Scripture: Topics: Romans Bible Study
The Book of Romans 5:3-12. This is episode seven in our series. I am Michael Pearl and you are at The Door in Lobelville, Tennessee.
We're going to be studying the perfect words of God tonight. "Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." Matthew 5:18 Now that means that not a single little mark, not a single letter is going to pass away from the words of God, until all of it is fulfilled. Of course, that verse is not true. God failed in that attempt, at least according to most of the preachers. They tell us that the words have passed away and now then we're struggling with our lexicons and other Greek helps, in order to try to recover most of those words. Of course, we don't believe that. We know we've got a perfect book to teach from.
Now we're in that section in chapter five, where he is talking about the fruit of justification by faith. The reason he's talking about this, is speaking to the Jews. He's telling them that there's something better than the law. Something that actually produces righteousness, actually makes a man holy before God. And the Jews extolling the law as they do have all kinds of reasons why the law must remain intact, and why we must remain obedient to it, because of all the benefits that the law brings us. So what he's going to show us is that, there are greater benefits in Christ. So it's the fruit of that justification by faith.
So we open the Bible tonight to Romans 5, and verse one and two, we covered last week, but let's read those to get a running start. "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. By whom also we have access by faith, into his grace, wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God." That we covered last week.
We began in verse three for tonight. "And not only so." You're going to find a series of seven like-phrases in this chapter, where he expands upon what he said and tells you that it's even larger, it's greater, it's better than you could even imagine. So he says, we're justified by faith, but not only so. In addition to that, "We glory in tribulations." Notice the word glory in verse two, "Rejoice in hope of the glory of God." He talked about that anticipation we have of the coming glory. He said, not only do we rejoice in that hope, but we also glory in tribulations.
Now that doesn't seem right. Why would you, "Glory in tribulations knowing that tribulation works patience?" Glory in tribulations seems like a sadist or something. Why would one celebrate tribulations? He's going to explain that to us and tell us why that's a vital part of your Christianity, an unavoidable part of your Christianity. And so tribulations are going to come. The question is, will you glory in it when it does?
John 16, this is a popular subject throughout the Bible. It's not Paul alone who speaks of this. John 16:33 "These things that I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world, you shall have tribulation." Now that's a fact, saved or lost, in the world you'll have tribulation. When you get a cold, you got a tribulation. When your car has a flat, you got tribulation. Well, when there's difficulties and trials and people speak ill of you or whatever, that's a tribulation. "You shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer." Okay. He said, you're going to have tribulation, but when that happens, be a good cheer, "For I have overcome the world." In other words, the thing that's troubling us, that's creating tribulation, it's okay because Jesus has already overcome the tribulation.
This in Acts 22:14 "Confirming the souls of the disciples and exhorting them to continue in the faith, telling them that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God." Now that's unavoidable. It's a fact, that you're going to go through much tribulation between now and your entrance into that kingdom.
1 Thessalonians 3:4 "For verily, when we were with you, we told you before that you should suffer tribulation." So this was a theme, a subject that Paul addressed often.
2 Thessalonians 1:4 "Even as it came to pass and you know. So that we ourselves glory in you." There's that word, glory again. "In you, in the churches of God, for your patience." We're going to see that a couple verses down in our Romans 5. "And faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure." Now, Paul is responding to their tribulations with glory. The Churches were responding with glory. You know you can't beat a guy, when you heap tribulation upon him and he praises God and experiences glory in the process. How do you get him down? The more you hold him down, the higher he rises up. And that's something the devil hates about Christianity, is that we can glory in tribulations.
Revelation 1:9, "I John also am your brother and companion in tribulation." John saw that was a common part of the Christian experience and he said, I'm part of it with you. "And in the kingdom and patience." You're going to see that word patience in our text tonight. "Of Jesus Christ, I was in the aisle that is called Patmos for the word of God, for the testimony of Jesus Christ." So he's talking about his imprisonment as a Christian, being part of his tribulation, and that may come.
Romans 12:12, "Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation." Notice the rejoicing, the hope and the patience. Those are four of the five phrases, words we're going to see tonight in the text. "Hope and patience in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer."
2 Corinthians 7:4, "Great is my boldness of speech toward you, great is my glorying." He always links this word glory or glorying with tribulation. "Of you. I am filled with comfort, I'm exceeding joyful in all our tribulation." That's a strange subject, isn't it? He's celebrating the gift of misery, the gift of hardship, the gift of difficulty that comes through this life. Maybe we haven't been responding correctly. We're missing a chance to glory.
Now, Romans 8:28-29 says this, "We know that all things work together for good to them that love God." I've heard this quoted many times, not with an understanding of what it's saying usually. "To them who are called according to his purpose. "For whom he did foreknow. He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first born among many brethren." So God's goal for us is to conform us to Christ image, so we'll be the first born among many brethren. So he says, all things work together for our good to accomplish that end. Now, when he says all things, that means every single thing, including the tribulations.
Now, not everything that comes on you is going to be good or feel good, and not everything is going to produce a positive effect immediately in your experience. If you have a flat tire in the cold weather and you have to walk five miles and you get a cold and you're in bed for a week, you're not going to celebrate, "Hey, thank God I got a cold. I'm so glad my tire went flat." You're probably going to complain about it. But behind it all, he tells us something, "All things work together," that is in accord with everything else to work a good in your life, that good being conforming you to the image of God's son.
Now that means that God is going to build character in you through those things, those tribulations that come up on you, if you respond rightly. And if you don't, he'll just hit you with more until you do respond rightly. It's either now or later. So now's the time to start responding correctly to the tribulations and glorying in it, because they're going to keep coming. We must do much tribulation to enter the Kingdom of God.
In the military, they take those guys out, like say in the Navy Seals and they'll take them out into the cold weather and they'll just make them jump down. Some of them have them take their shirts off and pack snow all over their body in 10 degree weather, just blow snow on their bodies like this, put it on their face like this, pack it into their eyes, "Lay down, roll in the snow." Now I'm sure that's not fun. They have them wallow in the mud. They have them carry things. They have them work for 24 hours running, let them catch sleep, thinking they're going to sleep all night, wake them up in a half hour and make them run 15 miles. Now boy, that's tough but you know, all that though, it's not pleasant is working together for a good purpose to condition them, to endure the hardship of a soldier, to accomplish an end. And those guys appreciate what's happening to them, even though it's painful, because they know it's working for their good.
The Bible says, "Quit ye like men. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand in the evil day." So you and I should adorn ourselves with the armor, with the shield of faith and have confidence that the things that come upon us are working together for our good, to bring us to that end, to conform us to Jesus Christ. That's a great little message in those passages and throughout the New Testament.
"Not only so, but with glory and tribulation." Now, I'm sure that's one up on Judaism right there. The law could not do that. "Also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience." So he said, the reason we glory in tribulation is because the tribulation itself, though it's miserable, it's working something that is good, which is patience. It's working together to create patience.
Now, patience is not what we generally think of. Biblical patience is the act of enduring tribulation throughout life, that means from now to the end of it, in a state of faith and hope.
Now, how do you know that Mike? You look it up in a Greek concordance? No, I took every time the word patience appears in the Bible, and looked at the context of all of them, to see what it means. Now you can do that in Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Coptic, Latin, Spanish, German, French or Swahili. You get the same results regardless, unless it's translated by a New International Version Committee, where they take the word patience out, or where in a foreign language, they're not consistent in translating it. But as long as they're consistent in using the same word throughout all those passages, so you can look it up in any language then, you'll get the same interpretation, that patience is the act of enduring tribulation throughout life in a state of faith and hope, until the end.
So tribulation works patience. Patience is built on tribulation. Someone prayed for patience, and the next week, everything broke down. And they said, "God, I was praying for patience. Now you're giving me circumstances where I can't possibly be patient anymore." Well, that's how patience come, when things break down and you endure it.
Now, Romans 8 again, we're jumping ahead in Romans, but it's so many different passages in Romans tied together to the same thought, that I want to gather out of the other parts of Romans the same concepts.
Romans 8:23 "Waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." That's the future resurrected body. "For we're saved by hope, but hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, why does he yet hope for? But if we hope for that, we see not." He's talking about us anticipating this hope, anticipating the glorified body. "If we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience." There's the word, patience again, "Wait for it." So patience is the waiting process that goes all the way to the end, when we get our glorified bodies.
Luke 8:14, "And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they heard, go forth and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection. But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it and bring forth fruit with patience." Now, when God speaks of patience in the Bible, he's not talking about that temperament of repose, that state of mind where you're not agitated or in a hurry. You can be extremely in a hurry. You can be short and demanding, and still be developing Biblical patience. I'm not advocating that kind of an attitude, but those two are not related. Patience in the Bible is the endurance in the faith, in anticipation of the coming glorified body.
So when you read it, you have to let the Bible interpret its own use of words, not take this modern use. Now, a steady man, he seems to be patient, but really just doesn't care. But you get a command man or a visionary who's trying to get something done and stay out of his way, he's not going to be patient with your tardiness. And so that's not the same concept, and don't expect to tame a lion. Let him be a lion. I said that for my benefit.
Luke 21:16-19, "And ye shall be betrayed both by parents and brethren and kinsfolks and friends, and some of you shall they cause to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men from my namesake. And there shall not be a hair of your head perish." Now I've lost quite a few already, but God keeps count of them. And when I get a glorified body, I'll have all my hair again. So I guess in that way, they want perish. "In your patience possess ye your souls." So what's he saying in patience? You're talking about that faith, that endures day after day until the end, take possession of your souls.
Romans 15:4, "For whatsoever things were written afore were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope." You will find these five phrases and words linked together. We'll see them all together in a moment, throughout all these passages.
Colossians 1:11, "Strengthened with all might, according to the glorious..." There's the glory. "Power with all patience and long suffering and joyfulness." Nice mixing long suffering with joyfulness.
Hebrew 6:11, "And we desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end." Notice again, the concept of, to the end. "That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises." To inherit the promises of God, you must endure in the faith, endure in love, endure in hope, until the end.
Back to Romans 5:3-4, "Not only so, we glory in tribulation also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience. And patience, experience,” patience works experience and “experience, hope." So tribulation is opportunity for us to build patience, and patience builds experience.
You see, the things that happened to you in life, if you don't respond to them correctly, you don't have any experience. It's just failure, not an experience. It goes nowhere, it's a dead end. But when you allow the trials of life, the tribulations of life to build patience, expectation, hope, then you develop a history of experiences that grounds you in the faith and gives you wisdom. You have a reservoir of knowledge of how God responds and deals with you in different situations.
James 1:3, "Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience." So if you want patience, God will send situations that try your faith and make it difficult for you to believe, like he did with Abraham. Remember what he did with Abraham? When he told Abraham's going to be the father of a great nation. God waited around 25 years for his body to wear out, where he couldn't produce seed any longer. And yet Abraham believed God against hope. "The trying of your faith worketh patience." “Let patience have her perfect work.” Hang in there. "That you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." So that's producing experience.
Genesis 30:27 "Laban said unto him, 'I pray thee, if I have found favor in thine eyes, tarry. For I have learned by experience that the Lord has blessed me for thy sake." It took 20 years for Jacob to learn that. He had to have some experience down there with that father-in-law of his, and that experience built faith in him and he met God and wrestled with him on the way back, because he went through tribulation. It worked patience, endurance, and the endurance worked what? Experience, and experience worked hope.
Hebrews 6:14-15 "Saying, surely blessing I will bless, the multiplying I will multiply thee. And so, after he'd patiently endured, he obtained the promise." God's promises are given out slowly and carefully, so that we build faith and patience in the process.
1 Timothy 3:6 "Not a novice, less being lifted up with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil." You know what A novice is like? a new guy. It's a young preacher, been preaching four or five years, knows a lot of Bible. Good preacher, thinks he knows everything. I was that way once. He needs some experience that novice. Now, the only way to get experience is over time, through patience, endurance, through some trials, some suffering. Tribulation coming your way needs experience.
Read Hebrews 12:1-13. Won't have time to go through it, but that's about a group of people who through faith and patience, inherited the promises.
Romans 5:3-4 again, "And not only so, but we glory in tribulation also, knowing tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience works hope." There's our five things, and you see those terms used throughout Paul's epistles and other epistles as well. So experience and now hope is added to it. And we talked about hope last week, so we're not going to go into any background on that.
Hope again is faith, one day after the next. It's faith enduring toward that resurrected body. Hope is faith in anticipation of the certain outcome of our final salvation in the resurrected body. And that's a mouthful of bunch of words, but look at it carefully. Hope is faith in anticipation of the certain outcome of our final salvation in the resurrected body.
All right, Romans 5:5 "And hope maketh not ashamed." Now, not ashamed, he's not talking about again, that if you look up the word ashamed every time it's used in the Bible, he's not talking about that emotion, when you feel that your clothes are not fit for the occasion you're in, or that your education is below par, or that you stink or something. It's not that kind of ashamed he's talking about. He's talking about it as Paul used it earlier in the Book of Romans. He's not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. Why? Because it is the power of God unto salvation. In other words, I know that what I believe is not going to be exposed as a fraud. I know that there's not going to be a shortcoming in this area. I know this thing's going to work out. "Hope maketh not ashamed." That is if faith is enduring to the end, I know I'm not going to get to the end and not see what I'm hoping for. I know that there will be a realization there.
Romans 5:5 "Hope maketh not ashamed, because ..." This is interesting. "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us." He's talking about something right now that keeps us from being ashamed.
You see, "I can give you reasons for the hope that's within me," the Scripture say, but I can't give you any tangible proof. In other words, if you come to me and say, "Prove it, that there's going to be a resurrection, you're going to get a glorified body." I can't do that. How do you know there's a God? Well, I can give you some good reasons, but I can't prove it to your satisfaction, if you don't want to believe it. Not like you could prove a scientific experiment, can't do that. No one can. But I'm not ashamed of the hope I proclaim, because I have a consolation of the love of God shed abroad in my heart.
Now I shy away from subjective arguments because I've been around all kinds of cults and all kinds of false religions and beliefs and things. And I've seen people have absolute faith in something, and a child dies while they're praying for him, after four days of being in misery and suffering, because they believed God was going to heal him and he didn't, so obviously they were believing something. But it was a false faith, it didn't happen. Now, they were ashamed of their doctrine when it was all done, because it didn't work. And I've seen other people that were ashamed of what they believed. In the end, it didn't work, didn't turn out like they said it was. So I'm reluctant to put myself in the same pool and say, "I have something inside of me that I experience, that's personal, that's an argument for the truth of what I believe." That just goes against my nature.
I like objective truth. I can give you a lot of objective truth. I've argued 100 atheists into believing on Jesus Christ, through scientific proof and evidence, and through archeology and other things. And so, I like to do that and I can do that, but what he says here is the hope doesn't make us ashamed because there's something in our heart's shed. That's like a, you know what a water shed is? That's where it all runs off. It's a place where it just runs downhill. And so he said, "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts." Abroad means wide, expansive. So it's like a big rain coming and just flooding and running, until it gathers into tributaries and runs downstream, until it fills up a pond and overflows, until it makes a lake and then runs down into the creek, into the river and out to the sea. "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, which has given unto us."
Sometimes when I'm ... Every time when I'm studying and preparing for this, there are times when the magnitude of it, the beauty of it, seeing God in his glory, I just have to stop. I can't keep studying. I'm overwhelmed. I can feel my whole body just tingle all over. If I could sing, I'd break out singing, you know? If somebody said, "Amen," I'd shout right behind him. I mean, I don't like to display myself, so I'm kind of low, try to stay low key, but I sometimes just go to heaven. Just to be honest with you, I just sometimes go to heaven. It just gets too good to stand, and I just have to stop. If I kept going, I'd just drop over dead. My body wouldn't take it. And so I have something inside, I'll just tell you that. That's a consolation, has nothing to do with the argument. I know God, he knows me. He lives inside. I worship him. That's awesome. And it's firm until the end. It keeps me hoping. It keeps me in faith.
Now, I'm caught betwixt the two, defending with scientific argument and intellectual argument, the faith, but then that song we sang, I Know In Whom I Have Believed In, And I'm persuaded that he was able, to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day.
All right. The love of God, how ... I can't remember the song. See, that's why I can't sing. I can't remember the words. "Shed abroad by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us."
So hope cannot produce evidence. Hope cannot produce evidence, but the present love of God in our hearts is confirming consolation unto the realization of the hope. That's what he say. That's good stuff.
Hebrews 11:1, "Now faith." You know, I finally understand this passage. I've been preaching it all my life, and I finally got it, I think this time. I always took shots at it, but I'm going to give it to you tonight. Hebrews 11:1, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." So if we take exactly what it says, faith itself is the substance, it's the evidence, it's the product, it's the tangible “of things hoped for.” So we hope and what do we get out of it? Faith. It's the evidence, which is saying the same thing, a different way. It's the evidence, faith is the evidence of things not seen. What is my evidence of the things I don't see? It's the faith that dwells in me. It's that personal experience of God. That's my evidence. For He Dwells Within My Heart, is the song. I know whom I have believed in ... I can't get it. All right.
Now, Romans 5:5 "And hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us." So it is the Holy Ghost that creates that.
Someone said today, that they were telling about somebody that had to go to a psychiatrist or psychologist and get an exam to see if they were fit. And they had this list of all these questions they had to take. And the psychologist was perplexed, because the person didn't seem to respond correctly to the circumstances in their life. They were too joyful, too comfortable, lacked complaint, lacked misery. They weren't put down. They were still happy. And I have known a dozen different people who ... In fact, I took one of those tests one time myself, back about 30 years ago or something, and they said I was lying. And Gabriel took one too and they thought he was lying. Why? Because you're too normal. People are not that balanced. Now what makes us balanced? Because we have forgiveness. We don't walk in bitterness. We've got the love of God shed abroad in our hearts. And Christians have a piece that passes understanding. It doesn't make sense, because it's a life flowing on the inside. That's why we glory in tribulations. Good stuff.
So tribulation works patience, works experience, experience produces hope, "And hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad." So back to that verse, "All things work together for good to them that love God who are the called according to his purpose." Do you see how all those things in life work for what? To produce the love of God in our hearts, to tear us away from the things of this life and make us focus on him. Even the old dying body is part of that process, and I'm learning more every day.
Romans 8:28,"We know all things work together." We know it. We know it. We know it. "For good to them who love God, who are called according to his purpose."
Now John 1:4 talks about the love of God, "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God. And every one that loveth is born of God, knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God towards us." Skipping on down, "Herein is love, not that we loved God. He loved us. And beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also love one another. If we loved one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know that we dwell in him and he and us, because he has given us of his Spirit." That spirit is manifested in love. "And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us."
Have you got the evidence of the Holy Ghost yet? You know what the evidence of the Holy Ghost is? Love. "God is love, he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment." You notice the linking of the day of judgment, the object of our hope right after the love of God? "Because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him because he first loved us." That's a love passage, wasn't it right there? Yeah, plump full of it. All right, that's in 1 John too, that book that scares so many people.
Romans 8:35-39, "who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation." Here's that word again. "Or distress, or persecutions, or famine, or nakedness, or peril or sword? For it is written, For thy sake we're killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep to the slaughter." That's the tribulation part. "Nay, in all things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us." All things worked together for good. "For I'm persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come." He threw that in, so any of this science fiction stuff they can think of won't get me. "Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature," just in case. "Any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Now that's good, that's working together for good.
So here's what we've covered, and this actually is a summary of the chapter.
We're justified by faith, chapter one, verse one, two. We have peace with God, access into grace. We stand in that peace and access. Remember that take on the whole armor. Rejoice in hope of the glory to come, glory in tribulation. Knowing that tribulation works patience, patience-experience, experience-hope, and the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts.
Romans 5:6 "For when we were yet without strength." Talking about the love of God, "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." Christ died for the ungodly, yet without strength.
You see, when you came to Christ, you didn't have the repentance that you needed. You didn't have the faith that you needed. You didn't have the love that you needed. You were not ... I hear people say, "Repent from your sins and God will save you." I've never met anybody yet repenting from all their sins. And I guarantee you, I didn't repent from all my sins. When I got saved, I repented towards God. I was a sinner without strength, lying on my back allegorically in the hospital bed, unable to lift my head, barely able to open my eyes. Hands couldn't move, I was dying and Dr. Jesus came and stood over me and says, "Do you want me for your doctor? If you do, blink once." And I blinked once and I was in the family. I was yet without strength, when he came to save me.
Amen.
Yet without strength to obey all the law. Yet without strength, to live in righteousness. Yet without strength, repent of all sins. Yet without strength, to be properly sorry for sins. Some of the Chick tracts used to say, "Repent of your sins." Then they stopped saying that and said, "Just be sorry for your sins." I've never met anyone that was sufficiently sorry for their sins. If someone were to be overwhelmed with a degree of sorrow that we should have for our sins, you wouldn't be able to get through to them to give them the Gospel. They're beyond consolable. Without strength to have faith in God, without strength to love God with all our hearts. We were without strength.
"For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." I've always told the guys in prison, "God loves you more than I do. And he's got more mercy than I do. And he is got more grace than I do. And he'll forgive you when I won't and when no one else will. So if you want to find love and mercy, you're going to have to go to him to get it." You know what? You'd think that wouldn't win them. It does. They come right to Jesus man, right there, because they know what I'm telling is the truth. Nope, don't give them any smooth over stuff. One of them said to me, "Why don't you pray that God will get me out? I'm going for the parole board next week." I said, "I don't know if you need to get out. If you got out, I might have to shoot you. As long as you're in here, I'm preaching to you." He laughed said, "Yeah, you maybe right."
So some of those guys get born again, come to God. They get forgiven. They're sodomizers, they're child molesters. I'd shoot them if I could. They're child molesters, they're rapist, murderers, lying, stealing thieving thugs. Many, many crimes. They get put in for 25, 30 years, getting up for parole after about 10, 11 years. And they don't deserve to live. They deserve to die. They still deserve to die. Been saved two or three years, they deserve to die and go to hell, just like I do, but God loves them and Jesus died for them. Jesus took their sin, that guy's sin right there in the picture, dressed up like a woman. You thought that was just an ugly woman. That's a guy. God took his sin on Jesus Christ, and Jesus died as if he were that sinner. And you know, God will forgive that guy and save him while he's dressed like that.
With his eyes shadow on and his jewelry, God will forgive him. On the side of a street, in a 20-30 minute conversation, he can see his sin, see the savior, love God for dying for him, begin to weep and Jesus will come in his heart and fill him with the Holy Spirit of God, and put away his sin as if he'd never committed it and forgive him forever. That beats me all over the place. I can't ... I haven't gotten that far yet. But God has, and I'm going to keep preaching it.
Mark 2:17, "When Jesus heard it, he said unto them, they that are whole have no need of the physician, have no need of the physician, but they that are sick. I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
Romans 5:7 "For scarcely for a righteous man will one die." He says, very rare for somebody to die for a righteous man. "Yet peradventure." Perhaps, maybe on occasion, rarely it could take place. "Peradventure for a good man." A good man is better than a righteous man. A righteous man's a law keeper. A good man, he's good. "Yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die." Some would give their life for another, like say in a war situation where someone jumps on a hand grenade to save his two buddies, would even dare die.
Romans 5:8 "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." When we were enemies of God, Christ died for us and he died for everyone. There's no one excluded from that love and that mercy and that forgiveness. You can be saved.
My first sermon I ever preached was in a rescue mission and I, believe it or not, when they called on me in high school to read, I would cry in the 10th grade. I could not stand up in front of anybody and speak. It scared me to death. We had a week at church where the young men, seven of us, would teach or preach. And being like I was, they put me off at the rescue mission down there, where the guys were all half drunk anyway. And I had no idea, I couldn't hardly read. I didn't know what I was going to preach on. I think I was 16 then, and I didn't know what to do.
I remembered the story of the Prodigal Son, but I didn't know where it was. And so my daddy told me where to find it in the Bible. So I read the story of the Prodigal Son and I'd heard some good sermons on that. So I thought, "Well, I can do that, maybe." And so, they took me down there to the place and there was about 75 drunks, bums sitting in there. And I got up and opened my Bible, and I looked out there at those 75 souls and I got the anointing of God. I began to preach. I cut loose. You couldn't believe it was me. I didn't believe it was me. I preached the Gospel up one side and down the other, and some of those guys got saved. I was addicted. This is for me. This is my thing here.
So I went down to the local mission, a different one and I got to go down there and I would drive down there and preach at nighttime, six o'clock to the drunks and I'd do it two or three nights a week. I remember preaching one night and one of them, "Hey man, I believe that." He jumps up and he throws a bottle of Red Rose Hair Tonic, going to get rid of it. And he'd given up his drinking, Red Rose Hair Tonic, throws it and it hits the wall right here behind me like that, run down. Smelled like a barber shop in there. Can you imagine drinking that stuff? We go out and get them out the cars. I remember seeing many of them with green puke all over their self, laying there like that guy right there.
It wasn't part of my experience, but the story was told around of one of the guys who got saved off the street like that. And so many of them would go back to the alcohol. It's hard for them to just quit and give it up. And there was a young woman that worked from one of the colleges, she graduated. She worked at the desk up front, and this guy had been saved now for about six months or something like that. And he was actually doing a little bit of the preaching in the chapel and helping clean up around there and was living a good straight life. And he and that nice pretty virgin girl working at the desk fell in love. Now, parents found out about that, they were pretty upset, you know?
So after another six months or a year, they decided to get married. And a couple of days before they got married, he got cold feet and he said, "I just can't go through with it." She said, "Why not?" He said, "I'm afraid that I'll go back." He said, "Every once in a while, I just get a craving for the alcohol and I'm afraid I'll go back and I can't do that to you." And she grabbed his face and said, "Look at me. I'm going to tell you right now. If you ever go back and get drunk, if you ever fall back into sin, you're forgiven. Come home, you're forgiven." He never did go back. They got married. He became a Minister of God and he never went back. That's what God's love does. He says you're forgiven, and let me tell you something son, if you ever sinned, you come back, because you're forgiven. If you go down, you get up because you're forgiven. Christ died for the ungodly. "You're mine and that's the way it's going to stay." How can you resist that love? Ooh.
Romans 5:7-8 All right. "For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Oh, I can feel the breeze coming in the side of the tent. I can feel the door of the old Methodist Church open, the bugs coming in and the sinners out there. I feel the need to preach, but I won't. All right.
Romans 5:9 "Much more then, being now justified by his blood." See that much more again? There's six of those or seven of those in this passage. "Much more." In addition to that, "Being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more." Much more, there it is again, "Being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life."
So he's saying not only are we justified by his blood and saved from wrath, but we're also going to have our life saved by his resurrection. So he is previewing the theme of chapter six and eight.
Romans 8:32,"He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" If God went to the full extent of allowing Jesus to die for you, don't you think he'll go the rest of the way and pick you up and preserve you until the end?
Here's the list.
You see how it just builds and builds and builds on the magnitude of the blessedness of being in Christ, as compared to being in the law?
Now, some of those passages we haven't covered yet and we won't cover tonight. It'll be in the next lesson, but I want you to see all that together.
That's quite a package. "And not only so, but we also joy in God through the Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement."
"Now received the atonement." Now why this, now received? I mean, at this point in time, finally now, not before. Now we've received the atonement. That word atonement actually is three words. Look at it, at-one-ment. That's actually the word, at-one-ment. Now it is the nature of how one becomes at-one-ment. Here's the definition, according to secular dictionary.
Amends or reparation made for an injury.
That's an atonement, amends or reparation made for an injury. What does that mean? Does that mean you've destroyed someone's automobile and you pay them to have it fixed for injuries and whatever else? You are making an atonement. You're making reparation.
So atonement is found in the Bible 82 times. Now, just a quick look at some of them.
Exodus 29:36 "Offering for atonement. Hast made atonement for it. Seven days thou shalt make an atonement." That was all with blood.
Exodus 30:10 "Aaron shall make an atonement upon the horns." That's putting blood on it. "Offering of atonements, once a year, shall he make atonement upon it throughout your generations. It is holy unto the Lord."
on and on and on. All things were purged with blood. Without the shedding of blood, there was no remission. That's the way atonement was made.
The purpose of the temple was to make atonement for sin by means of blood sacrificed upon the altar. That's how every atonement was made, through blood. But it failed to remove sin and served only as a picture of future atonement by the Lamb of God.
Romans 5:11 "And not only so, we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received." Because in the Old Testament, that atonement was not received. It was a picture of a coming atonement, but it did not remove sins. We read that in the Scripture,
Hebrews 10:1-4 "For the law having a shadow of good things to come." The law just foreshadowed good things. "Not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices." That's the lamb, sheep, cows, turtle dove. "Can never with those sacrifices, which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they have ceased to be offered because that the worshipers once purged should have no more conscience of sin. But in those sacrifices, there is remembrance again made of sin every year." He said every year, they had to offer the sacrifice over and over again, because it never did actually remove the sin. "For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins." It just doesn't work. It's not a just equivalent, a goat or a bull for a human.
Hebrews 10:12 "Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood." Jesus' blood, "He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." So Jesus went into a holy place. He went in because the priest went into the holy place after the sacrifice was made, to place the blood upon the altar, the mercy seat. And so Jesus Christ took his own blood into the Holy of Holies and placed it on the mercy seat before God, between the Cherubims. Now, what temple did he go into? It was not the Jewish Temple, because he had ripped the curtains of the Jewish Temple, the Holy Spirit had, and left it vacant. But Jesus went into the Holy of Holies in heaven after his resurrection, on that same day and placed his blood before the Holy of Holies to make an atonement for you and for me. Jesus Christ is now seated in heaven and he is our atonement. We have now received the atonement.
2 Chronicles 29:22 "So they killed the bullocks. They sprinkled on the altar. They sprinkled the blood. They sprinkled the blood up on the altar."
Hebrews 12:22, 24 , "But you're come unto Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling." Jesus' blood sprinkled in heaven, "Speaketh better things than that of Abel."
Hebrews 9:22 "And almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission. It was therefore necessary that the patterns of the things in heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these." He just said that it was necessary that the implements in heaven, that the altar in heaven, that the place in heaven where God resides, it was necessary to purge it, to purify it with Jesus' shed blood. That means that blood has been placed before the Throne of God. When you get to heaven, you will see the blood of Jesus still living, still alive, placed before God, as an atonement for your soul.
Hebrews 9:24 "For Christ is not entered into the holy place made with hands, which are the figures," Of the heaven, "Of the true, but into heaven itself." It said, Christ has entered into heaven itself. "Now to appear in the presence of God for us." So Jesus Christ is now our atonement seated before the Father. Jesus Christ is our atonement.
Here's a song,
"Complete atonement thou has made,
and to the utmost farthing paid.
Whatever thy people owed;
How then can wrath on me take place,
If sheltered in thy righteousness,
And sprinkled with thy blood.
Christ has for sin atonement made,
what a wonderful Savior.
We are redeemed, the price is paid,
what a wonderful Savior.”
You know the praise songs today are about as empty as a Walmart shopping bag, after you put everything on the shelf. Boy, isn't that full right there? You won't get that much in six months of praise music, you won't get that kind of doctrine.
Atonement is found in the Bible 82 times. Look at this, 81 times in the Old Testament. That means it only appears one time in the New Testament. One time, one time only. In the back of your hymn books, you will have a subject index of songs. You'll have a list that says, atonement and there'll be eight or 10, 15 songs underneath atonement, because the songwriters used the word. The theologians loved it, preached it. Preachers in the past preached it. So atonement is a key doctrine. It's in all your theology books, atonement, but the word only appears once in the New Testament. Remember, as it should. 81 times in the Old Testament, there was an atonement foreshadowing Christ. And then just one atonement, is all it took and it did all 81. It just took one, and it appears only one time in your holy Bible, if it's God's Bible.
Romans 5:11"Not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we've now received the atonement." That's in King James. "Wherefore as by one." Now they've taken the word atonement out and put the word reconciliation in its place. In the 1901 American Standard Version, the English Standard Version, the International Version, the New King James Version, Revised Standard Version and on and on and on. They say in their Bibles, "Now received the reconciliation." Now is reconciliation and atonement the same thing?
Here is the definition of reconciliation according to secular dictionaries. Reconciliation is the act of bringing people together to be friendly again, or coming to an agreement. Is that what we got when we came to Jesus Christ? Got together and got friendly again? You can have a reconciliation, and not be any propitiation or atonement made. Two people can get in a fuss and a fight and think about divorcing, then have a reconciliation. There's no atonement made. They just both agreed to kind of agree for a while and come back together. So your modern Bibles say reconciliation instead of atonement.
Romans 5:12 "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin. So death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." We'll finish with this verse, "In Adam, all died."
Death or dead appears 319 times in the Bible. Not once does it speak of spiritual death. There's no such thing as spiritual death anywhere in the Bible. No one's ever died spiritually. You can read throughout the Bible, kings, heathen, false prophets, lost ungodly people have a spirit, a human spirit. Their spirit functions. God speaks through their spirit. Devils possess their spirit. No one is without a human spirit. In fact, there's never a time in eternity when anyone's without this human spirit. Even when you're dead and go to hell, it's the human spirit that's in hell. You're never separated from your spirit. That's like being separated from your existence. You are a spirit. You are a personality. You are a person. The spirit is not an entity separate from you. It is you. It's the essence of your non-material self. It's the soulish being that you are, that's the spirit. There is no dead spirit anywhere in the Bible.
Here's what death is.
So sin reigns unto death. The counter to death is eternal life.
1 Corinthians 15:21-23 gives a little light on that, "For since by man came death." So that is, we all die spiritually. Is that what it says? Look, "By man came also the resurrection of the dead." So the counterpart to that death is resurrection. "As in Adam all die." See, well that's meaning spiritual death. Does it? Look, "Even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order." Every man made alive in his own order. "Christ the firstfruits." Made alive from the death. Did Christ ever have a dead spirit? No, but he did get raised from it. His body did get raised. "Afterward, they that are Christ's at his coming." You see, this counterpart to death, this life that is in Christ doesn't happen until the resurrection. So the death is always set over against a future resurrection, never a spiritual renewal, never the new birth, and as many, many passages that make that clear.
1 Corinthians 15:25 "For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. And the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." You see, death still rules and reigns over you and over me. We're going to die. That hasn't been cured yet. The cure has been provided in Christ, but it's not been applied and it won't be, until we see the blessed hope of his glorious appearing and get our glorified bodies. So the last enemy that should be destroyed is death. "In Adam all died in Christ, all are made alive."
1 Timothy 1:10 "But is now made manifest in the appearing of our savior Jesus Christ to abolish death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." Immortality is never dying.
Romans 5:12 "Therefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, death by sin. So death passed upon all men for that all have sinned." Now is he saying, when he says all have sinned, the Calvinists say that means that when Adam sinned, we were in Adam and we sinned. We committed an act of sin. So they say that we all have a sinful nature now, and that we're blameworthy. We're damnable because we've sinned. We're born sinners, they say. I mean, even non-Calvinists say that. They pick it up from the Calvinist.
Now, is he saying that we all sinned when Adam sinned? Or is he saying all sinned later as a result of Adam's sinning? Or is he saying all are made sinners? Those are the only three options. There's not anything else. We'll discuss all three of those.
If all sinned originally, that is when Adam sinned all sinned, then babies and fetuses are guilty sinners. That as you pick up that little newborn baby, and you look down in his face and you say, "You're godless, hopeless, depraved, damnable sinner you. Why in the world did you eat the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, when God told you not to? If you die, you'll go to hell. I got to try to keep you alive until you can get saved." There's not a fool on earth that believes that, but that's the facts of what they teach. They just ignore the facts. You know what they do? They run out and baptize their babies to try to get rid of that original sin, make a deal with God. So if he dies before he gets to accountability, he'll still be saved. That's what they do. Catholics do it. Calvinists do it. Lutherans do it. Church of England does it. The Episcopalians do it. The Orthodox Church does it. Just about everybody does it except Baptist and derivatives.
Babies and fetuses are guilty sinners. I don't believe that. No mothers ever believe that. All are blameworthy, that you could blame the baby first for the sin. Now they couldn't be a sinner if he wasn't blameworthy. Adam could not be a figure of Christ, and we'll explain that if that were true. And it destroys the analogy of imputed righteousness, we'll explain that. And the text fails to affirm that assertion, and it contradicts Romans 5, 12, 14 and 15.
The text affirms death is physical only, and we covered enough passages on that.
Romans 5:14 "Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression." Now, does that say when Adam sinned, everybody sinned? Or does that say when Adam sinned, everybody didn't sin? What does that passage say? It said they did not sin. "That had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come."
He's building a case here to say that Christ is like Adam, in that the one man Adam did something and it had application to everybody. The one man Christ did something and has application to everybody. The one man Adam sinned, it resulted in the death of everyone. The one man Christ obeyed, it results in the life of everyone. Now, if when Adam sinned, we sinned actually, then the analogy's gone. Then it had to be that when Christ obeyed, we obeyed and we didn't obey when Christ obeyed. He obeyed alone.
Then we read, Romans 5:15 "But not as the offense, so also is the free gift. For through the offence of one." How many created an offense in the Garden of Eden? Just one, right? "Many be dead." The whole point of the passage is one man sinned and it resulted in the death of everyone. Not that all sinned. If all sinned, then Adam has nothing to do with our death. We didn't inherit anything. We were just there participating. See that? The Bible throws a lot of light on this theology stuff.
It is an idiotic absurdity, carefully chosen adjectives, to assert that people who were not born committed a sin.
I mean, just think about it. Take this out to the world and try to teach it to them. They're laughing that you teach, somebody teaches, Christians teach that children deserve to go to hell because they sinned, before they're born. That's unfathomable. That's an idiotic absurdity.
If all sinned later as a result, the preposition, for, is in error. Let's look at that. "For that all have sinned." You see, "Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, death by sin, death passed upon men for that all have sinned." So the death passing upon all men, as a result of something linked with Adam, wherein all are said to have sinned. Yet we established, they didn't actually commit an act of sin, but that word, for, is because all have sinned.
Back to our verse. That would make death a result of each individual's sin with no link to Adam. "Death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." So the question still remains, how is it that all sinned when Adam sinned, so as to bring death upon all?
The third option, is that all are made sinners. What do we mean by, made? That is, if all are made sinners, then the analogy that when Christ obeyed, all are made righteous, you have a pure analogy. Romans 5:19, "For by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners." This is the same chapter down in verse 19, further light on what he just said. "For by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." So there's your analogy he's coming to. By one man's disobedience, many were made sinners. One sinned, all are made to be sinners, made to be as a sinner, inheriting the death penalty. So by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. So our relationship to Adam has to be the same as our relationship to Christ, in that one act that each committed.
1 Corinthians 5:21, "For he hath made him to be sin for us." Now Jesus was made to be sin. Did Jesus sin? No. Did he commit the act? No. That the same Greek word he was made to be sin as if he were the sinner. He was put in the place of a sinner. He suffered the consequences of a sinner. "Made to be sin, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him does." Did we participate in his acts of righteousness? No. Am I made to be as righteous as he is in action? No. But in God's reckoning, I am counted as righteous, just as in God's reckoning, he was counted as a sinner. Just as in God's reckoning, you and I were counted as sinners when our father Adams sinned, and we're counted as righteous when our elder Brother Jesus obeyed.
Now here's the Greek word, kathistaymee, which is to make ... And if you look throughout the whole Bible, every time this word is used. Now in my Bible program, you can take and search the Greek word. You can look at the word up there 2 Corinthians 5, "For he hath made." You can take that word, made. You look up the Greek word for it, and then you search every time that Greek word appears in the Bible. And then you can actually read it in the English with it highlighted, just like it is there indicating that the background of that word made is the Greek word for that we're looking at.
Kathistaymee - To make ruler, to ordain, appoint or conduct or set.
That's the different ways it's translated. To make a ruler, he was made to be a ruler. He was ordained to be something. He was appointed to be something. He was conduct as such, or set to be such.
So on what basis does God impute Adam's transgression to his posterity? Then on what basis are we called sinners? On what basis are we made to be sin? On what basis did we sin and inherited death? We were seminally present in Adam. That is the word semen, which is the male sperm, which is the life force the man has in his body, that he plants in the egg, which conceives life. We were seminally present in Adam.
Hebrews 7:9-10 "And as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, paid tithes in Abraham." We're going to see a picture of that. "For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him." So here's Abraham in about 2000 BC, about 4,000 years ago. And coming back from slaughtering his enemies, Abraham meets a priest from Jerusalem named Melchisedec. And this priest came out to receive bread and wine and bless Abraham. So Abraham pays tithes to Melchisedec, 10% of all the goodies that he got, the spoils in his war campaign. And then 400 years later, Abraham has a great great grandson named Levi. Now Levi never met Melchisedec. Melchisedec's long dead when Levi's born. And Levi is appointed to be a priestly tribe. And so everyone was required to pay tithes to Levi. The question is, doesn't Levi have to pay tithes? The answer is, he already did. When did Levi pay tithes? Well over 400 years ago. Who'd you pay them to? Melchisedec. Well, how could Levi pay tithes to Melchisedec when he never met him? Melchisedec was dead long before. Levi paid tithes to Melchisedec, it said, because he was in the loins of Abraham. That is the semen present in Abraham contained Levi. Now that's strange. That means you got all your posterity in your body and you pass it to your son who passed it to his son who passed it, over all the way down. So seminally present.
Hebrew 7:9-10 , here it is again, "And as I may say so, Levi also, who received tithes, paid tithes in Abraham. For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him." See that? When Melchisedec met Abraham, Levi was in his loins and that makes him having already paid tithes. That's the exact same sense in which you and I were seminally present in Adam, so that when Adam sinned, we sinned. Not to the point of guilt, but sufficient that the death penalty was passed up on us.
Hebrews 12 again, "Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, death by sin, so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." So we were in the loins of Adam. There's Adam's posterity. What Adam did, affected the whole human race.
Let me give you an example. Years ago, England would banish the undesirables to a far distant place called Australia. That's how it got populated. They would take them out of prison, they're criminals and send them to Australia to populate this barren difficult land, full of Aborigines. And they also sent some high ranking people of royalty that became a problem. So one day, a man in line to inherit the throne, just one person away from becoming King of England, was banished to Australia. He went there to live and he was in poverty, and he had a son. Guess where his son was born, in Australia.
So his son was banished from England and not allowed to return, because that was his sentence passed upon the man put in Australia. None of his children or his seed could ever return back to England. So they inherited the sentence, passed upon the father being similarly present in him at the time of his banishment. So the son has a son who has a son, who has a son, and none of them were allowed to return to England, because they're all banished to Australia. They inherited the sentence from their father. Were they guilty of anything? No. Did they do what their father did? No, but they were made to be banished, made to be sinners, being present in the loins of their father.
"For as by one man's disobedience, when many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one, shall many be made righteous." And much more than be saved from wrath by his blood and saved from sin and death by his life.
All right. That's Romans chapter ... That's our seventh episode, and we'll take up with eight next time.