Overview Of Romans (part 1)

Bethlehem Bible Church iconBethlehem Bible Church

0 views

0 comments

What If The Holy Spirit Left BBC? (part 2)

00:00
Today we're going to talk about Romans, but we're not going to go through the whole book of Romans We're just going to go through Romans 1 through 8
00:07
Because Romans is sort of one of those books. It's foundational to a lot of a lot of theology
00:14
It's foundational to the nature of man Salvation and Really gives you the big picture.
00:24
This is almost Paul who wrote it Paul the Apostle. It's almost his Like his magnum opus, this is sort of his
00:34
You know as if his some of the commentators say it's like his last will in Testament even though it's It's not like the pastorals where he's saying.
00:41
Well, my time is almost up. You know, this is I've run the race so forth But this is sort of his his one time where he just lays it all out there where he just gives everything that he can to the doctrines of Salvation and the doctrine of man
00:58
So what we're gonna do is just look through it because I think a lot of times what happens is, you know We pick verses or we hear verses we read verses
01:06
That are just sort of plucked out of Romans and we don't really understand the flow or what is Paul really saying in context?
01:13
So it's gonna be a little tricky If you have questions, stop me because you know, normally again we go verse by verse we go very, you know
01:21
Thoroughly through each verse We're gonna try to do is the the proverbial flyover where we we get the overall view and the flow but we're also gonna hit some peaks as well and try to take a look at what
01:33
Paul is saying and And get an idea Of what he's trying to point out
01:39
Scott Brown if you don't have a handout Scott's got him Scott Brown if you need one raise your hand.
01:45
He'll get you one so The book of Romans very quickly.
01:50
It was written From Corinth so Paul had already written the Corinthian letters and he's in Corinth writing
01:58
Romans and Romans was written to a dual audience Romans was written to primarily a
02:05
Gentile audience in Rome and it was also there was a heavy
02:11
Jewish audience as well as evidenced by a lot of the The things that Paul writes and Kind of the focus that Paul has at times so it was a mix of Gentiles and Jews and so what we want to do is just find very quickly
02:29
Paul gives us the Should probably have a Bible up here. I had one at one time. Excuse me.
02:36
I Have there's a way you have their Bible on their device. You guys need handouts. Just raise your hand So used to reading it on my device.
02:44
I'm curious to see how this is gonna go Cindy over here Scott So we have here is
02:55
Romans in Paul introduces himself in Romans as an apostle as a slave of Christ a
03:07
Bond servant really and bond servant as Paul uses it in Romans 1 he introduces himself
03:14
It's a term that's very interesting and he'll bring it up again and again one thing I want to mention about Romans is
03:21
Romans is a book that Recapitulates itself
03:27
You know like any good song or any good piece of music You keep coming back and again and again to the to the similar theme that you're familiar with so what happens in Romans is
03:37
Paul gets into He introduces things but then you'll see him come back again and again to those things
03:46
So here he introduced himself in Romans 1 1 Paul a servant of Jesus Christ Called to be an apostle set apart for the gospel of God So right away he introduced himself and he says this is why
03:59
I'm writing to you It's all about the gospel and what Paul is basically going to do in these Particularly in the first four chapters.
04:07
This is going to talk about what the gospel is and why the gospel is necessary and He set apart for the gospel so Paul as an apostle
04:18
Apostle means one who is sent and so Paul and the other Apostles Paul, of course was an apostle after the original twelve he never met the
04:29
Lord except in a vision and In the Damascus Road, you all know
04:35
Paul's conversion, but he was called as an apostle to the gospel of God.
04:40
And so he describes Jesus as Concerning his son promised beforehand
04:49
Through his prophets and the Holy Scriptures in verse 2 Concerning his son again. He's describing the gospel who was descended from David according to the flesh and Was declared to be the
04:59
Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness By his resurrection from the dead Jesus Christ our
05:05
Lord That's very interesting. So what Paul does here you say? Well, how was
05:10
Jesus declared to be the Son and there are some cult groups that pick up on this idea that to dispute the divinity of Christ and they say see there
05:22
Christ was appointed or Christ was Declared to be the Son of God what this is talking about not in his very being but what this is talking about is that When Christ was raised from the dead
05:36
He was appointed There's an inaugurated Through the giving of the
05:42
Spirit it inaugurated a new age. And so Christ was what most commentators say is
05:48
Christ was declared to be the Son or Presented as the
05:54
Son to the world So his nature didn't change but there was a presentation of the Son once he was resurrected
06:02
So again, we have to be careful We read these things because a lot of people will take these things and that's again this is my point is people will pick and choose verses out of context from Paul from Romans and Try to make some theological points that that are pretty weak or that are heretical in this case
06:20
So Paul goes down and he talks about he's writing to the Romans he says why he's writing and again,
06:25
I apologize We're gonna end up skipping passages skipping sections because they're really not pertinent there There there everything's important, but they're really not pertinent to kind of following the flow of Paul's thought here
06:36
So what I'm going to do is take you down and we'll find that Paul has The the theme of the whole book is down in chapter 1 verse 16 and 17
06:48
And this is where Paul says For I am NOT ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation
06:53
To everyone who believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek For in it that is the gospel of God the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith
07:04
It is as it is written the righteous shall live by faith So here
07:09
Paul gives us here's the theme. He says, okay This is what I'm going to be writing to you about for the next really eight chapters the righteousness of God It's interesting here.
07:20
Paul says the righteousness of God is revealed And that's a present tense verb and it's not necessarily
07:28
Saying that it's continuously being revealed and a lot of times we hear the present tense We think oh it keeps being revealed
07:35
It's really a simple present here where Paul is saying It's been revealed. It's out there.
07:40
So the righteousness of God is revealed and right away after saying that Paul in verse 18 says
07:49
For the wrath of God is revealed and you go wait a minute. I Thought the righteousness of God who's just revealed.
07:55
I'm all happy and Now the wrath of God is revealed But one thing
08:01
Paul is going to go through as he as he just Walks us through the idea of the righteousness of God, which is a main theme of these first four chapters
08:11
It's very clear the righteousness of God is is Binary the righteousness of God is
08:17
God's rightness or rightness with God purity moral excellence
08:23
But the righteousness of God is also the judgment and that's why the gospel of God is both Okay, it's both the righteousness of God is his judgment on sin and his
08:37
Giving of his good right just character to men and manifesting that in Christ So that's why he declares that so this this idea of The wrath of God is revealed and and by the way that word revealed when it says the gospel is revealed what that means
08:57
I I think we're familiar with this is that the Righteousness of God is revealed.
09:03
So it's it's manifesting something that was previously hidden As well as the wrath of God is now revealed as well
09:10
Now in one what sense is the wrath of God revealed? Well, I think in two ways and what he's going to talk about for the rest of chapter one
09:18
Is very interesting because he's going to talk about really from chapter 1 through 3. It's in your outline there
09:25
What Paul is going to talk about is a condemnation and this is the gospel it Discusses the universal condemnation of man and So when he says that the wrath of God is revealed
09:42
He's talking about the wrath of God That he shows on the base of man's sin, right?
09:49
God's wrath is not arbitrary, right? God's wrath is not random. God's wrath is because of human sin and So that wrath is is revealed
10:01
Inaugurated and shown through Through what we see here and Paul describes in the next three chapters
10:09
So the condemnation the universal need for righteousness there you have in your outline in part a
10:16
The Gentiles are guilty before God the Gentiles don't have Not only don't have the ability to know
10:23
God But as we'll see in a second they manifest that inability and they manifest their lostness in in many ways
10:36
So if we go down here to further down in verse verse 21
10:45
He's talking about the Gentiles and he says for although they knew God. Well, why did they know God? How did they know
10:50
God? And he tells us in verse 19 he says for what can be known about God is plain to them or manifest to them
11:00
Because God has shown it to them for his invisible attributes. Namely his eternal power and divine nature
11:07
Have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made so they are without excuse
11:15
Now we have to be careful when we read this it's it's easy to overread this passage What this is talking about is moral accountability so God's the things that we're going to see in a second the things that have been revealed but in this
11:31
God Paul is telling us that The things about God which may be known it's not exhaustive.
11:38
Okay, there are some people who say well We can know things about the creation, but this is not really what's focusing what
11:44
Paul's focusing on here He's not focusing on the creation what he's focusing on is Is the creature and the knowledge that creature has of God?
11:54
So we don't want to get off track. We don't want to say well What's this telling us about nature or cosmology or creation?
12:00
We don't want to go there because Paul does not intend us to go there. This is about man and it's about sin.
12:05
And so Here he's talking about in verse 21 It's in some sense.
12:12
It says that the pagans knew God But their reaction to that knowledge is very telling right he says they didn't honor him as God or give thanks to him
12:22
But they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened
12:28
Claiming to be wise they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God For images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things
12:39
So here's an interesting contrast. So here Paul says They had a knowledge. They had some base knowledge that God existed, right?
12:47
That God was divine that God had created all this. So when people say You know, they deny there's any design in nature.
12:56
That's just not true nature Shouts out the glory of God we think of Psalm 19, right?
13:03
Psalm 19 the heavens declare God's glory. So everybody who's ever been born has had that knowledge in them.
13:10
And so What Paul's saying here is based on that knowledge. Every man is morally accountable
13:16
So Paul introduces his idea of the righteousness of God right here, and he says, okay
13:22
Every single person is morally accountable and then we'll see what people do with that knowledge in the next few chapters
13:31
So here it's interesting. He says they didn't give thanks to God, but instead they became futile in their thinking or futile in their thinking
13:40
And it's interesting because You know the Greeks this was written to We're very proud of their philosophy, you know
13:47
Greek philosophers. Everybody knows all the famous ones But they did not have the knowledge of God.
13:53
So what they did Paul is very pointed here. He says basically that that what the
14:00
Pagans did was they developed their own godless way of thinking and You know,
14:06
I have friends that are that are sort of In ministry that are really gearing their ministry to post -modern people and their whole thing is well, you know, there was a
14:18
Christian era and then We we got into the Enlightenment and we became modern thinkers, right?
14:25
So we no longer thought God was important we just thought this mechanical universe existed
14:31
So that's really what modernism is What post -modernism is is post -modernism goes yet a step beyond that is post -modern is the way they think is not only
14:41
Do they not know what's really real or can they even know what's really real other than what's empirically verified?
14:49
What a post -modern does is he says you can't even describe it in language Post -modern says language is inadequate to understand these things and his view is that Post -modernism is sort of post -christian almost like you have to enough.
15:05
He's actually said this people say this you have to reformat the gospel and To me that's unbelievable.
15:13
That's a that's a different gospel a Dear friend of mine and he's ministering to people and he's like I'm like, how do you reformat the gospel once given?
15:21
You can't do that but the point is this when you get
15:28
When you get people that don't understand God and it says here the foolish minds are darkened and their thoughts become futile
15:34
What happens is, you know, the idea that's a post -christian says well, we've post -modern says well, we've gone beyond we've advanced beyond modernism
15:45
Ironically enough, you know what happened? It's really just pre -christian, right? This is it right here. And what we'll see is that Paul is saying
15:52
Based on their darkening of their mind willingly All these behaviors will come up right and a behaviors are not in a vacuum
16:03
Behaviors are manifest out of What is in our hearts? And so the people that behave the way they do behave that way because of a lack of knowledge of God right or there's there's just I think people have the idea that Certainly in our culture that behavior is
16:25
I Mean, I have to say that, you know, just watching the news. I can't watch it anymore
16:31
Because it's just it just shows the sin of man, you know, and I need to pray for those people
16:37
We need to pray for those people. We need to pray that God would open their hearts and open their eyes But you know, it can be discouraging when you just look at our culture
16:46
But that is we have to expect that right when you let go of God The whole culture is just going to go in a way that That just does not
16:57
Honor God and it just debases who we are. So you've got people who are practicing things that clearly
17:08
Don't please God and that show Really, I think
17:15
Peter says, you know, we're no better than beasts, you know, like brute beasts That's how we behave sometimes when we when we ignore the knowledge of God and we suppress it
17:23
It says here that God gave them over in verse 24 to the lust of their hearts to impurity in these dishonoring their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and Worshipped and served the creature
17:38
Rather than the Creator. It's very interesting here, right? So he's saying the exchange is not just they didn't they
17:47
Just shunned the knowledge of God But then that that shunning turns into worship
17:54
The Creator the one who created them who's immortal we see in verse 25 the immortal
18:01
God exchanged that knowledge for a mere creature and when you see what they made images of in verse 23 images of mortal man
18:16
There's one thing to Worship a thing like man or a beast but it's a different thing to just make a copy of that thing
18:25
And right here what Paul does he uses two very interesting words Paul says the change the glory of the immortal
18:33
God for images resembling mortal man and birds When it says images resembling that's language taken out of the
18:41
Greek translation, right when it says that God made Man and his likeness and him his image.
18:46
So I think what Paul's doing here is he's taking those words and he's saying You ever hear the expression that?
18:54
God made us in his image and we've returned the favor, right? You've heard that So we take and we say we're gonna make
19:00
God in our image and this is exactly what Paul is saying here so Paul's and again,
19:05
I'm gonna skip on a bit because We can get through this and and see that the sinfulness of man.
19:13
You just go through the list This is one of many lists by the way in the New Testament that are given for the sinfulness of man
19:23
Galatians 5 I think of right the deeds of the sinful nature so this is just another one of those lists and particularly
19:30
Paul a couple of times mentions homosexuality as as sort of that base level and So the glorification that in our culture is very troubling because that indicates again just an underlying
19:44
An underlying cultural Kind of push to suppress the knowledge of God to deny the knowledge of God So we're down in verse
19:56
Again just to take you back to your outline for a second so Paul in verse 18 to 32 is talking about the guilt of the
20:03
Gentiles and The basis of that guilt is what we do with the knowledge that we have
20:09
Through verse 23 there and then the results of the Gentile guilt, by the way
20:15
This outline is is from Daniel Wallace at Dallas Seminary Does great work in Greek language and commentaries and This is this is a
20:29
Very common way to look at the book. So the condemnation of The need for righteousness is well established by Paul In a universal condemnation from verse 118 all the way to 320 this whole section
20:47
Paul is saying the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith And I'll come back to that in a second
20:54
But what he's saying there is, you know, the righteousness of God is revealed but now I'm gonna give you two whole chapters and tell you how sinful man is and tell you why this righteousness is
21:08
Not Realized by man and it's impossible to be realized by man because of our nature and Paul is going to continue to To hammer that as he goes as he goes along So in chapter 2 the beginning of chapter 2 of Paul does is he pretty much goes he's finished with the
21:29
Gentiles I Have heard some commentators say Well this next section in chapter 2 he's talking about moral man.
21:38
So man who has some they're not Jews but they're not total like idolatrous pagans either and that may be true, but It seemed at least
21:49
Daniel Wallace would say and I'd agree with him That Paul transitions to the
21:54
Jews starting in in chapter 2 verse 1 Let's pick that up in Chapter 1 anybody have questions on chapter 1 at all
22:06
So this question is, you know in some versions it says from faith for faith This translation
22:13
I'm reading the ESV the pew Bibles And we're looking at Anthony verse 17
22:21
So it says in verse 17 for in it that it is the gospel in verse 16
22:27
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith is what our version says right and then other versions say from faith to faith and the commentators
22:41
Go around on this, but I think the preferred idea that he's expressing here is kind of faith from first to last so from the start of belief in the
22:53
Christian We continue faithful, right? It's it's a faith from first to last so from faith to faith
23:00
The initial belief upon faith in Christ regeneration so forth and then continuing faith going forward
23:14
No, same believer But the idea is the exercise of faith over time Yes, so it's so it's comprehensive from first belief to continuing belief and that belief sustained through to the end of life from faith to faith that's
23:29
There are a number of different opinions on that but the preferred one is basically it's a it's a tricky one, right?
23:37
I mean, there's nothing Substantial doctrinally in what you hold
23:42
But that's that's what's generally accepted that make sense. Yeah.
23:50
Yeah, and in fact One thing about from this chapter this point here
23:56
Through all the way through chapter 4 the word faith is used like 33 times So when you want to see what is the first again, and we're trying to just get a big picture here guys
24:06
We just want to see what is Paul really talking about? He's really talking about righteousness that comes by faith and that's really why we say that 16 and 17 in chapter 1 is really the core of the book
24:18
That's really what the theme of the whole book is what Paul is driving at for all of 1 through 8 now the reason we don't go further than that, obviously,
24:25
I only have two weeks, but we also the really this is the foundation and then like most of Paul's books like for the first half he goes through doctrine and Another party goes through this is how you'll act it out.
24:38
This is how you practice it. So for here Really 1 through 8 is the end of that where you know, we all know, you know
24:47
Nothing can separate us from the love of God and then he discusses for three chapters And this is actually all in the back of your outline to if you know, you have this we didn't go into detail but in Under Roman numeral for talks about Israel for three chapters and then he talks about the application so the application interestingly enough in Romans Is much shorter than in most other books because if you take all the way through 11 chapters, he's talking about salvation and the believer and then he's talking about Israel and the race to the church for three chapters.
25:22
It's not till chapter 12 through 16 only four chapters So much less than Paul usually does this is why this is really a doctrinal book and it's very important to get these eight chapters down So good question about faith, but that really is and and just a preview in in chapters 5 through 8
25:40
Faith is mentioned only in passing a couple of times, but then the word that keeps being repeated is life or living so, you know, we get this this painting of you know, a condemned humanity and That that the right sense of God is only appropriated by faith, right and we're going to get into works right now
26:01
But after that, okay now he's talking to believers. Okay, you've justified Here's why and he uses in chapter 4, you know chapter 4 he talks about Abraham justified by faith
26:11
So Abraham was justified by faith, which is interesting because Abraham is the father of the Jews who believe they were justified by works so very interesting that he just takes it there, but he has to because That's the crux of the whole matter and we'll get there in a moment.
26:27
So in any other questions if not chapter 2 God's righteous judgment and here
26:34
Paul is talking about The Jews and he talks about Their guilt from your outline their stubbornness and basically the guilt of the
26:45
Jews for two whole chapter a chapter in a little bit but then he talks about how they were stubborn and The hypocrisy of the
26:54
Jews and then but then he throws in at the end again how they're privileged which he will come back to Again, we're not going to go through it in this these two weeks, but he talks about why the
27:02
Jews are essential It's understanding at the value what God did through the Jews And that they also still have a future.
27:10
But again, that's outside of the scope of this These two weeks so we go to chat if you want to look at chapter 1
27:21
Chapter 2 rather verse 1 Therefore you have no excuse. Oh man, every one of you who judges for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself
27:31
Because you the judge practice the very same things We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things
27:39
Do you suppose oh man that you judge? You who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself that you will escape the judgment of God Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience not knowing that the kindness is meant to lead you to repentance
27:57
But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up a wrath for yourself on the day of wrath
28:03
When God's righteous judgment is will be revealed And so here he's talking to Jews.
28:09
They saying the wrath is coming to you Now think about if you're a Jew and you're thinking hey I'm pretty good right compared to these pagans and then
28:16
Paul points the finger right at them And that that had to shock them that had to be very shocking for them and even for the
28:22
Gentiles who were converts You know, they look at the Jews as they are the pinnacle of revealed religion and a practice they are it but now in Christ as Paul says in chapter 1 a new era is inaugurated and a new covenant and a new a new
28:40
Justification in relation to God by faith not by the covenant community Which is what the Jews have and so as he goes through chapter 2 here,
28:47
I want to He's talking about the judgment on the
28:53
Jews in Chapter 1 with the pagans. We're really talking about people who are just plain unrighteous, right?
29:01
In chapter 2 he's gonna switch. He's gonna say well you guys the Jews are self -righteous, right? This is what we struggle with and a lot of us who came from Roman Catholic backgrounds like me
29:10
You know, we struggle with that right we come into to the Christian faith As born -again believers, but we were brought up with just keeping rules
29:19
Right, and so we look at that and we say yeah, I can relate to that You know if you came or in the case of others who come from non
29:27
Catholic not, you know cults or anything It's the same thing, you know But there's a set of rules that I'm right with God because of what
29:34
I'm gonna do But that's not what the Bible teaches and this is what Paul is going to emphasize I'm going to point out something interesting to you in In verses 6 through 8 now and ask you a question is
29:46
Paul teaching here works righteousness and If not, who is he talking to let's read that so in 2 6 he says
29:56
He God will render to each one According to his works to those who by patience and well -doing seek for glory and honor and immortality
30:06
He will give eternal life But for those who are self -seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury
30:15
And then he summarizes there will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil for the
30:22
Jew first and also for the Greek But glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good
30:28
The Jew first and also for the Greek for God shows no partiality now
30:36
We know that that's not going to teach us works righteousness, right But it's interesting that Paul puts this in a section for the
30:43
Jews. Why do you think he does that? Why do you think Paul puts a section on works and?
30:51
justification in fact right here He's saying you're gonna get eternal life by practicing good things.
30:58
Why do you think Paul says that any ideas? That's a very good point. Thank you. Yeah, and I agree with that Which what she said was that It if you're self -seeking or you're selfishly ambitious, you know,
31:12
Paul says in Philippians 2, you know do nothing out of selfish ambition, right? but if your ambition is for Immortality, right and that word is actually immortality is actually imperishability
31:24
But that's the same word than in chapter 1. He said they exchanged The the image of the imperishable
31:31
God, right? We translate it immortal For a perishable man, you see that dichotomy there.
31:37
We're just you know, we're perishable beings But the imperishable God the one who seek
31:43
Seeks imperishability and what are the other things that they seek here? Let's see.
31:50
They seek patience and well -doing Seek for glory honor and immortality He will give eternal life
31:58
So let me ask you this Does this teach that there are seekers those who diligently seek
32:04
I'm seeing heads go like this and that's the right answer by the way Why do you think that is? Are there cities anyone seek
32:12
God? It's a good point. So your intent, you know, are you seeking self? Gratification is seeking self justification.
32:19
Are you seeking to honor and glory God? And it's interesting because until recent years a lot of people took this to be
32:26
That there are people who do seek God right a lot of the commentators like there are seekers It says it right here people seek immortality
32:33
People can seek that but notice that it says It says that that God will give the eternal life, right?
32:44
Right. So God is the one who gives righteousness God who there's a righteousness that is foreign and well as we read on We'll see that this is this is a gift of God, right?
32:55
The righteousness so what most commentators today to tie it all together Most commentators say that this is this is a little interlude here into the section on the
33:05
Jewish The condemnation of the Jewish way of doing things the religion the old covenant
33:12
He's he's just injecting something here to the Jews and saying he's talking about believers
33:17
Okay, so only believers can seek right only believers can seek righteousness only believers can seek
33:24
True immortality and glory and honor and those are the ones that God will give eternal life, but to everyone
33:32
Here it says it and again. Remember he said in in chapter 1 The gospel of God is revealed first to the
33:37
Jew and then to the Gentile right now He's saying here judgment is to the Jew then the Gentile no partiality
33:43
So God's leveling out the playing field here Joan. You had a question. Well, that's right. That's right Yeah, and and if we're seeking that and we have found eternal life, we have to share that with others.
33:53
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, that's Absolutely true. Yeah. No. Well, they seek God by faith.
33:59
So the question is how does that faith arise, right? And so it doesn't happen in a vacuum, right?
34:04
It requires the ability from God right to exercise faith and Again, our part is just to throw ourselves on God's mercy and say
34:14
God saved me To realize you're helpless and to repent Based on you know what
34:20
God does in your life, you know, but God rewards sinners, right the unrighteous The the publican and the sinner right before God Publicans up there and this is really what you know when you boil it down This is what
34:31
Romans 2 is really talking about. You've got self -righteous people, right? I thank God. It's praying.
34:37
Thank you I'm not like this guy right here I'm not this and I do this I do that I do all these great things.
34:43
He's very self -focused to your point, right? Focused on self is what I do Right and the poor
34:50
Tax collector sitting there Going, you know, God have mercy on me a sinner didn't even look up Right, there's humility but we have to be careful too, right because you know as a story of the teacher that went through this in Sunday school with the young class and Teach say it's okay
35:06
Johnny after discussing the These two people why don't you close us in prayer and Johnny says
35:12
Lord, I thank you We're not like the tax collector publican the Jew, right? We're not like there were self -righteous guy, but we can become that I'm glad I'm not that guy.
35:21
Well, the minute you think that you start going. Wow, maybe I am a little bit So we have to be careful.
35:26
That's a good warning for us, you know And Paul talks about later the Jews were given the promises the covenant everything and they fell short
35:34
Because they tried to accomplish it by their works right and by the flesh and they couldn't do it and God had to provide a
35:42
Savior had to provide Christ to provide that way to God And so what this is saying is Paul everybody who seeks and the seeking is not independent, right?
35:51
We're not We're not Autonomous, we're not
35:58
Some we're not a being who can make our own selves righteous This is what Paul's really saying and which is why he goes into in chapter 3 and for the sake of time
36:07
Let's keep moving. I want to get through chapter 4 if we can Real quickly. I apologize. This is an overview.
36:13
Hopefully this is helpful to you guys in chapter 3 again he's dealing with self -righteous Jews and how it comes through faith and Then in chapter 3 he gets to this section concludes in 320.
36:26
So let's pick it up in 3 18 Paul has gone through Old Testament passages several of them where he talks about the universal unrighteousness of man the universal nature of sin and how everybody
36:42
Nobody fears God. So this balances it out right for those who seek God, but then he says nobody seeks
36:49
God Nobody fears God. Nobody's righteous. And so we get down to verse 18 in chapter 3
36:55
Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped and The whole world held accountable to God For by the works works of the law
37:06
No human being will be justified in his sight since through the law comes the knowledge of sin
37:12
So interesting, right? So if you're a Jew you're thinking, okay I have the law as long as I keep it I'm all set or any works based religion for that matter but here he's saying that Really the only only reason we have the law is to make us aware of sin a
37:28
Couple of one illustration I heard is, you know If you have a glass of water with sediment at the bottom And you stir it up with a spoon, you know
37:35
The spoon doesn't cause the sediment to come up right as soon as I'm sorry The spoon only causes a sediment to come up. It's there already
37:42
So the law is like that spoon just stirs you up and it makes the sin come out or makes it evident
37:49
Pastor Mike used to do medical sales, I believe right back in the old days a long time ago He but he used to sell different equipment and there's equipment that will diagnose something
38:01
Right in simple terms our terms like a thermometer, right? Do you have a fever or not? I'd take my cat to the vet last week.
38:06
She had a fever Who knew how do you know if a cat has a fever? I don't know but That's just a diagnostic tool.
38:14
They had to give me something else An antibiotic as a curative tool So what this saying is is the law is not the law is only a diagnostic tool
38:24
Really? It's not meant to make you righteous. So when Paul says For those who seek immortality he's saying you can't seek it by keeping the law, right?
38:33
Rules don't get it done. You need this alien righteousness And if we look back in verse 18 for a second, sorry,
38:40
I guess it's 19. My eyes aren't as good as they used to be 19 Look at the universality in these verses
38:48
We know that whatever the law says everything the law says it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth
38:55
All right, every mouth may be stopped in the whole world again universal
39:03
Nobody left out. This is not the world world world. It's the world of humanity, right? because we're talking about moral morally accountable people and I don't like this translation only because It says no human being and if you look down in the notes no flesh, right?
39:21
No flesh Not a single flesh and again Paul. He's bringing us back to this mortality immortality the flesh and he's really gonna hammer this
39:30
You know when we look at the six through eight next week no flesh will be justified in his sight
39:40
Since through the law comes the knowledge of sin Right because God looks at the heart we look at the outward appearance.
39:46
It's very easy to look good even after you're a Christian but God is the one who looks at our heart
39:52
So we have this idea that the righteousness is through faith and through So Paul takes us in verse 21
40:00
But now the righteousness of God has been manifest apart from the law Although the law and the prophets bear witness to it
40:08
The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe again as a universality there but everyone who believes in Christ will
40:19
Experience the righteousness of God through him For there is no distinction again.
40:25
Remember he's talking about the there's no distinction between those who seek righteousness those who seek wrath There's no cultural national about religious boundaries anymore this he's giving this
40:35
And we're not talking about again universalists believe that every human being will be saved right But there's a universalism that's just a particular
40:45
Some from every tribe. So when the Bible says all The whole world we're talking about every kind of people right not every individual person
40:55
So there's universalism that is wrong and it's heretical But there's also universalism that doesn't make a distinction
41:03
That's what Paul's really getting to here after he said people from Gentiles people from Jews Everybody is is under the same
41:12
Same sentence and under the same provision for salvation so We have down here in verse 20
41:21
Let's go to verse 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe for there's no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and Are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ Whom God foot put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith
41:41
This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins it was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of The one who has faith in Jesus So there's a lot there, you know, we all in one and we all memorize 323.
41:59
Everybody knows that right? It's part of the gospel but It's it's amazing.
42:05
How much is really in here? So we're justified first of all justified is a legal term right declared righteous.
42:12
We are declared righteous So at the point of salvation, we're declared righteous by God But as we'll see in the next couple of chapters
42:22
There's a delay, right? So our salvation our justification is inaugurated or begun upon salvation
42:30
But it's not consummated until after death. So this is what Paul is saying is and he wants to point out to these folks
42:38
There is a righteousness of God that you will experience upon Salvation but it's not going to take you all the way and you'll have to persevere and that's what we're going to discuss in chapters six and seven
42:51
Presents a very different picture right here saying God does everything you're justified the second word there justified by his grace, so it's a free gift and All these words are just packed with meaning by his grace as a gift rather than a work
43:08
Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus that word redemption is very interesting that comes from the idea of the marketplace or the slave trading
43:18
Area of life back then there were slaves in our history. We've had slaves and so That is the picture of the price paid
43:26
To take somebody out of a slavery and of course as Paul will discuss in chapter 6 that slavery is to sin
43:33
Right, which Paul has just said is universal So we say, okay
43:40
We're taken out of sin. Why do we still sin? Well again, we have to keep reading and that's what Paul will discuss but we have again positionally we have that righteousness
43:48
We have the justification But all that has to be worked out in practice in real life, and that's that's the hard part, right?
43:55
That's what's going to happen So we have redemption we have justification
44:01
We it is a gift Who God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith and it's propitiation we've talked about before This deals back to the
44:12
Old Testament mercy seat the Day of Atonement Right where God? Propitiation is one idea is that it it turns aside
44:20
God's wrath and The other side is it it makes satisfaction for a requirement as well for a moral requirement
44:29
So those two ideas are in this there's a ton right here. But the key thing to remember is it's a gift.
44:34
It's by faith and That it's from God. So these are the things that Paul wants to wants to reinforce
44:42
He talks about why there's no boasting, right? in verse 27 Then what becomes of our boasting is it is excluded by what kind of law by law of works?
44:53
No, but by the law of faith It's interesting here that Paul talks about uses that word law like he kind of changes it right because to a
45:02
Jew the law was the Law, it's the first five books of Moses, right? It's what you do But now he's talking about a law of faith.
45:08
What do you think Paul means by the law of faith? How can you have law and faith aren't they opposite? What do you think he means by that, right?
45:15
We kind of kind of do you're right you kind of takes that term, right? it takes a law which really means sort of a pattern or a means of Operating our means of operating is really faith now, whereas it used to be works.
45:28
So the law he kind of takes that We'll see that a couple of times where he takes the law And we go fast forward to chapter 8 the law of the spirit of life, right?
45:40
Has set you free from the law of sin and death the old the old law That was given to Moses Just brings death and condemnation and conviction but the law of the spirit of life is
45:53
The law of faith. It's interesting how again Paul capitulate he recapitulates these things again and again as he goes through So here we are and again, we'll have to skip on a bit any questions on that Charlie yes, so remember the law
46:08
You know, we're dealing with a lot of times the law was just the ceremonial religious moral component
46:16
But you know Paul kind of blanket talking about the whole revealed Old Testament right here
46:21
Paul uses the word law pretty flexibly here, right? So when you're talking about adherence to a set of rules, that's one use of that word when you're talking about You know a general principle of the law of life versus the law of sin and death
46:36
Well, the law given to Moses was technically the law of sin and death. Although it turned out to be that way So God revealed through the
46:43
Old Testament prophets all of the thing all of these things were revealed In fact when that chapter
46:49
I didn't mention it but in 1 16 and 17 that quote The righteous will live by faith
46:55
That's from the Old Testament So the the testifying to that God would send a
47:00
Savior to take away our sins Isaiah 53 Christ would die That's all there When Christ walked with the disciples and he were told everything that talked about him in the
47:08
Old Testament, right? Said this it's already talked of it's right there. You just have to understand it and and without the
47:15
Holy Spirit We can't really apprehend it. So that's why the law of faith is is Is mentioned here as something in that in that vein.
47:24
I think that's where he's going with it Erickson and we have to tie up here in a second. Sure. Yeah, and the
47:29
Covenant Moses Yeah, that was that was a specific covenant for a period of time where God said this is how we're gonna deal with humanity
47:36
I'm gonna call the people out to myself. So You know back then all the people came to the
47:42
Jews right to find God That was the one source where God had stationed himself and revealed himself in his word and in his actions and Said basically everybody has to come to me now.
47:53
It's going in the reverse, right? Does that make sense? So well,
47:59
I think in the answer your question and we do have to tie up Erickson I think it's you know, the Old Covenant verse the
48:04
New Covenant, you know, he's going through Hebrews right now pastor Mike and He really goes through that pretty well. I think that that Hebrews really discusses this issue
48:13
Centrally and that yes, there was a temporary setup But this is the new permanent setup that till the end of time right, so That's where we're at right now
48:24
So, you know right now we're at the end of chapter 3 we'll pick up in chapter 4 next week But right now I just want to emphasize
48:31
You know here he's talking about Abraham being justified by faith and this is really from faith to faith when you believe
48:37
This is where we begin the journey God regenerates us. We now have God's Holy Spirit It is by faith again repeated repeatedly brought out by Paul and Abraham is that example of faith, which unfortunately we don't have time to discuss this week.
48:53
Maybe we'll Gloss over it next week. So next week when we come back, we'll go through Paul has just discussed
49:00
The condemnation of humanity now. He's discussing he's in the midst of discussing the salvation of humanity and then he's going to talk about Sanctification or how righteousness is imparted to us and The living out of that so we'll talk about that next week.
49:15
Unless anybody has any last -minute questions. Let's pray Lord, thank you for this this time together
49:23
Lord, thank you that we we have your spirit. Thank you that Immortality and honor and glory only comes from Christ from your righteousness given to us and Lord that we don't have to we don't have to try to earn it because it can't be earned and Lord, thank you that of all the universally condemned sinful humanity you chose us
49:48
Lord, we don't deserve it and We have nothing to do Lord, but to live our lives in Worship and thanks to you and devote our lives to you fully