The Best of Romans Chapter Five

 

Chapter Five

Verses one and two: The point of these two verses hinges upon a 'fully persuaded' acceptance of the existence and work of the only begotten son of God. This acceptance realizes two truths, through Christ, about our relationship with God.

Truth one is that our access into the grace of God (that is, God's promise to account our faith as righteousness, our justification before God) is accomplished solely through the agency of Christ.

Truth two is that we only have peace with God through his son Jesus Christ – as provided in the specified precondition of “Lord.” By this, I mean to say that the faithful must be 'fully persuaded' that Jesus is Lord. That is how it is written and that is how it is meant to be received.

The title of “Lord” is placed in the sense of one having the authority to act on the behalf of God, as a superior tasked with the negotiation of peace. The expression “peace with God” is here used in the sense of a peace treaty – that is, an agreement between two parties in which the captive (subdued and absorbed) party is offered promises of hope and prosperity in return for meeting and upholding the stipulated terms, or conditions, of the covenant.

Notes on verses two through five: The author's thinking and argumentation follow the lines of cause and effect – as in, A leads to B which leads to C which leads to D. Beginning with the last statement in verse two, a cascade of cause and effect follows in a natural and preset configuration. The final statement of verse two is that the believer rejoices in hope of the glory of God. That is the high point; let us pause here for examination. What is the glory of God that the believer hopes in (or for?)

From Wikipedia, I get, Glory (from the Latin gloria, "fame, renown") "Glory" is one of the most common praise words in scripture. In the Hebrew Bible, the concept of glory is expressed with several Hebrew words, including Hod (הוד) and kavod. Later, these original Hebrew Bible concepts for glory were translated in the Christian Testament as the Greek word doxa (δόξα). The Hebrew word kavod (K-V-D) has meant "importance", "weight", "deference", or "heaviness", but primarily kavod means "glory", "respect", "honor", and "majesty". In translating the Hebrew Bible, the Greek word used is δόξα, a word also appearing extensively in the New Testament which was originally written in Greek. Doxa means "judgment, opinion", and by extension, "good reputation, honor". St. Augustine later rendered it as clara notitia cum laude, "brilliant celebrity with praise"

So then, the list of words commonly associated with the 'glory' of God are fame, renown, importance, weight, deference, heaviness, respect, honor, majesty, good reputation, opinion, and judgment.

If the believer hopes to be like Jesus and hopes to share in the Godly attributes, then which of these words seems most applicable to the final statement of verse two? A person might hope to share in the renown of God, which translates as a place or condition that person would like to find themselves in. A person might hope to share in the good reputation of God, which would mean that the person wants to be honored like God is honored, to receive the respect and deference that God receives. Of course, this makes the person's motives seem base and tacky – sort of self-serving. In this sense, they wish to share in judgment of those they consider wrong, bad, counter-them. They want to sit on the thrones judging the twelve tribes (or rather, all the individuals who ever defied their will or annoyed their spirit.)

In my opinion, however, the most likely scenario must include both elements of the hoped-for divine glory and elements of the believer that God thought worthy of justification. As to the latter, I refer to a person's humility, and 'fully persuaded' faith in the sovereignty and work of the Father and Son. By this, I mean the right and authority of both God and Christ. When this condition is met, what we see is the faithful hoping to be a part of the importance of God and Christ in the human condition. Like the angels of God, the faithful seek to be keepers of the Holy flame, to bring to all who remain in darkness the light of God's truth, to include whosoever will into the reality of God, and thus to magnify the Lord.

So, the hope in, or for, the glory of God is the high point, as I pointed out, and that high point is set in contrast with the low point of tribulation – in which the hopeful also rejoice. Why would they rejoice in tribulation? Well, they must see it as a marker in their progress toward the hoped-for glory. As B is the natural progression between A and C, tribulation progresses toward and achieves another marker in the overall march toward spiritual perfection. When a person endures tribulation, the spirit of that person is affected. The outcome is patience; patience is a spiritual quality that better equips that person for the march.

The exercise of patience achieves another quality that better equips the person, giving them much more to work with. The net result and greater tool of which I speak is experience. Patience and experience are qualities that are found in those souls who have 'been around the block'. They are the older souls who have graduated from the 'school of hard knocks'. Rarely does one find patience and experience among the rash youth.

Finally, these crusty diehards reach a marker high and far removed from their tempestuous beginnings. They reach a point of spiritual surety called hope. They can hope in the glory of an invisible God precisely because of their experience, because of the patience, because of all the former hard knocks, hardships, and insecurities. They have been made, they have been molded, they have become the only cup able to contain the fluid certainty of hope in the glory of God. Christ has filled them to the brim and now they overflow. They share that overflow with anyone fashioned to receive; they are not ashamed of the invisible truth of the Word, of God, of their spirit, of their joy or real connection to the importance of the Holy flame.

Notes on chapter five verses six through eight: By our knowledge of and experience in the nature of men, and from which we may not set ourselves apart, we know that any individual would be hard-pressed to die for another individual. If they could be convinced that other individual was “righteous,” then there would be a slim chance they might step up and take a bullet for the other person. Slightly better odds exist if the individual can be convinced the other person is “good.”

When I think of someone sacrificing their life for another individual, I picture the romanticized American soldier who throws himself in harm's way to save his comrades. The other person or persons may or may not be close and dearly loved friends. I must ask, then, what must a person believe about another in order to reach the point of self-sacrifice? For the soldier, the thought may be the greater good, by which I mean it is believed those being saved may go on to complete the objective. Such might fall under the category of a very specific indoctrination.

What about the non-soldier? Of what must he or she be convinced to consider self-sacrifice? Tender emotions for the other may be enough. I recently heard of a father who died in the act of saving his children from a bear. We might consider, at this point, the notion that 'tender emotions' are akin to a belief in or a sense of oneness between all parties. As for the children the father died for – they were weak and deficient in many regards. He might die only for them to grow up and become serial killers. Then again, they might grow up to be the people he hoped they would become.

A father's love for his children is no indication the children are either righteous or good, but love must hope. Of all our natural qualities, love and hope are the most likely triggers for self-sacrifice. In the act of sacrifice, one is not able to save his deed for later; self-sacrifice may not be performed after the fact. The soldier could not wait to see if his comrades succeeded or failed. The father could not postpone his sacrifice or make it dependent upon how the children would turn out.

I think that is what the author is trying to get across. God did not wait for us to become righteous or good; Jesus died for us while we were “yet without strength.” That is to say, while we were yet sinners. That is to say, we were ungodly – the exact opposite of what God hoped we would be, and void of any evidence we would become what he hoped for.

In the act of sacrifice at such a point, certain facts come to light. Love is shown to be present in the act: “God commendeth his love toward us.” We may also note the applicable hope in this scenario. The saving sacrifice is no guarantee that we will ever be anything but what we already are. Here, I must return to the point of connection between hope and a sense of oneness.

It is not a case of: “Oh, what the heck – let's give it a shot and see how it turns out.” The one who is performing the act of sacrifice does not take his ultimate act lightly; the person must truly be moved. When I bring up such a word as 'love,' it must not be mistaken for the word 'like.' One does not perform the ultimate act for a nice guy. 'Like' is not a sufficient motive.

In both of my examples, the soldier and the father, there was a sense of oneness. It should not seem a stretch, therefore, to think that God and Jesus were so moved through a sense of oneness. To save someone does not apply only to those who are not set against you. Yes, as it says in verse ten, we were the enemies of God but even in the act of saving a drowning man, the rescuer must deal with a person who works against his best efforts. Therein lies the meaning of our lack of strength mentioned in verse six.

Being yet without strength equates to being the enemy of God, to being a sinner, to being ungodly. A father might rightly hope that his combative children may still come around – after all, they are made of the same spiritual stock, as it were, a spiritual chip off the old block.

Notes on verses nine through eleven: On top of the former argument, owing to it, because of it, and through the agency of it – that is, the blood sacrifice and death of the son of God – we may be saved from wrath. This wrath must not be seen as an emotional bearing of God, such as anger or frustration. This wrath comes through the agency of the law. Think about it. If all you have going for you is the law, then all you can hope for is the judgment that you are guilty like everyone else. The merry-go-round of the cycle of life and death is hopeless enough without condemnation for an inherently sinful nature.

In these three verses, three words are seen as the synthesis of a believer's hope and faith. They are “justification”, “reconciliation”, and “atonement.” Justified by the blood plus reconciled to God equals the atonement from the verdict of 'guilty as charged'. The conclusion is that Jesus did not just die, he also lived again – he conquered death itself. The effect on us is, therefore, twofold. We are reconciled by his death; we are saved by his life. We are included in both facets of his work.

Notes on verses twelve through fifteen: To further illustrate our salvation in the life of one man, the author resorts to the belief that death came upon all mankind through the sin of one man. Some of us may argue that what Adam did was what Adam did, and we are, therefore, innocent. However, all men have inherited a nature that is impossible to hide. Daily, we demonstrate our nature through thoughts, actions, words, and choices. The sin is definitely there.

Some of us even reject the reality of an Adam – no Adam, no sin. What if Adam had not sinned? Another man would have been the first, perhaps Cain. If not Cain, then Bob, Steve, or Raul. Yet, the author of Romans seeks to show that the verdict of sin rests upon all mankind from the first sinner to the present. He seeks to show that the hopeless wheel of death is a direct result of a common and widespread natural inclination. He claims that death has ruled from Adam to Moses while, at the same time, stating that it is the law (which is placed at the time of Moses) that imputes sin. In other words, the law was the result of sin.

We did not have the laws through Moses before the time of Moses but, clearly, we had sin and death. In verse fourteen, the author makes a concession on the record of sin. While he believed death reigned in the time between Adam and Moses, he did not believe that everyone was a sinner on the scale of Adam. This is to account for the righteousness that God applied to certain servants of his will. There were Enoch and Noah to consider; there was Abraham, the father of all faithful believers.

The first sinner, as a type, whether he was an Adam or a Raul, presaged the return to that type. The pendulum swings; what was must come again. Adam's type must be seen as more than simply the one who made an unwise choice. The type that was Adam, as well the type that was to be Jesus, was the type of great change from one condition to another. It is the transitional type that affects everyone who follows him.

Notes on verses sixteen through twenty-one: In verse sixteen, the author gives us two models for the progression from one state to another. Both models are the same with the difference between the two being where each starts and where each ends. The model type is the pyramid. The first model begins at the apex and ends at the broader base. The second model begins at the broader base and ends at the apex. As far as each of us are concerned, who hopes for justification, the apex represents the state of Adam before the fall.

In verse seventeen, the author explains his two models by contrasting the impoverishment and servitude of death with the rich importance and power of life. It is a contrast between disobedience and obedience. It is a contrast between law and faith, between sin and righteousness.

In verse eighteen, the author makes a comparison between results. Although the results are different in that the first depicts judgment upon all men who came after Adam and the second depicts justification for all men who follow Christ, both outcomes come exclusively through a single individual.

In verse nineteen, we find the summation of the argument. Two single individuals, each able to affect all who follow profoundly. Through the disobedience of the first individual, many were made sinners. Through the obedience of the second individual, many were made righteous.

In verse twenty, we find the author's assessment of the importance, the rank, and by way of proliferation, the value of each separate outcome, one through the law, one through grace. Grace won.

Finally, we see the reason things worked out in the order they were ordained to have. Whereas sin had its time and power up until death, the grace of God would have its time and power through a righteousness imparted through Jesus Christ right up until life – a life meant to be ongoing.

Best of Romans Chapter Four

 

Chapter Four

The author continues in chapter four with the differences between the Jew and the Gentile, with the differences between works and faith. The immediate conclusion is that the works of the Jews are a matter of indebtedness while the faith of the Gentiles is counted as righteousness after the manner of Abraham, the father of the Jews.

The author presents the witness of Genesis fifteen verse six which basically says what the author says, that Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness. The author, by this, is showing the Jew, with his own scriptures, that faith counts more with God than the physical deeds of man. Like a lawyer laying out his case, the author of Romans goes on to call a second witness, Psalms thirty-two verses one and two. What is meant to be seen in this is that justification of man is not the work of man but the work of God.

“Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity.” The question is asked, does this blessed state, if faith is counted as righteousness, come only to the Jews and not also to the gentiles who believe? The author suggests that the blessed state, in Abraham's case, came first – in other words, Abraham believed while he was uncircumcised, God counted his belief as righteousness, then Abraham received the seal of circumcision.

The author concludes that Abraham is not only the father of those who are circumcised but also of those who are not circumcised. Abraham is the father of all believers, Jew and Gentile, and by the work which is God's alone, God counts all faith in God, anywhere and in anyone, as righteousness. No one is exempt from God's work of grace.

Next, the author turns his attention to the promise God made to Abraham in chapter seventeen of Genesis. God promised, in perpetuity, that Abraham would be heir to the earth – he and his children in their generations. Abraham would be the father of many nations, not just the nation of the Jews. Like Abraham, all his descendants who believed would receive the mark of circumcision as the sign, or seal, of their faith.

The reasoning goes like this: the promise to Abraham and his seed came before the establishment of the Law through Moses. It came not through the law but through the faith and belief evinced in Abraham. If the promise came by way of the law, that would negate the word of God that he counted Abraham's faith as righteousness. It would also negate the justification of man as the work of God only. That would make God's promise to Abraham null and void.

The thing about the law is this: it achieves offense, indignation, and punishment. The author suggests that where there is no law, there is no transgression of the law. The author's conclusion is that the promise may only be sure to all the seed of Abraham through the faith of Abraham, so that the promise may be given as the grace of God.

It is certain in the author's expression, “who is the father of us all”, that the author counted himself in a scope broader than the Jewish people and the law.

The author's reasoning hinges on Abraham. The claim is made that it was not written for Abraham's sake that his faith was counted as righteousness. It was written for the sake of those who would follow. It was written for those who would be found in a faith like that of Abraham's, whose very nature and being shouted faith. At nearly one hundred years of age, he did not consider himself dead, nor the womb of his wife. He fully relied on the word of God. He did not stagger under the weighty responsibility that God's promise imposed. Rather, he was strong and steadfast in his faith, giving the glory to God.

Abraham was fully persuaded that anything God promised, he was able to deliver on, and that was exactly the kind of faith for which God imputed righteousness to Abraham.

The author's closing argument is that we, the seed of Abraham, the father of many nations, must use the same kind of 'fully persuaded' faith that Abraham used, to fully believe the word of God in regard to his son Jesus Christ. We must be fully persuaded that God raised his son from the grave, his only begotten son, who was delivered to the law for our offenses and raised again for our justification.

The Best of Romans Chapter Three

 

Chapter Three

This is a chapter of questions, a chapter of questions and resolutions. Let me paraphrase the salient points. What advantage or profit is there to being a circumcised Jew? What if some do not believe – does that negate the faith of God? If our unrighteousness commends God, is he unrighteous when he takes vengeance? How, then, can God judge the world? If the truth of God has more abounded through my lie unto his glory, why yet am I also judged as a sinner? Are the servants of God any better than those who wrongly accuse the servants of God as evil-doers? Do we make the law void through our faith? May we boast ourselves through the laws handed down to the chosen of God or through the works of a circumcised Jew? Is God only the God of the Jews and not also the God of the Gentiles?

There are a lot of questions in this small chapter. Each question is a good and valid point projecting the spirit in which should be found every servant of God – not by works but by faith. Here are the conclusions of the author.

There is no accusation with the law, but through the law comes the knowledge of sin. Whatever the law says, it says to those under the law, that all mouths may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. It has already been proven that both Jews and Gentiles are under sin. There are none righteous, no, not one. With their tongues they have used deceit. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways. They have not known the way of peace. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Therefore, in regard to both Jew and Gentile, by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in the sight of God.

But. To the Jew was committed the oracles of God. God will be found true and justified in all his sayings when liars arise to condemn God. Those who condemn what is true and justified or accuse the servants of God's will of evil – their damnation is deserved.

Where are those who understand? Where are those who seek after God?

The rightness of God has been shown to all, being witnessed both by the prophets of old and the oracles of God. It is the rightness of faith in Christ with partiality to neither Jew nor Gentile – all are equal in grace. For the Gentile has sinned without the knowledge of sin found in the law of the Jew but the Jew has sinned knowing the law which God gave them. Grace is to both through Jesus Christ. God made a way for sinful man to be redeemed, not through the law, but through the sacrifice of his son.

God made a way in that his son was able to incur divine favor toward man for past offenses. No man was just before God until Jesus came, being just, and justified all men who turned back to God through Jesus. It is a matter in which no man may boast himself – either through the law or through his own actions. It is outside the law, which always loops back to the knowledge of sin, and can only be attainable through faith in the sacrifice of the just son of God.

The conclusion of the author is that sinful man may be justified before God through faith in his son, outside of the deeds of the law. Faith becomes the new law, the new oracles of God. It is one and the same God who justifies both the Jew and the non-Jew through faith – a faith that neither stands opposed to nor in any way negates the law of God but, rather, establishes the law of God.

The law of the Jews may not, therefore, be a thing in and of itself but now depends upon faith in Jesus Christ for both its establishment and justification.