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Romans |
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| Chapter 1 | Prayer | Devotional | Chapter 9 | Prayer | Devotional | |
| Chapter 2 | Prayer | Devotional | Chapter 10 | Prayer | Devotional | |
| Chapter 3 | Prayer | Devotional | Chapter 11 | Prayer | Devotional | |
| Chapter 4 | Prayer | Devotional | Chapter 12 | Prayer | Devotional | |
| Chapter 5 | Prayer | Devotional | Chapter 13 | Prayer | Devotional | |
| Chapter 6 | Prayer | Devotional | Chapter 14 | Prayer | Devotional | |
| Chapter 7 | Prayer | Devotional | Chapter 15 | Prayer | Devotional | |
| Chapter 8 | Prayer | Devotional | Chapter 16 | Prayer | Devotional |
Prayers
Father God, we thank You for the calling that You have put upon our lives through the gift of Jesus Christ. We have received Your grace through Him and He has granted to us meaningful opportunities of love and service. We thank You for Your church. We pray that You would bless Your people everywhere with the truth of the gospel. We pray that this good news would be powerful for salvation through the gift of faith. Everyone knows of You by Your works of creation, yet we have been fools, for we would not worship and serve You. Our lives have been examples of outrageous sin, even in ways that are contrary to nature and reason. In every way we have turned against You, and have encouraged others in pathways of evil. Our situation was desperate, but You have provided an answer for us in the righteousness and mercy of Your Son.
Righteous Lord, would we dare to judge others when we would do the same things that we critique in them? You have been so kind to us, but we have not repented as we should. We are to be patient and careful in doing good, but we have sought out the evil way continually. Even when we have had much exposure to Your commandments, we still have not kept Your Law. Your Son will judge the secrets of men’s hearts when He returns. How will we stand? We cannot stand by Law. Even if we boast in our knowledge of the Law, still we violate Your precepts. Are we counting on some sacrament or family association to bring us peace with You? You require a true life of obedience, even love for You and for others from the depths of our hearts. We need Your appointed way of mercy, O God. Thank You for Jesus Christ.
Lord God, we thank You for the privilege of being associated with Your worshiping assembly. Grant to us an appreciation of the reason for our acceptance in Your sight. Surely our confidence is only in Christ. The problem of unrighteousness is universal, but now You have shown us the way of life through the Substitute that You have appointed for us. By the works of the Law no one could ever be justified in Your sight. We have been saved by grace through faith in the great work of Your Son alone. He is our Propitiation. We boast in Christ, for we have been saved by Him apart from any good thing that we claim to accomplish. Thank You for Your abundant mercy.
Lord of Hosts, we could never have been justified by our works. Even Abraham was given righteousness by believing You. His works that proceeded from faith were the proof of Your gift of life to Him. With all who live in Your presence from every age we rejoice in You and in the blessing that has come to us by faith, for our sins have not been counted against us and our great debt has been forgiven. We also rejoice in the extent of Your mercy, for You have provided a way of righteousness for people from every land. What a glorious promise You made to Abraham so long ago! To think that such a great promise has now touched our lives! Surely we could never have received peace with You through the Law, but You have been pleased to give us the best of all gifts. Grant us growth in grace and faith day by day. We know that You will hear us when we cry out to You, for Your Son died for our sins, and He was raised for our justification.
Glorious Lord, do we now have access to You through Jesus Christ? We rejoice in Him. We rejoice even in our sufferings, for we know You are doing good things through whatever trials are appointed for us. We have peace with You in Him. He is our holy representative. He was the great Law-Keeper, and He did this for us. Now His obedience is credited to us. We give You glory for this great gift. We are so very thankful. We were dead in Adam’s transgression, but now we have found life through the righteousness of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Reign in our hearts day by day. What a joy is ours, for our Representative has won for us the most abundant blessings.
Our Father, help us moment by moment in our fight against sin. Thank You for our baptism. Help us to remember our union with Your Son. We have been united with Him in His life, in His death, and in His resurrection. He lives, and so shall we live. Let the fact of His resurrection remind us of our own resurrection which is surely coming. To continue in sin makes no sense for us. Why would we willingly present ourselves to sin as servants again? We have been saved from that horrible master. We do not want to serve him any more. We know that sin just leads to death. This is not the way for us. Our way is the way of life. Help us, O God, for we are still sinning.
Father God, we have been released from the system of the Law, for we have died to the Law through the death of Christ. Fill us now with Your Spirit, that we might pursue obedience in a new and powerful way. We hate our sin. Will we ever have victory over such a powerful enemy? We thank You that we have seen our sin more clearly through the Law, but we need stronger help that we might stop sinning. Though in our minds we have had a desire to follow the good things in Your Law, our flesh has been too strong for us. We need Christ. We need the gift of the Holy Spirit. Thank You for Your bountiful provision. Now we humbly and earnestly beseech that You would defeat sin in us day by day through Your presence and power at work within us.
Lord God, what a great and solid hope is ours through Christ! Help us by Your Spirit to live by that same Spirit rather than by the flesh. We have Your Spirit in us, and we belong to You. Even if our body should die because of sin, we shall be alive because of Jesus. Thanks be to You, O God, for this blessed assurance! You have given us hope for even the weakest saint. You will give life again to our mortal bodies. Teach us how to live. Teach us how to put to death the deeds of the flesh that we might live for You now in the way that we should. Thank You that You have granted to us the Spirit of Adoption, by which we cry out to You, our merciful Heavenly Father. Your Spirit bears witness with our spirits that we are Your children. Make us willing to suffer for You today, knowing the truth of the age of glory that is surely coming. We are longing for that day. We long for the redemption of our bodies. This is our hope. Help us now by Your Spirit, that we might know how to seek You in prayer. We know that You are for us. You loved us so long ago, and You have planned everything that is necessary for our joyful participation in the age of resurrection. Even now You will help us. One day we will see that You have given us all things. Father, may Your Son take our prayers and intercede for us in ways that are right and good. Please do not let anyone or anything separate us from Your love for us in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Sovereign God, we rejoice in Your plan for the salvation of Jews and Gentiles. Your promises to Your people of old have not failed, for not all of the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob according to the flesh were Your children according to the promise. Thank You for the grace of election in the lives of Your loved ones. You will have mercy on whom You will have mercy. We will not speak against You concerning Your judgments. We do not demand that we know or understand everything that You have done or everything that You will do. You will make known the riches of Your glory in all of Your great works according to Your own will and in Your own appointed time. We rejoice that some who were not viewed as Your people in former days have now been granted righteousness by faith in Your Son. Father, may we never stumble over Christ, for He is the Rock of our salvation.
O God, we submit now to Your plan for righteousness by faith. Christ, the fullness of all righteousness, has come from heaven to save us. He has now returned on high to send forth Your Holy Spirit upon Your chosen people. He has given to us the Word of truth which is being preached all over the world. That Word is near us, in our hearts and in our mouths. We believe in Him. We profess this faith within the assembly of those who call upon Your Name. Send forth many true ambassadors of the truth, so that the good news of this Word can go forward everywhere with great power. Grant us joy as we gather together in Your presence to call upon Your Name. Help us to remember that we are a part of a body that transcends our time and place. Help us to consider that we worship together with those who are alive with Christ in the heavens.
Our Father, do great and marvelous works of grace everywhere according to Your sovereign will. In every generation You have chosen a remnant by grace who will not bow the knee to Baal. We marvel that we have had such a spirit of stupor for so long, refusing to hear and love the truth. We grieve sincerely concerning the condition of those all around us who will not yet come to You. Father, have mercy on a great host of Jews and Gentiles. Bring them in, O God. Your gifts and Your calling will never be taken away. All have been disobedient. We seek Your mercy upon all. You are God. You know the beginning from the end. Everything is from You. Everything comes through You. Everything is going to You. To You be glory forever.
Merciful Lord, we think of the great story of grace that You have revealed to us in Christ, and we give ourselves again to You. Teach us how to be Your people, not as imitators of the world, but as members of one another within the glorious body of Christ. Grant us genuine love for one another and true goodness and affection. Teach us to serve You with energy and gladness in accord with the calling that You have given to each of us. Teach us how to live in this world by the power of Your Son as those who are committed to goodness and love.
Father God, thank You for the gift of civil authority structures that You have appointed in this world. Use them for Your good purposes in the restraint of evil and for the encouragement of good. May we rightly honor them, and joyfully follow them. We would cooperate with them as conscience permits, but may we not be distracted from seeking first Your kingdom and Your righteousness. Teach us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. Grant us the incomparable blessing of the Spirit of Christ in us, that we would make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires. In all these ways may we relate honorably with all those around us.
Lord God, teach us to be patient and appropriately tolerant within Your church. May we live unto You in all situations, for we belong to You. Teach us not to despise one another, but show us the way of love. Grant us the spiritual strength to serve You in peace within the body of Christ. We want to see our brothers and sisters built up in faith and godliness. We want to walk in faith ourselves. We need to turn away from all arrogance. Teach us the wisdom that comes from following Your Son.
Glorious God, there are those around us everywhere who are in great need. We lift them up to You now. We long for Your blessing upon all of our brothers and sisters from every land. Your plan of redemption is so vast and so marvelous. Use the gifts that You have granted to us for the fulfillment of this great plan as we bring the gospel of Christ to all who have never heard of His glorious Name. We lift up to You the missionaries and pastors that we have had the blessing of knowing and supporting personally. We pray for Your financial provision for them. May they also be granted every spiritual gift, excellent health in body and mind, and true peace that can only come from You. Grant them fruitfulness in their labors for the glory of Your Name.
Father God, thank You for Your servants throughout the church who are performing a great variety of good works in the Name of Your Son. We thank You for these men and women and ask that You would grant them great success in their important deeds of love and service. We thank You for the friends that You grant us as we labor together in Your body. May we never bring foolish obstacles in Your church, distracting others from the simple duty of faith working itself out through love. May we be wise in what is good and innocent concerning evil. Defeat Satan through Your church according to the power of the gospel and the will of Christ. Glorify Your Name forever, even using us for Your eternal purposes.
Devotionals
Romans 1
Ancient letters had a certain format that the Apostle Paul used in an amplified
way. It was customary to begin a correspondence with a statement introducing the
writer and the recipient, followed by an introductory salutation. That means
that Paul’s letter to the Romans could have started as simply as this: “Paul, to
the church in Rome, Greetings!” Of course, he says much more than that. He
expands His greeting, and through these extended words we are helped to
understand both Paul as an apostle sent by God, and the multi-site assembly of
Christ in Rome as the Lord’s special people in that place.
Paul is a servant of Jesus the Messiah, a sent representative of the mightiest
eternal King, an ambassador with the solid message of the gospel, the good news
that will be described in wonderful detail in the first 11 chapters of this
letter. This Jesus, according to His human nature is the promised Son of David
who would sit enthroned over the people of God forever. According to His divine
nature, He is the Son of God. While He has always been the Son of God in His
essence, He has been declared by the Holy Spirit to have the highest royal
heavenly authority through His resurrection from the dead.
As an apostle, Paul brings a message that demands the obedience of those who
would hear and believe it. This apostolic gospel is going forth to all the
nations, and it has reached the city of Rome. There are those within that city
who are called by God as His beloved holy ones, set apart as “saints,” the
designation given in the New Testament to the entire worshipping assembly of
believers. Of all those who are living in Rome, these believers and followers of
Jesus Christ have been called to belong to this great Messiah. These are the
ones who have grace and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus
Christ.
Paul is eager to visit these saints in Rome so that he might preach this gospel
to them. He is always praying for them, and He longs to be there with them. To
do so would be good for Paul’s soul, and it would be good for those who would
hear the preaching of the gospel from his lips.
This message of the “good news” is a powerful word explaining the way that
people can have a right standing with God and the fullness of salvation from
God, blessings that come to us entirely by faith rather than through any merit
from the Law that anyone might try to claim. In terms of any supposed merit that
would come from obedience to the Law, our situation is bleak. The wrath of God
is revealed from heaven against all men. All men everywhere are without excuse.
They know God, since His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly
perceived in any reasonable consideration of the things that He has made. Yet
from the beginning, mankind would not honor God or give Him thanks, choosing
instead to worship images of created things rather than the Creator.
This rejection of God had consequences. God gave up mankind to their folly and
lust. Now they display their own willful suppression of the truth in the
unrighteousness of their lives. God gave them over to their passions. Though
they claimed to be wise, they are found to be fools, hating any sense of
boundaries, and loving their own shameless perversion. Because of this, God
further gave them over to their own debased minds. They violated His good ways
with every part of their being. Their very souls that should have been seeking
him, sought base ways of depravity instead. Their hearts were turned also
against one another, tearing down those they should have loved. Their thoughts
and their words have turned against one another, and their societies have become
places where the lowest kind of evil is not only tolerated, but even affirmed
and celebrated.
So much for any hope of our achieving righteousness with God through our own
merit! Because of the fact of our depravity, a manifest moral corruption that is
everywhere around us and also within us, we absolutely require some other way of
peace with God besides the Law. This way has been provided for us through the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. He came into this depraved world to save us. His
resurrection from the dead testifies to the success of His great endeavor.
Here, in Him, we find our only reliable success. The world is still a very
puzzling and dangerous place. Our lives can easily be taken away in a moment
according to the most revolting injustice. Therefore our hope cannot be in our
own abilities or in the goodwill of those who share this planet with us. Our
success must be found in Jesus Christ. He is the object of our faith, and in Him
we have found life. All of our progress in obedience must come as a fruit of the
faith that we have in Him.
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Romans 2
All of humanity stands guilty before a holy God because of our serious and deep
problem of sin. Yet somehow, even though we ourselves do the things that we
condemn in others, we imagine that we need have no concern about our guilt
before God. Yet when we agree that others are guilty according to God's Law and
we ourselves do the same things they do, we are actually passing judgment upon
ourselves.
How is it that we try to contend for our innocence? How do we suppose that we
will escape the judgment of God? One possibility is that we might presume upon
the fact that we are a people who have been chosen by God for his mercy. If we
truly have received the Lord's mercy, this cannot be an excuse for avoiding the
call of God to repentance. Is it possible that we are only storing up for
ourselves more guilt for the Day of Judgment every time we condemn others for
the things that we ourselves do?
Here is an amazing fact to ponder: Even though Paul teaches us that our
salvation is only by grace through faith, he also clearly teaches that God’s
righteous judgment will be a rendering to each one according to his works. The
true man of faith receives the mercy of God given to him in Christ, and that
mercy leads him to true repentance. It is never an excuse to continue in sin.
His grace is not meant to be a theological hiding place for the man who simply
decides to continue in licentious living. It is a new power for life and love
that yields the surrender of true gospel obedience. This is the pathway of
eternal life. The way of hypocritical and self-seeking immorality only leads us
to God’s wrath and fury. It is a counterfeit of true grace.
This is true for Jews and for Gentiles. Again, how is it that we contend for our
innocence before God and our acceptance by God? Is it through our identification
with a religious tradition apart from the obedience of faith? Is simply being a
Jew enough for salvation? Is it enough to have heard the Law of Moses, even if
one is guilty according to the Ten Commandments? Having heard the Law does not
save anyone. It is the doers of the Law that are righteous before God. If a
Gentile could somehow be judged to be a doer of what the Law required, then he
could be counted as righteous, even if he had never heard of the Law. Such a
person would show that the Law of God was somehow written upon his heart.
A day will come when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus the Messiah, and
it will not be enough of a defense for our obvious sin to say to Him, “I am a
descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” Someone might say, “I hear God’s Law,
I rely on God’s Law, I love God’s Law, I approve of God’s Law, I teach God’s
Law.” None of this is enough. Do you do God’s Law? Or do you break God’s Law
like everyone else? How will you stand before God? Have you had any idolatry or
adultery in your heart and in your life? Do you covet and steal? How will you be
forgiven for these things?
Are you counting on a religious ritual to make your defense before God? Will he
be satisfied by a mark in the flesh made by some person. Circumcision was a
great sign ordained by God. It was a ritual that was a commitment to keep the
Law. But to take pride in circumcision while disobeying the Law is like
boasting in your wedding ring while pursuing another man's wife. There is no
outward ritual that will be a good defense before God in the absence of the
inner reality to which that outward sign testifies.
Somehow we need to be found to be keepers of the Law in order to be right with
God. We need the circumcision of the heart, a true seal of approval from God
Himself. These are things that can only come to us as gifts. Jesus Christ came
as the one true Jew, circumcised in the flesh, but also completely circumcised
in the heart. As the real Israelite, living in the complete consecration of
perfect holiness and in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, he came not to condemn
the world but to save it through His own death for us. Through Him, even those
who have no outward circumcision can be counted as having righteousness. By His
power, we can even become living displays of faith and love.
Hypocrisy and ceremonial pride have never been acceptable to the Father. We
have sinned against Him deeply. Yet a Redeemer has come from the heavenly Zion
to save us. He is a true Jew, and His righteousness is full and sincere. This
is the One who has willingly shed His blood for our salvation.
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Romans 3
The big issue in Romans 1-3 is our right standing
before God. Is that right standing through our own good intentions, our
comparative merit to others around us, our understanding of some religious
doctrine, our affirmation of God's Law, our ceremonial heritage within a
community of faith? Paul has made the case that none of these things will do,
and that God demands our obedience. Mankind as a whole have not given this to
God, and even the Jews, His chosen people, have not given Him what He requires.
They have only added to their own condemnation as lawbreakers by presuming to
judge others. They themselves have commited the same violations that they see
and condemn in others.
Since all are guilty before God according to our own merit, does that mean that
their is no advantage in being a Jew at all? Is there no value in being marked
as those who belong to the covenant people? While Paul indicates that there are
many blessings that come to those who are in the Lord's covenant community. The
first advantage that Paul lists is that the Israelites were entrusted with the
oracles of God, meaning the Scriptures. There are certain things that we can
know by natural revelation, even if we have no access to any written Word of
God. We can know that there must be a God, an uncaused Cause of all things. We
can know something of His power and wisdom, and many other worthy attributes.
We can also observe brokenness around us, and consider that something somewhere
has gone wrong. We can feel the yearning within our hearts for eternity, and
for the removal of what seems unworthy of such a powerful and wise Creator.
While we can know certain things, and strongly suspect many other truths, we
cannot figure out what has gone wrong in our world; we cannot ascertain how, or
even if, it will ever be fixed; we cannot know how we can be partakers of
something better beyond this life unless God condescends to speak to us. This
speech of God, the oracles that give us soul-satisfying answers to the big
questions of life, have been granted to us by special revelation, and are
recorded for the life of the covenant community in the inestimable gift of the
Scriptures.
The Jews had this gift, and just because they ignored it or threw it away in
disobedience did not make the gift of little value. We may try to come up with
silly arguments to deny the blessings we have received, or to make our
condemnation somehow God's fault rather than our own. We, all of us, both Jew
and Gentile, need to come to terms with our true guilt before God. Are the Jews
any better off than the Gentiles when it comes to the matter of our guilt before
the Lord. No, the Scriptures document for us the way of the Israelites
according to the works-like features of the Law. Did they retain the land and
God's many blessings according to their works? No, they lost the land, the
king, and the temple, and were sent into exile almost as if they were enemies of
God, and certainly as those who were facing His serious correction. This is by
no means the end of the story for the Jews, and let's not forget that Paul was
born and died as a Jew, a Pharisaic Jew at his birth, and a Christian Jew at his
death. Yet the Jews, by their works, fall into the worldwide universal category
of those who would be enemies of God in the words of Psalm 14. According to
that measure, there is no man who even seeks after God. We have all gone
astray, and according to our own works of the Law, we cannot be justified. By
the Law of God, every mouth must be stopped. The verdict is in. We are guilty.
But now, (what wonderful words), but now another way has been provided for us by
which we can be judged to be right with God. This is a rightness before God
that comes through faith in the provision of our Substitute, the Messiah,
Jesus. This verdict of being right comes to all who trust in Jesus, whether Jew
or Gentile. All have sinned and have fallen into God's condemnation; but all
who trust in Jesus, God's provision for us, have been given the free gift of
righteousness through Jesus.
The way this works, and all of this we can see in the Law and the Prophets, is
that God has sent a Seed of the woman to win life for His people who were under
a just sentence of death. This required a perfect Substitute, even God, who
would stand in our place to take God's wrath. Someone had to be an accurate
Substitute for man, and be capable of facing death in our place, thereby
requiring His humanity. This concept of an offering that turns aside God's
wrath is called a propitiation, or a propitiatory sacrifice. The merit of this
sacrifice must be received by faith, or we would think that somehow we had
received the blessings of heaven through our own works. The whole notion of
faith is that there is someone else who has accomplished our redemption. This
is why Jesus did for us. Here was the way that God could uphold the requirement
of His justice, that sin deserves death, and also uphold his determination to
justify a great host of people from among the Jews and the Gentiles. Was this
achieved by our works? Of course not! Otherwise we could brag about our
greatness. This was achieved by the works of another, and we have gained His
great achievement simply by trusting in Him. This way of faith is the only way
that we can be right by God, and it is the only way that both the Law could be
upheld and sinners saved. The righteous demands of the Law have been satisfied
by Jesus in His obedience and death, and we have been credited with that
righteousness, and are counted by God to be Law-doers in Him.
Romans 4
The person who comes to see the truth that our standing with God is based on the
works of Jesus finds himself engaged in a life-long intellectual and moral
struggle that does not always feel like individual peace. This is somewhat
ironic, since the gospel of God is a gospel of the greatest peace that has come
to us through the death of His Son. Nonetheless when that gospel does come to
us, it is not as if our spiritual struggles are over. We continue to face a
battle. In that battle we wonder about the continuing role and worth of works
of obedience in a life of blood-bought grace.
It is of first importance that we embrace the truth of what God alone has
accomplished for us. Paul turns to the story of the Old Testament patriarch
Abraham in order to solidify the understanding of the church in Rome concerning
the good news that is ours in Christ? The question he puts forward is this: Did
a man like Abraham, eminent for a great act of obedience in connection with his
son Isaac, earn his right standing with God based on what he did for God, or did
Abraham's good standing with God come in some other way? Paul is clear that any
good news that leaves Abraham or us with something to boast about in ourselves
cannot be the real gospel. Instead, Genesis 15 says that "Abraham believed God,
and it was counted to Him as righteousness." His standing with God was a gift,
and not a wage. Abraham trusted in God as the One who would justify the
ungodly.
This was also the way for King David. In Psalm 32 he writes, "Blessed are those
whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the
man against whom the Lord will not count his sin." When we talk about the Lord
not counting someone's sin against him, it should be obvious that the person has
sin, and that the person is, in this sense, a member of the ungodly according to
the standard of God's perfect righteousness. We should regularly ask ourselves
this question: Was it necessary that Jesus lived a life without any sin? If we
do not know the answer then we do not yet see the radical fact of the Lord's
role for us as the perfect Lamb of God. In the face of God's law, Abraham was
ungodly, and so are we ungodly, but Jesus was not ungodly, but perfectly
righteous. This was necessary for us if Psalm 32 was to be fulfilled. Because
of Christ's righteousness and blood, the Lord will not count our sins against
us.
There is no religious rite or ritual that is the first cause of our good
standing with God, or salvation would be by the work of that ritual.
Circumcision was arguably the greatest ritual of Old Testament life. Paul says
here that it was a ritual that was a sign of something, and a seal of
righteousness by faith for Abraham. This same sign and seal was given to infant
boys in the Old Covenant according to God's command. How was this a sign of
righteousness by faith? Circumcision was a cutting ritual and an initiatory
rite administered in the beginning days of covenant life. Paul says in another
place that it was a commitment to keep the whole Law. The ritual itself modeled
before God's people the covenant sanction for disobedience. "May this little
child, my infant son, be cut off from the people of God if He should violate
God's Law, even as this small piece of skin is cut off from his body today."
This is the symbolism. How could parents rationally take this step, knowing the
vastness of God's Law and the depravity of humanity? The only way to do such a
thing is through trust in a Substitute for that boy. A spotless Lamb of God
would have to come, fully obeying God's Law, and then be cut off from the
covenant community on behalf of this child. This is the way that circumcision
was such an accurate symbol of justification by faith; faith not in our own
perfection, of which we have none, but in the perfection of another.
Because our salvation is based on the works of Jesus, God was able to bring the
blessing of the obedience of Christ not only to the circumcised, but even to the
uncircumcised. The circumcision itself is not a thing of merit that allows a
person to boast before God, but a testimony of personal demerit, and a plea for
some righteousness that can only be provided by our Substitute. It was fitting
that Abraham received the pronouncement of His righteousness by faith in Genesis
15 before He was even given the rite of circumcision in Genesis 17. He was a
father to both the circumcised and the uncircumcised who would have faith in
Israel's God and in the work of Jesus Christ as our Substitute. What then of
works? Are they unimportant or unnecessary? Not at all. They are a display of
the faith that is ours for all who would walk in the obedience that flows from
true faith.
What is this faith that we are called to? It is a belief that God can bring
life where there is only death. Those who are spiritually dead cannot cooperate
in their own rescusitation. This is a work that must be done by another. Once
they are alive again, they can do many works, but they can do no works while
they are dead. This God who has brought us spiritual life through Jesus Christ,
shall also bring to us physical life forever through Him, for our God "gives
life to the dead, and calls into existence things that do not exist."
This is the God in whom Abraham believed and in whom we also believe. We do not
look at our own strength in order to see if we are likely candidates for the
life-giving work of God. Abraham and Sarah, looking at themselves, could not
have thought that they were likely candidates for parenthood. They heard the
promise of God that life would come from the dead. Like Abraham, we believe in
the resurrection of the dead and we give glory to God. God is able to do what
He has promised. This has become not only the story of one man's fauth who
lived thousands of years ago. It has now become the story of our faith. We
have seen the truth that God raised the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. This
one man was cut off from the people of God for us when He was delivered up for
our trespasses. But now He has been raised as the object of our faith as it
pertains to our own resurrection. We believe in Him, in His works, in His
death, in His life, and in His power to unfailingly give life to the lifeless.
We have been justified by faith, the kind of living faith that works itself out
in resurrection obedience.
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Romans 5
In any kind of relationship between a superior and an
inferior there may be at least two kinds of peace, and they should be related.
The first is that peace which is a fact. The second is the peace which is a
feeling. In our relationship with God we have peace through our Lord Jesus
Christ. This is a fact based upon the satisfaction of God's demands of justice
through the work of our Mediator and Substitute. Our careful consideration of
this fact should help us to experience the feeling of peace and communion with
God that is so helpful to our sense of well-being. This awareness of the fact
of peace should include our recognition that we access to God by faith. As we
take advantage of the access that has come to us through God's plan of grace, we
should find that we are able to walk in that grace that is ours in Christ. This
should yield some measure of rejoicing, which most certainly involves our
feelings. We have many reasons to rejoice in God, including His own excellence,
His love for us, His covenant faithfulness, and His great power over both the
present and the future. This all helps us to experience a measure of soul
pleasure, even after a time of great suffering.
The God who sent His own Son to die for our sins does not give His beloved
children meaningless suffering. Because we know of His power and His love, it
is possible to rejoice in suffering, expecting that much good will come from
this suffering, even if we are never able to entirely connect the good with the
suffering that helped to produce the good. The particular facts of any one life
are so numerous and complex that we would only be guessing about why things
happen to a person. At best we are suggesting our theories in such a
situation. We do know certain general principles because they have been
revealed to us in God's Word. We know that God uses suffering to produce a
greater endurance within His loved ones, and we know that endurance is a good
thing for someone who wants to be a person of character. And we know that the
right kind of character involves true expectations of what a good, loving, and
powerful God would do on behalf of His loved ones. We have these true and
confident expectations that there must be something much better ahead in the
hand of Almighty God, and knowing this to be a certain truth, because of His
Word, we have hope, a hope that we need not be ashamed of. It may seem foolish
to some to see God's worshipers living in hope when so much has gone wrong in
their lives, but this hope is a gift of the Holy Spirit to His afflicted
children who continue to know the fact of the love of God, and maybe even to
experience something of the feeling of that love.
When we would doubt the love of God, when we would struggle in our souls because
we do not have an answer to the specific "why" questions of our afflictions, we
come back to the one answer to our deepest need that makes all the difference:
"While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly." This
is how God has shown His love for us. We, who were once at war against Him in
our sin, have received the objective promised blessing of eternal life in
perfect communion with Him through the death of His Son. We have already been
saved from the wrath of God. God will not cast us into the lake of fire after
His Son faced our punishment on the cross. This Jesus who died for His
suffering church now lives for His beloved bride. He who saved us by His death
will surely save us with His resurrection life at the right hand of the Father.
We are enabled not only to endure, but to rejoice, in due time, in the
reconciliation with God through Christ that is ours as an established gospel
fact.
Our reconciliation with God is not a fact of nature, but a fact of divine
rescue. By nature we were born as descendants of Adam. He was our covenant
head. He sinned for us. The clear evidence that all of us have sinned proves
well the accuracy of Adam's representation of us in his one world-changing
offense. Even before the Law came through Moses, the curse of our disobedience
against God was upon all of mankind, so that death reigned as an undefeated
champion, a brutal enemy that was far too strong for us.
This fact of nature after the fall of Adam is a fact, but it is not the only
fact. We now have heard and received a new fact, the fact of divine rescue
through a better Mediator. Where Adam sinned for us, Jesus obeyed for us, and
then died for our sins, overwhelming the ugly enemy of death with the far
greater weapon of the gift of God's grace. Judgment has been forced to give way
to a declaration of righteousness that has been entered upon our accounts in the
presence of the Almighty. This can only mean the overturning of death for the
redeemed in the gift of life from on high. All who were covered by the covenant
mediator Adam were under the condemnation he won for them, but now all who are
covered by the covenant representation of a better Mediator, Jesus, have
justification and eternal life. We are no longer counted according to the
status of sinners as we deserved through Adam's works and our own. Now our
status is that of righteous men and women in the one righteous Man, Jesus
Christ.
The covenant system of the Law of Moses, a later works-like arrangement for the
nation of Israel, should have thoroughly convinced all of us of our need for
some other way to approach God that could bring peace. That new way has come,
through the long-expected Word of the gospel. Through Jesus Christ our Lord we
now have the solid fact of true reconciliation and peace with God, and we are
made partakers of the feeling of peace as the Lord sees fit, even for those who
also feel the grief of some measure of suffering that they cannot understand.
We know that our Redeemer lives, and that His life from the dead can only mean
life for those who have been united with Him in His representative obedience and
suffering. This is the ground for rejoicing for those who believe. Do not
abandon such a solid and secure hope, for the Christ who has suffered for you
will never abandon the bride for which He gave His life. As God enables you,
partake of some measure of the experience of peace that he has for your soul,
for your reconciliation with God is a settled fact that will never change.
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Romans 6
How do people of grace live? There is a dangerous
misuse of the gospel that would turn God's grace into an excuse for sin. This
error goes something like this: "We know that we are saved by God's grace alone,
and not by our obedience to the Law. Because of this, our obedience really does
not make any difference. In fact the more we sin, the more God forgives. Why
not just keep on sinning? Wouldn't that just lead to more and more grace from
God?" It is possible that this line of argument did not come as much from
friends of the gospel as from the enemies of Paul's message. There were some
who were perhaps claiming that this was the logical result of Paul's teaching,
which they considered to be too loose on the matter of the Law. "This Paul is so
insistent in bringing the message of grace to people, that it's like he is
deliberately encouraging people to sin. Is that the way he thinks that they
will experience more of God's grace?"
Of course this was not Paul's message at all. He answers this potential
objection in several ways. First, he says that those who are in Christ are
ceremonially and covenantally dead to sin. We have been baptized into Christ
Jesus. Our water baptism is a sacrament of union with our Savior. We are
united with Him in His obedience, His sufferings, His death, His burial, His
resurrection, His ascension, His life now in heaven, and His return again at the
last day. How can we who are united with Him in this great and full way think it
somehow OK to sin? We should think of our old sin nature as buried in the tomb,
so that we might live the new resurrection life of godliness.
Furthermore, this union is more than ceremonial, and more than even an ethical
obligation. We who are connected to him truly in His death for us, will also be
connected with Him in the reality of resurrection life. We will enjoy life with
Him in the present heaven and in the resurrection age to come. After our mortal
life in this age is completed, we will no longer have any experience with sin in
any way. Our destiny is a life of the fullest righteousness that God has
intended for His beloved people. Therefore, it makes no sense for us to insist
on clinging to sin now.
There is an old way of life that needs to be rejected. It is the way that we
once lived. That old way, even our old self, has been crucified with Christ.
We are alive now in the new man that is God's gift to us. This new man is not
seeking sin, so once again, the lifestyle of sin makes no sense for us. Sin
made perfect sense for people who were servants of Satan. It is no part of the
good life for those who are servants of Christ and righteousness. People may
yet imagine that they are living as free people when they pursue a course of
sin, but they are not. They are servants of a horrible master who has no real
care for their well-being. When we are released from those old chains, why
should we continue to serve the cruel enemy who only hated us? That is not the
way of true freedom. It is only the way of a vicious lie, a painful bondage
masquerading as the delight of our own choice. Christ is the Master who died
for us. To serve Him is the only way of real freedom.
Think of this fact as well: Christ conquered sin and death for us once for all
time. He is not returning to die ever again. We should never return to the
ways of death either. To return to a life of sin is to let sin have a place in
our lives where it no longer has any rightful business. Sin is not permitted to
come and harass the bride of Christ. We want no illicit affair with one who was
such a false friend and destructive lover in former days. We are no longer
named with his wretched name. We are living under the banner of blood-bought
grace, and have been named with that Name above every name, the great Name of
Jesus, the Son of God.
The way of grace is the way of happy obedience to the Champion who has claimed
us for His own. It is ours to be His fruitful bride, and to reject immoral
entanglements with any pretend heroes that would lead us against the Almighty
God. Now every part of our body has been given to our perfect Husband for His
glorious enjoyment. He wants only what is the highest good, and will be pleased
to make us fruitful in our love to Him. Anyone who might have strange notions
of the false romance of the old ways of evil should give careful consideration
to the fruit that came to us in our past days of sin. Do we want to give birth
to evil, condemnation, and death? We best stay away from those former
entanglements, because these are the children that they give: evil,
condemnation, and death. We have a bountiful free gift from God purchased by
the death of Christ that will surely lead to the glory of eternal life. Shall
we continue in sin? Is this the way that we would use the grace of God? Of
course not! Only the enemies of real grace would make such an absurd claim.
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Romans 7
The seventh commandment says, "Thou shalt not commit
adultery." Simply stated, this is the law of God concerning marriage. If we
were to put more words of explanation together on this matter, we might say
something like this: "Marriage is a binding lifelong covenant commitment between
a man and a woman. It is the only possible moral relationship for the enjoyment
of one-flesh intimacy. Aside from the death of one of the parties, there is no
way out of a marriage covenant without serious sin and significant
consequences." If a man is still alive, and his wife lives with another man,
she is counted as an adulteress. She has violated the seventh commandment.
This is the law of marriage. But if her husband dies, she is freed from her
covenant commitment, and can marry again without being considered immoral. The
law is binding upon them as a married couple only as long as they both live.
Israel was married to the old system of the Law. But now, in the death of
Christ, something has happened. The Law has died as a covenantal arrangement.
The people of God are free to be united with another husband, the Son God, Jesus
Christ. We belong to Him. We are to bear fruit for God through our new
husband, our resurrected Savior. This contrast between the two husbands is
worthy of our consideration. We cannot speak against our first husband, the
Law, but that covenantal system could not bring forth the fruit of life for us.
Our new Husband is very fruitful, and we are bearing good fruit in our
association with Him. God has told us to be fruitful and multiply. Now, in
Christ, we are bearing fruit that will last for eternal life.
The Law is a very interesting system. It cannot be criticized, yet it cannot
bring life. Like sin, it can be said to hold us captive, but sin is evil, while
the Law is not evil at all. Despite all of the perfection of the Law, it only
brings to us a knowledge of our fault, and we are undone by it. The Law speaks
to me in words that cannot be criticized. It says, "Thou shalt not covet." Now
I have an intimate awareness of what covetousness is, because the sin nature of
my flesh rises up within me when I hear the Law, and I give birth to
transgression, which has no place in the world of eternal blessing.
Before the system of the written Law came through Moses, Israel was alive in the
promise of God. That promise did not go away when the Law came through Moses,
but it was somewhat obscured by the mounting awareness of sin that came through
the written commandment. The commandment promised life upon the condition of
obedience, but it could not defeat the sin nature within the covenant people.
That sin nature seized upon the commandment as an opportunity to bring forth the
fruit of unrighteousness and death within the life of Israel, and the people
were undone. The Law proved to be a burden that our fathers could not bear; not
that the Law can be charged with the fault of the law-breaker. It was the sin
within the people of God that brought forth death. Sin used the Law for its own
destructive purposes, and it did so with great and deadly effect.
But the promise of God did not die. God had a purpose in the Law. Sin did
increase, and the slavery of sin was all the more obvious. No matter how much
Old Testament Israel under the Law applauded the Law with her mind, sin within
her was a mighty enemy. She could never have found life through the Law,
because in a contest between a mind that applauds the Law and the flesh that
rejoices in evil, the flesh would always eventually win. This was the case for
Old Testament Israel as a covenant people, and it is the case in any individual
even now. We need a much stronger help than our mind applauding what is right.
We need Christ by His Spirit at work within us, putting to death the enemy of
the flesh.
It is not enough that we agree with the Law that it is good. We need power from
on high to do what God loves. This power does not come from the Law, but from
Christ, from the gospel of the cross and the resurrection, and from the Spirit
of Christ at work within the church. Without these powerful allies we will only
continue to do what we hate. Without these great and victorious warriors
battling on our behalf, our existence will only be wretched. We may agree with
the Law that it is good, but we will still be enslaved to sin. This flesh is
still a continuing trouble for the true believer, but thanks be to God, Christ
Jesus our Lord is at work within us, and through Him we have the victory.
Let there be no doubt within the church that this strong Savior, the Husband of
His people, lives forever. His cross has dealt a decisive blow in this great
battle for resurrection glory, and He will certainly deliver His people from
this body of death that continues to give us a palpable struggle within every
individual and within the body of Christ as a whole spiritual community. Though
we feel the wretchedness of the warfare in and around us now, the victory of our
great Husband is a certain reality that encourages and empowers us in the
service of our Lord.
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Romans 8
Our observation of life and history and our own experience with suffering
supplies us with many situations where we would rightly say, "This can't be
God's final answer." In the first eight chapters of this book, the Apostle has
been unfolding before us a wonderful theological tapestry; an intellectually,
emotionally, and spiritually satisfying explanation to the story of God and
life. That story comes to something of a delightful crescendo in Romans 8. We
get a sense of that immediately with the opening words: "There is therefore now
no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." The first three chapters of
this letter told us the truth of the universal guilt of mankind, both Jew and
Gentile. We needed to hear of some way consistent with the glory of God that we
could somehow be found to have no condemnation before God. The great plan of
the Almighty in Jesus Christ has provided us with this way.
The way did not come to us through the Law or through our nature. The holiness
of God and the depravity of man could only yield a just sentence of condemnation
upon us. We needed help from outside ourselves in order to have a new and
secure life before us. That help has come from the Spirit of life sent forth
from on high. In Christ Jesus we have been freed, and the Holy Spirit testifies
to our spirits concerning this and much more. We needed victory over our sinful
flesh nature in the face of the righteous Law of God. That victory has been
granted to us through the actions of Christ, and we have come to experience this
victory ourselves through the work of the Spirit of Christ. Instead of our
eternal condemnation, only our sinful flesh nature has been condemned, and a new
spirit righteousness nature has come to life, so much so that we are setting our
minds on the things of the Spirit and walking in obedience to God according to
that same Spirit.
Not only that, we can now actually please God in a way that was impossible
before, since "those who are in the flesh cannot please God." But now the
Spirit of God dwells within those who truly belong to Jesus Christ, our own
spirits have been brought to life, and God will eventually give life to our
mortal bodies. We have a great debt as a result of the gift that was given to
us, but it is certainly not a debt to our sinful flesh nature or even to the
Law. Our debt is to Jesus, who took the weight of our sin upon Himself on the
cross. There is no way to pay that debt, but we do the most honorable thing
that we can do in that regard when we walk in the way of new life.
What is this way of life? Jesus told His disciples that it was a life of cross
love, and that this was the only way to follow Him. Here Paul says that it is
life of being led by the Spirit, and a life of being sons of God. These are not
three different lives, but one life. We who have been adopted by God have been
granted that spirit of sonship; and it is through the leading of that Spirit
that we are enabled to pick up the cross as followers of Jesus. This is a
pathway that leads to the blessing of the promises of God in the fullness of
glory, though we are led through the valley of the shadow of death now. That
glory life is so great that every sacrifice we need to make for Jesus now is
well worth it, and our suffering is even working for us and not against us,
yielding a great weight of heavenly gold in due time.
This does require some patience, but the day will come when the faith will be
sight. We will see a world of sinless glory in the presence of Jesus. We will
see that world descend upon the earth, working the most profound and beautiful
renewal upon the world that we know now. This present world is groaning under
the weight of decay at the present time as a result of the sin of man and the
judgment of God. But the day of new birth will come, not only in our hearts,
which we experience now, but in the world all around us when the King of glory
comes again from a place where there is no decay. Therefore we wait patiently
for this hope, which has been promised to us by God, who does not lie.
Until that day we have many encouragements. We have the Spirit of God helping
us in our weakness, particularly in prayer. We have the truth of the eternal
love of God proclaimed to us in the Word. We have the promise of God assuring
us that even our suffering is not random, but purposeful, and ultimately for our
eternal good, and we have the assurance that the Judge of men is the same Man
who Himself suffered and died for us. There is an unbreakable golden chain
binding us to God and His love for us in Christ. That chain began in eternity
past, winding its way through the central events of salvation history, keeping
us secure in God through this present evil age as we serve Him here, and
continuing on all the way through the present heavens and into the fulfillment
of the resurrection age to come.
Particularly when we consider the cost of our salvation to the Father in the
death of His perfect Son, we are persuaded that God loves us, and that He will
never let us go. Though hell would assault and accuse, heaven and heaven's God
will never allow us to be snatched from the embrace of our Husband and
Redeemer. With this confidence, it is ours to boldly serve Him. Even if He
seems to slay us, He is still entirely to be trusted. One day we will be openly
acknowledged as more than acquitted by the One who says to us even now, "I have
loved you with an everlasting love."
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Romans 9
The Apostle Paul cared deeply about the Israelites, the Jews; this despite the
fact that many of those who had caused the most trouble for his ministry were
not Gentiles but Jews. Of all people, Paul understood where they were coming
from. He had been a Pharisaic Jew, and a persecutor of the church. He surely
still considered himself to be a Jew when he wrote this important letter to the
Christian church in Rome. He was, in fact, a Christian Jew, as so many were in
the first century. He was a Jew who had come to see Jesus, the cross, the
resurrection, and the Christian preaching of the kingdom of God and the
resurrection age as the fulfillment of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Those Hebrew Scriptures were also quite clear on God's relationship with Israel
as His chosen people. The question had to be asked: "What went wrong? What
happened to the Jews, since so many seemed to reject Jesus as the Messiah?"
They had so many advantages, especially the Scriptures themselves, and, of
course, it was from the Jews that the Messiah Jesus came, the One who Paul calls
here "God over all." In answering this important question, Paul says, "It is
not as though the Word of God has failed." Many people come to the conclusion
that God has let them down, or that He has done something wrong. A loved one
may have died tragically, despite earnest prayers. Has God's promise failed?
To answer that question we have to be very careful on the matter of what God
actually promised. There is no promise in the Bible that the people we pray for
will continue to live this mortal life forever. We cannot rightly evaluate
whether the promise of God has failed unless we look carefully at the content of
the promise itself.
God did not promise that each and every individual descended from Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob would be a part of His eternal people Israel. God made many
promises concerning Israel, but not everyone who was a part of natural Israel
was also a part of the spiritual elect Israel. God never promised to save all
of the former, only all of the latter. Just because Abraham is in a person's
list of ancestors does not mean that that person is a son of Abraham in every
sense of the word. Ishmael had Abraham as a father, but God announce in the
Hebrew Scriptures that the promise was through Isaac, the child of Abraham and
Sarah. In the next generation, the same point was lived out. Rebecca, the wife
of Isaac, was carrying twins, of which only one was the chosen child, Jacob.
The other, Esau, the father of the Edomites, was not elect.
This sovereignty of God in salvation is ultimately necessary if grace is to be
fully grace. If the key turning point and power of salvation springs first from
the wisdom, power, and goodness of man, then salvation must in some sense be by
the works of man and for the glory of man. But this is not what the Scriptures
teach. Concerning faith, Jesus is the Author and Finisher of it, and we are
explicitly told that it is the gift of God. If we have works to do, it is only
because God prepared these things in advance that we should walk in them. There
is simply no ground for human boasting on the matter of our salvation. Though
so many people resist the plain teaching of the Bible on this, the One that we
call Almighty is Almighty, even in the matters of faith, obedience, and eternal
life. This is not even a close call when it comes to the evidence in the
Bible. Salvation is of God, not of man. All mankind are by nature objects of
God's hate, His wrath, and not His love. It is not surprising that God would
say, "Esau I hated," as He does in Malachi. What is surprising is that He would
be able to say in the same place, "Jacob I loved." This could only be done at
the cost of His Son.
The enemies of the clear Biblical teaching of election commonly bring up certain
objections. It is part of the proof that Romans 9 teaches sovereign election
that Paul anticipates these very objections that are so often raised against
those who teach that God chose some to everlasting life, and that others He
created for a different purpose. What are these objections? 1. "Is there
injustice on God's part?" 2. "Why does He still find fault? For who can resist
his will?" 3. Anticipating the plea of those who have not been saved trying to
blame God for their just condemnation, "Why have you made me like this?"
Paul's answers to these presumptuous and arrogant questions affirm the greatness
and glory of God, and reject the notion that any of us have the right to set
ourselves above the Lord as His judge, an act of intolerable pride on the part
of any creature. He is the potter, and we are the clay. He has apparently set
up this world in the only way that would be right, the way that brings the
greatest glory to the greatest Being, Him, the only wise God. That way involves
not only the most supreme display of His mercy, but also the most supreme
display of His justice. Both of these require not only blessing, but also
curse. You cannot have mercy without just moral guilt and curse from which to
be rescued. You also cannot have justice without responsible moral guilt and a
just penalty for that guilt. If that makes us wonder, and figure that this just
can't be the true story of God, we are referred back again to the fact that God
is far greater than we are.
God is not unjust. He has determined to have mercy upon whom He will have
mercy, and it was His eternal choice to form the full Israel of God not only
from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles. This plan was according to His
purpose of election, and it was amply testified to in the Hebrew Scriptures.
This He has done through the provision of a righteousness that has come to us
through faith in a Substitute who died for our sins. This Substitute is the
Stone of stumbling and the Rock of offense to some. But those who have been
granted the gift of faith boast not in themselves or their own understanding of
the deep mysteries of God that are beyond our understanding. We do boast in
something. We boast in the God who chose us from before the foundation of the
world, and in Christ, who is God over all become man to perform the necessary
activities of dying love for the beloved of God, and in the Spirit of God by
which we have been made alive from the dead. And we most joyfully confess the
truth: that our salvation "depends not on human will or exertion, but on God,
who has mercy."
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Romans 10
Paul loves His countrymen, the Jews, and He longs for them to be saved. Some,
of course, have already embraced the Jewish Messiah, Jesus Christ. The Apostle
himself is in this group of Christian Jews. Others will come to Christ later.
Paul has established in the prior chapter that people come to faith according to
the sovereign power of God according to His decree of election. This does not
at all negate the responsibility of the church to proclaim the message of
Christ, nor does it at all negate the need for people everywhere to respond to
that message. It is the power of God in election that demands that the church
be used according to God's will as His instrument in the plan of salvation, and
it is that same electing love that assures us that God will use the means that
He has appointed, even us, to accomplish His settled purposes.
We need to have zeal in the work of the Lord, but salvation does not come to
people based upon our zeal or even based upon their own zeal. Many Jews had a
zeal for God, as Paul himself once had. That zeal did not cause him to hear the
Word of grace and to believe, but to hate the message of salvation through a
Substitute. Zeal in what is wrong and unproductive is not a virtue. The
problem was that so many Jews were doing what people everywhere are always
tempted to do: rather than embracing a righteousness outside of themselves as
their only answer, they were attempting to secure good standing with God based
on their own righteousness according to their own obedience to their particular
mixture of sacred tradition and divine Law. Their dedication to that way of
trying to secure their peace caused them to reject God's only provision for us
in Christ.
Christ is our righteousness. In His obedience we have the end of the Old
Covenant Law as a way of life for Israel. The Law was a works-like arrangement
for the nation of Israel. That arrangement continued for a time within God's
prior system of grace-based salvation announced to us as His promise. The
blessings of Law can only come from fully obeying that Law. Where is our hope
under that kind of system? Yet even within the covenant documents of the Law,
Moses spoke of a righteousness that came by faith. The way of life that is
through faith comes to us through believing in the heart and professing with the
lips. Faith is that trust in Another who alone can accomplish the securing of
our heavenly citizenship. Now Christ, the Word, has come near to us in the
preaching of grace through the Word of the gospel. Christ is proclaimed, and in
that Word, God has come near to us and saved us. Because of the divine power of
the Word preached through fallible human messengers, we confess with our mouths
that Jesus is Lord, and we believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the
dead. This is the way that God has chosen to work out His electing purposes.
This is the same way for everyone: 1. true faith in Christ, and 2. profession of
that faith by which people are brought into the communion of those who believe.
There is not some different way for Jews. Everyone comes through the gate of
Christ. Long ago, God had announced through the Old Testament prophet Joel a
very important word of encouragement: "All who call upon the Name of the Lord
shall be saved." This calling upon the Name of the Lord has always been a true
engagement of worship within the covenant assembly of the Lord's people.
God not only ordains the end, our salvation, He also has given us the way to
that end, and that way involves the words and lives of God's people. Paul is
presenting God’s normal way of bringing spiritual life to people. People need
to call upon the Lord. To call upon Him in true worship together with the
church, they need to believe in Him. To believe in Him, of course they need to
hear about Him. To hear about Jesus, His message has to be preached to them.
If preachers are going to preach, then they need to be sent out by the church as
dedicated servants of the Lord and of His message. This is the way for us.
People need to hear the word of Christ through His ambassadors sent out by the
church, so that faith can come by hearing, and life can come to people by the
Spirit of God. This is the way for the sheep of God to hear the voice of Jesus
Christ and live.
We should never imagine that the sovereign election of God is somehow at
cross-purposes with the church's ministry of preaching Christ. The powerful
electing love of God is the root of grace. The obedience of Christ and His
cross and resurrection are the ground of grace. The Holy Spirit at work in the
lives of God's beloved is the agent of grace. The preaching, hearing,
believing, and professing of the truth of Christ is the way of grace. The
obedience of faith is the fruit of grace. The resurrection kingdom of Jews and
Gentiles in the land of perfect salvation is the glorious goal of grace. God
will not be stopped in His plan of glory and love. He will even use the calling
of the Gentiles to bring many Jews home, a fact that Paul will further explore
in the next chapter.
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Romans 11
Paul's epistles often begin with a section on Christian thinking, and then
conclude with a section on Christian living. Romans has perhaps the most
substantial section on Christian thinking of any book in the Bible. With Romans
11 we have the conclusion to this section. Paul started this 11 chapter
treatise with three chapters on the universal sinfulness of mankind. He ends
with three chapters on the sovereignty of God in solving that massive problem.
The two sections are related. Because the problem of our sin is so very deep,
and because sin is a universal stain, not only on Gentiles, but even on Jews,
only God can solve this problem. Therefore, we should not be surprised that any
work of salvation in any life would have to originate in God, and not in man.
Even God's use of men in that process of redemption, as in the preaching of the
Word through the church, must be understood as an expression of the sovereign
power and love of our Almighty Redeemer.
In this great work of redemption, God has not forgotten His Old Testament
covenant people, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Israel is His
son, and God is Israel's Father. The Lord has a great plan of blessing that has
come to include the Gentiles, but He will never walk away from His glorious plan
for the redemption of His son, elect Israel. God grieves. He also endures in
perfect hope, so He keeps on going, of course. But we should not think that
because He endures and because He continues to work that He no longer cares
about His son. God loves elect Israel, even down to a thousand generations. He
cares, and He is powerful to save. In this chapter. Paul, a descendant of the
Jewish tribe of Benjamin, reveals some of God's great mystery of how the Lord
will continue to express His love for His Israel, and how He will win back so
many of the descendants of Jacob. His plan is to do this through the jealousy
that they will experience as so many of the Gentiles will be adopted into the
household of the Jewish Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is not to suggest that every natural descendant of Jacob will be saved, but
it is to say that God is still claiming every one of those descendants that He
has loved from long before Abraham was born. The foreknowledge of God is not
some mere awareness of the facts of the future. It is that foreknowledge which
is the intimacy of electing love. God has not rejected even one of His people
whom He foreknew. God grieves not only for the son who dies. He grieves for
the son who will no longer hear His Word, who rebels, and who wanders away. God
will not be content with this end of the story for any of His beloved chosen
children.
The Jew who already loves Jesus today may feel that He is all alone, like Elijah
in the wilderness, but God reserves for Himself seven thousand who have not
bowed the knee to Baal. These stand for a remnant of Israel who have been
chosen by God's grace. Many of the Israelites in the day of Paul were hardened
against God, and pursued His favor as if they could obtain it by works. But we
should not be surprised if many of the descendants of such men and women would
yet one day be softened in their hearts toward Jesus of Nazareth, God's
only-begotten Son. God is not planning on the fall of His chosen people just
because so many have stumbled over the stumbling stone of Christ. Their
momentary hardening against their Father has made room now for the Gentiles to
be brought into the household of God.
God's electing love was not only for Jews, but also for Gentiles. Today is
still a great day for the descendants of Ham and Japheth, the descendants of
Ishmael, and the peoples of those tribes that hated Israel. They can find life
in Jesus. But the day will surely come when God will cause the jealousy of His
true son Israel to abound. It should be a very obvious thing for many Jews to
discover a Jewish Messiah, especially when so many Gentiles have found their way
into the family of the Lord our God. God has not hardened his rebellious son
Israel forever, but only for a time. As the day draws near for the fulfillment
of the Lord's great plan to bring life from the dead, we should expect to see
the longings of God's heart for elect Israel to be wonderfully achieved.
There will be one great Isrealite tree of God, a tree with natural Jewish
branches, with some wild Gentile braches that have now been grafted in, and with
some Jewish branches that were once cut off that can now be grafted back in
again. This is what it will mean for all Israel to be saved. The full number
of the elect sons of God of both the Jews and the Gentiles will rejoice in His
presence together as brothers and sisters in the kingdom through Jesus the
King. The way for everyone is through faith in the Messiah who shed His blood
for all the beloved. This is the way that all the nations of the earth would be
blessed through Abraham.
More than that, this is the wonder of the wisdom of God: He will fulfill all of
His great promises of electing love, He will save Jews, He will save Gentiles,
and He will graft them all together into one vibrant and fruitful family tree.
This is the plan that is being lived out before our eyes now. If there has been
a time of hardening, if there has been a time of disobedience, surely it fits
into a larger and better plan of God, a plan that will be full of mercy, when
all of our rebellion and foolishness will be cast forever far behind us. "Oh,
the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are
his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!" Our God has done it all. Praise
to the Father for His electing love! Praise to the Son for His atoning
sacrifice! Praise to the Spirit for His sanctifying power! Praise the Triune
God all the ends of the earth! "For from him and through him and to him are all
things. To him be glory forever. Amen."
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Romans 12
How shall we live as those who have been so greatly blessed by the grace of
God? The Apostle Paul has spent eleven chapters persuading us that we are the
recipients, not of what we deserve according to our works, but of the mercies of
God. This kind of mercy must have implications for those who have embraced it?
What kind of life makes sense for those who truly believe in the eternal mercies
that have come to us through the cross of our Redeemer?
Jesus died for us. Paul tells us that it is ours to live for Him. His death
was a sacrifice acceptable to God. Our lives are also to be a sacrifice, but a
living one. A life lived with true gospel gratitude adorned with great fruits
of the obedience that proceeds from faith is a life lived as an act of spiritual
worship to God. Paul says that such a life is holy and acceptable when it is
offered up to God through the perfection of Christ. How many of us allow
ourselves to believe such good news about our acts of service to the Lord? We
feel our shortcomings and weaknesses and easily focus on these. We can readily
see that our obedience is still stained by our impure motives, words, and
actions. Have we every really considered that our service of the Lord is holy
and acceptable to Him because of our union with His Son?
This fits in well with the proclamation of Christ, assuring us that we will one
day hear these words, "Well done thou good and faithful servant." We do not
have to try to impress God in order to win His love. We do not have to struggle
for His attention and affection. He already loves us to the fullest in Christ
who lived and died for us. As those who already possess His fatherly approval,
we can let our hearts and lives be conformed to the heart and life of the God we
worship, the God who loves us. What does God love? What does he command? What
does He approve of? These are the things we should do. What does He hate?
What does He forbid? These things are not for us.
The heart and mind of God for us is expressed perfectly in His Word. This is
the only worthy pattern for us. We need not bother wasting our time trying to
fit into everything that is applauded by everyone else, as if having God's
approval, we now need to search for every approval as well. This kind of
man-pleasing and world-imitating behavior is a huge waste of both time and
emotional energy for the people of God. What we do need is the transforming of
our minds by the living Word of God, so that we will be able to test our plans
and actions according to the Scriptures. This is a pathway that God considers,
"good, acceptable, and perfect."
The way of the world is a way of satisfying self first with what turns out to be
the lesser pleasures of the applause and approval of people. It is a way of
pride, rather than a way of true assessment of our gifts that would help us to
ascertain the Lord's good purpose for us in our day. The way of the church is
to see the gifts that God has given from on high for teaching and serving, and
also for being taught and for being served, and finding contentment in the place
that God has ordained for us within the body of His Son.
All of what we say and do can be an offering to God, if we are able to do it
with genuine love. Genuine love does not pretend that evil is good, or that
good is evil. It cleaves to one, and abhors the other. Love is lived out in
accord with truth. Love acknowledges the institution of the church as the
family and household of God, and is willing to care for those in need within
that family. Love does not insist on the highest seat of honor, but remembers
that our King washed His disciples feet before He carried the cross on which He
would meet His mortal end.
Though love is aware of the distinction between the church and the world, it
cares for strangers in our midst and seeks the overflow of God's blessings
everywhere. There may be those who persecute us in various times and places,
but love need not quit because of fiery opposition. Love can respond to enemies
with uncommon generosity. Love tries to live at peace. This is not always
possible, but it is the right desire of the one who knows that He is loved by
the Almighty, for we have received far better treatment from God than we
deserved.
It is the fact of gospel mercy through the cross of Christ that empowers this
kind of renewed living. The cross that saved us also informs us, encourages us,
and even compels us to live a life of love. What is the heart of God in any
situation as He has revealed His will in the Scriptures? May this be our
willing heart as well. Surely this is a prayer that He will be happy to
answer. This is the way to have victory over evil, by serving up the love of
which we ourselves have been partakers. God has told us to leave any wrath to
Him. He has given us everything necessary to pour out His love upon the church
and the world through sinners like us, sinners who serve Him, and whose efforts
He calls both holy and acceptable in Christ.
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Romans 13
How do we view the various authority structures within this world? The way that
we answer this question has a very big impact upon our Christian living. As
with all of our life decisions, our answer here needs to be informed by the
Christian thinking that we have come to embrace. Are we to consider our life in
Christ as the life of autonomous individuals saved by His grace, or is there a
different way to view the Christian life that gives a more serious and
substantial place to the authorities established by the Head of all lawful
authority, namely God?
Paul is well aware that civil authorities had the capability of acting as an
enemy of the church and of Christian families and individuals. Despite this
fact, He teaches us that all lawful rulers come from God, and that Christians
need to recognize this by being submissive to the governing authorities. We
know that any system of submission to authority on this earth has to have some
limits. We cannot submit to anyone who would insist that we violate God's Law.
We see this in Acts 5 when the Apostles are commanded by those in power to be
silent concerning Christ. Their response: "We must obey God rather than men."
Despite this one exception, the general rule for Christians is godly submission
to rulers. We are able to serve them as unto the Lord, since God is the power
behind any true throne. He sets up rulers and brings them down. He is
sovereign over every king, and He may even discipline us and bless us through
His suffering providences toward us. Because of this, when we wrongly resist
authority, we resist God.
Not only that, but rulers are designed by God to aid us in the way of goodness.
Though they may err and sin in the way they use the power that they have been
given, their weapons provide a powerful incentive, even to the church, to avoid
things like murder, adultery, stealing, slander, and insurrection. It is a good
thing for us to try to stay on the right side of those in civil power whenever
we can possibly do so. They are God's servant for our good, and agents of God's
vengeance when we stray into behaviors of public evil.
We can have many questions of conscience that give us some significant
difficulty in answering. There is an easy rule that can keep us out of jail.
It is not right to violate the established and enforced laws of men unless
obeying the government would force us to sin against God. In those rare cases
we must obey God, and take the jail time that may come our way, or flee from
such an unjust government, so that we can peacefully live in some other
jurisdiction more respectful of the Lord's commandments.
On many occasions in the course of Biblical history the enemies of God attempt
to use the power of civil authority unjustly against the Lord's servants. Paul
faced this, and so did Jesus. The reason that Jesus was nailed to a Roman cross
rather than stoned by a Jewish mob was that His enemies had decided to try to
use Roman civil authority against Him. They attempted to make the case that
Jesus was dangerous to the peace of Palestine, and that Pilate was no friend of
Caesar if he let Jesus live. Yet even in the cases of Jesus and Paul, the King
of kings had a way of working out His sovereign will, even through the hands of
those who would defy Him.
The evil of others does not give us a valid excuse to live as Christian
insurrectionists. Out of reverence for our King, who suffered so unjustly at
the hands of those who had the power of the sword, we need to willingly pay
taxes and show honor to people that we may not entirely admire. This should not
surprise us if we remember that our Savior commanded us to love our enemies.
To live foolishly and rebelliously is to live as if we had no hope. That kind
of life can put any man behind bars. We are not drunken pleasure-seekers hoping
to drown out the sound of the truth of futility with something that will at
least dull the pain and help us to forget. We are those who have heard of the
divine love of Jesus and the cross, and have believed in his resurrection and
ours. The truth for us is good news. We do not want to fill our small hearts
with the lesser lusts of sexual conquests and verbal and physical abuse of
those we hate. We choose the far greater pleasures of Christ and His kingdom,
and find that we have less of an appetite for the fruit that some enemy might
want is to take a small bite of.
This way of life should make us good citizens of almost any land. If we suffer,
we need not suffer as evil-doers, but as those who are facing unjust
persecution. If we must face that king of trial, we can rejoice, and entrust
ourselves to God. We know that the world is subject to His perfect judgment.
We know that He, our all-knowing and righteous judge, is the Judge of all the
earth, and He will do what is right.
Romans
14
Paul writes to the church as a servant of the Lord who has encountered all kinds
of pastoral difficulties in many different settings. He knows that people
within any church differ concerning the relative strength of their faith. One
of the difficulties in addressing weakness in the body of Christ is that some of
those who may consider themselves the most strong, are in fact the most weak.
Someone may be very strong in a certain kind of knowledge, and certain types of
moral behavior, and yet be very weak in the gospel. A person may also have a
very strong personality, and have wonderful strengths in natural giftedness, and
yet be very weak in the gospel.
In particular, there were those in the first century church who considered themselves exemplary concerning the Law, or worthy of imitation concerning what they did or did not do, and yet they had an inadequate appreciation of the way of grace, and a lack of understanding concerning those things that are within the bounds of true Christian freedom. From Paul's standpoint such people were the weak ones, and those who were strong in the gospel needed to welcome in those weaker brethren into the fellowship of the church, but not in order to give in to their continual desire to dispute things and to cause unnecessary divisions.
One of the disputes that divided people unnecessarily in the early church had to do with meat. Those strong in the gospel knew that Christians had great freedom concerning what they decided to eat, and that all foods were clean provided that a person could eat them in faith. The weak person might assume that eating meat that had been in some way touched by some pagan practice was always wrong, and so they kept the matter clear in their own minds by eating only vegetables. Getting everyone to the strong position in good conscience might not have always been possible. How was the church to live with the difference of opinion? The strong ones (who know they can eat everything) should not hate the weak, and the weak ones (who think that people should never eat meat) should not judge those who have made a different choice. There is a right Christian tolerance on these disputable matters, and all of us should remember that God has welcomed all those who call upon the name of the Lord and their families into the church. It is the Lord who has called us His sons in Christ, and it is in Him that we stand.
A second example had to do with the religious observance of some special days. We are not told what the disagreement was here, and the Greek is even harder to figure out than the English. One man regards one day; another regards all days. Whatever the issue was, and maybe it is just as well that we don't know, the general principles of dealing with such issues are clear. 1. Each person should do what he is fully convinced is right in His own conscience at any given moment, since it is always wrong to sin against your conscience. 2. Whatever any man does, he should do it for the glory and honor of the Lord, giving thanks to God. If that seems impossible to do in the specific matter at hand, could it be that the thing in question is actually wrong?
This second point should be expanded. Whatever we do, we need to do for the Lord, because we belong to Him. It is God who is the Author of our life here and the Author of our life beyond this mortal world. Christ, through His death, has purchased a people for the Father. Jesus has become the Lord of the living and the dead. How we spend the number of days that He has given us on this earth should be decided with a decisive consideration of the fact that He is our Lord. When we die and go to be with Him where He is, He does not stop being our Lord. The thing that does stop there is our sin, and not our service. Furthermore, we will all stand before His judgment seat. God has prepared works in advance for us that we should walk in them now, and there will be good works for us to walk in there as well in the present heaven. It is God's to pass judgment on our use of time for His glory.
We have talked about our own consciences; we have mentioned our own assessments of what would most glorify the Lord; a third principle to help us in these challenging situations is the rule of love for our brother in Christ. Is my freedom, as one who is strong in the gospel, going to tempt a weaker brother to stumble into what he may think of as sin? Is that love? Why not rather restrict my own freedom willingly in order to avoid unproductive and harmful interactions within the church that will only produce unnecessary trouble?
This is not to say that there is not a right position on what we are allowed to eat and drink, and on our understanding of how we are to regard one day as opposed to another. These things can be considered in the light of the Scriptures, and we can all hope that we will all be able to agree one day that what God calls "good" is truly good. Until that day comes, lets not forget the importance of Christ, the cross, the resurrection, and the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of God is not all about whether we eat meat, drink wine, or do certain things on certain days. The kingdom of God yields a new kind of life that is empowered by the Holy Spirit, and is full of righteousness, peace, and joy.
This is the life we need to pursue. Whatever strength we have in the gospel, we need to remember our peace with God that has come to us through the blood of His Son, and not through our being right on all kinds of debatable issues. Let us build up one another as the beloved of the Lord, and not tear each other down. Let us be willing to restrict our freedom of expression for a season if that would be the best thing for the family of God. Let us live in accord with our faith in the worthiness and blood of the Lamb of God, submitting to the Word of the One we call "Lord," knowing that whatever does not proceed from that faith is sin.
Romans
15
One of the great privileges that we have in the church is the blessing that
comes from our new world of connected life together. It is also one of the
things that makes the Christian life seem so strange to autonomous
spiritualists. What we do and say makes a big difference to those around us.
Paul has made this point in a variety of ways in these chapters on Christian
living. This kind of careful, caring, connected life is an obligation for those
who claim an association with a Savior who shed His blood for His family. The
way of autonomy is so natural to us; pleasing ourselves and trusting our
feelings to guide us into our moment by moment life choices seems almost like
the only way anyone could ever live and still be true to himself.
This is all very short-sighted. Informed self-interest would cause us to consider the solid joys and lasting treasures of eternity, and to rejoice in God and His goodness now. This life of better pleasure would cause us to live beyond self. It is one of the greatest ironies of spiritual autonomy that living for self is not consistent with what is best for self. The way of greater pleasures is found in a God-focused life and in a heart that desires to please others for their good, building them up. This should be clear to us, since we see it so plainly in the cross. What was our King doing there? The cross is not the strategy of the autonomous spiritualist. It is the place where the One does something for the good of the many, with the goal that we should live in harmony with Him and with one another forever. People who believe such things welcome the weak.
This understanding of the cross as the ultimate in other-centered living must begin with the glory of God. The mission of the cross insists on the greatest possible object of our desire and affection. When Jesus went to the cross, He did it first out of desire for the Father, and out of love for the Father. Living in a way that puts God first is the only thing that makes any sense. God is first. To desire Him above all and to love Him above all is the only honest way to live. Something less than that goal is twisted, irrational, and ultimately perverse. Starting with this highest motive, we receive His command that we care for one another as a natural extension of the pleasure we have in Him.
The pleasure of God becomes our pleasure. If He has a settled affection for Jews and Gentiles who would be with Him forever, then we must dedicate ourselves to His purpose to glorify His own Name in saving Jews and Gentiles through a Redeemer. God wants Gentiles to rejoice in Him along with Jews who are called by His Name. That's what He wants, so that is our pleasure too. The Jewish Messiah, Jesus, is the hope of millions of Gentiles today, in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies. The day will come when we will see His rule over the renewed earth. We hear of His great plan, and we believe. In our believing we are granted joy and peace, and we have a taste even now of what it is to walk by the Holy Spirit, but we are looking for more than a taste.
One way to look at the story of the entire Bible is through the lens of the calling of Jews and Gentiles into one body in Christ. All of the Hebrew Scriptures that we call the Old Testament is a document of preparation for the coming of the One from the Jews who will be the sacrificial Agent of redemption for all Jews and Gentiles who will call upon His Name, Jesus Christ. The New Testament is the explanation of how these Hebrew Scriptures have now been fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. The time has now come for the gathering of the nations into the fold of Israel.
This is more than just an interesting story. This is God's plan, and each of us should consider our part in this plan. We are all called to live sacrificially for the Man who sacrificed His life for us. Paul understood His part in this plan very well. How are you called to give yourself away for the glory of God? This is the way of the greatest glory for God and the greatest enjoyment for you within a connected body of beloved neighbors and friends all over the world who have embraced the Savior who embraced us first in His death on the cross.
For Paul this meant going from Jerusalem to far-off lands with the aim of seeing the church established where Christ was not yet known. There were others who supported these efforts with prayer and giving, as they longed for the glory of God through the success of these apostolic endeavors. Still others were more engaged in teaching and care for the poor within existing congregations. All were called to worship God, and to believe the good news of Christ that they were being taught. All were called to be true to their vocations within their families, and they were are called to follow the Lord in His care for others around them. In all of these good ways, the will of God is being accomplished in the building of His kingdom, and people who have never been told of him are now seeing; those who have never heard of Him are coming to understand what the Lord has done for them. This is way that all of us get to rejoice in the fact of the gospel going to Spain, and the poor being given food in Jerusalem, and many other great projects being accomplished that are way beyond us.
None of this is easy. It is a battle. It is a fight. Yet this work can be done with joy since we know about the victory of the cross. The Lord will not be stopped. He will accomplish all of His purposes. Jews and Gentiles will be together with God forever, and the perfect peace of the God who gave us His dying love will be with us in a world of resurrection glory forever.
Romans
16
We have been looking at some very helpful principles of Christian service in the
last several chapters of Romans. Now we need to conclude this great epistle
with the benefit of seeing some actual Christian servants. In our lives, the
blessing of an example to observe and imitate is of great use in putting
principles into practice. Christianity is an incarnational religion. It is the
story of a God who visits us in order to rescue us; a religion where we grow
together in faith working itself out through love.
Phoebe, who is called here a servant of the church, is just such an example to us. Paul is able to recommend her wholeheartedly to the church in Rome. He does not even have to explain what projects she is going to be working on in Rome, because she is such a trustworthy woman. This must mean that she was very capable, sensible, godly, and commendable in every way. He simply says, "Help her in whatever she may need from you." He also points to her proven record of practical care for Paul, and for many others in the church. This is a great endorsement.
Paul goes on to mention Prisca and Aquila, who he apparently knows to be in Rome at this time. This couple has been exemplary in their Christian service. They have faced situations of great danger together because of their close association with Paul and the message of Jesus Christ. It is one of the delights of our experience in the Christian church that we are brought into contact with many such couples. They work together for the Lord. They each have capabilities that are peacefully and productively used in kingdom work. Many churches that are started, and many acts of great service are pursued, not as the work of individuals, but as the enterprise of one or more couples that God uses to move His kingdom forward in specific endeavors within this dangerous world. The yield of such loving labors is often more than the people themselves realize. Paul says here that all the Gentile churches have something of a debt of gratitude to the kindness and ability of Prisca and Aquila, now hosting one of the many gatherings of believers in the capital of the Roman Empire.
There are others who are well-known to God for their courage in believing when the faith was first being preached in one city or another. Some are Jews, but others are Gentiles. Some have positions of some public responsibility, but others are surely simple believers who have taken their two copper coins and given what they had to the Lord they love. They are approved in Christ through His shed blood. They are part of the family of God, suffering together for the Name. They are fellow workers in a common enterprise of the greatest importance, the building up of the household of faith throughout the world. They are beloved in the Lord, who work hard for the gospel of grace. They are chosen by God to share together the warmth of a common life together in Christ. Even those who have never heard of their names but who share their devotion to the Savior who died for us, are sending them warm greetings at the end of this important epistle.
It is amazing that God, the Almighty One, knows His people. He knows us by name. He knows our struggles and our works that we perform together for the kingdom. He is very much on our side, and we are very much a part of His family in Jesus Christ. With this wonderful truth in mind, we need to flee from any who would try to break apart what the Lord has put together. The church is to be united in Christ. We need to know enough about evil to see it for what it is and confront it before the enemies of the gospel are permitted to bring serious damage upon the church. There is an adversary against us from angelic realms, but the Lord Jesus is crushing him under the feet of His people by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that is with us and in us.
When all is said and done, this jewel of a book ends with the One who deserves all our praise. The height of Christian doctrine and practice is not in Phoebe, or even in some great couple like Prisca and Aquilla, or in the most amazing apostle who God gives to the church, or in the entire church as the bride; but in God and His Christ, the Son of God, who is the Husband of the church, and the very face of the Almighty One. May all glory and honor be given to the Triune God! He is able to strengthen us according to the Word. We have heard and believed the good news as Christ was preached among us. He is the One who is bringing Jew and Gentile together in one glorious church, saved through one Substitute for sinners. He is the One who is bringing about the obedience of faith according to His own plan, and through the means of His own Word. To Him be glory forevermore, through Jesus Christ! Amen.