.
Stephen Charnock discourses for over 100 pages on the wisdom of God from our text (The Existence and Attributes of God [Baker], 1:498-606). He observes (p. 502), “No man or angel could imagine how two natures so distant as the Divine and human should be united; how the same person should be criminal and righteous; how a just God should have a satisfaction, and sinful man a justification; how the sin should be punished, and the sinner saved.” God’s plan for the gospel reveals His infinite wisdom! Our eternal destiny is to worship and glorify God throughout the ages, so we had best start now.
Paul ends with “Amen,” which means, “This is true,” or “so be it.” The message of Romans regarding the gospel of God (1:1, 16) is true. It reveals the wisdom of God. You can stake your life and your eternal destiny on it. The goal of the gospel is that we would glorify the only wise God through Jesus Christ as we live in obedient faith and proclaim Him to the nations. Amen! So be it!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation