R O M AN S :

THE CLEAREST
GOSPEL OF ALL

E.H. “Jack” Sequeira

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 Chapter 1

Introduction
(Romans 1:1-17)

I would like to turn to my favorite book in the

Bible, the book of Romans. No book or section of
scripture expounds so clearly and so masterfully
the plan of salvation — the doctrine of
righteousness by faith — than the epistle to the
Romans. No wonder Martin Luther described the
epistle to the Romans as the “clearest Gospel of
all.” In fact, it was through his understanding of
verse 17 of chapter 1 that Luther was delivered
from his bondage to legalism and became the
leader of the Protestant Reformation.

The same doctrine which was expounded by

Luther led to the conversion of John Bunyan, and I
don’t know how many of you folks know John
Bunyan. He’s referred to in England as the
“immortal tinker of Bedford.” But most of you
folks know him here as the author of Pilgrims
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Progress. It was while he was in prison at Bedford
[England] that he wrote that famous book.

In the same way, it was by listening to the

preface to Luther’s commentary on Romans that
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist church,
felt that his heart was “strangely warmed” on the
evening of 24 May 1738, which brought about the
birth of that tremendous revival in Britain in the
18th century.

I can give you lots of examples. Romans has

been the basis of most of the revivals in the history
of the Christian church. The question is, what
makes Romans very special? Well, I’d like to give
you two reasons. One is a general reason, and one
is a specific one.

1. Please turn your Bibles to the book of Acts,

chapter 9. Here we have the account of Paul’s
conversion. The Book of Acts is a historical
account of how God revealed Himself through His
church. The first four books of the New Testament
are a historical account about Jesus Christ. The
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fifth book, the Book of Acts, is about His church.
And in chapter 9 of the Book of Acts, we have the
wonderful account of how Paul, on the Damascus
Road, found Jesus Christ. Remember, God came
to Ananias and said, “I want you to go and meet
this young man and bless him, and baptize him and
let his eyes open.”

Well, Ananias wasn’t sure that God hadn’t

made a mistake, because here was the greatest
persecutor of the Christian church. And I want you
to notice what God says to Ananias in Acts 9:15:

But the Lord said to Him, [i.e., Ananias] “Go!

This man is my chosen instrument to carry my
name [or to bear my truth] before the Gentiles and
their kings and before the people of Israel.

And we are told that, after Paul was given back

his vision and was baptized, in verse 20:

At once he began to preach in the synagogues

that Jesus is the Son of God.

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 Immediately, he preached Jesus Christ.

So Paul was a chosen vessel. In other words,

when Christ came to this world, He came that there
might be a Gospel to be preached. But it was Paul
that God chose to be the instrument to expound that
Gospel to the world.

With this in mind, turn to chapter one of the

Book of Romans. I want you to notice how Paul
introduces this wonderful epistle of his:

Paul, a servant [the Greek word is slave] of

Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle [but notice this
next statement] and set apart for the gospel of God.

Paul was the Theologian of the New

Testament. Almost half of the New Testament is
Paul’s writing. We would be terribly at a loss, as a
Christian church, if we did not have his writings.
So number one, Paul was God’s chosen vessel, to
expound the gospel to the world.

2. But I would like to give you another reason,

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a more specific reason, for Romans. Unlike any of
Paul’s epistles, whether it be to the church or to
individuals, this is the only letter he wrote to a
church, to a body of Christians, whom he had not
established or to whom he had not been.

In other words, Paul, when he wrote

Corinthians and Ephesians, and individual letters,
was writing to people to whom he had already
expounded the gospel verbally. Unfortunately, in
those days, they did not have tape recorders. But
in Romans, he was writing to a people whom he
had never met before. (There were a few
individuals whom he had known in his previous
experience.) And, because of this, he is expounding
to them all the wonderful truths of the Gospel.

For example, look at verse 11 of chapter 1.

There he tells us that the purpose of writing this
letter, the purpose of his coming to Rome:

I long to see you so that I may impart to you

some spiritual gift to make you strong.

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 And then in verse 13 he says:

I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that

I planned many times to come to you (but have
been prevented from doing so until now) in order
that I might have a harvest among you, just as I
have had among the other Gentiles.

In chapter 15, verse 22 and 23, he tells us why

he was hindered:

This is why I have often been hindered from

coming to you. But now that there is no more
place for me to work in these regions, and since I
have been longing for many years to see you....

God said to him, “No, you cannot go to Rome

until you finish the work in the Middle East. You
have to enter every unentered area.”

I believe God had another reason, and that is:

He had you and me in mind. Because, you see, if
Paul did not write the message in clear, distinct
tones, then we would not have it in written form.
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But because he had not yet been to Rome, he was
writing to a people that he had not seen, he is
expounding the gospel in all its clarity so that it
came to us in the Word of God.

So Romans is the clearest gospel of all. Luther

was right when he says, “This is the clearest
Gospel of all.”

Paul’s whole purpose — as he mentions in

verse 11 (shown above) — in writing this
somewhat lengthy letter is that he may establish the
Christians in Rome in Christ. You see, they were
facing persecution. And my great burden is that
you will be established in Jesus Christ. And the
best way, of course, is to look at this book. We’re
going to spend more than 30 studies in this
wonderful truth. As we go step by step, we will see
what Paul is telling us about the plan of salvation.

The great theme of this book is expressed in

chapter 1, verses 15, 16, and 17. I would like to
look at it for a moment. Paul has already told the
Romans that he wants to come to Rome. In verse
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14, he tells them:

I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks,

both to the wise and the foolish.

He wants to preach this Gospel to everybody in

Rome. Now Rome, of course, was the capital of
the world that was counted in those days. And he’s
saying in verse 15:

That is why I am so eager [in other words, with

every ability that I have] to preach the gospel also
to you who are at Rome. [I have preached it in the
Middle East, now I want to come to Rome.]

And then he makes this statement in verse 16:

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is

the power of God for the salvation of everyone
who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.

It was quite customary in Paul’s day, when they

wanted to make an emphasis, to put things in the
negative. So he puts it in the negative to
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emphasize the positive. Now I think that if Paul
was living today, he would have put it in the
positive because that’s how it is in the western
world. He would have said, “I am absolutely,
completely surrounded, and I am completely
excited, about the gospel of Jesus Christ. I have
nothing else to do but to preach it.”

Paul is saying that he is not ashamed of the

Gospel, because the Romans looked at the
Christians as third-class citizens. The Romans had
class distinctions. The Romans themselves were
first-class citizens. In fact, because they were first-
class citizens, it was generally understood that
Romans were never crucified, because crucifixion
always brought shame to your country and to your
nation. So Romans, as a general rule, were never
crucified; they were first-class citizens. And then
the Romans looked at the Jews as second-class
citizens. But the Christians, who worshipped a
crucified Saviour, were looked at as third-class
citizens. But Paul is saying, “Ashamed? Not at
all! Why? Because I have come to you with not
another philosophy.”
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 Rome was a very proud city. It boasted of
military power, of architectural power, of
economic power. It had all kinds of philosophies
being proclaimed in that city. Paul was saying, “I
have not come with another blueprint invented by
man. I am not ashamed of this gospel, because it is
the power of God!”

Rome, with all her pride and all her success,

had failed to do one thing. It had failed to conquer
sin. And Paul was saying, “There is only one
Power that can conquer sin: the Gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Ashamed of it? Why should I be?
It’s the only power that can save man. As long as
he accepts that salvation, as long as he believes,
whether he be Jew or Greek, it doesn’t matter.
Whether he be wise or educated or uneducated;
whether he be rich or poor, there is only one
solution for man’s sinful problem, and that is Jesus
Christ.”

And then in verse 17, he defines this gospel in

one phrase:
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 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is
revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first
to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live
by faith.”

Please note that! “It is the righteousness of

God.” What does he mean by that?

1. It is a righteousness planned by God.

2. It is a righteousness prepared by God without
any human contribution. (We will see this in
more detail as we come to chapter three,
verse 21 onwards.)
3. It is a righteousness that is made available by
God Himself. I want this to be clear. In the
New Testament, we read that it is God Who
takes the initiative for our salvation. The
Gospel is not conditional Good News. God
doesn’t say to the world, and to you and me,
“You first have to be good,” or “First you
must make yourself disposable to me, then I
will save you.” When we come to chapter 5,
we will discover that, while we were
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 helpless, incapable of saving ourselves,
while we were ungodly, while we were
enemies, and while we were sinners, God
reconciled us to Himself by the death of His
Son. God takes the initiative.

Here in the western world, and in our church as

a whole, we have twisted the thing around. We
hold efforts and we tell people, “Come to our halls,
and listen to the Gospel.” That’s not the New
Testament. The New Testament, and the
commission that Christ gave is: “Go into all the
world” and do what? Just like God takes the
initiative we must take the initiative, folks. The
world is desperately waiting for the gospel of Jesus
Christ. It was planned by Him, it was prepared by
Him in His Son Jesus Christ, and it was made
available by Him. He takes the initiative, He gets
all the credit and all the glory. This is the Gospel
of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In other words, what Paul is trying to present in

this book is the unconditional good news of
salvation, which He prepared for us in His Son
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Jesus Christ. That, of course, is the grand theme of
all of the Bible, Old and New Testament. But,
nowhere is it set forth so clearly, and argued so
masterfully, as in the Epistle to the Romans.

In this book, the Apostle Paul unfolds to us the

whole counsel of God:

1. He presents to us our sin problem: man’s

sinful condition.
2. He gives us the truth about Christ, His life
and His death as our Substitute and our
Surety.
3. He describes faith in Christ as the basis of
making that salvation effective, or the
solution to our sin problem.
4. Then he goes on to the work of the Holy
Spirit in our sanctification.
5. He also describes the place of God’s people
in this world. We have a work to do in this
world! He describes that.
6. Lastly, he gives practical applications of the
Gospel in daily Christian living.

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 So everything that we need in the plan of
salvation is found in this book. It is a difficult
book, because he’s writing not to scholars; he’s
writing to people who thought so differently than
our people today in the 20th century. That’s why I
wrote the paraphrase of Romans. My purpose was
to try and breach the gap in this paraphrase, so that
the Gospel of Romans will become meaningful to
you.

Now, we are going to study this in fairly deep

detail as we go along, because here is the most
extended treatment of the entire range of scripture
on this crucial doctrine of righteousness by faith.

You know, God brought this message to us

[Seventh-day Adventists] 100 years ago. We are
still struggling with it. We have to have
committees, and we have to have seminars to try
and get together to see what the message is. The
devil doesn’t want us to know this message. And
he has had tremendous success in keeping us in
darkness. As we go to the Book of Romans, I hope
that we will see clearly this wonderful message,
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because, as I read Ellen G. White, she says that
our churches are dying because of a need on
preaching on righteousness by faith.

She also makes the statement in the light of the

1888 message. She says that it is the duty of God’s
people to search the truth, to remove the error.
When that is done, she says, one truth will prevail,
one subject will swallow up every other: “Christ
our Righteousness.”

I tell you, if it wasn’t for this message I

wouldn’t be here today. Five years of my ministry
was in legalism, and I got so discouraged, I was
willing to give up. It’s only because God turned
me around by this message that I actually enjoy
preaching from the pulpit even though, by nature,
I’m an introvert.

Recently I was speaking to the medical students

at Loma Linda [University in Loma Linda,
California, U.S.A.], and I was amazed at their
hunger for the truth. I could not believe this could
happen in America. It could only happen in Africa.
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I spoke from 10:30 in the morning to 5:30 in the
evening with only one hour break. For me to see
American medical students sitting there and
studying and opening their Bibles, there is hope
even for California. Some people think nothing
good comes from out there, but I’ll tell you, there
are young people, medical students, who are not
secular, whose desire is to know the Word of God
and to proclaim it. When we finished, these young
men and women got together and they said, “What
can we do to proclaim this here in our own
university?” So there is hope, because this is the
power of the Gospel.

In closing, I would like to give a brief résumé

of what this doctrine of righteousness by faith,
expounded in Romans, is all about. There are four
major areas that Paul covers in this book:

1. This doctrine of Righteousness by faith is a

truth that tells us that God has already — I want to
remind you: it is a past tense — He has already
redeemed not the elect, like the Calvinists teach,
but all mankind, in the holy history of His Son
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Jesus Christ. So that legally, all humanity — and
that’s the unconditional Good News of the Gospel
— legally, all humanity stands justified in Christ.
For example, in Ephesians 1:3 Paul tells us that:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord

Jesus Christ, who has blessed us [past tense,
“aorist” in the original; something that has already
happened: we have already been blessed] in the
heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in
Christ.

And this is what Paul will expound in Romans.

2. He goes on to tell us that this legal

justification, while it may apply to all mankind, has
to be made effective. All mankind will not go to
heaven, not because God hasn’t redeemed them,
but because they have rejected this salvation. This
legal justification is made effective by faith alone
and nothing else. It isn’t by faith plus going to the
Holy Land, or paying tithe, or keeping the Sabbath.
Those are fruits of justification.

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 Except going to the Holy Land. All you will
see there is commercialism. I worked in the
Middle East. It’s disgusting how they have turned
sacred things into secular. They offered us crosses
all over the city of Jerusalem and claimed that this
was the original wood on which Jesus died. And I
told one Jew, “If you collect all those pieces of
wood, they would be like the loaves and fishes that
Christ multiplied because it’ll produce I don’t
know how many crosses out of that one cross that
Christ died on.” But I had to remind them that it
was not the wood that saves us. Folks, we do not
put emphasis on things. There is nothing “holy”
about the Holy Lands. There is much fighting
there, much insecurity. It is the Lord of this
universe Who died on the cross Who saves us, and
we don’t have to go to Israel to find Him. We can
find Him here in America. Do you know that?

That legal justification is made effective by

faith alone. This means that the believer who
accepts Christ is clothed with the perfect
righteousness of Christ, which is known as imputed
righteousness. So that, as far as God is concerned
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(maybe not as far as we think of ourselves, or what
others think, but as far as God is concerned), we
are qualified for heaven now and in the judgment.
And folks, this is the basis of peace. As Paul says
in Romans 5:1:

Therefore, since we have been justified through

faith, we have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ....

You know, I saw something today that really

made me happy because I saw the power of the
Gospel in one of our members. You know, Mabel
Jones lost her dear husband. It was hard. They
lived as a wonderful couple. They were a
wonderful example of true Christian marriage. So
when He passed away, Jean and I went to visit her,
and we asked her, “Look, would you want
somebody else to introduce the mayor? We know
it’s hard.”

And she said, “I will be a poor witness if I

mourn like the unbelievers.”

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 I thank God that she could stand up here and
carry out her program, because she has a hope.
She has not said goodbye to Mike forever; it is
only for a season.

That is the power of the Gospel, the doctrine of

justification by faith. So Paul will say in
Thessalonians, “We don’t have to mourn like the
unbelievers who have no hope.” It gives us the
courage to do things that we never could have
done. I thank God for such a witness.

3. Justification by faith does not stop there. It

goes beyond that. It further teaches that because
you have become a child of God, God sends His
Holy Spirit to indwell the believer, so that you and
I become partakers of the Divine Nature. Why?
That we may escape the corruption that is in the
world. And by the corruption that is in the world I
don’t mean just the cinemas and all the other
things. The corruption of the world is in us
because our nature is corrupt, and will remain
corrupt until the second coming of Christ, when
this corruption puts on incorruption. God sends the
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Holy Spirit to dwell in us. As Paul will explain in
Romans 5, because of this, we are standing under
the umbrella of grace. We are standing in grace.
Not only do we have peace with God, we have
been reconciled to Him, but we have available the
power of God through the indwelling Spirit.
Which means that now we can live lives that are
well pleasing to God. That is the power of
justification by faith or the fruits of justification by
faith. In other words as Jesus said in John 15:4-5,
7-8:

Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No

branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the
vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain
in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a
man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much
fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ...If you
remain in me and my words remain in you, ask
whatever you wish and it will be given you. This
is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit,
showing yourselves to be my disciples.

So please remember that there is a very

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important part of justification by faith that we need
to realize. And I’ll tell you why, but before I do
that, let me just give you one more text: Matthew
5:14. Jesus is talking to the Christian believers, the
disciples, and He’s making a statement. He says:

You [you disciples] are the light of the world....

The word “light” in the original is in the

singular; the “you” is in the plural. We are many,
but we are one light, because that one light is Jesus
Christ. And when Jesus came to this world, He
came as a light in darkness. Now Jesus is no
longer here; He’s back in heaven. But His body,
the church, the ecclessia, the called people are here.
And Jesus said to us, “You are the light of the
world.” And then in Matthew 5, verse 16:

In the same way, let your light shine before

men, that they may see your good deeds and praise
your Father in heaven.

Many of you are older than I, many of you are

younger. But when World War II took place, we
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were crossing the ocean. My father and mother
had taken us to visit relatives in India and we were
returning back to Africa in 1939. I was just a kid,
and we were all excited. Suddenly one night, in
the middle of the ocean, the lights of the ship went
out. Pitch darkness. We thought that the generator
had burnt out, and then came an announcement on
the PA [public address] system, that Germany had
declared war against Great Britain, and they had
put the lights out so that no German ship would see
us.

I remember my dear Mother would take her

rosary (we were Roman Catholics) and she would
pray furiously that our ship would not be
torpedoed. We used to hear on the radio for those
next two weeks as we traveled, this ship and that
other ship were torpedoed, and they were quite
close to us. And we prayed.

When we arrived in Kenya, they made a law

that all the houses would have screens so that the
light would not go out. The motorcars would have
a little shield over the headlights so that the
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airplanes could not see the light. And everything
was in darkness. But I’ll tell you, a Christian who
hides his light under a bushel should be ashamed of
himself. For Jesus said, what good is a light if you
hide it under a bushel? [Matthew 5:15]

So please remember, the gospel is the power of

God. But the world doesn’t know it, folks, the
world doesn’t know it. Why? Because it has not
seen Jesus Christ in the church.

You know, 50 percent of the world population

at one time was under Marxism. Have you ever
asked why Christian countries like Russia and the
Eastern European block, why did they turn
Marxist? One of the main reasons is not the
ideology of Marxism, which is appealing. But one
of the main reasons is because the church has failed
to reveal the power of the Gospel. [Friedrich]
Nietzsche, the great pagan philosopher, made this
statement to the Christian church, and we need to
take it seriously. He was an atheist, a famous
philosopher. He said to the Christian church, “If
you expect me to believe in your Redeemer, you
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Christians will have to look a lot more Redeemed.”

It is only through justification by faith that we

can look “redeemed.” It’s the only path.

4. Finally, and this is in connection with

number three, justification by faith is able to
produce a community of believers, a called people.
It doesn’t matter what their numbers are, but it is
able to produce a community of people who are so
knit together in love that they behave as if they
were one person. Now that is a miracle, in a sinful
world. Can God produce a people who are so
closely knit together that there is no jealousy, there
is no bickering, but we are one heart and one mind?
The Gospel of Christ can do that. And when that
happens, this earth will be lightened with His
glory.

I want to close with an example because this is

my concern for the Adventist church. As long as
we are fighting like cats and dogs, we can never
witness the power of the Gospel. So I want to give
you, in closing, a text which proves that this did
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happen once. It was short lived, because of the
perversion of the Gospel. It will happen again, and
I want us to be part of it. And my closing text is
Acts 4:33-35. Let’s start with verse 32 because
that’s a key statement that’s the goal of the gospel
and the life of the church. Acts 4:32, listen to this:

All the believers were one in heart and mind.

[Have you got it? One heart and one soul.] No one
claimed that any of his possessions was his own,
but they shared everything they had.

I was discussing this with a Russian Marxist in

Ethiopia, and I said, “This is true Communism!
Your Communism is by compulsion at the point of
a gun, this is done by the power of the gospel. You
can never produce this by Marxism, one heart-one
soul.”

Verse 33:

With great power the apostles continued to

testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and
much grace [the same power now was manifested]
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was upon them all.

Do you know what that means? The

resurrection of Christ is the greatest evidence that
God has conquered sin. Because, you see, sin
takes us to the grave. If you can conquer the grave,
you can conquer sin. If you can’t conquer the
grave, you can’t conquer sin, because the ultimate
power of sin is the grave. Jesus conquered the
grave as the greatest evidence that He conquered
sin. And the disciples with great power gave
witness to this truth. Acts 4:34-35:

There were no needy persons among them. For

from time to time those who owned lands or houses
sold them, brought the money from the sales and
put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to
anyone as he had need.

Folks, that is the power of the gospel. Can it

happen here, in 20th century North America, with
all its materialism? The answer is yes! Because
Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and
forever. And He said this [John 8:32]:
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 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will
set you free.

May God help us to know the truth, as we study

this excellent book, the Epistle to the Romans.
May God bless us as we study this book is my
prayer in Jesus name.

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 Chapter 2

The Wrath of God

(Romans 1:18-32)

Now Paul tackles the universal, the total sin

problem of mankind, beginning with verse 18 of
chapter one, right up to verse 20 of chapter three.
It’s quite a big chunk that he deals with in regards
to the sin problem. And the question we must ask
is, “Why?” Why does he begin with the sin
problem?

The gospel is God’s Good News not for good

people, but for sinners. And first of all, he has to
convince us that in us there is nothing good. He
has to convince us that we, in and of ourselves, are
helpless. He has to destroy in us every confidence
in the flesh. Because the gospel is not for 80
percent sinners or 90 percent sinners; it is for 100
percent sinners.

So he plunges into the sin problem which we

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cannot cover in one study. It’s going to take three
studies to deal with the sin problem. I want to
warn you beforehand that Paul does paint a dark,
dismal picture of the human race, to which you and
I belong. It can be discouraging. So please don’t
go home and plan to commit suicide. Because Paul
has some wonderful good news beginning with
chapter three, verse 21. In fact, he begins the
gospel with two words: “But now.” After he has
painted a dark, dismal picture of us, he says, “But
now, don’t give up hope. I have good news.”

The stars shine the brightest on a night that is

pitch dark. And it is only in the light of our total
sinfulness that the gospel shines gloriously. So
please remember that our next three studies are not
pleasant, but something with which we need to
come to grips.

Now I would also like to give you a little secret

that I have discovered in my study of Pauline
epistles: Paul’s method of writing is, often, he will
make a statement. You need to look for those
statements because, once he has made a statement,
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he will try to expound on it, or he will explain it, or
he will defend it. The statement of our passage
today is verse 18. The rest of the chapter, verses
19-32, is simply expounding what he says in verse
18. So we need to understand the statement first
before we can understand what he’s trying to
explain. What does he say in verse 18? He says:

The wrath of God is being revealed from

heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness
of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.

That’s the statement. He begins with the wrath

of God. Whenever we read that statement, “wrath
of God,” it sometimes makes our knees shake. So I
need to explain the word. When the Bible talks of
God’s wrath, we must not equate it with human
wrath. It is not some emotional anger or a loss of
self-control, where He lashes out on those who are
against Him. That is not the Biblical definition of
wrath. In fact, this passage is one of the finest
definitions of God’s wrath.

A lot of people reading the Old Testament

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think of God as a God of wrath, ready to bring fire
down upon the human race or those who sin. But I
would like to explain that God’s wrath is not like
man’s wrath; in fact, James makes that clear.
Man’s wrath and God’s wrath are not the same. So
we must never try to understand the wrath of God
by our understanding of human wrath.

What then is God’s wrath? It is His hatred for

sin. God hates sin. Why does He hate sin? I’ll tell
you why: because He loves us. God cannot love
us and love sin at the same time. You know why?
Because sin is a killer! Paul tells us in 1
Corinthians 15:56:

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is

the law.

Sin kills. It kills you and me. God hates sin

because He loves us. He “so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son” [John 3:16]. Why
did He give His Son? That we may escape that
death that sin brings to us.

33
 So the wrath of God is hatred for sin because
He loves us. Please keep that in mind. Now there
is a problem here because we human beings have
difficulty separating sin from the sinner. When
somebody does something bad, we look down on
the individual. But God makes a distinction
between sin and the sinner. He loves the sinner but
He hates the sin. And He hates sin because He
loves the sinner. We human beings, when we hate
sin, we sometimes hate the sinners, too. And that’s
the tragedy, that’s our human problem. So that’s
number one.

But as you look at the verse you will notice that

the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against
two things, not against one but against two things.
We have dealt with one. We have dealt with
unrighteousness, which is synonymous with sin.
But Paul says that God’s wrath is revealed from
heaven against all ungodliness.

That word, “ungodliness,” can have two

meanings, basically, in the New Testament. For
example, it could mean what Paul meant in
34
Romans 4:5, referring to Abraham, that we are
unlike God. Sinners are ungodly in the sense that
they are sinners and God is righteous, He’s holy.
So we are unlike God.

But here Paul is not using the meaning of

ungodliness in that sense. The context tells us that
what Paul means here is ungodliness in people who
deliberately, willfully, persistently want to live
without God. He hates that. He hates ungodliness.
Why? I’ll tell you why. Turn to John 3. Now you
are all familiar with verse 16 which says that:

For God so loved the world that he gave his

one and only Son, that whoever believes in him
shall not perish but have eternal life.

God doesn’t want any of us to perish, so He

gave us His Son. In verse 17 He says:

For God did not send his Son into the world to
condemn the world, but to save the world through
him.

35
 And then in verse 18 he goes on to say that
those who believe in His Son shall not be
condemned, but those who reject His Son already
stand condemned:

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but

whoever does not believe stands condemned
already because he has not believed in the name of
God’s one and only Son.

But the verse that I want you to look at is verse

36, at the conclusion of this chapter, John 3:36:

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life,

but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for
God’s wrath remains on him.

You see, there is one sin that God cannot

forgive, and that’s the sin of unbelief. If you reject
the gift of God, then there is no way that God can
save you. So, His wrath is against ungodliness
because He loves you; He doesn’t want you to be
lost. We will see this more and more as we go
along. So in summary:
36
 1. The wrath of God is His hatred for sin, and
He hates sin because He loves us.
2. God’s love is hatred for unrighteousness
because He knows that the moment that you
reject Him, you have rejected life. And He
doesn’t want that. He hates ungodliness
because He cannot save us by our
ungodliness.

Having said that, I want you to look at the next

thing that is extremely important in verse 18:

The wrath of God is being revealed from

heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness
of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.

God’s wrath, says Paul, has been revealed,

against two things:

1. All ungodliness, and

2. The unrighteousness (or wickedness) of men.

I want to emphasize the order in which the

37
Apostle points his finger at man’s problem. You
will notice that he puts “ungodliness” first. Then,
in his thinking, unrighteousness follows. To him,
the big thing, the important thing, is ungodliness.
Now this is important for us to realize. Especially
today, because the modern approach is that man’s
real problem is unrighteousness. We read about
the terrible things that are taking place in our
country, and we say that man’s problem is
unrighteousness. Ungodliness is hardly mentioned.
But unrighteousness is the consequence,
unrighteousness is the fruit of ungodliness. So the
problem is not unrighteousness, it is ungodliness.
When man turns his back to God, the result of that
is unrighteousness. So the cause of man’s problem
is not unrighteousness, the cause of man’s problem
is ungodliness.

We need to be aware of this because, for the

last few decades, unfortunately, the American
nation is gradually beginning to turn its back to
God. Ever since secular humanism has come in,
we have been turning our backs to God. What we
have been seeing is unrighteousness. But
38
unrighteousness is the fruits of this. I will mention
this more as we come towards the end.

But I want you to realize that it is not possible

to solve man’s problems of unrighteousness that
we are seeing today by human effort. There are
many who are saying today that we need to have
more dialogue. These are modern theologians who
are saying this. “The world is torn,” they say, “it is
divided in all kinds of sections — political
sections, color divisions, racial, you name it. It is a
world of various kinds of curtains — bamboo
curtains, iron curtains — and all that man needs is
to reconcile man with man.” Hardly anything is
mentioned in terms of man’s relationship to God,
which is the heart of the problem.

Sin today is regarded as sickness, a disease

which needs to be cured by man. Sin sometimes is
looked upon as the remnants of our animal nature:
“it is only a question of time, as we develop and
progress in life, that we will get rid of this
problem.” But all the time, as I mentioned, it is
man in terms of man, man in relationship to man.
39
But the problem is not there; the problem is man’s
relationship to God. This is the key problem and
we need to realize that.

So Paul is saying God hates, He detests, His

wrath from heaven is revealed, against
ungodliness, and its fruit, unrighteousness. Then,
having made that statement, you will notice why.
It is because man, deliberately, in His sinful state,
wants to suppress the truth. Man does not like,
says Paul, to retain the knowledge of God because
he detests God. We will see that the reason that
man does not like to retain the knowledge of God
is because man, who is egocentric, does not want to
accept the fact that he can do nothing to save
himself.

You see, man doesn’t like to be a beggar. Man

hates to be given a gift when he can’t repay it. You
have to live in the third world to realize this. They
will accept your foreign aid, but they hate you for
it. Why? Because you are revealing that they are
incapable of helping themselves. That is
unpleasant to the human ego. So many Americans
40
overseas wonder why these third world people do
not love them when their country is pouring so
much into their country. Well, it’s for one reason:
because you are revealing that they are beggars.
They are incapable of saving themselves. Man
doesn’t like to think that he can’t save himself. He
wants to do something towards his salvation. And
Jesus says, “Without me you can do nothing!” And
that’s painful.

How is the ungodliness of man revealed from

heaven? First of all, it was revealed in the Bible, in
the history of the Old Testament. You will notice
that, ever since the fall of man, this has been his
tendency: to run away from God. Let me give you
some examples.

Adam and Eve before the fall were happy to

welcome God; they had communion with Him
every day. But when Adam sinned and God came
to visit them, what did they do? They ran away
from God. And man has since then always been
running away from God. Now look at Romans
1:19:
41
 ...Since what may be known about God is plain
to them, because God has made it plain to them.

In other words, if man does not have a

knowledge of God, says Paul, it is not because he’s
ignorant about God, it is because he has
deliberately pushed God out of the picture. Man
began with a knowledge of God. If he has failed to
know God today it’s because he does not want to
know God. Look at verse 20:

For since the creation of the world God’s

invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine
nature — have been clearly seen, being understood
from what has been made, so that men are without
excuse.

In other words, God has revealed Himself to

man:

1. in them [i.e., men themselves]; and

2. in nature.

42
 When Adam and Eve sinned, God’s image was
not totally wiped out. There was still left in Adam
and Eve, and in the human race, a desire to seek
after God. God said to the first parents, “I will put
enmity between Satan and you” [Genesis 3:15].

Besides this, Paul says, “Nature, creation, tell

me how on earth can you imagine that this
complex, highly refined, highly planned, highly
organized world of ours could come about just by
chance? By the mixture of gases that suddenly
produced life and with the evolutionary urge
gradually improved until we became what we are?”
Boy, if I take some scrap metals and put them in a
bag and shake them for a million years, or for 50
million years, I will not get a Cadillac. All I will
get is some polished iron that is worthless. The
creation of this world is so highly organized, ... I
mean, we boast of our technology, and I am sure
that the angels up there are laughing at us. They
think, “Wait till they come to heaven and realize
what else they have to learn.” We will realize that
we knew nothing on this earth.

43
 But in spite of everything that God has given in
terms of evidence, man does not want to retain the
knowledge of God. This is the fundamental
problem with sinful man. He thinks he can live
without God. What does he do when he turns his
back to God? Look at verse 21, first part:

For although they knew God, they neither

glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him ...

So there are two problems now:

1. Not only does man refuse to acknowledge

God,
2. He is ungrateful for all that God has done.

Do you know that the moment Adam sinned,

legally, he had no right to live one second? Do you
know that the moment Adam sinned, he should
have died? (By the way, if he had died, we would
have died in Him.)

But because God had planned a way of escape,

because God from the foundation of the world,
44
predestined all men to be redeemed in His Son, He
kept Adam and Eve alive and allowed them to have
children. Why? Not because He hates us, but
because He wants us redeemed. God is the source
of every blessing that comes in this world. And
what do we do? Man is unthankful, He is not only
ungodly but he’s unthankful. And Paul goes on to
say [in the rest of verse 21]:

... but their thinking became futile and their

foolish hearts were darkened.

When man turns his back to God, when man

rejects God, all he is left with is darkness. Man
thinks he can live without God, but the answer is,
he cannot!

You know, when we were in Ethiopia, the year

after we arrived, Ethiopia experienced what is
known as the Marxist Revolution. What disturbed
me was to see how many Christians, both in the
other churches and in our churches (especially the
educated Christians), who fell for Marxism. They
did not fall for the practise of Communism, they
45
fell for the ideology.

I said to myself, there must be something

attractive. So I began buying books. I bought Karl
Marx and Engel’s The Communist Manifesto, Das
Kapital, and I began reading ... and it is heavy
stuff, very heavy stuff. I realized that the heart of
Marxism is that man is able to save himself. The
essence of Marxism is “ungodliness”; it is an
atheistic philosophy.

This is how Karl Marx put it. He says that the

problem is man’s selfishness. He admitted that
man is selfish. He called it “self-alienation,” his
term for selfishness. He said that man is selfish,
but he said the reason why he is selfish is because
of his environment. Of course, by environment, he
meant, to a large degree, “capitalism,” which was
the situation in 19th century Europe. He said, “It is
capitalism that has made us greedy. It is capitalism
that has taught us that we must live for ourselves.
So therefore I have a gospel, not the gospel of
Jesus Christ, but my gospel is: change the
environment, and man will be redeemed.”
46
 Of course, the mechanics of changing the
environment is a revolution. The purpose of a
revolution is to get into the hands of the people the
property and the riches and the wealth of the
country. Once they have this in their hands, the
second step is to change the environment from
capitalism to socialism. Those who have must be
forced to share with others who do not have.

So the work of socialism is to confiscate

private ownership — the banks, businesses — and
make equal distribution. Wonderful! Then Karl
Marx states that this is only a transition stage; this
is the gospel which will save man from economic
and social injustices.

Then he said, once man has learned and been

taught how to share, it will become spontaneous.
Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? Well, Russia has
changed her environment for the last 70 years. I
wonder how unselfish the Russians are?

The problem of man is not his environment. It

47
is his nature. And science cannot change my
nature. God can change my sinful heart and give
me a heart of the flesh. But man cannot. So every
human attempt to save himself (and I say
humanism is part of that program) is bound to end
with failure, because Jesus made it clear:

Without me, you cannot do anything.

And so Paul is showing here that man has

within himself a tendency to turn his back to God.
Now how does God react to this? Listen to verses
22-23; what does man do:

Although they claimed to be wise, they became

fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God
for images made to look like mortal man and birds
and animals and reptiles.

Now you may say, “We don’t do this today.

We are living in sophisticated, educated America.
We don’t worship four-footed beasts.” No, you
don’t. But we do worship ourselves. Even in the
church, it’s becoming a problem. There is
48
something that is creeping into our church which
was introduced by liberal theologians and that is
the historical-critical method of interpreting
Scripture. It’s a big term. What does it mean? It
simply means that the human mind becomes the
measuring stick of truth. It’s a very subtle form of
ungodliness. Man must interpret scripture on what
is rational to him, what makes sense to him, what is
within the framework of human experience.

We cannot use the scientific method to interpret

Scripture! This was an inspired Book. It is the
Holy Spirit that must enlighten us. But man thinks
that he has the solution to all his problems.

What does God do to such people? Does He

bring fire and wipe us all out? No. Listen to verse
24. Listen to verse 26. Listen to verse 28. This is
their finest description of the wrath of God. You
will discover that unlike human wrath, God’s wrath
is passive. How does God’s wrath work? How is
it revealed from heaven? Look at Romans1:24:

Therefore [because man insists on living

49
without Him, therefore, Paul says] God gave them
over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual
impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one
another.

Romans1:26:

Because of this [because man refuses the

blessings of God], God gave them over to shameful
lusts [and to uncleanness]. Even their women
exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.

Romans1:28:

Furthermore, since they did not think it

worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God [Please
notice man’s problem: he does not want to retain
God in his knowledge.], he gave them over to a
depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.

In other words, God says to mankind, “Okay, I

have tried and tried to convince you that you
cannot live without Me, but you insist that you can.
I am not going to force you (God is love). I am
50
going to let you go. If you think that you can live
without me, go ahead and see how wonderful you
can make this world.”

What happens when man turns his back on God

and lives independent of God? What happens
when God draws back His restraining forces?
What happens? Unrighteousness becomes
rampant.

Paul is not telling us something that happened

in his day. This is not simply ancient history. This
is the Biblical view of human history. It happened
during the flood time. It happened during the
history of Israel. It happened in the Christian
church since Jesus Christ. This happened in this
country.

This country was established on the principle

that was stamped on our coins: “In God We
Trust.” But a few decades ago, we felt that we
don’t need God. So the first thing we did, in the
name of separation of church and state, was that
there must be no more praying in the schools. In
51
other words, we were telling our kids, we don’t
need God. We have science, we have technology,
we don’t need God. Today, the discussion is going
on, that we don’t need that inscription on our coins.
There are people today, who are fighting to remove
that inscription, “In God We Trust” from our
quarter. They don’t want it any more.

“Yes, our forefathers, those in the depression,

they needed God, but we have social security, we
have welfare, we have oil, we have technology, we
have computers, you press a button and boy...!”

They’re telling me today that there is a

computer, and I’m looking forward to it, that you
can speak to and it types what you speak, with the
correct spelling. The only trouble is it’s $15,000 at
the moment. So if any of you have $15,000 to
spare, because this African bush preacher does not
know how to type. I have to handwrite all my
material and my poor wife types it out. Sometimes
my secretary does it and she has a hard time
understanding my handwriting.

52
 Wonderful inventions! Of course, people
forget that science has also invented the monster
that can wipe us all out in a few moments. But the
trouble is, has technology, has science, improved
life in America? Or is crime increasing by leaps
and bounds? I don’t care how many reformed
movements are brought out in this country, I don’t
care how many legislations, how many mitigations
of justice we instill in our system. As long as we
turn our backs to God, there is no solution.

Now what does God do? He says, “Okay, you

don’t want to live with me. Go ahead.” And man
begins to live without God, and things get worse
and worse. They try everything under the sun to
solve their problems. They try education, they try
dialogue. They try increasing the budget to stop
drugs in this country. And everything is failing.
God is waiting until we raise up our hands and say,
“God, we can’t do it.”

When my son was young, we were about ready

to go to Sabbath school. He was just a kid, three
years old I think. My wife said to me, “Could you
53
tie his shoelaces?”

I went up to him and I said, “Let me tie your

shoelaces.” He looked at me and said, “I can do
it!”

I could have used my authority, because we

were getting late for Sabbath school, but I thought,
no, I’ll let him do it. So I stood back. He tried and
he tried. It looked so easy when Daddy tied his
shoelaces. He looked up to see if I was going, but I
wasn’t, and I think he was telling me, “Why don’t
you go away?” But I waited there, and he tried and
tried. Finally, he looked up to me and said,
“Daddy, you do it.”

We are God’s children, and God is extremely

patient with us. He lets us have our own way. He
says, “You think you can live without me? Go
ahead.” He allows us to make a mess of our lives.
He allows us to make a mess of our country and
our community, of our marriages and everything
else, until we come to the end of our resources and
say, “God, please, you take over.”
54
 He doesn’t say, “I told you so. Now you can
wallow in your mess.” He doesn’t do that. He
says, “I will accept you with open arms.”

America is heading in that direction. America

is about to reach the end of her resources. When
our social security collapses, and when our
resources collapse, and when every attempt to
solve the problems collapses, and we turn back to
God, He will not reject us. America will be ready
to hear the gospel again. And who will preach the
gospel to them? It is you and I.

But before we can do it, we must realize and

reach the position that Paul reached himself. Paul
was a Pharisee. He had attained quite some
success in his life. Read Philippians 3, verses 4 to
6: he was a pure-blooded Jew, he was circumcised
the eighth day, he was zealous for God. Regarding
the righteousness of the law he was blameless.
Until God opened his eyes and sin revived and he
realized that he deserved death. Then he was
willing to count all things but loss for Jesus Christ.
55
 The question is, “Have you lost all confidence
in yourself?” Have you realized that your only
hope is in Jesus Christ and His Righteousness?
That is the purpose of exposing us to our problem.
We don’t have to learn the hard way. The word of
God says that God’s wrath is revealed from heaven
against ungodliness and unrighteousness. I don’t
have to go through the process to learn it. The
word of God tells me that. So why are we waiting
to learn the hard way? Let us realize now that our
faith looks not at ourselves, but on Jesus Christ,
and His Righteousness.

May each one of us realize that God’s wrath is

against ungodliness and unrighteousness because
He loves you, not because He’s angry with you.
He wants you to turn back to Him. He wants you
to accept Him as the only Source of hope and of
salvation and of Righteousness. Whether it is in
terms of your standing before God or whether it is
in terms of Christian living, the formula is always
the same: “Not I, but Christ.”

56
 And I’ll tell you, folks, the “not I” is the
hardest part. That is why Paul spends verse 18
right up to chapter 3 verse 20 on the sin problem.
He wants to establish in our hearts that the gospel
is “not I, but Christ.” And may we learn this
lesson.

57
 Chapter 3

The Sin of Self-Righteousness

(Romans 2:1-3:8)

I want you to imagine that you are sitting in the

church of Rome when the epistle to the Romans is
first read. An elder or a scribe or leader has been
reading chapter one, verse 18 up to verse 32.
While this passage is being read — where Paul
describes the wrath of God revealed against all
ungodliness and unrighteousness of man and the
terrible things that men are doing because they
have turned their backs to God — you notice that a
group of Christians sitting on one side, these are
Jewish Christians, are nodding their heads and
whispering to one another, “This Paul surely has
hit the nail on the head. We have always known
that these Gentiles are rebellious and sinful.”

Suddenly the reader turns to chapter 2 and

these Jewish Christians prick up their ears, because
this is what they hear in chapter 2:1-4:
58
 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass
judgment on someone else, for at whatever point
you judge the other, you are condemning yourself,
because you who pass judgment do the same
things. Now we know that God’s judgment against
those who do such things is based on truth. So
when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and
yet do the same things, do you think you will
escape God’s judgment? Or do you show contempt
for the riches of his kindness, tolerance, and
patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads
you toward repentance?

And the Jews began to say to themselves,

“Surely he is not talking about us. We are Jews.
How can he talk about us like that? Surely he must
mean somebody else.”

And the scribe is reading on and he comes to

verse 17:

Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely

on the law and brag about your relationship to
59
God....

Paul says, “Yes indeed, I am talking to you

Jews. Indeed you are called a Jew and you trust in
the Lord and you make your boast of God...,” and
he goes on and on.

You see, Paul has been describing the Gentile

world in chapter 1, and he has given us a terrible
picture of death. They are ungodly, they have
deliberately suppressed the truth about God, they
have made their own gods, they are worshipping
themselves and their ideas, and they are living in
sin. And now, suddenly, he changes from the
Gentiles to the Jews.

Why does he make this distinction? It is

because the Jews were in a very special position.
You see, the Gentiles did have a knowledge of
God, but it was an implicit knowledge of God: it
was a knowledge of God that was revealed to them
through nature and through their inner conviction.

The Jews, over and above this, had the direct

60
revelation of God. As Paul mentioned in chapter 3,
verse 2:

...First of all, they have been entrusted with the

very words of God.

God had revealed Himself to them through His

law, through Moses, and through the other prophets
— revealed Himself in a very special and explicit
way.

The tragedy was that the Jews were relying on

this. They felt, because God had given them this
special position, that they were very special people.
They felt, because they had the law in this explicit
form, that they were better off than the Gentiles.
They felt that these things, in and of themselves,
made them acceptable to God. But they were
ignorant. They were ignorant of the fact that these
things did not make them special before God.

Before we discuss the Jews, I would like to say

something here that is meaningful to us because
you may get the impression that he is discussing
61
the Jews. You see, when we dealt last study with
the Gentile world, we applied it to our nation
because, today, America is turning her back to God
and we have seen terrible things happen because of
ungodliness.

But now I want to get a little bit closer. I

believe that what Paul is saying to the Jews has a
tremendous application to us as a people. I’ll tell
you why, because we have a very similar position
to the Jews. To us, God has given some wonderful
truths. He has restored the law to us. We have the
genuine Sabbath. We have a clearer understanding
of the cross; we understand about the state of the
dead. So, God has given us some wonderful truth.
He has given us the Spirit of Prophecy, a lesser
light to lead us to the greater light. And we are in
the same danger as the Jews, of relying on these
things.

We have committed the same mistake, folks.

We have looked down upon the other Christians as
if they were inferior Christians. We look upon
them and say that they don’t have the Sabbath, we
62
have it. We have the truth; they are Philistines.
They are Babylonians, they are confused. We have
the truth. But the Jews had the same problem and
we need to learn what Paul is trying to say about
them.

Please remember, Paul was a Pharisee himself,

once. He knows what he is talking about and he is
being honest and we need to face the issue
honestly. What was the problem of the Jews?
Where did they go wrong? Can we learn lessons
from their mistakes? I read in I Corinthians 10,
verse 11 that:

These things happened to them as examples

and were written down as warnings for us, on
whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.

What was their problem? What were they

ignorant about? I would like to touch three areas.

Number one, the Jews were ignorant about the

fact that the mere possession of truth, the mere
knowledge of the law do not in and of themselves
63
make them righteous and acceptable before God.
The fact that you know the law doesn’t improve
your situation. In fact, if you break the law of a
country and you are brought before a judge, and
you tell the judge, “Look, why are you accusing
me? I knew the law.” The judge will say, “The fact
that you knew the law puts you in a worse position
because you knew better!”

So the fact that the Jews knew the law did not
make them better. Please notice where Paul
touches the heart of the problem. Look at chapter
2, verse 13. Paul says there that:

For it is not those who hear the law who are

righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey
the law who will be declared righteous.

If you want to be saved by the law, it is not

enough to say, “I know the law.” It is not enough
to say, “I have the law in its explicit form.” You
have to perform that law. You have to do it in
every detail. Paul repeats the same thing when he
discusses the Jews in chapter 10 of Romans. In
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Chapter 10, verse 5, he says:

Moses describes in this way the righteousness

that is by the law: “The man who does these things
will live by them.”

In other words, the law comes to you and says,

“If you want to live, you must obey me.” A
knowledge of the truth, a knowledge of the law,
does not save anybody.

But the Jews had this tragedy. The tragedy was

they thought that because they possessed this law
that they were better than the Gentiles. They
would look at the Gentiles and they would say,
“Well, these Gentiles, they do not know the law of
God. They don’t even know the true God. We
have that truth. They are outside the covenant of
God; they are dogs. They are hopelessly lost. We
have the truth.” This is how they boasted. Look at
verse 17-20:

Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely

on the law [that is, your knowledge of the law] and
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brag about your relationship to God; if you know
his will and approve of what is superior because
you are instructed by the law; if you are convinced
that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those
who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a
teacher of infants, becaue you have in the law the
embodiment of knowledge and truth....

But Paul says in verses 21-23:

...You, then, who teach others, do you not teach

yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you
steal? You who say that people should not commit
adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor
idols, do you rob temples? You who brag about the
law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?

He ends up by saying in verse 24 a quotation

from Ezekiel 36:22:

As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed

among the Gentiles because of you.”

It is not enough to say that we have the truth.

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The question is, has the truth set you free? It is no
use boasting about your knowledge of the truth of
the law of God because Paul is saying that, while
you are boasting, you are doing the same thing as
the Gentiles.

Now, they may not be doing things openly.

You know, a legalist tends to do things
underhandedly. I want to tell you a little
experience. The other day I was at the supermarket
and I said to myself, “Thanksgiving is approaching
and it’s about time I bought my dog a nice, juicy
bone.” So I went to the meat section and I looked
around to see if there were any Adventists. I got a
nice, juicy bone and I held it under my arm and I
went to the counter and a few days later one of the
members of the church came up to me and said,
“What were you doing with that bone under your
arm?”

We human beings are, by nature, legalists. We

want to hide. These Jews openly they were not
doing things. They were very holy people, because
I read Matthew 23:5:
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 Everything they do is done for men to see.

But all the things they did were to show other

people how good they were, but inside they were
full of rotten bones, and I don’t mean dog bones
either. Matthew 23:27-28:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees,

you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs,
which look beautiful on the outside but on the
inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything
unclean. In the same way, on the outside you
appear to people as righteous but on the inside you
are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

It is simply not enough to know the truth. The

fact that God has given us extra light doesn’t make
us better.

Problem #2: The Jews felt that keeping the law

to the best of their ability or keeping the majority
of the law was sufficient. They failed to see what
James says in chapter 2, verse 10:
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 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet
stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all
of it.

The law is a unit and, if you fail on one point

only, you have come under the condemnation of
the law.

I remember an elder in Africa who told me,

“You know, Pastor, I have overcome most sins and
I am living a good life but I have one or two
problems that I am still struggling with. But surely
God cannot bring that against me when he
compares it to all the good things I am doing.”

I said, “Brother, if you are depending on the

law, even if you break on one small point, you are
finished.” I gave him the illustration of Matthew
19:16-22:

A young man comes to Jesus and says, “What

good thing must I do to earn eternal life?”

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 And Jesus said, “If you want to go to heaven by
your deeds, there is the law that is the definition of
righteousness.”

And he said, “Well, Jesus, I want you to know

that, ever since I was in primary sabbath school, I
have been keeping that law.”

And Jesus said, “Really? Let me test you.”

And, when he failed, he had to go home
sorrowfully.

If you break the law on one point, that’s all,

you are finished if you are depending on the law
for your salvation. The law is rigid. It demands
perfect obedience on every point. Galatians 3,
verse 10:

All who rely on observing the law are under a

curse, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who
does not continue to do everything written in the
Book of the Law.”

So, #2, the Jews went wrong, they were

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ignorant of the fact that they had to keep the law in
every detail if they were to be saved by the law.

But point #3, which is an extremely important

point: the Jews were correct, the Jews were
experts, only in the letter of the law. They had
failed to see that the law demands obedience in the
heart, in the spirit. The Jew, the Pharisee would
stand up and say to the people, “I have never
murdered anybody.”

Jesus, in Matthew 5, verse 21 onward, says:

“One moment, if you hate somebody in your heart
without a cause, you have committed murder in the
eyes of the law.” And remember, when Jesus
spoke that sermon on the mount, the Jews were
already planning to murder the Son of God. It is
not a question of simply regarding the letter. Paul
himself was a victim to Judaism. But in Romans
7:7 he says:

...Indeed, I would not have know what sin was

except through the law. For I would not have
know what coveting really was if the law had not
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said, “Do not covet.”

Please notice this: it has nothing to do with an

act. We tend to define sin as an act but God
doesn’t look only at the act, He looks at our
motives. And I will say right now, here, folks, that
anyone who plans to go Ingathering that they may
have a star in their crown, are sinning because the
motive is wrong even though acts are wonderful.
Look at verse 2:16:

This will take place on the day when God will

judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my
gospel declares.

In the day of judgment, says Paul, God will

judge the secrets of men. It is not enough to obey
the law outwardly. I’ll tell you what the Jews did.
God gave them the law. Now, what is the law?
The law is a revelation of His character. Therefore,
for you to produce the character of God, you have
to be God yourself. That is why it was always
God’s purpose to dwell in people and to reflect His
character through us.
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 But the moment that you try to keep the law of
God in your own strength, you have to do what the
Jews did. They took the holy law of God, as holy
as God himself, and they brought it down to the
level of men by rules, by do’s and dont’s, and by
keeping those rules they thought they were keeping
the law.

We do the same thing, folks. The only

difference is that in each country the Adventists
have their own rules. In America we have our
rules, in Scandinavia we have our rules, in Africa
we have our rules, and, when we meet together,
that’s when the problem comes because the rules
don’t agree.

My dear people, if you are thinking of how

much you will sell your car for tomorrow, someone
is coming to see it to buy your car, and if you are
thinking right now, “How much am I going to sell
the car for?” even though you are physically in the
church right now, you are breaking the Sabbath.

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 And, young boys, if you are thinking about
why your girlfriend hasn’t written to you, you are
breaking the Sabbath. Because the law doesn’t
demand only perfect acts but perfect motives. This
was the greatest mistake of the Jews. Romans
chapter 2, verses 28 and 29:

A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly,

nor is circumcision merely outward and physical.
No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and
circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the
Spirit, not by the written code [in the spirit, not in
the letter]. Such a man’s praise is not from men,
but from God.

The Jews were doing all kinds of wonderful,

good things that they may be praised of men. But
the true Christian is one whose praise is not of men
but of God, who is keeping the law, not in the
letter, but in the spirit.

I want to make it clear that it is impossible for

you and me to keep the law in the spirit without
first accepting the Gospel. Let me give you a text.
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Since we are in Romans, Romans chapter 7 and
verse 6. Listen to what Paul is saying here:

But now, by dying to what once bound us, we

[that is, the believers] have been released from the
law [from legalism, from under the jurisdiction of
the law] so that we serve in the new way of the
Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

You see, legalism and self-righteousness are an

outward religion and Paul demolishes the platform
on which the Jews, who were depending on law-
keeping, stand.

There was something else that the Jews were

depending on. They were depending also on
circumcision. Paul says in verse 25 of chapter 2:

Circumcision has value if you observe the law,

but if you break the law, you have become as
though you had not been circumcised.

In other words, if you have turned to

circumcision as a means of salvation, you must
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keep all of the law and please remember that, to the
Jew, there was not that much of a distinction
between ceremonial and moral law. We make that
distinction; the Jews did not. To them the Torah —
all of the five books and the requirements in the
five books of Moses — were part of the law and
they believed that they must keep that in every
detail.

But Paul says, if you are depending on

circumcision for your ticket to heaven, for your
acceptance before God, may I warn you that you
are under obligation to keep every other law to be
saved.

Paul demolishes the same thing today, if you

are depending on certain things that you have done.
If you are depending on the fact that you were
baptized by immersion, please don’t look down
upon those Christians who were baptized by
sprinkling and say, “They know nothing about
baptism, I am the one who was baptized by
immersion.” Folks, that won’t help you.

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 These things are good if you have a right
relationship with Christ, but without that, they are
useless. Don’t think that because your name is in
the books of the Adventist Church that it qualifies
you for heaven. Don’t think that because your
parents or your great grandparents were pillars of
the church, maybe even having been pioneers [of
the Adventist faith], that it will save you.

I remember one day when I was in the New

Gallery Centre in London, a young man came up
and he wanted somebody in our group to show him
around. He said, “By the way, I want you to know
that I am from the General Conference” [the World
Headquarters of the Seventh-day Adventist
Church].

I said to him, “So what? Does that give you any

special privilege?” And he was taken back. I
wasn’t working there; my wife was. She was the
bible instructor. I was having a little bit of fun and
later on I discovered that he was a janitor in the
General Conference. I would have given him a
special privilege, but I thought that he was
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demanding attention because he was from the G.C.

I don’t care where you come from — your

father, your parents may have been pioneers — that
doesn’t give you a special place in God’s kingdom.
God is no respecter of persons and that is what
Paul is explaining to the Jews in verse 5 onwards.
Look at Romans 2:14-15 for example:

Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the

law, do by nature things required by the law, they
are a law for themselves, even though they do not
have the law, since they show that the requirements
of the law are written on their hearts, their
consciences also bearing witness, and their
thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.

In other words, “there are Gentiles there who

are closer to God than you Jews are,” and that was
devastating.

I suppose, by the time the reader was reading

chapter 2, verse 14 onward, if Paul was there, they
would have lynched him because they did it in the
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books of Acts. They grabbed him. “This is the
man who is against our people!”

No, what Paul is doing is destroying every

confidence that men have, Jew or Gentile, in
themselves. Because he cannot give the gospel
unless he has destroyed that confidence. I
remember preaching at a series of meetings at a
Pentecostal church in Addis Abbaba [Ethiopia] and
one day the pastor said to me, “Why don’t you
preach on the Sabbath?”

So I gave them full studies, and do you know,

the whole church turned to Sabbath-keeping. They
call themselves Seventh-day Pentecostals. One
day, the pastor came to our church in Addis
Abbaba to hear me preach and the sabbath school
secretary of our union turned to him and said, “I
hear you people are keeping the Sabbath.” They
had 800 members in their church.

The pastor said, “Yes.”

The secretary said, “Why did you change your

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name? All you had to do was join our church. We
keep the Sabbath.”

The pastor replied, “I hate to say this, but I am

going to be honest. When you Adventists learn
how to love and be warm to other Christians, we
will join you.”

So, that was a slap in the face.

But folks, we boast that we keep the law of

God because we love Jesus. Are we really loving
Jesus? For if we love Jesus we will love our
neighbors. Are we making the same mistake as the
Jews? Are we blaspheming the name of God?
Look at Romans 2:26:

If those who are not circumcised keep the law’s

requirements, will they not be regarded as though
they were circumcised?

See, God is looking at the heart of people. Are

we right inside? As long as we have outward
conformity, that means nothing to God.
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 Now what is Paul trying to say here? Can you
imagine what the Jews were thinking by the time
that chapter 2 was read? Does Paul mean that there
was no advantage to being a Jew? Is there no
advantage in being a Seventh-day Adventist? The
answer is in verse 1 of chapter 3 of Romans:

What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew,

or what value is there in circumcision? Much in
every way! First of all, they have been entrusted
with the very words of God.

God gave the Jews the truth as it is in Christ.

He gave them the truth to lead them to Christ.
What was wrong with the Jews? They took the
truth and they perverted it. They made the law the
means of salvation. Instead of the law showing
them their total depravity so that they may go to
Christ for salvation, they made the law their
salvation. My dear people, we have the truth, but
has the truth led us to a closer walk with Jesus
Christ? That’s the question.

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 I want to remind you in closing that Paul has a
purpose in dealing with the sin problem, both with
the Gentiles and with the Jews. The purpose of this
passage, up to chapter 3, verse 20, is to destroy in
every human being, confidence in yourself, in your
ability, in your origin, in everything that you rely
on, that you may accept nothing else but Jesus
Christ as your hope and as your righteousness. In
other words, Paul is saying, “I don’t care if you are
Jew or if you are a Gentile. The whole world is
under sin. The whole world is a slave to sin. The
whole world is controlled by sin and, therefore, by
the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.”

Let me put it this way, the formula of the

gospel, as I have mentioned before and I repeat
again today, is: “Not I, but Christ.” The hardest
part of the formula is the first part, “Not I.” That is
the purpose of this first section of Romans. Paul
paints a gloomy, dismal picture of not only the
Gentile world, but of his own people, the Jews. It
doesn’t matter if you are in the church or you are
out of the church, we are 100 percent sinners and,
once we are convinced of that, we will stop
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pointing fingers at each other. You see, if I think
of myself as 80 percent a sinner and you are 100
percent a sinner, I can point my finger at you
because I am 20 percent better than you. But if we
all are 100 percent sinners, we all belong to the
same camp and together we will turn to Jesus
Christ and his gospel as our only hope.

In concluding, I want to give you a text which

is Paul’s burden in this passage. Philippians 3:3,
and this is the purpose of this passage, so please
don’t get discouraged. As I mentioned last
Sabbath, Paul has to destroy your confidence in
yourself before he can say, “But now I have good
news.” You see, Christ did not come to save good
people, he didn’t even come to save 99 percent
sinners, but he came to save only 100 percent
sinners and we must reach that point before the
gospel can become fully effective in our lives.
Here is Paul’s true application of circumcision,
here is what it means to worship God in the spirit
(Philippians 3:3):

For it is we who are the circumcision, we who

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worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ
Jesus...

To worship God in the spirit means to rejoice in

Christ Jesus. That’s not difficult if the other half is
already reached. And here it is:

...and who put no confidence in the flesh....

Please notice that “Not I, but Christ.” When

you have no confidence in the flesh, then you and I
are ready for the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now there is one more study — Romans 3:9-20

— where Paul summarizes and concludes the
universal sin problem. I realize it’s a dark, dismal,
hopeless picture, but there is good news ahead and
Paul is simply preparing us for that good news. I
pray that you will not be among those who will feel
insulted by what Paul is writing about the human
race — about you and me — but that you will
agree with Paul: “Paul, you are dead right, we are
sinners. Our hope is in Jesus Christ and His
righteousness alone.”
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 May God help us to realize our total depravity,
that in and apart from the grace of God we are
incapable of doing one bit of righteousness in the
spirit. We may be doing it in the letter, but not in
the spirit.

May God help us to take what Paul is saying

about the Jews and apply to us, and say, “Paul,
thank you for opening our eyes. We recognize that
there is nothing good in us. Thank you, so that we
may accept the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

May God help us that we shall know this truth

and the truth will make us free. Amen.

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 Chapter 4

Universal Sin and Guilt

(Romans 3:9-20)

Imagine Paul’s epistle to the Romans being

read to the church of Rome for the first time. In
chapter one, Paul describes the wrath of God
revealed against all ungodliness and the
unrighteousness of man. The Jewish Christians
would have assumed he was speaking about the
Gentiles. Then, in chapter 2, he speaks to the Jews
and says, “You Jews are no better than the
Gentiles. Even though you have an advantage, you
have the oracles of God, the fact that you have the
knowledge of the law has not made you any better.
You are all sinners.”

Then, in chapter 3, verses 9 to 20, he brings this

whole matter to a conclusion. It is important that
we understand this, because what Paul is
describing here in this first section of Romans is
not just ancient history. It is true of the world in
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which we are living.

Recently, a survey was made by a company

called Frank Magid Associates concerning the
attitudes [in the U.S.A.] towards religion and
religious things. This survey was made in three
mega-cities in this country: Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania; Des Moines, Iowa; and Seattle,
Washington. I want you to listen to what their
conclusion was.

In Seattle, only about a third are currently

affiliated with a church. Only one-third of the
residents of Seattle feel a need for God. Instead,
most in Seattle believe “that humans can live good
and proper lives without a formal religious
structure.” (They need to read Romans 1, verse 18
to chapter 3.) These participants feel that, through
proper human interaction and communication with
nature, people can lead full and morally upright
lives. “We don’t need a God” — that’s our modern
world, folks. “We can live good, moral, upright
lives.” Is that true? Let’s see what the Bible says.

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 This section of Romans 3:9-20 is extremely
important, as I have already said. What I am going
to do is look at it in a general way first and then we
are going to look at it in detail, because when we
come to grips with this passage, then and then only,
are we ready for the gospel. It is no use coming to
Christ as you are unless you learn what Paul is
saying here: that from head to foot there is nothing
good in us; that salvation is entirely a gift from our
Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, let’s look at verse 9:

What shall we conclude then? Are we any

better?

“Are we Jews” (which is what we discussed in

chapter 2 and the first half of chapter 3) “better
than they?” (the Gentiles which we discussed in
chapter 1, verse 18 to the end of the chapter). And
what is his answer?

Not at all! We have already made the charge

that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin.

Then, to defend this conclusion, he puts

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together a string of quotations from the old
testament. He does not quote them in detail; you
need to look at what the Bible teaches regarding
man, whether you are a Jew or a Gentile.

Verses 10-12 are a quotation from Psalms 14:1-

3 and Psalms 53:1-3 (which are virtually identical):

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”

They are corrupt, and their ways are vile; there is
no one who does good. God looks down from
heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any
who understand, any who seek God. Everyone has
turned away, they have together become corrupt;
there is no one who does good, not even one.

Verse 12 ends with a quotation from

Ecclesiastes 7:20:

There is not a righteous man on earth who does

what is right and never sins.

The first half of verse 13 is a quotation from

Psalms 5:9:
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 Not a word from their mouth can be trusted;
their heart is filled with destruction. Their throat is
an open grave; with their tongue they speak deceit.

The second half of verse 13 is taken from from

Psalms 140:3:

They make their tongues as sharp as a

serpent’s; the poison of vipers is on their lips.

Verse 14 is a quotation from Psalms 10:7:

His mouth is full of curses and lies and threats;

trouble and evil are under his tongue.

Verses 15-17 are taken from two passages in

the old testament. First is Proverbs 1:16:

...For their feet rush into sin, they are swift to

shed blood.

The second is from Isaiah 59:7,8:

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 Their feet rush into sin; they are swift to shed
innocent blood. Their thoughts are evil thoughts;
ruin and destruction mark their ways. The way of
peace they do not know; there is no justice in their
paths. They have turned them into crooked roads;
no one who walks in them will know peace.

Finally, in verse 18, Paul concludes with

Psalms 36:1:

An oracle is within my heart concerning the

sinfulness of the wicked: There is no fear of God
before his eyes.

All these quotations from the old testament are

saying basically the same thing. Verse 10 is
saying, “There is none righteous, not even one.”
Verse 12, “There is none that does good, not even
one.” Then he concludes with those very crucial
words in verses 19 and 20:

Now we know that whatever the law says, it

says to those who are under the law, so that every
mouth may be silenced and the whole world held
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accountable to God.

Not a single human being will ever make it to

heaven — whether you are a Gentile or a Jew —
not a single human being will make it to heaven by
his own good works. No way. Every human being
will be in heaven because of Jesus Christ. Verse
20:

Therefore no one will be declared righteous in

his sight by observing the law; rather, through the
law we become conscious of sin.

Now, what is Paul telling us in this conclusion?

Let’s look now at this passage in detail. Romans
3:9:

What shall we conclude then? Are we any

better? Not at all! We have already made the
charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under
sin.

Are the Jews better than the Gentiles? Now,

why does Paul make a distinction between Jews
92
and Gentiles? Well, as we saw in the last two
studies, the Gentiles had a knowledge of the law,
but that knowledge was not in an explicit form.
They had it in their conscience. Look at chapter 2,
verses 14 and 15:

Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the

law [that is, in the written form], do by nature
things required by the law, they are a law for
themselves, even though they do not have the law,
since they show that the requirements of the law
are written on their hearts, their consciences also
bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing,
now even defending them.

In other words, God has implanted into the

heart of every human being a knowledge of the
law, in other words, a knowledge of what is right
and what is wrong.

Now, I need to pause here and make a little

distinction because if you take chapter 2 and verse
15 and then you go to chapter 8 of Hebrews, verse
10, you might be confused. There it talking of the
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new covenant:

This is the covenant I will make with the house

of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will
put my laws in their minds and write them on their
hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my
people.

It sounds as if the two are the same and so I

need to clarify the issue.

What Paul is saying in Romans 2:15 is very

different from what he is mentioning in Hebrews
8:10. When the Bible teaches that, in the new
covenant, God writes the law in our hearts, it is
very different than writing the law in the hearts of
the unbeliever and the pagans. You see, in the
pagans, he has put in the conscience a knowledge
of what is right and what is wrong, so that even in
the most primitive societies they know, they have
an idea of, what is right and what is wrong. That’s
writing the law in the conscience.

But in the new covenant, when He writes the

94
law in the heart, He doesn’t tattoo those rules in
your heart. What He does is put the love of God in
your heart, which makes the keeping of the law
possible.

So, these are two different things. In the new

covenant, which is only affecting the believer, God
puts His agape love in the heart. As we shall
discover when we come to Romans 13 onward, that
love is the fulfilment of the law. So please don’t
confuse the new covenant law written on the heart
which is the love of God poured into the heart of
the believer and what Paul is talking about
concerning the Gentiles in Romans 2:14,15.

Paul is saying that the Gentiles have a

knowledge of the law, yet not explicit knowledge
but in their conscience. They know what is right
and what is wrong. But the Jew, over and above
this, has an advantage. God has given them an
explicit knowledge of the law in a written form and
this should have been an advantage to the Jews.

But did the Jews learn from their knowledge?

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The answer is no. Instead of the law doing its job
and, therefore, bringing to the Jews the blessing of
salvation in Jesus Christ, they thought they knew
everything about the law when they were totally
ignorant about the law, as we saw in the last study.

We need to keep this in mind because we are in

the same position because of the doctrine of
dispensationalism which came to the Christian
church about the 19th Century. This doctrine has
done away with the law and God, in His mercy, has
restored the law to the Seventh-day Adventist
Church. But the question is: “Has the law done its
job in our people, or are we in the same boat as the
Jews? Have we become a very proud, self-
righteous people and do we look down upon the
other Christians as Philistines and as Babylonians,
and we are the ones who have the truth?”

So we must pay attention to what Paul is saying

here. He is saying there is no distinction. Yes,
there is a distinction in that the Jew has the
knowledge of the law in an explicit form, but,
ultimately, there is no distinction, for both Jews
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and Gentiles are under sin.

That is the next point I would like to bring to

your attention, for we have previously proved or
charged that both Jews and Gentiles (or “Greeks”)
are all under sin. Now what does he mean by the
phrase “under sin”? It’s not a phrase that we use in
modern English. It’s a phrase that was commonly
used in the slave society. A slave was always
“under” his master. The word “under” means to be
ruled by or to be dominated by. What Paul is
saying here is that he has proved that mankind,
whether Gentile or Jew, is ruled by sin. As he
brings out later in Romans 7:14, he says:

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am

unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.

We are, by nature, slaves to sin and Paul has

proven that and now he is presenting that as a fact.
Then, to buttress his conclusion, he gives this long
string of statements from the Old Testament that I
mentioned above.

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 What is he doing here? He is doing what is
commonly known as the “proof text method.” He
is putting a string of statements from the Old
Testament into one passage and we called it the
proof text method. I get from this passage that it is
not wrong to use the proof text method, but it does
become wrong when we misuse a text. Whenever
we use the proof text method, folks, please be
honest with the context; otherwise, you can make
the Bible say anything you want. So there is
nothing wrong with the proof text method; what is
wrong is when we misuse that method and I am
afraid we are guilty too often of it.

So here, Paul, using the proof text method,

proves that none is righteous, no not one. There is
none who understands true righteousness, not even
one. There is none who seeks after God, because
man, by nature, is anti-God.

“The Gentiles, even though they had the

knowledge of God through nature, refused to
acknowledge God,” says Paul in chapter 1, verse
21.
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 The Jews have the knowledge of God, but they
are doing precisely the same thing. You look at the
history of the Jews. He revealed Himself in a most
wonderful way, yet what did they do? They turned
their backs to Yahweh and they went after false
gods, after idol worship, and God had to do all
kinds of things to correct them, including the
Babylonian captivity.

There is in man a trend to go away from God

and we are seeing the trend today. We are seeing it
everywhere. Even in our church there are people
who are feeling we do not need God any more.
But, folks, we need to come to a conclusion that
apart from God there is no salvation. Apart from
Jesus Christ, man is incapable of saving himself
and we need to face this issue.

Romans 3:12:

All have turned away, they have together

become worthless; there is no one who does good,
not even one.
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 In other words, they have become independent.
“They are living without me. They think they can
exist without me. They have altogether become
unprofitable. There is none who does good, not
even one.” And he goes on and on describing the
condition of man by nature.

Then in Romans 3, verse 19, he says:

Now we know that whatever the law says, it

says to those who are under the law, so that every
mouth may be silenced and the whole world held
accountable to God.

Paul is saying that the whole world is under the

law. So there are two things that we are under.
Please notice that there are two places in this
passage where Paul uses the word “under.” In
verse 9, we are “under sin.” In verse 19, we are
“under the law.” The Gentile is under the law, the
Jew is under the law, because both have the
knowledge of the law.

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 It’s true that the one has an implicit knowledge
of the law through his conscience, the other one
has a direct, explicit knowledge of the law through
the revelation of God at Mount Sinai. But when
you come down to the bottom line, folks — to use
an American expression, “where the rubber meets
the road,” — has the Gentile obeyed his conscience
in every detail? The answer is no. Has the Jew
obeyed the law in every detail? The answer is no.
Therefore, both Jew and Gentile, who are under the
law whether you have it in an explicit form or an
implicit form, both Jew and Gentile are all guilty
before God and that includes you and that includes
me.

I want to ask you a question. Has the law

silenced your mouth? That’s the work of the law:
has it silenced your mouth? The self-righteous
man, whether he is a believer or unbeliever, stands
up and says, “Well, there is something good in me.
All I need is a proper interaction with human
beings. All I need is to educate the people.”

Or as the Marxist philosophy says, “All we

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need is to teach people to share through socialism,
by compulsion, and then they will automatically
share.”

Has the law silenced you, folks, because I’ll tell

you, you cannot go to verse 21 where Paul
introduces the gospel unless, first of all, the law has
silenced your mouth.

Paul is very clear that the gospel is not for good

people. The gospel is not for people who are half-
good or who are doing their best. The gospel is for
people who realize their total depravity, that they
cannot produce one iota of genuine righteousness
which has not been motivated by self. Impossible,
folks. Has the law silenced you? That is the
question I want to ask this morning. If it hasn’t,
then we are wasting our time next study going to
verse 21.

Paul is very forthright: the law must stop our

talking. The Jew who stood up and said, “I thank
God I am not like that publican,” will never accept
the gospel. The gospel is a stumbling stone to him
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because his prayer is, “Thank God I am a good
man. I pay my tithe and I come to church.”

I don’t care whether you are coming to church,

the question is: what about you? What are your
thoughts about? You young men, if you are
thinking about your girlfriend, you are breaking the
Sabbath whether you are in church or not. And
you old men, if you are thinking about business
tomorrow, how much you will sell your car for on
Sunday, you are breaking the Sabbath. Folks, have
we kept the law? NOBODY thus far has kept the
law. Therefore, in view of this, Paul says that by
the deeds of the law no one can make it to heaven.
Not even one.

Now I want to pause here and ask the question:

why did God give the Jews the law? I mean, over
and above the consciences they had, why did God
take time to sidetrack from His trip to Israel? If
you look at a map of the Middle East, you wonder
if God knows His geography because He took the
wrong route. He did not go straight from Egypt to
the promised land. He took them southeast
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towards Mount Sinai, there in those barren
mountains.

I’m talking from experience. Have you ever

been to Mount Sinai? The brethren in Egypt took
me there as a treat when I had a seminar with them.
I said that I wished they could take me to Mount
Zion, but they couldn’t because Zion is in Israel
and Egypt belongs to the Arab world, so they could
only take me to Mount Sinai. All I saw was rocks
and boulders and I had to climb it. I’m only
thankful for the monk who spent thirty years
carving out steps on that mountain so it would be
easy for me to climb it and easy for him, he
thought, to go to heaven, because he was working
his way to heaven and all he did was reach the top
of the mountain. The law does not produce
righteousness; it gives you the knowledge of sin.

Why Did God Give the Law?

So, why did God give the law? It’s a question

we must answer, because God has restored the law
in this church. Why? And I would like to give you
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three answers.

1. The first answer is negative. God never

gave the law as a means of salvation. Never.
Nowhere will you find in scripture that God gave
the law as a means of salvation. He gave the law
so that we may have the knowledge of sin.
Romans 3:20:

Therefore, no one will be declared righteous in

his sight by observing the law; rather, through the
law we become conscious of sin.

God never gave the law as a means of

salvation. This is the false teaching of
dispensationalism. You see, the dispensationalists
teach that God tried the law from Moses to Christ
and, because it failed, He introduced grace. These
are the people who divide the bible into sections or
dispensations. They fail to realize that the bible is
a unit and that there is only one way that man is
saved, from Adam to the last person. It is through
the grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ. There are not
one, two, or three ways of salvation. There is only
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one way that genuinely saves man: it is through
the gospel of our Lord, Jesus Christ. That is what
we must be clear on; the law was never given to
save us. If you want to add another text, look at
Galatians 2:16, where Paul says the same thing as
Romans 3:20:

...Know that a man is not justified by observing

the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too,
have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be
justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the
law, because by observing the law no one will be
justified.

I would like to add to that #1 something that

too often too many Adventists are guilty of:
neither was the law given to Christians to maintain
their salvation in Christ. God doesn’t come to the
believer and say, “Now I have forgiven you, but
you must keep the law, otherwise you have had it.”
Nowhere in the bible will you find this teaching.

So, number one, God never gave the law as a

means of salvation and God never gave the law to
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retain our salvation in Christ. Then why did He
give the law, or, to ask the question that Paul does
in Galatians 3:17-25, why did God give the law
430 years after he promised salvation to Abraham
and his seed, as a gift? Why? It was never for
salvation and never to maintain salvation. Then,
why? Now we go to the positive answer.

2. The law was given that we may have the

knowledge of sin. You see, sin is a deceiver.
Jeremiah 17:9 tells us that:

The heart is deceitful above all things and

beyond cure. Who can understand it?

The heart is deceitful, so God has to expose sin.

He has to reveal what sin is. He has to tell the self-
righteous man that, if you want to know the true
definition of righteousness and of sin, look at my
law.

Paul knows this from his own experience. You

see, Paul was raised up as a Jew with the idea that
you can save yourself by keeping the law. He had
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not fully understood the meaning of the law even
though he had the knowledge of the written law.
And then in chapter 7, verse 9 of Romans, Paul
says:

Once I was alive apart from law; but when the

commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.

He’s saying, “When the law came to me, when

I really understood the meaning of the law, sin
revived and I died and the law which I was told and
taught to be the means of salvation became the
means of my death.”

In other words, “I realized that when I have

fully understood the law, it tells me that I am a
sinner.”

Let me put it this way. If you talk to pagans, to

people who have never known the law of God, they
will define sin only in terms of an act. The Jews
made the same mistake. As long as you do not
perform the act, you are not a sinner. The Jews
took the law of God and they reduced it to rules
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that human beings could keep and they kept those
rules and thought they were keeping the law of
God. But Paul says [in Romans 7:7],

...Indeed, I would not have known what sin was

except through the law. For I would not have
known was coveting really was if the law had not
said, “Do not covet.”

And coveting has nothing to do with an act. It

is a cherished desire. Paul realized that, the
moment he cherished a sinful desire, he had
already sinned. This is what Jesus clearly taught in
Matthew 5; we covered that in the last study.

But this is so important to Paul that he repeats

this in Romans several times. Let me give you
some examples. In Romans 5, he comes back to it
in verse 20. Why did the Lord enter into the
promise? Why did God give the law? And the
answer is:

The law was added so that the trespass might

increase. But where sin increased, grace increased
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all the more....

God never gave the law to solve the sin

problem, but that sin may abound. And then, in
chapter 7, verses 7-9 he said the same thing. So,
#2, God gave the law that we may have the
knowledge of what sin is in God’s eyes. It’s more
than an act. If you hate somebody without a cause,
you are a murderer. If you look at a woman to lust,
even if you don’t commit the act, you have already
committed adultery in God’s eyes and, in that case,
there is no hope.

The whole world is guilty. In others words, do

you realize what Paul is saying in Romans 3:17:
that every one of us, without exception, belongs to
death row. That’s where we belong by nature and
the only way we can escape is — not by pleading
to the Supreme Court, that won’t help — the only
way we can escape is by Jesus Christ.

3. Now we come to the third reason, which is to

me a very important reason and that is really
explained in Romans 7:13 and 14. But let me give
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you the third purpose of the law: God gave the
law to bring sin out of its hiding place.

You see, right deep inside you is sin. I have

friends of about nine years in England. In England,
people do not have showers every day because
water is expensive there. It’s an overcrowded
island and they have what we call “spit baths” and
maybe a tub bath once a week; they don’t like
showers. I came to America and water is very
freely obtainable here and they have showers every
day. So, in America, they don’t have to use too
much perfume. In Europe, the ladies use much
stronger perfume than here because they have to
camouflage.

But, folks, all you are doing is covering up

outwardly the inside rottenness of man. What the
law does is open up the eyes and shows you what
you are like inside. The Jews were very particular
about washing their hands before their meals and
Jesus says, you may have no idea that the outside
may be clean but the inside is full of rotten bones,
putrefying souls and all kinds of things. Please
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turn to Romans 7. Look at verses 13 and 14.

Did that which is good, then, become death to

me? [Is the law responsible for my death?] By no
means! But in order that sin might be recognized
as sin, it produced death in me through what was
good, so that, through the commandment, sin might
become utterly sinful.

Has the law opened up the lid of your own

respectability and has the law shown you that you
are exceedingly sinful so that you can say with
Paul what he says in verse 14 of Romans 7:

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am

unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.

Or in Romans 7, verse 18:

I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in

my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what
is good, but I cannot carry it out.

Not anything good dwells in me. Has the law

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exposed your exceeding sinfulness? If it hasn’t,
you will still be saying: “I’m bad, but I’m not that
bad.” No, folks, you are that bad and so am I. Our
only hope is Jesus Christ.

I want to say two things in concluding.

According to this passage of Romans 3, we are:

1. under sin (verse 9), and

2. under law (verse 19).

When you put those two together, it is fatal,

folks. There is nothing wrong with being under the
law as long as you have a sinless nature. There
was no problem with Adam being under the law.
There is no problem with the unfallen angels being
under the law because their nature, that is the
nature of love, is in harmony with the law they are
under. But to put sinful man under the law is fatal.
I’ll tell you why. I’ll give you the text: I
Corinthians 15:56:

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is

the law.
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 In other words, the law gives sin the authority
to kill. So, if you are under the law and a sinner at
the same time, then you are under the curse and the
condemnation of the law and that is a problem.

I want to give you some good news. We won’t

cover it today, but, in chapter 6, Paul tells us how
and why we were delivered from under sin. And,
in chapter 7, he tells us how and why we are
delivered from under law. We need deliverance
from both. We are delivered from under sin, verse
22 of chapter 6, that we may live holy lives:

But now that you have been set free from sin
and have become slaves to God, the benefit you
reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.

Without that deliverance we cannot live holy

lives. Romans chapter 7, verse 6:

But now, by dying to what once bound us, we

have been released from the law so that we serve in
the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of
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the written code.

Or to put it in simple English: that we may

serve God out of love and not fear. Because
anyone who is living under the law is living under
fear and I will give you the best evidence.

I don’t know about you, but every time I travel

and I pass a police car, I put on the brakes
automatically. I’ll tell you why: because I live
under fear of the law of America because I love
those green papers that I get every month. How
about you? When you see a policeman, do you
automatically slow down? Why? Because we are
living under fear. One day Steve Rote, my
associate, introduced me to a policeman in Walla
Walla [Washington, U.S.A.] who is a friend of his,
and I said to him, “Are you going to be lenient with
me?” and he said, “No, I’m going to get you.”

I hope he was joking.

To live under the law means to live under fear.

To live under grace means to live with joy and love
115
and appreciation.

But now I want to conclude.

1. Paul introduces his epistle to the Romans in

chapter one, verse 16 and I want to remind
you of that verse. He says:

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is

the power of God for the salvation of
everyone who believes: first for the Jew,
then for the Gentile.

In other words, the gospel is all inclusive, it

includes the whole human race.

2. Why? Because Paul says: “All are under sin

and all are guilty under the law.” Every
human being needs the gospel and the
gospel is there, available for every human
being. Jew and Gentile, there is no
exception — All are under sin.

3. The law simply proves the point. The law

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 simply exposes us to the fact that we are
sinners from head to foot. So, in other
words, verses 19 and 20 are crucial, a
prerequisite to our accepting the gospel.

4. Man is a slave to sin. Even though he knows

the law, he cannot save himself.

The question I am going to ask you in

concluding is: has the law done its job in your life?
I know it gets done in mine. Because I’ll tell you,
folks, I am the chief of sinners. You may think I’m
a saint, but you don’t know me; ask my wife or my
kids. I thank God for the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ.

It is only when the law has silenced your mouth

that I can turn to verse 21 and say, “But now I have
good news for you.”

But as long as you have some confidence in

yourself, you can never rejoice in Jesus Christ and
it is my prayer that the law will do its job in your
life and in mine. Not only now, but all through
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your life, the law is there to remind you that you
and I, in and of ourselves, are 100 percent sinners,
saved by grace; and I thank God for the law. The
moment you do away with the law, you don’t need
a gospel. Am I correct? We need the law. Every
city needs the law, not as a means of salvation but
to show them that inside there is nothing good in
them and that they need a saviour.

So, let us preach the law in its right setting. Let

us preach the law as a prerequisite to lead us to
Christ, because that is what Paul spoke about in
Galatians 3. The law is our schoolmaster; it puts us
in prison with no escape until it brings us to Christ
and then it releases us. That was the message that
God brought to the church 100 years ago, and we
are still groping in the darkness.

It is my prayer that every mouth in this church

will be stopped and every member will be guilty
before God and will say, “What shall I do now?”
And in the next study, I will tell you that the
righteousness of God is available to you now.

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 May God bless you, that you shall know the
truth and the truth will make you free.

119
 Chapter 5

Righteousness by Faith
(Romans 3:21-23)

I want to begin this very important study by

asking you a question, and that is, “Has the law
silenced your mouth? Has it made you speechless?
Or are you still talking?”

Now for those of you who haven’t studied the

last lesson, you may be wondering what I’m
asking. Let me quickly review what we’ve
covered.

In the last three studies, we have been studying

Paul’s explanation of the sinful problem of
mankind. He begins in Romans 1:18 where he
says:

The wrath of God is being revealed from

heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness
of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.
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 In other words, he says, and then he goes on to
explain in verse 19 right to the end of chapter 1,
that the problem of the Gentile world, is that they
are ungodly. Man does not like to retain God in his
mind. He wants to live without God. Last
Sabbath, I read a statement from a company that
did a survey in Seattle [Washington, U.S.A.]
regarding religious attitudes. The majority of
people living in Seattle feel that they can live good,
moral, upright lives without God. Man thinks he
can live without God, but when man turns his back
to God, says Paul, the result is unrighteousness.
And the reason why crime is increasing in this
country is for that very reason. The more we turn
our backs to God, the more sin will increase.

In chapter 2 up to 3:8, Paul turns his attention

to the Jews. He says, “You Jews are no better!”
The reason he makes this distinction between
Gentiles and Jews is because, while the Gentiles
had the knowledge of God through nature and they
had the knowledge of His law in their conscience,
this was only an implicit knowledge of God and
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His law. But over and above this, God had given a
very clear, explicit revelation of Himself and His
law to the Jews. Says Paul in Romans 3:2:

...First of all, they have been entrusted with the

very words of God.

But ultimately it makes no difference, because

a knowledge of the law doesn’t make you
righteous. In the Jews there is precisely the same
tendency of turning their backs to God, to Jehovah,
and trying to worship their own gods and worship
idols. Paul concludes in chapter 3:9:

What shall we conclude then? Are we any

better? Not at all! We have already made the
charge the Jews and Gentiles alike are all under
sin.

He has proved and he has worked it from every

conceivable angle, that both Jews and Gentiles are
all under sin. This means that we are by nature
sold to sin. Even of ourselves, no person has, nor
can produce a righteousness that will qualify him
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for heaven. There are none that are just. There is
no one that does good. Paul concludes this dark,
dismal picture of the human race in verses 19 and
20:

Now we know that whatever the law says, it

says to those who are under the law, so that every
mouth may be silenced and the whole world held
accountable to God. Therefore no one will be
declared righteous in his sight by observing the
law; rather, through the law we become conscious
of sin.

The purpose of the law is to silence us. Both

the Gentiles and the Jews are under the law. The
Gentiles have the law in their conscience. The
Jews have the law in this written form. But
ultimately, there are none righteous. Both are
guilty under the law. Both deserve punishment.
“Therefore,” says Paul, “the whole world becomes
guilty before God.” And the question I asked at the
beginning is: “Has the law done that to you?”

It is no use preaching the gospel to people who

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think that they can make themselves Christians by
their good works. I’m wasting my time. The first
work of the Bible — the first work of the gospel —
is to shut our mouths up. Has it done that to you?
I know it has done it to me! I can say with Paul, “In
me, that is, in my human nature, there is nothing
good.” And “Therefore,” verse 20 says, “by the
deeds of the law” how many will be justified in His
sight? The answer is: no one, Jew or Gentile. All
that the law can do is to give us a knowledge of sin.

The law has a very glorious part in the gospel!

The law has to first show us that we are totally
bankrupt when it comes to righteousness. And
Paul has been doing exactly that in chapter 1:18
right up to chapter 3:20. After he had laid this
foundation, after he had silenced his readers, both
Jews and Gentiles, after he had painted this dark,
dismal, hopeless picture of the human race, he says
in Romans 3:21:

But now a righteousness from God, apart from

law, has been made known, to which the Law and
the Prophets testify.
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 In other words, the only way you and I can
attain to righteousness, the only way you and I can
be qualified for heaven, is through the
righteousness of God that comes to us by faith
alone, and it is only after you have understood
what the law was given for. God never gave the
law to save us. It was never given as a means of
salvation. And number two, it was never given as
an added requirement for salvation.

In the last study, we read Galatians 3:17

onward. Why did God give the law 430 years after
He promised salvation to Abraham and his seed? It
was not because He was adding another
requirement. It was that the law might be a
schoolmaster that will lead us to Jesus Christ, that
we might be justified by faith.

I hope the law has done that. I believe that God

has restored the law in Adventism for that very
reason. You cannot preach the gospel without the
law first doing its job. And I pray that it has done
the job in your life and in mine, that you can say
125
with Paul, ’I have no more confidence in this
flesh.’

Now that Paul has done that, he introduces his

gospel, and he defines his gospel in verse 21 of
chapter 3 right up to verse 31. And I would like to
say without any question, that these eleven verses,
verses 21-31 of Romans, are very crucial, because
they sum up together, in a nutshell, what the plan
of salvation is all about, how mankind is saved, and
how that salvation becomes effective.

Therefore, it would be unfair for me to tackle

these eleven verses in one study. You would,
number one, have spiritual indigestion, and number
two, I would never be able to do justice to it in a
single study. So I’m going to deal only with three
verses today. And then, next study, I’ll deal with
verses 24-26, and then, in the following study, with
verses 27-31. In other words, we’re going to spend
three studies on this passage because every word,
every statement in this passage is loaded, and we
need to dig and find out what Paul is saying.

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 With this in mind, let’s begin our study of
verses 21-23. I want you to notice first of all, that
Paul introduces the gospel by two very important
words. We tend to gloss over those words and we
dare not. He introduces the gospel by two words:

But now....

These two words are tremendous. They are

important and we need to come to grips with what
Paul means by them. And I would like to show
you at least three reasons why these two words are
important.

1. First of all, these two words “But now” are

used by Paul as an introduction to the gospel, in
contrast to the dark, hopeless, dismal picture that
he has painted about the human race, about you
and me, in the previous passage, and especially the
last two verses, 19 and 20. He has painted a dark,
dismal picture, but he says, “But now the
righteousness of God” has come. In other words,
he doesn’t leave us lying down in that dismal
position. He says, “I have good news for you.”
127
“But now.” So number one, those two words are
important as an introduction to the gospel. And
after the law has done its job, after the law has shut
you into death row, so that there is no escape, you
can tell such people, “But now the righteousness of
God” is available to you.

2. These two words come to us as a time factor.

You see, Paul wrote Romans a few years after the
birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of
Christ. What do I mean by time factor? Please
keep your hand here in Romans chapter 3 and turn
to chapter 1. I want you to notice what he says in
his introduction to this epistle. In chapter 1:1-2, he
says:

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an

apostle and set apart for the gospel of God — the
gospel he promised beforehand through his
prophets in the Holy Scriptures....

You see, salvation was not an afterthought.

God promised salvation from the moment Adam
sinned. But salvation was only a promise to Adam.
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It was a promise to Noah. It was a promise to
Abraham. Paul makes it clear that Abraham was
saved by a promise. “But now,” it is no longer a
promise. “But now,” it is manifested. Please look
at the word. It is in the past tense. “But now the
righteousness of God apart from the law is
manifested....” In other words, it is now an
historical reality.

The Germans have an excellent word for this,

“Heilgeschichte” — salvation history. It is no
longer a promise, it is an historical reality.
Therefore, we are not living in the period of B.C.,
we are living in the period of A.D. And this time
factor must be applied not only in terms of the
historical Christ, but also in terms of each believer,
because every believer can divide his life into two
periods, B.C. and A.D. Before Christ, you were
under condemnation. There was no hope. There
was no peace. There was no assurance. But now
that you have accepted Christ, you are no longer
living in that time period. You’re living now in the
A.D. period. Christ has now become your
righteousness. And this brings me to point number
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three.

3. Those two words are extremely important to

us as a tool that we must use as Christians, in terms
of our assurance of salvation. Let me ask you a
question. Supposing the devil comes to you and,
after he has knocked you down with a temptation,
he says, “Now, you do not deserve salvation! You
are not good enough!” What do you do when he
knocks you down? What do you do when you read
the Bible, especially the book of the law and you
feel all undone? What do you do when you young
people read Messages to Young People [by Ellen
G. White] and say, “Boy, I can never make it!”?
Do you lie down and let the devil keep you down
there, defeated? Or do you say, “Yes, I am a
sinner. I’m not good enough to be saved. I don’t
feel righteous. Yes, you’re right, Satan. ‘But now
the righteousness of God.’” That is what a
Christian can do, because our salvation is based on
the righteousness of God.

I want to give you a beautiful promise. I want

to do it for one reason. There are many Adventists
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who unfortunately have turned Ellen G. White into
a legalist, when she is not. So I’m going to read
you this beautiful statement from Gospel Workers,
page 161. Please take note of it.

“The thought that the righteousness of Christ is

imputed...”

Have you got it? Not imparted! Which I

believe in. The Bible teaches it and Ellen G.
White teaches it, but she talking now of imputed
righteousness.

“The thought that the righteousness of Christ is

imputed...”

That is, put to your account. God reckons you

like that. Not because of any merit on our part, but
as a free gift from God.

“...is a precious thought....”

Is the righteousness of Christ to you a precious

thought?
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 “The enemy of God and man is not willing that
the truth should be clearly presented....”

I believe that statement! The churches are

dying for a clear understanding of this truth. Our
people are dying!

“The enemy of God and man is not willing that

the truth should be clearly presented for he knows
that if the people receive it fully...”

Not only taught it, but receive it. And that I

can’t do for you. I can’t receive it for you. That’s
your part. But he knows, the devil knows that if
you could...

“...receive it fully, his power will be broken.”

Why? Because you have a tool now in your

hands. You can say to him, “But now the
righteousness of God.”

“If he can control minds so that doubt and

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unbelief and darkness shall compose the
experience of those who claim to be the children of
God, he can overcome them with temptation.”

In other words, the secret for victorious living

is to be grounded in the righteousness of Christ. It
is no use trying to produce apples from an orange
tree. Am I correct? The ground, the fruit which is
sanctification, is justification by faith. And if our
people have not understood justification by faith,
you can spend years, you can shout at them, you
can promote them, you can push them, you can
give them incentives, you can give them a trip to
Hawaii (you know, if they sell so many books), but
we will never produce the fruits as long as we are
insecure about our salvation! And the first thing
that God gives us is “But now the righteousness of
God.”

But now, let us go back. We can’t spend all

our time on those two words. Says Paul, in chapter
3 of Romans, verse 21:

But now a righteousness from God....

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 What does he mean by that, “...the
righteousness of God”?

1. Well, number one, he means it is a

righteousness planned by God. Do you know when
He planned it? Before you and I were born. Before
even Adam was created. Because Ephesians 1:4
says that:

For he chose us in him before the creation of

the world to be holy and blameless in his sight....

And in Revelation, Jesus is called the lamb

slain from the foundation of the world. You see,
God knew that we would come into this terrible
plight of sin. And before sin came in He had
already planned our salvation in Jesus Christ. So
number one, “the righteousness of God” means it’s
a righteousness planned by God.

2. After He planned it, He promised it to the

human race immediately after Adam fell. Do you
remember what happened after Adam fell? God
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came to visit him. Now why did God come to visit
him? Well, Adam and Eve thought that He was
coming to punish them, to execute judgment upon
them, or to use a good American expression, they
thought He was coming to zap them. Was He?
No! Why did He come? He came to give them the
promise of salvation. He promised this to Adam
and Eve. He promised this to Noah. He promised
this to Abraham and through the prophets. And
that’s what Paul means in Romans 3:21:

But now a righteousness from God, apart from

law, has been made known, to which the Law and
the Prophets testify.

He is saying, “This promise was witnessed by

the law and the prophets.”

The law means the Torah, the books of Moses,

and the prophets are the rest. But God did not
simply promise. He fulfilled that promise in Jesus
Christ. So it is a righteousness planned by God, it
is a righteousness promised by God, it is a
righteousness that is provided by God. And you
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know, you and I did not make one ounce of
contribution towards that righteousness. It is all of
God! How do I know? Because after saying “But
now the righteousness of God,” he adds the phrase,
“apart from the law....” And that phrase has caused
much confusion in the Christian church. What did
Paul mean, that now we have the righteousness of
God apart from the law? Or, as your King James
says, “without the law”? What does he mean?

Well, I’ll tell you what it does not mean, but

many Christians teach this. They teach that Jesus
or God tried to save man through His law when He
gave it to Moses. But because it failed, He did
away with the law and He introduced grace. And
therefore, they say, “without the law” means that
from Christ onward the law has been done away
with and we are saved only by grace.

This is the theology of those who divide the

Bible into sections, into dispensations, and teach
that God has, in different dispensations, dealt with
mankind in different ways. They deny a
fundamental truth of scripture and that is the unity
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of the Bible. The Bible doesn’t teach that God has
different ways of salvation. There’s only one way
that God saves mankind, from Adam to the last
man, and that is through His righteousness as a gift
to us through Jesus Christ. God doesn’t have two
or three methods. Salvation by grace is not an
afterthought because the law failed.

Then what does Paul mean by the phrase “apart

from the law”? Well, whatever it means, it must
never contradict Romans 3, verse 31. Because there
in verse 31, I read:

Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not

at all! Rather, we uphold the law.

Do we do away with the law through faith or

through this doctrine of righteousness by faith?
And the answer is not just no. It’s a very strong
NO! “Certainly not” in the New King James
version. The King James says, “God forbid!” It’s
unthinkable! On the contrary! “We who preach
righteousness by faith establish the law.” So, Paul
does not mean that apart from the law means that
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God did away with the law to introduce grace. But
I have still not answered the question. What does
he mean then by “apart from the law”? Well, there
are two statements that will help us.

First of all, you need to realize that phrase

“apart from the law” is written in the context of
Romans 3, verse 20. What does it say in verse 20?

Therefore, no one will be declared righteous in

his sight by observing the law; rather, through the
law we become conscious of sin.

“Therefore, by observing the law,” how many

will be justified? “No one.” What he means is that
the righteousness of God is entirely from Him and
we have not contributed one iota in terms of our
law keeping. The conclusion proves this. Look at
Romans 3, verse 28, which is the conclusion of his
argument:

For we maintain that a man is justified by faith

apart from observing the law.

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 In other words, the righteousness that God
offers mankind is planned, promised, provided,
fulfilled from heaven, in Christ. It’s a heavenly
robe (often known as the righteousness of Christ);
it’s a heavenly garment, without a single thread of
human devising. It is entirely from God. You and
I have not contributed towards that righteousness,
one iota. In other words, it is entirely a GIFT! It’s
FREE! And that’s what Romans 3, verse 24 comes
out with:

...And [all] are justified freely by his grace

through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

You and I cannot contribute one iota towards it.

That’s why in Romans 3, verse 27, he says:

Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On

what principle? On that of observing the law? No,
but on that of faith.

There is no boasting in righteousness by faith.

Why? Because it is all of God and a gift to us.
This is why we can use those two words, “But now
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the righteousness of God.” You see, you can’t use
these two words as long as you are looking at
yourself and your performance, trying to make
yourself a better Christian or improving your
standing before God. The moment you do that,
you cannot use this phrase, “But now the
righteousness of God apart from the law....”
because there is no boasting in righteousness by
faith. It is all of God. So, what is Paul saying here?
He is saying: “But now God has obtained for us a
righteousness which He planned and provided in
Christ without any contribution from you or from
me. It is entirely His work. It was promised
before, but now it is an historical reality.”

That is what verse 21 is saying.

Now comes the question. How can I have this

righteousness? What must I do for this
righteousness to become mine? Well, do I have to
pay some money? Well, I’ll tell you, if you pay me
some money I’ll offer it to you. I wish I could say
that. But I can’t. Does it mean going on a
pilgrimage to the Holy Land, like the Muslims go
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to Mecca? The other day I received a letter from a
company, and it said, “If you can get 30 of your
members to take a trip to the Holy Land, we will
give you a free ticket!”

I call that bribery and correction. I had to write

them and say, “Sorry, I have already been there. I
worked there. And all I saw was corruption.”
There’s nothing holy about the Holy Land. Believe
it or not. They’ll rob you left, right, and center, if
you don’t know the truth.

I don’t get righteousness by faith through going

to the Holy Land. I do not get it by paying money.
I do not get it by doing something. How then does
this righteousness become mine? Paul’s answer in
Romans 3, verse 22 is:

This righteousness from God comes through

faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no
difference....

What Paul is saying here is that the

righteousness of God is ours through faith in Jesus
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Christ, and this applies to all. Whether you are a
Jew, or whether you are a Gentile, or whether you
lived in Old Testament times, or whether you lived
in New Testament times, there is only one way that
God can save you, and that is through the
righteousness of God which is made effective
through faith alone, and nothing else.

Now, of course, this word faith is sometimes

misused and misunderstood. So, I would like
briefly to explain what it means. I’m going to use
only the book of Romans. I’ll give you some other
texts to look up if you want to.

1. Number one, the prerequisite for faith is a

knowledge of the gospel. In Romans 10:17, I read
that:

Consequently, faith comes from hearing the

message, and the message is heard through the
word of Christ.

In other words, we cannot come to the

knowledge of the gospel through rationale, or
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through investigation through the scientific
method. It comes to us by the preaching of the
word, and that is why Romans 10, verse 15 says:

And how can they preach unless they are sent?

As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of
those who bring good news!”

That is the secret of beautiful feet in God’s

eyes! “How beautiful are the feet of those who
preach the gospel.” So number one, there has to be
a knowledge of the gospel. That is why we have to
witness! God’s righteousness is available to all
mankind, but unfortunately, all people do not know
it. And the first requirement to have faith is to
know the truth. I believe that God has raised the
Advent movement to finish this mission. For Jesus
said in Matthew 24:14:

And this gospel of the kingdom will be

preached in the whole world as a testimony to all
nations, and then the end will come.

God will not send His Son the second time,

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until the world has had a chance to say, “God,
thank you for Your unspeakable gift!” Or reject
Him.

2. Number two, and it is found in verse 22 of

chapter 3, faith means believing in the truth. You
must know the truth, and number two, you must
believe the truth. The word “believe” simply
means a mental assent to what is true. This is not
as easy as it is said. I’ll tell you why. It is because
the gospel is a contradiction of human nature, it is a
contradiction of human reason, it is a contradiction
of human righteousness. God offers you
something in the gospel that it is impossible for
you to attain. Let me give you an example.

If God comes to you married women who have

passed the age of child bearing and tells you, “By
the way, next year you’re going to have a son,”
what will you say? You’ll have two options. After
you have visited the general hospital, they will say,
“Who told you this nonsense?” I hope they won’t,
but they will say, “Well, I’m afraid I have bad
news. It’s impossible for you to have children.
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You’ve passed that age.” But God says YOU
WILL! Do you believe that? Did Abraham believe
that Sarah would have a child after she had passed
the age of child bearing? Faith is believing the
impossible!

In 1961, I was selling books for my school fees

to Newbold [College], in a town called Kiruna, 150
miles north of the Arctic Circle in Sweden. It’s the
only place where I found more mosquitos than in
Africa. They had mosquitos everywhere. And big
ones, too! Bigger than the African ones. They
must have imported them from Texas. They were
huge and they liked to suck your blood. Anyway,
for six weeks the sun never went down below the
horizon. They call it “The Land of the Midnight
Sun.” The first weekend, the first Friday night, my
friend John, who was a dean, and I, waited to see
how low the sun would go. We knew from the
calendar that it would be at the lowest point at
quarter past midnight. So we waited and it went
down to an angle [above the horizon]. I took my
watch and photographed the sun with it at
midnight.
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 Later I showed this slide to my African
brethren on the equator, where the sun sets, all year
round, at 6:15 p.m. One old man who had never
been to school, he could not read or write, came up
to me and said, “Who are you trying to deceive?
We know what you did! You changed your watch
to 12 o’clock and then you photographed the sun!
Don’t give me that nonsense!” he said. Now, if I
had money, I would have bought him a ticket and
took him to Kiruna and let him see it with his own
eyes. And I would say, “Now, what do you think?”
And he would say, “You’re correct!”

God tells you that, in Christ, you have never

sinned. Or if I may use the words of Steps to
Christ [by Ellen G. White]:

“When you accept Christ, God looks at you as

if you have never sinned.”

Do you believe that? Or do you say, “Well,

I’m not good enough! I don’t feel righteous!”

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 God says, “I don’t care what you feel. I’m
telling you that you are righteous in My Son!”

And you say, “Well...,” like Sarah laughed

when the angel said, “Next year your wife will
have a son.” What if you do? You could say,
“Where did these fellows go to school? They need
to go to Loma Linda [University in California,
U.S.A.] and discover that you can’t have children
after you pass the age of child bearing.” God is
able to do the impossible and He has done the
impossible in Jesus Christ. Do you believe it? But
there is a third requirement.

3. It is not enough simply to have a mental

assent to the truth. There is a heart obedience
required. Let me give you several texts. You
won’t be able to read all of them. In the very
introduction to Romans, Romans 1:5, Paul brings it
out. After explaining Jesus Christ, the Son of God
and the Son of Man, he says:

Through him and for his name’s sake, we

received grace and apostleship to call people from
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among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes
from faith.

This message has to be obeyed, the obedience

of faith.

Then, in chapter 6 of Romans, speaking about

the Roman Christian, in verse 17 he says:

But thanks be to God that, though you used to

be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the
form of teaching to which you were entrusted.

The Roman Christians believed, obeyed the

gospel. And then in chapter 10:16, turning to the
Jews, the Jewish nation whom he loved, but who
had turned their backs to Jesus Christ, he says:

But not all the Israelites accepted the good

news. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed
our message?”

They have not all obeyed the gospel.

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 So you Romans, salvation is yours. You have
obeyed the gospel. You Jews, don’t blame God. In
Christ, you have righteousness, but you have not
obeyed the gospel. And it is not because you did
not hear the gospel! You heard it, but, as Isaiah
said [Isaiah 53:1]:

Who has believed our message and to whom

has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

What does it mean to obey the gospel? Does it

mean doing something?

The answer is no! It means surrendering your

will to the truth as it is in Christ. You see, God has
rewritten your history in Christ. He put you in
Christ and He rewrote your history.

And because we are sinners, there was

something essential that had to take place,(and
we’ll cover this when we do verse 31), and that is
that you and I had to die! “The wages of sin is
death” [Romans 6:23]. Jesus did not come to
change the death sentence. He did not come to
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substitute the death sentence. He came to fulfill it.
And, in Christ, it was fulfilled! For, in Christ’s
death, it wasn’t just one man dying instead of all
men, or in place of all men. In Christ, all men died
in one Man! That is the true doctrine of
substitution. II Corinthians 5:14:

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are

convinced that one died for all, and therefore all
died.

When One died, all died. Obeying the gospel is

to say with Paul [Galations 2:20]:

I have been crucified with Christ and I no

longer live, but Christ lived in me. The life I live
in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who
loved me and gave himself for me.

When we have understood the true meaning of

faith, the fruit [or result] is always holiness of
living, because Christ is the same yesterday, today,
and forever. The life He lived 2,000 years ago He
can live in you. But He doesn’t do that to give you
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assurance or to save you, but as evidence of
righteousness or justification by faith. Obedience
to the gospel is saying, “Not I, but Christ.”

How is this righteousness effective? Through

faith alone! Not through faith plus works. Through
faith that works! But never plus works. Paul
continues [Romans 3:22-23]:

...There is no difference [between Jew and

Gentile], for all have sinned and fall short of the
glory of God....

What does he mean here? The word “sin”

means missing the mark. In other words, the word
“sin” means coming short of the glory of God.
Now, is Paul repeating himself twice? Is he saying
that all are coming short of the glory of God and all
are coming short of the glory of God? The answer
is no.

I want you to look at those two statements.

Paul makes two statements in verse 23. The first
one, “all have sinned,” is in the past historic tense.
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He uses what we call in Greek the aorist tense,
meaning something that has happened once and for
all in the past: “All have sinned.” And the question
we must ask is: “When did all sin in the past?”

He doesn’t answer the question here, but he

will answer the question in Romans 5. The answer
is (and we will cover that in detail) that all have
sinned in Adam. We can’t deal with this right
now. I know this is a big problem, but you have to
wait until we come to Romans 5:12. He uses the
same phrase in the same aorist tense in Romans
5:12:

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through

one man, and death through sin, and in this way
death came to all men, because all sinned....

Death comes upon all, because all have sinned.

However, Paul is saying in verse 23 of chapter 3:
“Besides that, we are presently, continuously
coming short of the glory of God.”

The second statement, “[all] fall short of the

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glory of God,” is in the present tense. So not only
have we sinned in Adam, but, apart from that, we
also are sinning. Therefore, whether you look at
our heritage, or whether you look at our
performance, there is no difference between Jew
and Gentile, none of us are qualified for heaven.
The only way that you and I can make it to the
kingdom of God is through righteousness by faith,
the righteousness of God that comes to us by faith.
That’s why at the beginning of this study, I asked
the question, “Have you been silenced by the law?”
If you haven’t, then you can never say, “But now a
righteousness from God, apart from [my deeds of
the] law, has been made known....”

It’s no longer promised; it’s a reality! It has

become mine through faith alone. “My hope is
built on nothing else, but Jesus Christ and His
righteousness.” That is why you and I can have
hope! That is why I don’t have to lie on the ground
every time Satan knocks me down. In Christ, God
looks at me perfectly and fully justified. It is from
that position that I walk the Christian life with hope
and assurance. If I don’t have that assurance, I am
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always concerned about my security and, as long as
I am concerned about my security — my eternal
security — I can never serve Christ with a clear,
free of self, motive. God wants us to serve Him
without a selfish motive. We cannot do that unless
He has first liberated us from the fear of eternal
death.

And He has done that in justification by faith.

That is why it is extremely important that we
understand what Paul is trying to say to us.

May God bless us, so that you and I, having

been silenced by the law, can say, “But now the
righteousness of God....”

That is my prayer for each one of you in Jesus’

Name. Amen.

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 Chapter 6

Legal Justification
(Romans 3:24-26)

24 ...And [all] are justified freely by his grace

through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement,
through faith in his blood. He did this to
demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance
he had left the sins committed beforehand
unpunished — 26 he did it to demonstrate his
justice at the present time, so as to be just and the
one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

As we turn to verses 24, 25, and 26 of Romans

3, we will discover that Paul is dealing with an
extremely important truth here. First of all, I want
you to look at verse 24 because here in verse 24
Paul is pointing us to three facts concerning the
righteousness of God which He has now made
available to us through his son Jesus Christ.

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 1. The righteousness of God justifies us.

That is the first truth verse 24 brings out, that

the righteousness of God justifies us. What does
Paul mean by that word “justifies” because it is one
of those key words, it’s a crucial word in the New
Testament. Well, this word, “justifies,” primarily
had a legal connotation. It’s a term that is used in
the court, it is used by judges, and it has a legal
connotation. We need to be clear on this.

I’ll tell you why: because there are some now

in our own church, some of our scholars, who want
to do away with this legal meaning. Like one
scholar says, the word only means “set right.”
Well, I’ll tell you folks, if you take the word
“justified” in the New Testament and translate it or
exchange it for the words “set right” and you will
discover in some places it makes good sense, but in
some places it does not because you cannot limit
the word “justified” to simply “set right.”

The reason for this is because, as we shall see

in verses 25 and 26, that there are some (it began
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among the liberal theologians and it is now
creeping into our church) who do not want to
accept the legal framework of the atonement and I
will say a few more things about it in a moment.
But the word “justified” primarily had a legal
definition.

Let me give you two examples how this word is

used in scripture. Keep your finger here at Romans
3 and turn your Bibles to the book of
Deuteronomy, Chapter 25. This is counsel given
by God through Moses to Israel as God prepares
her to be a theocracy in the country of Canaan and
this is the instruction that God gives because in a
theocracy God is not only their spiritual leader but
He is also their political leader. In verse 1 of
chapter 25 of Deuteronomy I read these words:

When men have a dispute, they are to take it to

court [please notice they come to court, it’s a legal
matter] and the judges will decide the case,
acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty.

Please notice that you justify, or acquit, the

157
righteous and you condemn the wicked. These two
words “justify” and “condemn” are legal terms;
they are terms that are used in connection with the
law. When you obey the law, the law justifies you,
and when you disobey, it condemns you.

Let me give you one more example; turn to the

I Kings 8. I want to give you a couple of examples
of how this word is used in a legal framework in
the Bible. Let’s look at verse 32; this is a plea for
God to hear and to judge:

...Then hear from heaven and act. Judge

between your servants, condemning the guilty and
bringing down on his own head what he has done.
Declare the innocent not guilty, and so establish his
innocence.

Please notice the legal framework of the words.

So, going back to Romans 3:24, the righteousness
justifies us. What does that mean? That means
that those who believe in Christ (because verse 22
talks about righteousness by faith, those who
accept the righteousness of Christ through faith),
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God declares you or looks upon you as if you are
righteous. I know some of you will say, “I don’t
feel righteous. I am not righteous.” And you are
right in both areas. God doesn’t declare us
righteous because we are righteous; God declares
us righteous because of His righteousness. It’s the
righteousness of God in Jesus Christ that is the
issue here. The righteousness of God justifies us.

Now this is something tremendous because you

see, in verse 19, Paul has just told us that according
to the law, the whole world is guilty before God,
which means that the law of God condemns us. But
now comes the righteousness of God and it justifies
us.

I want you to notice that is that the word

“justified” in Romans 3:24 is in the present tense:
“being justified.” Paul is not saying that one day in
the future God will justify you; he says no, right
now, in the present tense, you are justified (as he
will go on) through the redemption that is in Christ.

What does it mean for a person to stand

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justified before God? The answer is found in the
words of our Lord Jesus Christ in John 5. You see,
in Chapter 3 of John, verse 17, Jesus tells
Nicodemus that:

For God did not send his Son into the world to
condemn the world, but to save the world through
him.

Now in chapter 5, verse 24, I want you to

notice how different translations begin. The New
King James Bible puts it “most assuredly”; others
read “verily, verily.” They all mean, “this is
guaranteed” (and this is Christ speaking):

I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and

believes him who sent me has [not will have, but
already has] eternal life and will not be
condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.

Yes, in ourselves we stand condemned to death,

but in Christ we have passed from condemnation of
death to justification of life. That is the first thing
that verse 24 says, that in the present situation, the
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moment you believe, the righteousness of God in
Christ becomes effective to you and you have
passed from death to life, you are now being
justified. That’s number one.

2. Going back to Romans 3:24, you will notice

that this justification comes to us not because we
have paid some money or because we have made a
pilgrimage to the Holy Land, it comes to us freely.

...And [all] are justified freely....

What does that word “freely” mean? It means

“without cost.” As Isaiah 55 puts it, “it is without
money and without price.” It’s free, but it is more
than a gift. It is more than that because I read on:

...And [all] are justified freely by his grace....

Now “by his grace” gives a very definite

meaning to the word “freely.” What kind of
meaning does it give? That word “grace,” like the
word “justified,” is also a crucial word in the New
Testament. What does it mean? Normally, it is
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explained as “unmerited favor” or “undeserved
favor.” But let me explain it in a little more in
detail by giving you an example.

Let us say that Steve, my friend, has an

appointment and I know about it, so, while he’s
gone, I come to his house and I beat up his wife,
Kathy, giving her a real black eye. Of course, the
kids are at school and the baby is crying and while
they are all doing that, I take his furniture and I
wreck it, taking his axe and smashing his furniture
and I burn up his T.V. set and I do everything
terrible and then I take off. Steve then comes home
from his appointment and sees Kathy on the floor
all bruised and beaten up and bleeding and he says,
“What happened? Did an earthquake strike?”

Kathy says, “No, it was that fellow Jack who

did it.”

And Steve gets into his car and he flies,

breaking the speed limit, and comes to the house
and I see him from the window and his hands are
behind his back and I say to myself, “I bet he has a
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revolver and he is coming to shoot me for what
I’ve done.” And I say to myself, “Shall I run or
shall I stand up?” And I say, “No, I’ll be a coward
if I run. I’ll try and disarm him before he shoots
me.”

And so I go and open the door and I look at

him and he says, “Jack, why did you do this? I am
your friend.” I have no answer. He pulls his hands
from his back and I am expecting a revolver and
guess what it is? It’s a check for $1,000.00. Now
that is grace, folks. That’s grace.

Here we are folks, we crucified the Son of God

and what does God do? He forgives us. What did
Christ do on the cross? He said, “Father, forgive
them.”

Now that, folks, is grace. Grace is not only

doing you a good favor, it is doing a good favor to
somebody who hates you, to somebody who is
your enemy, as we shall see in Romans 5:10:

For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were

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reconciled to him through the death of his Son,
how much more, having been reconciled, shall we
be saved through his life!

While we were enemies we were reconciled to

God by the death of his Son. That is grace, folks.
That is why the gospel is unconditional good news.
God doesn’t say, “First you shape up and change
your ways then I will justify you”; He justifies us
not only freely but by his grace. That’s number
two, folks, we need to keep this in mind.

3. I want to go to number 3, because number 3

is extremely important. For there I read in verse 24
that I am not only justified freely and graciously,
but that this justification is:

...through the redemption that came by Christ

Jesus.

And it is here, folks, where creation and

redemption part company because, you see, the
same Jesus who created us is also the same Jesus
who redeemed us, but there is a difference. All
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that God had to do to create this world was to
simply speak, to make a statement. All that God
had to do was to say, “Let there be light,” and there
was light, because the breath of God — the words
of God — are power, energy. He can create
something out of nothing and all God had to do
was to speak the word and it happened.

Now, of course, He could have done that also

for us. God did not have to make us out of dust
and breathe into us the breath of life, He could
have created us by simply making a statement.
The only reason why He made us of the dust of the
earth is because He knew, through His
foreknowledge, that we would sin and He knew
that sin would make us a proud people. So He
deliberately made us out of mud so that, after we
fell, we would be reminded when we got too proud
of who we are.

You know, when we were in Africa, we

discovered that the word for mud, the word for dust
had some beautiful expressions. For example, in
Uganda the word for dust or mud is “fufu.“ Sounds
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wonderful! That’s what you and I are made of. In
Ethiopia, the word for mud is “cushasha.” It
sounds terrible, those words, but that’s what we are
and God knew that we needed a reminder that our
glory is as beautiful as the dust of the earth.

But when it comes to redemption, God could

not save us simply by making a statement. God
could not say, “Well, I love these dear people. I
know they have gone wrong, they have broken my
law, but I am God and no one is above me. I can
do what I like and I love them and so I declare you
forgiven. I declare you justified simply because I
love you.”

God could not do that because God is not only

love, He is a just God. He could not redeem us, He
could not justify us, by bypassing his law because
his law says the soul that sins must die. God has to
be true to his own word, otherwise He becomes an
unjust God Himself.

When the policeman forgives me for speeding,

he is doing an unjust thing because he never
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volunteers to pay the ticket. How many policemen
that have forgiven you have paid the ticket for you?
They can forgive you by excusing you because
they are sinful men but God can’t do that. He is a
holy God, He is a righteous God. He can’t simply
make a statement and say, “I love you so I forgive
you.”

Justification by faith is free to you and me but

it is extremely costly to God. Let me put it this
way: if God gave me a million dollars today, it
would cost Him nothing because He can create
gold out of stones, He can simply speak the word
and the stones can turn into gold. That’s no
problem for God. But, when He gave me His only
begotten Son, do you realize that He gave me
something that He could not replace? He gave me
His only begotten Son and, in giving me His Son,
He was giving me Himself. We shall see in a
minute what that involved.

The reason I’m stressing this is because, as I

said already, there are many people today who
think and teach that God did not have to send his
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Son, and Christ did not have to die on the cross to
justify us. He did it because He wanted to
influence us. This is called the “Moral Influence
Theory.”

Through the years there have been many

theories in the Christian church concerning the
atonement. There is the Satisfaction Theory, there
is the Ransom Theory, the Governmental Theory,
and there is the Moral Influence Theory. The 14th,
15th Century came up with this theory.

Each theory says this is the correct meaning of

the atonement. I’ll tell you, folks, the atonement is
too big an event to be locked up in only one theory;
it is too big. In fact, we will never be able to
comprehend all of the mysteries of the atonement
until we go to heaven. We will spend eternity
wrestling with the atonement. Each of these
theories have an aspect of truth but they become
wrong when they deny the other. In other words,
there is nothing wrong in the Moral Influence
Theory in its teaching, it is correct that the death of
Christ on the cross demonstrated the love of God,
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which should change my attitude towards God.
There is nothing wrong with that; that’s correct.

It’s wrong because of what it denies. A lot of

heresy in this Christian church is not wrong in what
they teach; they are wrong in what they deny.
Anyone who denies the legal framework of the
atonement is doing God an injustice. Do you know
that? God could not simply save us because He
loved us; God’s love and justice had to meet
together and they met at the cross. It was only at
the cross that God became legally just in justifying
us and that is what verse 25 and 26 are talking
about. Let us read it first:

God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement,

through faith in his blood. He did this to
demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance
he had left the sins committed beforehand
unpunished —he did it to demonstrate his justice at
the present time, so as to be just and the one who
justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

In Chapter 3, verse 24, we are told that we are

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justified freely, but it is through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus. What does the word
“redemption” mean?

It means to be ransomed from something that

you are under. For example, if you read the New
Testament, you will discover that we are redeemed
from the Devil [Hebrews 2:14,15], or we are
redeemed from death [I Cor. 15: 56, 57], or we
are redeemed from sin [Roman 6:22], but here in
this context Paul is saying that we are redeemed
from the curse of the law.

He says the same things in Galatians, so let me

give you a similar argument found in Galatians
chapter 3. I want you to notice what the law says
in verse l0. Please notice the clear statement of
Scripture:

All who rely on observing the law are under a

curse...

For those who try to go to heaven by their own

righteousness, the law will curse them, not because
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they haven’t tried. But, why does the law curse
you if you are trying to go to heaven by your
works?

...For it is written: “Cursed is everyone who

does not continue to do everything written in the
Book of the Law.”

Now the question is: “Have you kept the law

in detail, continuously, from the time you were
born?” Have you? If you have not, then you are
under the curse. The law says so. God could not
bypass this curse, he could not do it because He is
a just God, He is a holy God. So I read in
Galations 3, verse 13 the good news of salvation:

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law

by becoming a curse for us, for it is written:
“Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”

Notice the past tense. There are three main

truths that the cross reveals (which I will be
covering in detail at another time):

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1. The cross demonstrates that Satan is a liar
and a murderer and that the human heart is
desperately wicked. We need to know that.
John 8:44 says that:

You belong to your father, the devil, and you

want to cary out your father’s desire. He
was a murderer from the beginning, not
holding to the truth, for there is no truth in
him. When he lies, he speaks his native
language, for he is a liar and the father of
lies.

2. Then I want to show you how the cross

demonstrates the love of God. Romans 5:8
will touch that, too:

But God demonstrates his own love for us in

this: While we were still sinners, Christ died
for us.

3. But here, the cross demonstrates the justice

of God. In other words, through the cross of
Christ, God is just in justifying the sinner.
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 He has redeemed us, He has ransomed us,
He has set us free by the cross.

When I was in Africa, I had a coworker with

me. He was a black American and we worked
together in the Ministerial Department. He was
from Seattle [Washington, U.S.A.] and, at that
time, I had only heard of Seattle and didn’t know
what it looked like. He was a good man and we
worked together and he often would tell a story. It
would be a story that had some meaning to him
because it had to do with slavery.

The story was about a man — a strapping,

strong slave. He was sold in this country many
years ago on an auction block and the auctioneer
introduced him as a “strong, capable young man
and you would be able to get a lot of work out of
him.” Before anyone could bid, the slave opened
his mouth and said, “I am not going to work for
anybody.”

The auctioneer told him to keep quiet. The bid

went on and on and a man at the back kept bidding,
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refusing to back down and he went up and up and
finally nobody could compete with him and he got
the bid and the auctioneer said, “He’s all yours!”

The man came forward with the money, gave

the money to the auctioneer and the auctioneer
gave him the keys of the shackles. As the new
owner dragged this man away, the slave began
muttering “I am not going to work for you.” The
owner just kept quiet and took him away from the
crowd, undid the key, took off the shackles off his
hands and his feet and he said, “Now, you are no
longer a slave. I didn’t buy you; I don’t know
where you got the idea. But I didn’t buy you to use
you to work for me; I bought you to free you. You
are a free man, you can go where you like. The
world is yours!”

This slave did not know how to react. He was

so shocked by this that he fell down on his knees
and he said to the slave owner who bought him, “I
will work for you all the rest of my life!”

That is the attitude we must have towards

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Christ. Christ did not buy us so that He may use
us; He bought us that He may share with us His
throne and His kingdom and all the joys of heaven.
That’s why He bought us, why He redeemed us. It
was free to us, but it was very costly to God.

Now in verse 25 there are two words that I

want to touch quickly. The first word [in some
translations] is “propitiation.” It’s a word that has
caused endless problems in this controversy about
the atonement. What does it mean to propitiate?
Well, the word comes from a Greek word called
“hillastraion” and a similar noun used in 1 John 2:2
and 1 John 4:10. “Hillasmos” and the equivalent
verb “hilastros” are found in Hebrews 2:17. This
word was used in the days of the New Testament,
in Pagan customs and religion, and was used to
refer to sacrifices that the Pagans would give to
appease their angry god. That is what the word
“propitiate” means: to appease somebody who is
angry with you.

The word came about because of the idea that

God up there is an angry judge ready to punish you
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unless somebody appeases his anger. Jesus said,
“Look God, please don’t get angry at these poor
people; I will die in their place” and so God was
satisfied. No, that is never the use of propitiation in
the New Testament. You see, in the Pagan culture:

1. It was always the person, the human being,

who offered the sacrifice to appease an
angry god. In the gospel, it wasn’t man that
offered the sacrifice; it was God Himself
who offered Himself as a sacrifice. So
there’s a world of difference between Pagan
custom and Christianity.
2. The person never offered himself. He
offered an animal or vegetable or mineral
and sometimes he offered babies, but never
himself. But, in the Gospel, God not only
offers the sacrifice, but He offers Himself
for our sins. So, please, we must not project
the word “propitiation” from Pagan culture
into Christianity. This is what has caused
the problem.

So what does the word mean? Well, the word

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was used in the Old Testament for the mercy seat
that was over the Ark of the Covenant and if you
look at Leviticus 16:15,16 or if you look at
Hebrews 9:5 where these words are used, you will
notice that the word “propitiation” simply means
that, through the blood of Christ, our sins were
expiated or cancelled or taken away. In other
words, God took away our sins and our guilt and
the punishment that comes with it through the
blood of Christ and this brings us to the second
word.

What does the New Testament mean by the

word “blood”? It does not mean the blood of
Christ in terms of the literal blood that went
through his veins. The word “blood” is a symbol,
it is used as a type pointing to a truth and, in the
Old Testament, the blood symbolized life. Let me
give you one text, Leviticus 17:11:

For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I

have given it to you to make atonement for
yourselves on the altar: it is the blood that makes
atonement for one’s life.
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 So what does blood mean?

It means life. What does “shed blood” mean?

It means life that is laid down in death. On the
cross Jesus died, but He did not die the first death.
Hebrews 2:9 tells us that:

But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower

than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor
because he suffered death, so that by the grace of
God he might taste death for everyone.

It becomes obvious that he could not have

tasted the first death for every person for the simple
reason that believers who have accepted Christ and
who stand justified must also still die the first
death. But they will never die the second death
[see Rev. 20:6]. Why? Because there is one who
tasted the second death for you and me.

What does it all mean? What was the issue on

the cross? It is this: that on the cross Jesus was
willing to say “goodbye” to life, not for three days
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(there would be no sacrifice in that), but that He
was willing to say “goodbye” to life forever that
we may live in his place. That is the love of God
and that propitiation, that blood that was poured
out for us, satisfied the law because the law says
that the soul that sins must die. We will cover that
in more detail, but I would like at this point to
remind you that we dare not throw away the legal
framework of the atonement. Jesus could not save
us apart from the cross.

Let me give you a couple of statements before

we go to verse 26. This is from the Spirit of
Prophecy [by Ellen G. White]. This first one is
6BC, page 1,099:

“Justice demands that sin be not merely

pardoned but the death penalty must be executed.
God in the gift of His only begotten Son met both
these requirements. By dying in men’s stead,
Christ exhausted the penalty...”

Do you know what that means? [It means] that

every sin that you have committed or that you will
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commit to your dying day has already been
exhausted on the cross, been paid for.

“...Christ exhausted the penalty and provided

pardon. As Hebrews 9:22 says: ‘according to the
law, there can be no forgiveness without the
shedding of blood.’”

Let’s go on. Here is the second statement from

2 Testimonies, page 201:

“The death of Christ proclaims the justice of

the Father’s law in punishing the transgressor in
that He consented to suffer the penalty of the law
Himself in order to save fallen men from its curse.”

This is the New Testament meaning of

propitiation. Recently, one of our own scholars
said to me that he did not believe in the legal
framework of the atonement and I said, “What
about Romans 3:25,26?” and he said, “Why don’t
you read that text in the New English Bible?”
Unfortunately I did not have the Bible with me so I
came home and I read it and I didn’t know what he
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meant because when I read the New English Bible
it defends the legal framework more than the King
James! It says that Christ’s death demonstrated the
justice of God. It uses the word “justice” there
twice. Now let’s look at verse 25, especially the
second half:

God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement,

through faith in his blood. He did this to
demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance
he had left the sins committed beforehand
unpunished....

What does it mean here? This last phrase has

been misinterpreted by many. Paul is not saying
here that when you accept Christ he forgives your
past sins. The idea that justification is only the
forgiveness of past sins is unbiblical. It is a heresy
to me and I’ll tell you why: because it leaves you
in insecurity, because every time you make a
mistake it means you become unjustified until you
repent. So then you are a yoyo, in Christ and out
of Christ. Such living is what produces poor
Christianity in God’s house!
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 We are living under the umbrella of the
justification of Christ. This doesn’t mean that we
can condone sin, as we shall see when we come to
Romans 6. You dare not condone sin under
justification by faith. But what does Paul mean
when he says that in the past God overlooked the
sins that were previously committed? Here is what
Paul is saying and the context supports this.

The word “beforehand” [or “past,” in some

translations] here refers to before Jesus shed his
blood, before the cross event. Did God forgive
sin? The answer is yes. Could He forgive sin in a
just way? The answer is no, He forgave it out of
His forbearance, out of His patience, out of
kindness, but not out of justice, because His own
law says there can be no forgiveness without the
shedding of blood and the shedding of the blood of
bulls and goats and lambs could not do that legally
and that’s what the book of Hebrews brings out,
chapter 9 and 10 especially. But now verse 26
says:

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 ...he did it to demonstrate his justice at the
present time, so as to be just and the one who
justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

That is legal justification, at least one meaning

of legal justification. In other words, since the
cross, God is absolutely just before his own law in
forgiving us and this is what Paul means in verse
31, which we will cover in the next study. Do you
make void the law through preaching justification
by faith? Does this doctrine of justification by
faith nullify the law? Paul says nothing doing. It
upholds the law because in Christ — in his life and
his death — God is legally just in justifying the
believer.

In other words, before the law of God, you and

I stand perfectly justified in Christ and God is
upholding His law in doing that. God is not going
against His law; in other words, the law and God
are in harmony in justifying the believer and this is
what Paul says:

...to demonstrate his justice at the present time,

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so as to be just and the one who justifies those who
have faith in Jesus.

In other words, the Devil, before the cross,

could point his finger at God and say, “You have
no right to take these sinners to heaven. They are
sinners!” But, since the cross, the Devil’s mouth
has been shut up and God will say to the Devil, “I
rebuke thee. Is not this a branch plucked out of the
fire?”

Yes, by nature and performance we belong to

the lake of fire, that’s where we belong by
ourselves. But Jesus plucked us out of that fire and
justified us and now He stands before the right
hand of God, not to plead before the Father, but to
defend that justification before the accusation of
Satan and He is just in doing that.

In other words, why should we have the

investigative judgment if I am already justified in
Christ? The purpose of the investigative judgment
is not to find out if you deserve heaven or not.
None of us deserve heaven; we are saved by grace.
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It is because our justification in Christ has to be
vindicated before we go to heaven and, in the
investigative judgment, Jesus will defend our
justification and he will vindicate it and he will say
to Satan, “You have no right to accuse them
because they have accepted me and I am their
propitiation. Therefore, I rebuke you.” And he
will turn to us and say, “Come inherit the kingdom
of my Father which was prepared for you from the
foundation of the world.”

My dear people, do you realize what the

righteousness of God means to you?

1. It means that you are justified right now.

2. You are justified freely.
3. God is just in justifying you.

That is the message of the gospel and this is

why we need to understand this. Because the
world desperately needs to know that God is just in
justifying the sinner and that, in Christ, we have
salvation full and complete. This is a message that
we need to preach to a perishing world. May God
185
help us to understand what this message is all about
and then take it to the world and tell them this
unconditional good news. May God bless us that
you shall know the truth and the truth will set you
free.

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 Chapter 7

The Law and the Gospel

(Romans 3:27-31)

We come now to our third and final study on

this tremendous passage that we have been looking
at for the last three studies, where Paul introduces
us to and defines the unconditional good news of
salvation in God’s Son, Jesus Christ. As we
conclude this passage, Romans 3:21-31, there are
certain important facts that you need to keep
constantly in your mind:

1. The Apostle Paul defines the Gospel as the

righteousness of God. Never forget that. The
gospel is the righteousness of God. By this Paul
means that it is a righteousness that is all of God’s
doing. He planned it and He fulfilled it in His Son
Jesus Christ. And that, of course, is in verse 21:

But now a righteousness from God, apart from

law, has been made known, to which the Law and
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the Prophets testify.

2. This righteousness is made effective in your

life, in my life, in the lives of every human being,
through faith alone. We can’t earn it by our good
works and we can’t buy it with money. It is ours
only by faith, and that’s why it is called
Justification by Faith, the greatest discovery that
[Martin] Luther made when he was delivered from
his bondage to legalism. This is in verse 22:

This righteousness from God comes through

faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe....

3. This righteousness of God which justifies us

qualifies us for heaven and for life now and in the
judgment. In other words, legally we stand
justified in Christ. That’s in verse 24. Also in
verse 24 Paul goes on to explain to us that this
righteousness which justifies us is bestowed upon
us freely and graciously. In other words, we do not
deserve it. We cannot earn it. It’s at no cost to us.
It’s given to us without us deserving it. It is freely
and graciously bestowed upon us. Versus 24:
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 ...And [all] are justified freely by his grace
through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

4. Then, in verses 25 and 26, Paul goes on to

show that God is just, He is right, He is legally just
in justifying us sinners because of the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus. In other words, because of
the cross, God legally can qualify you and me for
heaven. And that is something extremely
important which he will bring up again in verse 31,
which we will cover today. Verses 25-26:

God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement,

through faith in his blood. He did this to
demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance
he had left the sins committed beforehand
unpunished — he did it to demonstrate his justice
at the present time, so as to be just and the one who
justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

But I would like to give you a text to remind

you of what we covered in the last study; that is
Hebrews 9:22. The Apostle Paul there, writing to
189
the Jewish Christians, makes it very clear.
Hebrews 9:22:

In fact, the law requies that nearly everything

be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding
of blood there is no forgiveness.

God can legally forgive you, He can forgive

me, because of the redemption that is in Christ.
Now, let’s turn to verse 27. Paul begins verse 27
by asking a question:

Where, then, is boasting?

Does the gospel leave any room for boasting?

And his answer is:

It is excluded.

There is no room for boasting. Here is all of

verse 27:

Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On

what principle? On that of observing the law? No,
190
but on that of faith.

So the reason for this, he says, is: “Since our

works do not contribute one iota towards the
righteousness of God that justifies us, and since the
righteousness of God comes to us through faith
alone, there is no room for human boasting.”

Now there is room for boasting, but not for

human boasting. If you turn to 1 Corinthians
chapter 1, you will find that Paul makes a similar
statement, but there he says, “There is need for
boasting.” Except he puts it in a different way. So
I want you to look at chapter 1 of 1 Corinthians,
and look at the last two verses. In verse 30, Paul
explains that our hope is in Christ, and that hope
has come to us through God:

It is because of him [God] that you are in Christ

Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God —
that is, our righteousness, holiness, and
redemption....

Then, quoting from the Old Testament [Jer.

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9:24], he says:

Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts

boast in the Lord.”

Yes, there is room for boasting, but our

boasting must be in Jesus Christ. There is no
boasting in ourselves. In other words, “There is no
room for human pride, there is no room for human
bragging,” says Paul, “in the gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ, because it is all of God’s doing.”

In verse 29 and 30 of Romans 3, Paul goes on

to say that this truth of Justification by Faith
applies to the Jews and to the Gentiles alike. But
before we touch that I want you to look at verse 28,
because verse 28 is the bottom line, it is the
conclusion of this whole passage. It is the key text
of his argument which began in verse 21:

For we maintain that a man is justified by faith

apart from observing the law.

So a person is justified by faith — is declared

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righteous by faith — without the deeds of the law.
Our law-keeping does not contribute one iota
towards the righteousness that justifies us. It is all
of God.

And this truth, says Paul, applies to the Jews as

well as to the Gentiles. Verses 29-30:

Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the

God of Gentiles, too? Yes, of Gentiles, too, since
there is only one God, who will justify the
circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised
through that same faith.

In other words, God does not have one way of

saving the Jews, and another way of saving the
Gentiles. All people, from Adam to the last
person, have been saved through the righteousness
of God in Jesus Christ, and this is made effective
by faith alone.

This truth is something important for today,

because there are many who would like to divide
God’s dealings with the human race into
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dispensations: “God had one way of saving
Abraham, He had another way of saving Moses,
He had another way of saving the New Testament
people.”

No, folks, from beginning to end we are saved

by the righteousness of Christ which is through
faith alone. God has only one way of saving Jews
and Gentiles, and God has only one way of saving
mankind in the Old Testament period and in the
New Testament period. The only difference is that,
in the Old Testament period, people were saved by
faith in the promise. In the New Testament period,
we are saved by the reality of the promise, which is
Jesus Christ. But in both cases it is by faith, in
what God has promised and in what God has
fulfilled.

Now comes the problem. It is impossible, and

Paul realizes this, it is impossible to preach and to
teach that we are justified by faith apart from the
deeds of the law without coming under fire. Paul
knows that. Everywhere he travelled in his
missionary journeys he was dogged by these
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Judaizers who accused him of undermining the
law. They accused him of being a false teacher.
They accused him of being a self-made Apostle.
All kinds of accusations were thrust onto Paul.
You see, there are two problems with this teaching
of Justification by Faith:

1. It affects our pride. You see, if I am justified

by faith, if I am justified by the righteousness of
God, without any contribution from me, it implies
that, spiritually, I am bankrupt; I can make no
contribution. That is very painful to our egos.
Man doesn’t like to think that he can do nothing
good. He admits that he does bad things, but to
admit that there is nothing good in him is very
painful to his ego. If you don’t believe me, next
time you go to the supermarket for your shopping,
I suggest you stop somebody in the shop. Make
sure that he is smaller and weaker than you. This
is very important. And tell him, “I have some
news for you.”

He will say, “What’s the news?”

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 You respond, “From head to foot, there is
nothing good in you.”

Now you will have been telling him, or her, the

truth, but you have been insulting that person.
Because that person is smaller and weaker than
you, he won’t box you. But he could take your
name down, or your car number plate down and
take you to court. You have insulted that person.

Man doesn’t like to believe that there is nothing

good in him. But the gospel of Jesus Christ, the
doctrine of Justification by Faith, turns all our
goodness into filthy rags. And that is very painful
to the human ego.

2. There is a second problem when you preach

Justification by Faith. It sounds like, when you
read verse 28, that Paul is undermining the law,
and that was one of the key accusations that Paul
faced in his ministry. When he was taken captive
by this Jewish mob in Jerusalem, one of the
accusations — you’ll find that in the book of Acts,
I won’t tell you the text, you need to do some
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homework — but you’ll find in the book of Acts
that one of the accusations that was made against
Paul was that he was against the law.

This is an accusation that comes to everybody

who preaches Justification by Faith alone. You
can’t escape it. In fact, when I was training
ministers in Africa, I told them that this is what it
will cost you. I am still waiting to come under fire
in this church. I haven’t as of yet, and I’m
wondering why it’s taking so long. Maybe it has,
behind my back, but I haven’t faced it yet openly.
If somebody does accuse me behind my back,
please send them to me. I’ll be happy to sit down
with them and give them what I understand from
Scripture and they need to defend their position
from Scripture. But the Bible is clear: we are
justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

Does this mean that the gospel, that the

doctrine of Justification by Faith, undermines the
law? That’s the question that Paul is asking in
Romans 3, verse 31:

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 Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith?

“Is this what I am doing in my preaching of the

doctrine of Justification by Faith? Do we make
void the law through faith?” And what is his
answer [in the same verse]?

Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.

Now I would like to confess that this is one of

the most misunderstood verses in the Bible. I have
heard lots of talks, I have read a lot of material on
this verse, but I am afraid I have to disagree with
all of them. Let me give you a typical
interpretation of verse 31 that you often read and
hear:

“Do we then make void the law through faith?

No! By faith God gives us His Spirit. He gives us
power. And we are able to keep the law by God’s
power, and by keeping the law, we are establishing
the law.”

That is a typical interpretation of verse 31. I

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would like to suggest that this is far from what Paul
is talking about. I’ll give you three reasons:

1. It does not agree with the context.

2. It does not agree historically.
3. It does not agree with the grammar.

We need to be honest with every text that we

read. Paul is not saying here that by faith we keep
the law through the grace of God, through the
power of God, and that way we establish the law.
Let me explain each one of them.

First of all, contextually. Paul is not dealing in

this passage which we have covered with the
doctrine of Sanctification. He is dealing with the
doctrine of Justification by Faith. Yes, Paul has
much to say in Romans on this doctrine of
Sanctification, in chapters 6, 7, and 8. And Paul
has much to say on the issue of Christian living,
which must be in harmony with the law, in chapter
12 up to chapter 16. But here, in this passage, he is
not dealing with the subjective experience of the
Christian. He is dealing with the truth of the
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righteousness of God which justifies us apart from
the works of the law. So the context won’t allow
you to give you that interpretation.

Let us look at the second problem, historically.

What do I mean that this interpretation disagrees
historically? Well, it is impossible. I am going to
make a statement first, and I will explain it,
because I know that many will misunderstand me
just making the statement: “It is impossible for
you and me to establish the law.”

Now I do not mean by that it is impossible for

you and me, by the grace of God, to keep the law.
I am not discussing that. We will come to that
when we come to the sections on sanctification and
the sections on Christian living. What I am saying
here, and what Paul is saying here, is that it’s
impossible for you and me, and it has never
happened in the history of the human race, or in the
history of the Christian church, where any believer
has established the law.

Now to explain that. What do I mean? What

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does Paul mean when he uses the word establish?
It means that the law is totally and fully satisfied
with you. When every demand of the law on you
has been satisfied, then and then only you have
established the law. And that is impossible. I’ll tell
you why folks. The law demands two things from
you and me. Not one, but two things:

1. The law demands perfect righteousness from

you and me.

2. Because we are sinners, the law demands

from you and me justice. Now it is true, Paul
says in Romans 8:4 that [beginning at the
end of verse 3]:

And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in

order that the righteous requirements of the law
might be fully met in us, who do not live according
to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

If we walk in the Spirit, the righteousness of

the law can be fulfilled in us. But the
righteousness of the law is not the justice of the
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law. The justice of the law is that [Eze. 18:4 &
20]:

The soul who sins is the one who will die.

And the death that the law demands from you

and me as sinners is not the first death, it’s good-
bye to life forever. Therefore, it is impossible to
meet the justice of the law and still live because,
when you die the second death, that’s the end of
you.

So there are two requirements that the law

demands from each one of us. If you fail to fulfil
those two requirements, you cannot establish the
law, the law will condemn you, you’re still under
the curse. But in Christ the law has been
established. Christ met on behalf of all people the
two demands. By His perfect life, He has met the
positive demand of the law, which the Bible calls
the righteousness of the law. And, by His death,
He has met the justice of the law, so that, in the
doing and the dying of Christ, the law has been
established. That is what Paul is saying in verse
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31. I’ll come back to it.

Let’s go to number three: grammatically. You

see, the word “faith” is the key state word in this
verse, 31:

Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith?

[Some translations read: Do we then make void
the law through faith?]

Now the word “faith” has more than one

meaning in the New Testament. Paul is not saying
here, “Do we then make void the law through our
faith?” He is not discussing the believer’s faith,
which is one of the key definitions of faith in the
New Testament. But he’s not discussing that,
because, in the original, which is not in the English
[translations of the] Bible, in the original, the word
“faith” is preceded by the definite article. So what
Paul says here is:

Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith?

[Some translations read: Do we then make void
the law through the faith?]
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 When he uses the word faith with the definite
article, it can have more than one meaning. I want
to give you an example of what it can mean before
I turn to this verse. Turn your Bibles to a very
important passage, Galatians chapter 3, the passage
that brought a tremendous controversy, not only in
the Christian church, but in ours, 100 years ago.
Galatians chapter 3, and I want to look at two
verses, 23 and 25. And here Paul does the same
thing. He uses the word faith with the definite
article. I read in verse 23:

Before this faith came, we were held prisoners

by the law, locked up until faith should be
revealed.

Now what is Paul saying in verse 23? The

word “faith” here is not applying to the believer’s
faith but to the object of faith, which is Jesus
Christ. So what Paul is saying here in Galatians
3:23 is: “Before Christ came, historically, before
He came to this world, before Christ came and
redeemed us by His life and death, the human race
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was kept in prison. We were all in death row
legally before Christ came.”

In other words, even Enoch and Moses, even

Elijah, had no right to be in heaven. But they were
there because of a promise. If Christ had failed to
keep that promise, they would have to come down
and die. But the fact is that, legally, the whole
world was in prison, sentenced to eternal death,
until the faith of Christ came. That is why Paul
says in Galatians 3, verses 24-25:

So the law was put in charge to lead us to

Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that
faith has come, we are no longer under the
supervision of the law.

In verse 23, the faith had not come; in verse 25,

He had already come. But after the faith had come,
we are no longer under the supervision of the law
[or “under the schoolmaster,” as some translations
read] because Christ has set us free.

So the word faith in Galatians 3 does not refer

205
to the believer’s faith, but to the object of the
believer’s faith, which is Jesus Christ.

With this in mind, let’s go to Romans 3. How

then does Paul use the word “faith” in verse 31 of
chapter 3? Well, the context tells us here that he is
discussing the doctrine of Justification by Faith.
He has told us in verse 28 that the righteousness of
God which justifies us by faith is apart from the
law. That means our keeping of the law does not
contribute towards the righteousness which
justifies us. But the question in verse 31 is, “What
about God’s righteousness? Does God’s
righteousness satisfy the law?” In other words, is
God righteous when He justifies us sinners? Can
His righteousness stand up with the law in the
judgment? The answer is yes.

In other words, what Paul is defending here is,

once again, the legal framework of the atonement.
That’s why, if we destroy the legal framework of
the atonement, which some of our theologians are
trying to do, we have destroyed one of the key
passages, one of the key teachings of the New
206
Testament.

Let me ask you a question. If you stand before

the judgment seat of God today, and the law says to
you, “Have you obeyed me?” What are you going
to say?

“Well, we have been taught that the law no

longer applies.”

And God will say, “Who told you that?”

“Well, some theologian with a Ph.D.”

And God will say, “Since when was he your

Saviour?”

The Bible is the measuring stick of truth. And

the Bible says [Heb. 9:22]:

In fact, the law requires that nearly everything

be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding
of blood there is no forgiveness.

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 On the cross, Jesus met the justice of the law.
And, by His life, He met the positive demands of
the law. And when I stand before the judgment
seat of God, and the law of God says to me, “Have
you obeyed me?” I will not say to the law, “Well, I
did my best.”

The law says, “I did not ask that question.”

“Well, I kept most of the law.”

The law will say, “I did not ask you that

question either. Have you obeyed me in every
detail?”

“Well, I goofed up a few times.”

And the law says, “I’m sorry, you must die.

Once is enough.”

But I thank God I will not answer the law that

way. I will say, “Yes, I have obeyed you
perfectly.”

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 The law will say, “When did you obey me
perfectly?”

“When I was in Christ. Then I had perfect

obedience.”

But the law will say, “You’re a sinner, you

must die.”

And I will say to the law, “Well I have bad

news for you, I have already died.”

The law will say, “When did you die?”

I will quote to the law Galatians 2:20:

I have been crucified with Christ and I no

longer live....

The law will say, “Well, if that’s your position,

then you are free to live.”

And I will say to the law, “Thank you.”

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 Because, in Christ, the law has been established
on behalf of you and me. That is what verse 31
says. God doesn’t bypass His law to justify us.
God holds His integrity to His law when He
justifies me through His Son Jesus Christ.
Because, in His Son’s holy history, God has met
every demand of the law for you and for me. That
is the “good news” of the Gospel.

Now I would like to emphasize this because it

is extremely important for a Christian to realize
this. I’ll tell you why. It is impossible — and I
repeat, it is impossible — for you and me to
experience genuine sanctification if we have not
understood justification. It is like trying to produce
oranges out of an apple tree. The ground of our
sanctification is Justification by Faith.

I’ll tell you why it’s impossible. Hebrews 2:15:

...and free those who all their lives were held in

slavery by their fear of death.

Because Hebrews 2:15 tells me that I am a

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slave; I was born that way. I am a slave to the fear
of death. Every human being has a fear of dying.
Even the atheist is scared to die when the time
comes. And that’s why there’s a saying, “There
are no atheists in foxholes,” because they’re scared
to die.

Now the thing is this, unless God delivers me

from that fear, it is impossible for me to experience
the love of God. In other words, it is impossible
for you and me to live the Christian life. It is
impossible for you and me to keep the law if we
are still slaves to fear.

Because God doesn’t look at the act, He looks

at the heart. The moment you do the right act for
the wrong reason, God looks at that as filthy rags.

How can God produce a people who can serve

Him without fear or without a desire for reward? It
is only when He has established them in
Justification by Faith, and has given them peace!
And if you have no peace today, if you are not sure
that in Christ you stand perfect before His law,
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there is no way that God can liberate you from the
fear of death. Because there is only one way:
through the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
Hebrews 2:14,15 says so:

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too

shared in their humanity so that by his death he
might destroy him who holds the power of death —
that is, the devil — and free those who all their
lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

So please, there is a vital issue here. I’m

saying this and I’m emphasizing this because of
one reason: I have discovered in my almost 25
years of the Adventist Church that most Adventists
are very insecure about their salvation. Am I
correct? Or do I have some different people here?
And because we are insecure, it is very hard for
this denomination to send missionaries in countries
where their lives are in danger, very difficult. We
closed our Middle East College. Why? Because it
got too hot there. We had difficulties finding
doctors for Uganda. Why? Because life was on
the block the moment you stepped in this country,
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under Idi Amin. Why are we scared? Because we
cannot say with Paul [Philippians 1:21]:

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

Can you say that from the heart? If you can,

then you are not afraid to die.

I remember visiting a couple in Andrews

[University] when I was on furlough there. They
knew I was from Kenya and they were going to be
sent to Kandu Hospital (and my son was born
there) and the wife said to me, “Are there snakes
there?”

I had two choices: to lie to her or to tell her the

truth. I said, “Yes, I’m afraid there are many
snakes at Kandu.”

She asked, “Are they poisonous?”

What could I say? There are mambas there,

both black and green. There are spitting cobras
there. There are gaboon vipers there. I said,
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“Well, sister, there are some very poisonous snakes
there, but I do not know of a single missionary who
has died by snakebite at Kandu Hospital.”

She turned to her husband and said, “Well,

there’s always a first time. We better not accept
the call.”

Are you afraid to die? I’m not talking about

physically, because human beings are human
beings. But inwardly, in the spirit, can you say,
“For me to die is profit”? Unless we have that
peace, God can’t use us to lighten this earth with
His glory.

In 1980, [Anwar] Sadat was assassinated in

Egypt. The speaker was from this country. He
was scared to go there — it was a week later after
the assassination — because life was now terrible.
People were being killed in Egypt because of the
assassination, especially Americans. And we had
no speaker. They tried and they tried, and finally I
got a call from Beirut (I was in Kenya) and they
said, “Would you go please?”
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 I said, “Sure.”

I remember my missionary friends saying to

me, “You are a fool.”

I asked, “Why?”

“Why are you risking your life?” they said.

I said, “Look, the only person who risks his life

is a person who has not died. But I’m already
dead.” And I gave them Colossians 3:3:

For you died, and your life is now hidden with

Christ in God.

We are dead, and our life is hid in Christ. And

nobody can kill that life, because it is eternal.

Do you believe that, in Christ, you stand

perfect before God? Do you believe that if a
person comes and shoots you now, heaven is yours
not because you’re good or not because you’re
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living in the Christian life, but because in Christ
the law has been established?

Justification by Faith is the greatest message

the world needs, because men are living in fear, in
insecurity. The only hope that we can give them is
that the law has been established by the doctrine of
Justification by Faith.

That is why it is impossible for me and for Paul

to talk about sanctification, or to talk about
Christian living, unless he has first established us
in the truth of Justification by Faith.

It is my prayer that you remember one thing:

that you have a peace that your country and your
money and your food cannot give you. It is only in
Jesus Christ. And I want you to share this peace
with those who don’t have it.

You know, I travel around here and I see all

these wonderful homes and I ask myself, “How
many of them have peace? How many of them are
churchgoers?” Do people know that Jesus Christ
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has established the law for us? That, in Him, we
can look at the law without blinking and realize
that in Christ the law doesn’t condemn us, the law
justifies us.

I want to give you three facts:

1. God is on your side.

2. Jesus is on your side.
3. His law is on your side.

The only one that is against you is the Devil,

and he has no way to knock you down if you are
established in Justification by Faith.

Let us remember that, when you and I stand

before the Investigative Judgment, God doesn’t
have that investigation so that He might find out
whether you and I deserve to go to heaven by our
performance. No, the purpose of the Investigative
Judgment is to vindicate our Justification by Faith
by our Advocate, Jesus Christ. And I know what
Christ will say to Satan in that judgment [Zech.
3:2]:
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 The Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you,
Satan! The Lord, who has chosen Jerusalem,
rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick
snatched from the fire?”

This is what Paul is saying to us [Romans

3:21]:

For we maintain that a man is justified by faith

apart from observing the law.

Is Justification by Faith able to stand up against

the law of God? The answer is yes! The law has
been established in the holy history of Jesus Christ.
And this is the greatest news that you and I can
ever accept.

It is my prayer that you will rejoice in Jesus

Christ as your Righteousness, a righteousness that
fully established the law in every demand.

In the meantime, read Romans 4. I’m going to

cover the whole of chapter 4 in one study. I’m
218
doing it because I don’t want to stretch Romans too
long. I know some people get weary, but it’s a
wonderful book. In Romans 4, Paul defends
Justification by Faith against three arguments:
works, circumcision, and the law. And we need to
understand what he’s doing here. He’s defending
what he says in verse 31.

May God help us that we may rejoice, we will

have peace, and from now onward we will no
longer be worried, “Will I make it to heaven?”
That matter has been settled. From now onward
[Philippians 1:21]:

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

And if I have to die in that process, don’t

worry, folks, it’s only sleeping. I don’t know about
you, I enjoy sleeping, until the resurrection when I
shall see my Lord. And I will say, “Thank God for
such a salvation as this!” May God bless us.

219
 Chapter 8

In Defense of
Justification by Faith
(Romans 4:1-25)

Let’s recap what we’ve covered about

Justification by Faith.

1. Paul defined the gospel as the righteousness

of God. He did this in his introduction in Romans
1:16 and 17, and now in his definition of the gospel
in chapter 3:21 he says:

But now a righteousness from God, apart from

law, has been made known, to which the Law and
the Prophets testify.

The gospel is the righteousness of God. This

means it is all of God’s doing. He planned it, He
performed it, and He makes it available to us
without any human contribution. It’s all of God.

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That’s in verse 21 of Romans 3.

2. This righteousness, which God has obtained

not only for us, but for all people, is made
effective, becomes yours, by faith alone. You can’t
earn it by your works, and you cannot buy it with
your money. It is made effective by faith alone
apart from anything else. And that’s in verse 22,
and verses 28-30. Hence, for this reason it is
called, justification or righteousness (the two words
are synonymous in Greek), it is called justification
or righteousness by faith.

3. This Justification by Faith is the only way to

be saved. Oh, there are many other methods that
are taught in the world today, but this is the only
method, this is the only way, mankind can be
saved, whether you’re a Jew or a Gentile, whether
you lived in the Old Testament times or whether
you live in the New Testament times. God is One,
and He has only one way of saving man, it is
through Justification by Faith.

4. Justification by Faith qualifies you and me

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for heaven, now, and in the judgment. Because the
word justification is a legal term. It’s a term that is
applied to those a judge acquits in a case.
Justification by Faith is the only way that qualifies
you and me for heaven now and in the judgment.
That’s in verse 24, and also in Isaiah 55:1,2
because, further, it is freely and graciously
bestowed.

Then what about sanctification? Sanctification

is the fruits of Justification by Faith. Will
sanctification not be used in the judgment? Yes.
But never as the means of justification, but as the
evidence of justification. Never forget that.

5. Because of the redemption in Christ, the

righteousness of God is not only a promise, it’s a
historical reality. It is ours because of the doing
and dying of Christ, or as the Bible puts it, as Paul
puts it [Romans 3:24]:

...And [all] are justified freely by his grace

through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

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 God is legally just in justifying us sinners. God
doesn’t “make believe” our righteousness, He is
legally just in declaring us sinners righteous in
Christ. And that is extremely important, Paul
defends it, points it out, in verses 24-26. And by
the way, Hebrews 9:22-26 brings this out also. By
the doing and dying of Christ, God has a legal
right, He can uphold His law and, at the same time,
justify us.

6. Justification by Faith leaves no room for

boasting, for human boasting, for man’s boasting.
Why? Because we have not contributed one iota
towards it; it is entirely by grace, God’s doing. We
don’t deserve it, we haven’t earned it, we don’t
contribute to it, not even our faith contributes to it.
Therefore, it’s entirely God’s doing; therefore,
there is no boasting, as far as man is concerned.

Now is there no boasting? Yes, there is

boasting, but only in God. That’s why I’ve given 1
Corinthians 1:30,31. But Romans 3:27 says there
is no boasting, because faith, Justification by Faith
means that I am justified by what God has done,
223
not by what I have done. Faith is never
contributing towards our justification, it simply is
accepting. We are saved by faith or we are saved
through faith, but never because of faith.

7. Justification by Faith fully satisfies or

establishes the law. Now folks, we must be clear on
this. The righteousness of God that justifies us,
which is made effective by faith, fully establishes
the law. Not because of sanctification. Our
keeping the law, which is the fruits of Justification
by Faith, doesn’t establish the law. It is what
Christ did that establishes the law. It is His life, it
is His death that met all the demands of the law.
You and I can never establish the law. Yes, it is
possible, through the indwelling spirit, it is
possible, as we walk by the Spirit, for the
righteousness of the law to be fulfilled in us, but
never to establish it. Because to establish the law
you have to meet every demand of the law, not
only it’s positive demands, but also its justice. And
the justice of the law says [Eze. 18:4 & 20]:

The soul who sins is the one who will die.

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 None of us can die the second death and still
live. So please remember, it is only Christ Who
has established the law. When we preach
Justification by Faith we are not doing away with
the law, we are upholding the law, because in
Christ we stand perfect before the law of God, both
in its demands, in terms of positive demands, as
well as in its justice.

This is the fundamental definition of

Justification by Faith. It has fruits, which we shall
see in the next study. But, wherever Paul preached
this folks, wherever he did it during his ministry,
he came under fire. And in chapter 4 he is still
dealing with Justification by Faith. He has not yet
moved to sanctification, he will do that in chapter
6. But in Romans 4 he is defending Justification
by Faith against the three-fold opposition that he
faced in his ministry.

This opposition came mainly from the

Judaizers, these Jewish Christians who followed
him everywhere, who “bugged” him everywhere.
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What was the three-fold opposition? Let me give it
to you in a nutshell and then we’ll go into detail:

1. The first opposition was works. That’s

found in verse 1 through verse 8 of Romans
chapter 4. The Jewish Christians were
demanding, were insisting, that our works
were essential for our Justification by Faith.
Now let me clarify, what they meant was:
God requires us to do good works in order to
be saved. Paul is meeting this objection.
Because He said, “We are justified without
works, only by faith.”

2. Number two, which was something very

important to the Jews, but we can apply it to
ourselves in a different form, was
circumcision. Circumcision was very
important to the Jew, it meant everything to
them. The Jewish Christians, these
Judaizers, were insisting that you cannot be
saved unless you are circumcised. And that,
Paul is dealing with in verse 9 to verse 12.

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 3. Then, in verse 13 to verse 16 or 17, Paul is
dealing with this third element, this third
objection, which we can apply today, and
that is the keeping of the law. The Jewish
Christians were saying, “Yes, it is not
enough simply to believe, we must keep the
law in order to be saved.”

In other words, the Judaizers were saying that

works are essential for justification, circumcision is
a requirement for salvation, and the keeping of the
law is necessary if you are to be saved. And to all
these three Paul says, “No!”

Now before I go any further, I want to say

something very important: Paul is not against
works, he is for it. He is not even against
circumcision; He circumcised Timothy. And he is
not against the keeping of the law, he is for it.
He’ll say much about it, in chapter 13 of Romans.
Then what is the problem here? The problem is
these three things are never to be used as a means
of salvation. He is for it as a way of life. He is
against it as a means of salvation. That’s the issue
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here.

I want you to be clear, so I’m going to give you

two texts. These two texts are just an example of
how Paul relates works in terms of our salvation
and in terms of Christian living. You will notice
that he makes it very clear in Ephesians 2, and I’m
going to read three verses, and you will notice in
these three verses the word “works” appears twice
— once in the negative and once in the positive.
Ephesians 2:8-10:

For it is by grace [God’s doing] you have been

saved, through faith [that is, faith makes that
salvation effective] — and this not from yourselves
[you did not and I did not contribute one iota
towards that salvation], it is the gift of God — not
by works, so that no one can boast. For we are
God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do
good works, which God prepared in advance for us
to do.

By the way, there is much confusion with that

word “it” (“it is by grace....”). In the Greek, the
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grammar implies the word “it” refers to grace and
not to faith. The salvation that comes to us by
grace is a gift of God. Our works do not contribute
towards that gift that saves us, that grace that saves
us, “so that no one can boast.” So please
remember, Paul is very clear: our works are not
the means of, nor do they contribute towards our
justification. But now look again at verse 10:

For we are God’s workmanship, created in

Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared
in advance for us to do.

So Christ didn’t only save us to have a ticket to

heaven, but He created us, or recreated us in His
Son, God did that, that we may do good works.
Please notice that it is the fruits, and that is the
fruits of Justification by Faith which we will cover
in this lesson. But one more text: Titus 3:4,5 and
8. In chapter 3, verses 1, 2, and 3 (especially
verses 2 and 3), he talks about us as we are:
sinners, disobedient, and so on. Now look at
verses 4-5:

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 But when the kindness and love of God our
Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of
righteous things we had done [it isn’t because we
did something good that deserves salvation], but
because of his mercy. He saved us through the
washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy
Spirit....

Having told us the good news, he continues in

verse 8:

This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to

stress these things, so that those who have trusted
in God may be careful to devote themselves to
doing what is good....

Now please notice that he is talking now to

believers who have already experienced
Justification by Faith. He’s saying, “Now that you
believe, you who believe in God should be careful
to do good works.”

Have you got that? On the one hand, our works

do not save us one iota, it doesn’t even contribute.
230
On the other hand, genuine Justification by Faith
always produces good works. It is the evidence of
Justification by Faith. Here’s the last part of verse
8:

These things are excellent and profitable for

everyone.

Please notice, they may not be profitable to

you; they are profitable to other people. In other
words, the good works of the Christian church
should always be a blessing to humanity. If you
look at the history of the world today, much of the
blessings that have come to this world we take for
granted. You take education, schools. Who were
the ones who first introduced schools? The
Christian church. Who were the ones who were
behind all the wonderful social work in this
country, like welfare? It began with men and
women who were controlled by the gospel of Jesus
Christ.

I want you to remember that Paul is not

discussing works, He is not discussing
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circumcision, He is not discussing the keeping of
the law as the fruits of justification, but he’s
discussing this thing as the means of justification.
Paul is against salvation by faith plus works, but he
is for salvation by faith that works, two different
things.

So please remember the context in which we

are discussing Romans four. Paul will have much
to say about works, he will have much to say about
sanctification, and about Christian living, and
about keeping the law. We will come to that as we
go on to chapter 6 onwards. But here he’s talking
of how a man is justified before God. And it is by
faith alone! Our works, circumcision... (Do you
want to add baptism to it? Because we don’t
practise circumcision today [in the Christian
church]. But in Colossians 2, Paul tells us that
baptism and circumcision are synonymous in their
meaning.) So our works, our baptism, and our
keeping of the law do not contribute towards our
justification.

That is the issue. So please, I want nobody

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here to say, “Pastor Sequeira is saying we don’t
have to do any works, we don’t have to keep the
law.” I am not saying that, neither is Paul. He is
defending the doctrine of Justification by Faith,
alone, as our standing before God. With this clear,
let us go on and look at it in detail.

Since Paul is dealing with the Jews, he has to

use somebody who was very special to the Jews:
Abraham. Abraham was the father of the Jews.
Now, in the western world, the father simply is
somebody who produced you. But in the eastern
mind, in the mind of the Jews, a father was more
than somebody who was instrumental in bringing
you into this world. He was your example, he was
your prototype. Please remember that. Put
yourself in the Jews’ shoes. To the Jew, Abraham
was their father; he meant everything to them. So
he’s using Abraham as a model. Romans 4:1:

What then shall we say that Abraham, our

forefather, discovered in this matter? [Some
translations read: What then shall we say that
Abraham our father has found according to the
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flesh?]

“What is Abraham meaning to us?” is the

question. Now the statement I want you to look at
in verse 1 is that expression or that phrase
“pertaining or according to the flesh.”

What did Paul mean by the word “flesh”? In

English, the word “flesh” means the soft part of the
body. Paul was not referring to the soft part of
Abraham. What did Paul mean by the word
“flesh”? Well, he means “the natural man.” The
best example, the best explanation I can give you
of the word “flesh” is in Philippians 3. Let’s see
how Paul defines the word flesh, because we need
to understand what the phrase means. It does not
mean the soft part of the human body. That’s not
how Paul is using it here. It does mean that in
some places, but not here.

So in Philippians 3, Paul uses the word “flesh”

in the same way as Paul uses it in Romans 4:1.
Now you will notice something in verse 3. I’m
going to read verse 3 to 6 in Philippians 3. You
234
will notice that Paul is not against circumcision,
because in verse 3 he says:

For it is we [i.e., believers] who are the

circumcision....

So Paul is not against circumcision as a truth.

He’s against circumcision as a means of salvation.

For it is we who are the circumcision, we who

worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ
Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh....

So what is circumcision? Depending on God

and not on us. That’s why Jeremiah says in chapter
4 [verse 4]:

Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, circumcise

your hearts....

And Moses says in chapter 10, verse 16 of

Deuteronomy:

Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not

235
be stiff-necked any longer.

“Circumcise your hearts” means “remove

unbelief, remove the flesh.”

Paul says, “We rejoice in Christ and have no

confidence in the flesh.” Then, in verse 4, and 5,
and 6 he defines what he means by the word
“flesh”:

...Though I myself have reasons for such

confidence. If anyone else thinks he has reasons to
put confidence in the flesh, I have more:
circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of
Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of
Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for
zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic
righteousness, faultless.

“If you are depending on yourself for your

salvation, I want you to know, Philippians, that I
have more confidence than you.” What did he
mean by that?

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 He gives his history now in verse 5, and that’s
what he means by the flesh:

1. He says, “I was circumcised the eighth day.”

“How many of you Gentiles,” he says, “were

circumcised on the eighth day? I was not
only circumcised according to the law of
Moses, but I was circumcised the eighth day,
too!”

2. “I am a pure-blooded Hebrew. I have a

pedigree. No mixed blood in me. I am of
the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin,
a Hebrew of the Hebrews. So, regarding
Abraham, I can claim to have 100 percent of
his blood, his genes.”

3. “Concerning the law, I was a Pharisee.”

Now the word “Pharisee” today means

something negative. But please remember,
the word “Pharisee” means somebody who
was very zealous for keeping the law in
237
every detail. If he were living today he
would belong to the “holiness club.” We
would call him a “Holy Joe.” That’s what
the word Pharisee meant to the people in
Paul’s day.

So I was zealous of the law, Paul says.

Verse 6:

...As for zeal [i.e., zeal for God], persecuting

the church; as for legalistic righteousness,
faultless.

Please remember one thing: even though

Paul persecuted the Christian church, his
motive was never bad. He really thought he
was serving God when he persecuted the
Christian church. So his heart was right, and
God knew that, that’s why He met him on
the Damascus Road. His actions were
wrong.

Keep this in mind, because, I’ll tell you,

many Sunday-keeping Christians have a
238
 right heart. They’re actions may be wrong
but their heart is right, maybe righter than
some of us, if I can use that word.

Paul’s zeal for God led him to persecute the

church. He thought he was doing God a
favor.

4. “Concerning the righteousness of the law

(which to him meant the rules and
regulations his church gave him), he was
blameless.”

Of course, when he goes to verse 7 onwards, he

says:

But whatever was to my profit I now consider

loss for the sake of Christ. [Some translations
read: All these things which I attained in the flesh,
I gave them up for Christ.

So what does Paul mean by the word flesh?

What does he mean when he says:

239
 What then shall we say that Abraham our father
has found according to the flesh?

Flesh means whatever is true of you in terms of

your birth, in terms of your genealogy, in terms of
your background, in terms of your performance,
whatever is true of you, that you are depending on,
either partially or wholly, for your salvation. That
is the word “flesh.”

If you come to me and say, “I am the great,

great granddaughter of Ellen G. White,” I will say,
“So what?” That doesn’t give you any extra
privilege before God, folks. The fact that you’re a
Seventh-day Adventist, you belong to the Remnant
people does not give you an extra position before
God. The fact that you are keeping the Sabbath
doesn’t make you a better child. What about
Abraham? Look at Romans 4, verse 2:

If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he

had something to boast about — but not before
God.

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 Now let us be honest, did Abraham do works?
Did he obey God when God said to him, “Leave
your country, leave your people, and go to a land
that I will give you”?

Did Abraham obey God? By the way, that was

works. He didn’t have a Mercedes-Benz to go to
Israel, he had to walk, or go on a camel. I don’t
know how many of you have ridden a camel. It’s a
world of difference between riding a camel and
riding a horse. It’s bad enough riding a horse if
you don’t know how. I’m talking from experience.
But have you ever tried riding a camel? It’s not
only moving up and down but from side to side.
I’m talking of getting seasick, or “camelsick.” You
try it. My wife tried it. I took her once to Egypt
and put her on a camel and she lost some of the
color of her hair, it turned grey. It was hard; it was
not easy. Maybe for the youth, it’s okay, you
know.

Abraham did a lot of works, a lot of works,

much more than we do. When the church sends us
to the mission field today, they give us a freight
241
allowance, they give us all kinds of allowances.
We can take this plastic food from Worthington
and Loma Linda with us so that we can enjoy
American food while we are in the mission field.
But when God sent Abraham to Israel, He gave
him no furlough, He gave him no allowances, and
Hebrews 11:8 says:

By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place

he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed
and went, even though he did not know where he
was going.

But when we go, we ask the General

Conference [the Seventh-day Adventist Church
World Headquarters], “Is there a refrigerator where
we’re going? Is there electricity there, and is there
this, and is there that?”

Abraham did many works, but did those works

contribute towards his justification? Paul says,
“No. If it did then I can boast, ‘I obeyed God,
therefore I have a right to go to heaven.’” Romans
4:3:
242
 What does the Scripture say? “Abraham
believed God, and it was credited to him as
righteousness.”

Now, verse 4:

Now when a man works, his wages are not

credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation.

If, at the end of the month, you go to pick up

your salary for which you worked, and you boss
says, “By the way, this is a gift from me,” I know
what you will say: “You need your head
examined; I worked for this! If you don’t give it to
me as a wage I will take you to court!”

That’s what Paul is saying here. If Abraham

worked for his justification, then it would be no
longer by grace. God owed it to him. That’s what
the word means. Verse 5 says:

However, to the man who does not work....

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 Did Abraham work? Yes. Did Abraham work
for his justification? No!

However, to the man who does not work but

trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is
credited as righteousness.

Abraham was justified by faith without works.

Did he do works? Yes, plenty of works. But only
as fruits of Justification by Faith, never as the
means.

Now Paul adds in verse 6 and 7 and 8 a very

important person besides Abraham, because,
besides Abraham, the Jews had somebody very
high in their thinking, who was a friend of God,
who was a man after God’s heart. That is David,
David the King. Paul is saying David was justified
the same way that Abraham was justified. These
two men were justified in the same way that I am
teaching you in Romans how we are justified
before God. I read in verse 6:

David says the same thing when he speaks of

244
the blessedness of the man to whom God credits
righteousness apart from works.

How plain could it be? I’m not squeezing my

ideas into the text. The text is plain; it doesn’t
even need explanation. It’s clear. And then he
quotes from Psalm 32:1,2:

Blessed [which means happy] are they whose

transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are
covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord
will never count against him.

Folks, here you are justified by faith. If you are

you are blessed, you can be happy.

Now, having made it clear that works do not

contribute towards our justification, Paul turns to
circumcision. Verse 9:

Is this blessedness [the blessings of

Justification by Faith] only for the circumcised, or
also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying
that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as
245
righteousness.

“Do we need to be circumcised in order to be

justified? Or do we need to be circumcised in
order for us to be accepted before God, and be
saved?” The Judaizers were saying, “Yes.”
Remember, I was going to give you a text? I’ll
give it to you now. Turn to Acts 15. Is Paul
against circumcision? No. He circumcised
Timothy. He spoke of circumcision in Philippians
3 in a positive way. He does the same thing in
Colossians 2, but now, here it is, Acts 15: the first
“General Conference” of the Christian church.
What was the issue? Almost the same as 1888.
Here it is. Chapter 15 of Acts, verse 1:

Some men came down from Judea [that means

they were Jews] to Antioch and were teaching the
brothers [the believers there]: “Unless you are
circumcised, according to the custom taught by
Moses, you cannot be saved.”

Please notice that the issue is not circumcision.

The issue is circumcision as an essential
246
requirement for salvation.

Does Paul say, “You know, you Jewish

brethren, I think you have a point”? No. Listen to
verse 2 of Acts 15:

This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp

dispute and debate with them....

Paul did not take this sitting down, neither did

Barnabas. Now Barnabas was a very mild fellow.
Paul, I can see, was aggressive. He had the short
man’s complex, you know. (They tell me he was
short.)

But here are Paul and Barnabas, they would not

give in. They fought with all they could. Finally,
the brethren said, “Let’s take this matter to the
General Conference.” And they did. So you have
the first Jerusalem Council beginning in verse 6.
What was the argument? Here it is in verse 5:

Then some of the believers who belonged to

the party of the Pharisees....
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 These were Jewish Christians, but were still
zealous for the law. We still have them today in
our church. Nothing wrong with being zealous for
the law, but we must be zealous for the law in the
right way. That’s my issue, that’s Paul’s issue
here. These Pharisees were zealous for the law in
the wrong way. What were they saying? Look at
what they were saying in verse 5:

Then some of the believers who belonged to

the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The
Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey
the law of Moses.”

That is, besides circumcision, they must keep

all the law, both ceremonial and moral in order to
be saved. They said it’s required to be saved.

So the argument was: is it required? What side

did the leading brethren take? If you read the rest
of Acts 15, you will discover that Peter and James,
the pillars of the church, said, “Paul is right. We
must not put on these Gentile Christians a burden
248
that we could not carry ourselves, neither could our
fathers.”

So Paul is saying here, in Romans 4, that

circumcision does not contribute towards our
salvation, neither does baptism. It is the outward
confession of our faith. Then Paul says, “Why
then? I know what you will say, Jewish Christians.
Why did God give circumcision if it does not have
anything to do with our salvation?” And here Paul
says, “There was a reason why God gave
circumcision.” It’s in Romans 4, verse 11:

And he [Abraham] received the sign of

circumcision, a seal of the righteousness that he
had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So
then, he is the father of all who believe but have
not been circumcised, in order that righteousness
might be credited to them.

Why did God give circumcision? It was a sign.

It was a seal. The word “seal” means to confirm,
to authenticate something that is already there. To
confirm something, to confirm a fact, you put a
249
seal on it: “This is it.” What was the fact?
Justification by Faith.

I want to pause here, because there is coming a

time that before God lets loose the four winds of
strife, before this church, the Christian church is
plunged into the great Time of Trouble, God’s
people have to be sealed. We, as a church, teach
that the sign of that seal is the Sabbath, and I
believe we are right, if we understand the Sabbath
correctly.

So what I want to do in the next few moments

is to use circumcision as a model of the seal of
God, because we must apply it in the same way to
the Sabbath in the last days. How and why was
circumcision a seal of the righteousness of faith?

To understand this, you need to have the

background. The call of Abraham is found in
Genesis 12, the first 4 verses:

The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your

country, your people, and your father’s household
250
and go the land I will show you. I will make you
into a great nation and I will bless you. I will make
your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will
bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you
I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be
blessed through you.” So Abram left, as the Lord
had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was
75 years old when he set out from Haran.

God comes to Abraham and says, “Look, I

want you to leave your family, your country to the
land I will give you. I will make you into a great
nation, and in you, Abraham, I will bless the whole
world.” That was the promise of salvation to
Abraham. And, of course, John 8:56 tells us that:

Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of

seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.

How old was Abraham when the promise was

made? He was 75 years old, Genesis 12:4 makes it
clear. But he had no children. How could God
bless the world, how could God make him a great
nation when he had not even one son? So God
251
promises him a son. In that promise was a son.

Eight years went by. Now it takes human

beings nine months to produce a child. But now
eight years went by and no son had come. So in
chapter 15 of Genesis, Abraham’s faith begins to
dwindle. It begins to waiver. And God says to
Abraham, “Why are you fearful?” (which, in the
Hebrew language, means, “Why are you doubting
my promise?”).

Abraham said, “God, it’s because you have not

kept your promise. The only son I have in my
household (which to the Jew was the extended
family) is this boy of Eliezer my slave. Is he the
promised son?”

And God said, “No. The son I promised you

will come out from your loins.” And he took him
for a walk. When you have problems with God, go
for a walk with him. God said, “Abraham, look at
the stars.” Of course, in the Middle East, it doesn’t
rain very much, and we have many clear skies.
And God said, “Count the stars.”
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 Abraham said, “Lord, even if I had a Ph.D. in
computer science, impossible.”

“That is how many children you have,” said

God to Abraham. And there you have that famous
statement that Paul loves, that he quotes more than
once in the New Testament, Genesis 15:6:

Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to

him as righteousness.

There was no evidence. He didn’t have even

one son, but he believed God that he would have
millions of children, when he had, in actual fact,
not even one child. That is faith.

Two years later, chapter 16 of Genesis, Sarah

comes to Abraham, “Yes, you are depending on
God, but I think what God expects is for you to do
your part. And since you, Abraham, cannot
produce a child through me, I will give you
permission to go to my slave woman, and produce
a child.” Which was a common practice in those
253
days. Surrogate motherhood is not something new;
the method is new, but the system is not new.

Abraham said, “Yes, Sarah, I think you are

right.” Because now it is ten years, because as I
read verse 3 and verse 16 of chapter 16 of Genesis,
I discover that he is 85 years old when Sarah
comes up to him, and he’s 86 years old when
Ishmael is born.

Ten years after the promise, Abraham commits

an act of unbelief. He is not trying to be bad or
sinful, he’s trying to help God to keep His promise.
That’s all he’s doing. So Abraham says to God,
“Here is your promised son.”

And God says, “Nothing doing.”

Do you know how long God waited after that?

Fourteen more years. Talk about patience! God
waited 14 more years after that incident. Going to
the next chapter, chapter 17, now Abraham is 99
years old — that’s 14 years later — and God says
something to Abraham. I want you to notice what
254
He says. This is one text I want to read, Genesis
17:1, because we hear this word very often, but we
use it in the wrong context, so I want you to look at
this word in the right context. You will notice it’s
part and parcel of the wonderful truth of
justification, or righteousness by faith. Please
notice his name. He is not yet Abraham, he is
Abram. It is only after circumcision that he is
called Abraham. Genesis 17:1:

When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord

appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty;
walk before me and be blameless....”

Blameless in performance, or blameless in

faith? That’s the issue. Righteousness, whether
imputed or imparted, is God’s part. My part, from
beginning to end, is faith. God is saying to
Abraham, “Your faith has not been matured, it has
not yet reached perfection. I want you to be perfect
in your faith.”

Abraham said, “What must I do to be perfect?”

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 “I want you to be circumcised. Remove all
doubt. Remove unbelief.” That’s the meaning of
circumcision. And so in verse 9, 10, and 11, God
gave him the covenant of circumcision, as a token.
You’ll find that word, “token” (or “sign”) in verse
10. Genesis 17:10-11:

This is my covenant with you and your

descendants after you, the covenant you are to
keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised.
You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the
sign [the King James version uses the word
“token”] of the covenent between me and you.

In other words, “From now onwards, Abraham,

it is by faith alone that you must walk.”

And Abraham said, “Yes.”

By the way, 17 years later, that faith that was

sealed was tested. Abraham passed it. The test
was terrible. Hebrews 11:17:

By faith Abraham, when God tested him

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offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received
the promises was about to sacrifice his one and
only son....

“Take this son, in whom I promise salvation,

and kill him.”

And Abraham, by faith, obeyed God because

he believed that, “If he gave me a son when I
couldn’t produce it (scientifically, medically,
humanly, whatever way you want to put it), I
believe that he can raise this son from the dead. I
will sacrifice him.” Folks, when your faith is
sealed, we will be tested also.

Circumcision did not save him. It was only a

sign, it was a seal. The Sabbath doesn’t save us. It
is a sign, it is a seal. Read Exodus 31:13, because
there I read that God also gave the Sabbath as a
sign. Exodus 31:12-13:

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Say to the

Israelites, ‘You must observe my Sabbaths. This
will be a sign between me and you for the
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generations to come, so you may know that I am
the Lord, who makes you holy.’”

Circumcision did not make Abraham righteous.

It simply sealed, confirmed, authenticated what
was already there: righteousness by faith. It
confirmed it now, and from now onward.
Abraham made mistakes after that, but he walked
by faith alone.

Now read Romans 4:11-12:

And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal

of the righteousness that he had by faith while he
was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of
all who believe but have not been circumcised, in
order that righteousness might be credited to them.
And he is also the father of the circumcised who
not only are circumcised but who also walk in the
footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had
before he was circumcised.

I want you to notice that, because Abraham was

justified by faith, he became “the father of all who
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believe” (Romans 4:11), not only to the Jews, but
also to the Gentiles. He’s the father of the
circumcision (Romans 4:12) and also of the
uncircumcision, which is the Gentiles. He’s the
father of all who believe, who walk after the faith
of Abraham. That is why I want you to put next to
these verses Galatians 3:29. Because there Paul
tells us that:

If you belong to Christ, then you are

Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the
promise.

But now, what about the law? The argument is

the same. Paul says that, just like Abraham was
given justification by faith before circumcision,
likewise he was justified by faith before God gave
the law. In fact, about 400 years after Abraham
was justified by faith the law was given. So please
remember the law was not given as an added
requirement. Then why was the law given? Well,
let’s read the text, Romans 4:13-14:

It was not through law that Abraham and his

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offspring [that is, to you and me who are believers]
received the promise that he would be heir of the
world [not the heir of Canaan, but the world, i.e.,
the earth made new], but through the righteousness
that comes by faith. For if those who live by law
are heirs, faith has no value and the promise is
worthless....

What is Paul saying here? He’s saying that

legalism — righteousness by works of the law —
and justification by faith are two opposite systems.
You can’t join them; you can’t marry them. We
are not saved by faith plus works; we are saved by
faith that works, but we are saved by faith alone.
That faith does produce works, but not a
contribution to our justification. The two are
opposites. Why? Because the law says, “Do this!
Or don’t do this if you want to live!” The gospel
says, or grace, says, “You are justified by faith
apart from works.” So they’re two opposite
systems, you can’t marry them, you can’t
synthesize these two. You are perverting the
gospel when you do that. Then in verse 15, he
goes on to another point of the law:
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 ...Because the law brings wrath....

In other words, the moment you try to save

yourselves by the law, you come under wrath. The
moment you save yourself by faith, you come
under peace. Why wrath? Because the law says,
“If you don’t obey me in every detail, you are
condemned.” Look at the rest of verse 15:

And where there is no law there is no

transgression.

Paul is a very systematic theologian. He’s very

careful in how he chooses his words. What he’s
saying here is this: that while everybody sins (he’s
not discussing the sins here, he’s discussing the
transgression), you can sin without knowing the
law. But you can never transgress without
knowing the law. Because sin is “missing the
mark”; transgression means the willful, deliberate
violation of a law. [See The Biblical Definition of
Sin for more information.]

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 Paul is saying that, when God gave the law, it
turned sin into transgression. It means that it made
guilt all the worse, because before you did not
know that you were guilty, in many areas. The
Arab in Saudi Arabia who breaks the Sabbath
doesn’t know that he is guilty of breaking God’s
commandments, the fourth commandment. But the
moment you give him the Sabbath law, he becomes
guilty because sin has become transgression.
Galatians 3:19 brings this out:

What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was

added because of transgressions until the Seed to
whom the promise referred had come....

So God gave the law not to solve the sin

problem, but to make you worse. Why? That
salvation by faith may become desirable.

So the law doesn’t save us; the law makes

things worse. In verses 16 and 17 he brings it out
in the positive:

Therefore [since the law can’t save us], the

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promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace
and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring
— not only to those who are of the law but also to
those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the
father of us all. As it is written: “I have made you
a father of many nations.” He is our father in the
sight of God, in whom he believed — the God who
gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as
though they were.

I love that. My salvation is guaranteed, even

though I’m a failure, even though I’m a sinner.
Because it is not of works, but is of faith in Jesus
Christ. It is guaranteed. And it is guaranteed
because Abraham is the father of all those who
believe.

How does faith work? Because Paul, having

defended justification by faith, does not stop there.
He ends chapter 4 — in verse 18 to the end — in
how faith works. How does it work in your life?
How does it work in my life? How did it work in
Abraham’s life? Let’s read what it says. Romans
4:18:
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 Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed
and so became the father of many nations, just as it
had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

Have you got it? If you are to be a seed of

Abraham, if you are to be a child of Abraham, and,
therefore, heir according to the promise, you must
have the faith that Abraham had. His faith must be
realized in your life. Now how does it work?
Romans 4:19-21:

Without weakening in his faith, he faced the

fact that his body was as good as dead — since he
was about a hundred years old — and that Sarah’s
womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver
through unbelief regarding the promise of God
[remember, this is after circumcision], but was
strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God,
being fully persuaded that God had power to do
what he had promised.

He is convinced about not one, but two things:

that what God had promised, He was also able to
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perform.

Who does the promising in this text? God.

Who does the performance in this text? God. Both
were done by God, the promise and the
performance. What did Abraham do? Believe.
That’s all.

Now, the conclusion of Romans 4, verses 22-

25:

This is why “it was credited to him as

righteousness.” The words “it was credited to him”
were written not for him alone, but also for us, to
whom God will credit righteousness — for us who
believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the
dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins
and was raised to life for our justification.

This is the way that you and I must live. Every

believer must allow faith to work in their lives the
way it worked with Abraham.

Let me put it in a nutshell: what is faith, how

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does it work? Faith is taking God at His word.
God tells me, “I created this world in six days.”

I don’t say to God, “Please give me scientific

evidence.” I don’t say that. I don’t say to God,
“Prove it to me by the scientific method.” I don’t
say that. Faith doesn’t allow that.

Faith says, “I believe that God created this

world without any preexisting matter.” Do you
believe that?

Abraham’s faith was not based on the scientific

method. I want to explain what I mean by that,
because I’m not against the scientific method. Do
you realize that, because of the scientific method,
we have such wonderful inventions today? The
computer — I don’t understand it, but it’s amazing
— medical science, technology, all these things are
the result of the scientific method. But here is the
problem: the scientific method only works on the
rim of the natural. It is not capable of dealing with
the supernatural. Faith deals with the supernatural.

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 God comes to me and says that, “I created this
world in six days, just by My breath, I had no pre-
existing matter.” (And Hebrews 11 brings this
out.) By faith I believe it. If I were to use the
scientific method, I would say, “You are talking
nonsense.”

You see, if I depended on the scientific method,

I would no longer believe in the miracles of Christ.
I would say to you, “Well, you see, what Jesus did
is, He hypnotized the people, mass hypnotized the
people and made them think the water was wine, or
grape juice.”

No, folks, He actually turned water into the

fruit of the juice. He actually arose from the dead.
The disciples were not inventing the resurrection.
He actually performed miracles. All these are
supernatural, and I believe it. That is what “faith”
is. Faith is taking God at His word.

Abraham never questioned God. He never

said, “Show me where in history a woman has
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produced a child after she had passed the age of
child bearing.” He never said that. He never said
to God, “Prove to me scientifically that Sarah is
capable of bearing a child now.” Against all hope
he believed. He did not even waiver, says Paul.
He believed that God was capable of doing the
impossible. That is what faith is.

Faith goes beyond the rim of the natural. When

God comes to me and says, “If you walk in the
Spirit, the righteousness of the law will be fulfilled
in you,” I don’t question God. Do you believe it,
or do you say, “Show me one person who has done
it.”

Yes, naturally, impossible. God Himself says,

“By the works of the law shall no one be justified.”
He says, “There is none righteous.” But we are not
talking of the natural, we are talking of
Justification by Faith. God comes to you and says,
“You are a sinner, but I look at you as if you are
perfect in my Son, as if you had never sinned.”

But you say, “I don’t feel righteous.” The

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question has nothing to do with your feelings. Do
you believe what God says? Do you believe that,
by walking in the Spirit, or by putting on the Lord
Jesus Christ, we can make no provision for the
flesh? Do you believe that this sinful flesh can be
kept subdued every moment by faith? That is what
Abraham’s faith was like. He believed the
impossible.

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 Chapter 9

The Fruits of
Justification by Faith
(Romans 5:1-5)

To me, Romans 5 is the most important chapter

of Romans. Having defined and defended
Justification by Faith, in chapter 5 Paul begins the
first five verses with the fruits of Justification by
Faith. That is what I want to look at now.

What are the fruits? Does Justification by faith

bear fruits? The answer is YES: not one, not two,
but three. That is how Paul defines it: three fruits.
But I want you to be very clear about the sequence
of these fruits. You can’t exchange them, they
follow in the exact sequence that Paul gives them.
Because the first fruit is immediate, the second
fruit is continuous, and the third fruit is ultimate.
This is the order in which we must go. Otherwise,
if you try to reach the last fruit without having the

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first, you are wasting your time. And you will see
why I am saying this.

What are the three fruits? Let me mention first

all of the three fruits, and then we will expound on
them. The three fruits are found in the first two
verses of chapter 5:

Therefore, since we have been justified through

faith, we have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access
by faith into this grace in which we now stand.
And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

1. The first fruit, the immediate fruit, is peace

with God.

2. The second fruit, the continuing fruit, is we

are standing under “grace,” which means we
have access to the grace of God. That is in
the first part of verse 2.

3. The third fruit, or the ultimate fruit, is

arriving at the glory of God.
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 Okay, let’s look at them in detail. Now
remember that, at the foundation of all these three,
is faith, Justification by Faith. Remember that
Hebrews 11:6 says:

And without faith it is impossible to please

God, because anyone who comes to him must
believe that he exists and that he rewards those
who earnestly seek him.

None of these fruits can come through works,

or the keeping of the law. NONE. Only by faith.
Let’s look at the first fruit, the immediate fruit:

Therefore, since we have been justified through

faith, we have peace....

But Paul doesn’t stop there. He doesn’t say

that Justification by Faith brings you peace.
Because I have no peace with many people. And
you may have no peace. We may have no peace
with ourselves, we may have no peace with our
neighbors, we may have no peace with the
272
government. I have no peace with the IRS at this
time of the year. But Paul is not talking of peace in
a general sense. We have no peace in the world
today. He is talking about peace with God, and
folks, if I have peace with God, everything else
doesn’t matter. I can take everything in the world
as long as I have peace with God. Because if I
have peace with God I have a future that nobody
can take away from me. My suffering in this world
will be only temporary.

What does it mean, “I have peace with God”?

First of all, let’s look at every phrase here. The
first phrase here is “having been justified” or
“being justified,” as the King James Version puts
it. The phrase there, the verb there, is in the first
aorist passive; it’s an historical tense, something
that has already happened.

So Justification is the “work of a moment.”

We are familiar with that phrase. The moment you
believe, the moment you believe, a change takes
place in your status, in your standing between you
and God. This status change is called
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“Justification.” A very good text is John 5:24, the
words of Jesus Christ, where He says:

I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and

believes him who sent me has eternal life and will
not be condemned; he has crossed over from death
to life.

“If you really believe in My Father Who sent

Me, if you really believe in Me as your Saviour,
then you will not come any more under
condemnation.” Why? Because “you have passed
from death to life, you have passed from
condemnation to justification.”

So the word “being justified” is in the aorist,

it’s a historical tense, its a past tense. But the
second phrase, “We have peace with God,” is not
in the past tense. It is not even inthe future tense.
It is the present continuous tense. The moment you
come under the umbrella of Justification by Faith,
the moment you come, you have peace from
beginning to end; it is a continuous thing, and that
is the wonderful thing about Justification by Faith.
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That is the first fruit, “Peace with God.”

Let me put it this way, before you and I

accepted the gospel, what was our situation with
God? Do you remember what Adam and Eve did
when they sinned and God was coming? They ran
and hid. Why did they hide? Paul tells us why in
Romans. In chapter 1, verse 18, Paul says:

The wrath of God is being revealed from

heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness
of men who suppress the truth by their
wickedness....

Then again in chapter 2, verses 8 and 9:

But for those who are self-seeking [the opposite

of faith] and who reject the truth and follow evil,
there will be wrath and anger. There will be
trouble and distress for every human being who
does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile....

This world is full of people who are in anguish.

We are told that nine-tenths of our sickness is the
275
result of guilt and anguish. This world has no
peace. That is because they have not discovered
the good news of the gospel. But the moment you
have believed the gospel and you are now justified,
you have peace. Your experience may be up and
down, but your relationship to God is peace.

I want to emphasize this for one reason: it is a

tragedy when you meet Christians, when you meet
Adventists who have accepted the gospel and still
have no peace. This is a tragedy. There are too
many of us who are trying to reach the ultimate
fruit of justification, which is the hope of glory, in
order that we may have the first fruit, which is
peace. That is not the way of the gospel.

You can never reach the ultimate goal of

Justification by Faith unless you first have peace.
And if you don’t have that peace, you will never
reach the ultimate goal, because it is the right
sequence that we must follow.

I want to add one more fact about this first

fruit. Look at Romans 5, verse one again:
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 Therefore, since we have been justified through
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ....

Once you are justified by faith (historical or

past tense), you have peace continually. But now I
want you to notice what is the source of that peace.
It doesn’t say through our good works or through
keeping the Law, but through our Lord Jesus
Christ.

What does it mean, “through our Lord Jesus

Christ”? It means through the redemption that is in
our Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, it is the
doing and dying of Christ that brings me that
peace, not my performance. My performance is up
and down; sometimes I have tremendous success
and sometimes I fail. Is yours the same? If it isn’t,
you’re kidding yourself. Even when God gives
you total victory, you will not know it.

There are times when the devil will come and

touch your feelings, and say you are not good
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enough to be saved. And you say, “You’re right, I
might as well not go to church.” And you stop
coming to church, because you have believed the
devil. Well, I have news for you: the devil has
two qualities:

1. He is a murderer.
2. He is a liar.

You join him and you’ll get both. If you want

a text, it’s John 8:44:

You belong to your father, the devil, and you

want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a
murderer from the beginning, not holding to the
truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he
speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the
father of lies.

He’s a murderer and a liar. This, Romans 5:1,

is the truth: “that being justified by faith you have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” not
through what He is doing in you, but through what
He has done 2,000 years ago. That is why no one
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can rob you of that peace. The only person who
can rob you of that peace is yourself when you say
good-bye to Christ. That is your privilege. But as
long as you are walking by faith under the umbrella
of Justification, you have peace with God,
continually. And that is the first fruit. Paul goes
on in verse 2:

...Through whom we have gained access by

faith into this grace in which we now stand. And
we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

“Through Whom” or “By Whom” refers to

Christ. This same Christ, Who is the source of
your peace, this same Christ also makes available
to you and also through faith — not by works —
this same faith that brought the peace of God to
you (and remember what He said to His disciples,
“Peace I leave with you, peace that the world
cannot give, peace that passes understanding...”),
this same peace that comes to you through Christ
and is made effective by faith. In the same way,
through faith, through Christ “we have access to
God’s grace.”
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 What does he mean by the expression, “this
grace”? He is pointing to a specific thing — this
grace. Well, we know that when Jesus was in this
world He lived a perfect life in His humanity. But,
if you read the gospel, if you read the New
Testament, if you read Paul very carefully, you will
discover that Christ did not do it in His own
strength, as a human being, as a man. He did it by
the grace of God. Let me give you an example.

The greatest thing that Christ ever did is that

He tasted death — not the first death, but the
second death — for all people. I say this because
even believers die the first death. But the believers
will not die the second death, because Christ tasted
of it. But I want you to notice how He tasted that
death. What gave Him the power? Hebrews 2:9:

But we see Jesus, who was made a littler lower

than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor
because he suffered death, so that by the grace of
God he might taste death for everyone.

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 This grace that made it possible for Christ to
fulfill the will of God is now accessible to the
believer who is justified by faith. That is what Paul
is talking about. In other words, the word “grace”
has more than one meaning in the New Testament.
The primary meaning of grace, of course, is the
loving disposition that God has towards us, through
which He sent His Son, so that, through His Son,
He could save us. You will find that for example,
in Ephesians 1:7:

In him we have redemption through his blood,

the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the
riches of God’s grace....

But the word “grace” also means the power of

God. That is available to the believer who is
justified by faith. And I want to give you a whole
list of texts, but I would like to warn you, I would
like to say something here that is extremely
important. We are discussing here the fruits of
Justification by Faith. The gospel, which is the
righteousness of God, is the good news for every
person. Every human being should listen to the
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gospel, be told the gospel, because the gospel is the
good news for all. But the fruits of Justification by
Faith are not for all people. It is only for those who
believe.

Please, there is no peace with God unless you

are first justified by faith. I would plead with
anyone who has not accepted Christ, “Don’t wait,
because without faith it is impossible to experience
peace.”

So please remember, these fruits that we are

discussing here are for those who have entered into
the wonderful sunlight of God’s saving grace. And
if you have not accepted Christ, I would like you to
read Mark 16:15,16 where Christ said:

He said to them, “Go into all the world and

preach the good news to all creation. Whoever
believes and is baptized will be saved....”

Those are the ones who will receive these

fruits.

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 Now I want to give you the texts regarding
grace as the power of God. Let’s start with 1
Corinthians 15. I’m using the word grace now as
the power of God available to the believer. And
I’m going to use all of Paul’s writings, because he
is the one who uses the word and I want to show
you how Paul uses the word grace in terms of
power. In 1 Corinthians 15:9 Paul says:

For I am the least of the apostles and do not

even deserve to be called an apostle, because I
persecuted the church of God.

In other words, Paul feels that he has no right to

be an apostle because of his history. But, there’s a
“but” there in verse 10:

But by the grace of God I am what I am....

“I am an apostle, not because I deserve it, but

because of the grace of God,” but he adds on:

...and his grace to me was not without effect

[he did not squander that grace]. No, I worked
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harder than all of them....

What is another word for labored? Worked.

So Paul is not against works. “I worked harder
than all of them.” Who are “all of them”? The
context tells us that it refers to the other apostles.
“I worked more than any other apostle or even all
of them put together!” Doesn’t it sound like he’s
bragging? Well, it does, so he corrects himself in
case you misunderstand him:

...yet not I [don’t give me the credit], but the

grace of God that was with me.

Can you see that? It was the grace of God that

produced those works. “Because I’m standing in
access to that grace. I did not waste that grace, I
used it.” God wants you and me to do the same
thing. For Jesus said in Matthew 5:16:

In the same way, let your light shine before

men, that they may see your good deeds and praise
your Father in heaven.

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 In other words, “Let your light shine. Let this
grace that you have received shine in you and let
people see your good works and glorify the
Father.”

Okay, turn a few pages to 2 Corinthians, let me

give you another one. Chapter 12 and there in
verse 7 there is a problem. Paul doesn’t tell us
what the problem is. Scholars speculate — some
say it was his poor eyes, some say that he had
defective speech, because he had a cleft lip — but
Paul doesn’t tell us what the problem is. Paul tells
us that he had a problem and why God did not
remove it. 2 Corinthians 12:7:

To keep me from becoming conceited because

of these surpassingly great revelations, there was
given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of
Satan, to torment me.

You see, Paul was a human being, and he was

victim to pride just like you and I are. So God, in
order to keep him humble because of the many
revelations that had been given him, to stop him
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from being proud, was given “a thorn in the flesh.”
It came from Satan, allowed by God for the
purpose to keep him humble, and he felt that this
was affecting his mission. So he prays concerning
this; Paul pleaded with God, 2 Corinthians 12:8:

Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it

away from me.

“Lord, if you could simply remove this

problem I will be a greater worker for you.” And
the Lord said, “No way, you’d be a greater worker
for yourself. Therefore my answer is this:” [verse
9]

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for

you, for my power is made perfect in weakness....”

“I don’t need your support, Paul. All I need is

you. I don’t care how weak you are; my grace is
sufficient.” Now let’s go on, because you’ll notice
something Paul says:

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about

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my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on
me.

“I’ll glory in my infirmities, in my inabilities,

in my problems.” Why? “So that Christ’s power
may rest on me.” Here the word “power” is
synonymous with the word “grace.” So here the
word grace is used in terms of power. Don’t come
and tell me, “I’m not able to speak to people. I’m a
shy person.”

Folks, I’m an introvert, you ask my wife.

Maybe I don’t sound it from here, but I’ll tell you,
it took me six months fighting against the call to
the ministry, because I’m an introvert. But, by the
grace of God, I am what I am. And that grace is
available to you, because everyone who is justified
by faith is standing in grace, he has access to this
grace of God. So there is no excuse why any of us
is not witnessing for Christ. Not one excuse. The
only excuse is that you are not yet justified by
faith. Let me give you two other texts; they are
saying the same thing. Ephesians 3:7:

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 I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of
God’s grace given me through the working of his
power.

1 Timothy 1:14:

The grace of our Lord was poured out on me

abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in
Christ Jesus.

Now, because we are standing under grace,

what is our goal? Because Paul says we are
standing in grace we have a hope, we can rejoice
that we can arrive at the glory of God. And what is
the glory of God?

We think of the glory of God in terms of

glorification. Now that is true, Paul includes this
here. But Paul is not primarily talking here about
glorification which will take place at the second
coming of Christ, “when this corruption shall put
on incorruption.” He is talking of another glory,
the glory of the character of God. The context is
clear.
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 What is the glory of the character of God? Do
you remember John 1:14 where John says:

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling

among us. We haave seen his glory, the glory of
the One and Only, who came from the Father, full
of grace and truth.

It is this glory that Paul is saying we have a

hope of arriving at. What was the glory the
disciples saw? They saw the self-sacrificing love
of God in Him, the “agape” the love that seeketh
not her own. It is this glory that Paul is talking
about here. He is talking about the same glory that
he mentions in Colossians 1:27:

To them God has chosen to make known

among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this
mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

What is this glory? It is the love of God, shed

abroad in our hearts. Can God produce a people
who can love as Christ loved? Jesus said so, He
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even commanded His disciples, John 13:34,35:

A new command I give you: Love one another.

As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
By this all men will know that you are my
disciples, if you love one another.

I have much to say about this in the next study,

because verses 6 to 10 deal with this. But I want to
give you a text that makes this clear. This is the
hope that we must keep in mind, this is the goal
that God has for every one who is justified by faith.
And, of course, this grace comes to us through the
Holy Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:17, 18:

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit

of the Lord is, there is freedom [that is, freedom
from the flesh, liberty from this slavery to sin].
And we, who with unveiled faces [i.e., no barrier,
because we have peace with God] all reflect the
Lord’s glory [not our glory but the glory of the
Lord], are being transformed into his likeness with
ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord,
who is the Spirit.
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 Let me put it this way. If you remember
Romans 3:23, where Paul is talking of both Jews
and Gentiles before justification by faith, he’s
saying two things in Romans 3:23:

...For all have sinned and fall short of the glory

of God.

He is using the present continuous tense here:

“All are continually coming short of the glory of
the Lord.”

Sin is a terrible thing; it not only deprives you

of heaven, it robs you of the glory of God. God
created man that he may be His sanctuary. We are
ultimately the temple of God, and God wants to
dwell in us, and He wants His glory to shine
through us. This was His plan for Adam and Eve
and for us. But the fall robbed us of the glory of
God.

But the wonderful thing is: Justification by

Faith doesn’t only give us a ticket to heaven, it
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doesn’t only give us peace between us and God, so
that there is no barrier when I come and pray to
Him. And the devil says, “You’re not good enough
to pray.”

I say, “You get behind me, because I have a

text for you.” And that text I will not give you I
want you to find it. Because in Christ, we stand
righteous. There is no barrier. But more than this,
Justification by Faith restores the glory of God in
us.

Then in Romans 5:3 he tells us the steps, and,

unfortunately, the steps are painful. Because, you
see, when Christ lives in me and reveals His glory,
I have to say no to the flesh, and that is painful. I
will say more on in the next study, but let’s look at
it. Romans 5:3-4:

Not only so, but we also rejoice in our

sufferings, because we know that suffering
produces perseverance; perseverance, character;
and character, hope.
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 You see, although the grace of God produces
righteousness in you, your natures will always
remain sinful. Therefore, there is always this
conflict and, when the Holy Spirit conquers and
subdues the flesh, you are suffering in the flesh.

These are the steps:

1. sufferings (tribulation),
2. perseverance (patience, endurance),
3. character (some translations read
“experience”),
4. hope.

So, because you have Christ in you, your flesh

will suffer, because it will be denied its desires.
You will endure the temptations of Satan, the
doubts, just like Abraham endured. He did not
give up His faith even though he had passed the
age of childbearing (or, at least, his wife had).

But the ultimate fruit is character. And when

the character of God is reproduced, you will not be
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disappointed. That is the Greek word in verse 5.
(The King James Version says “ashamed.”) Hope
does not disappoint because the love of God is shed
abroad. That is the wonderful, absolute character
of Justification by Faith.

God has a plan where His work is not half-way.

Do you realize that God’s purpose in you and me
through Justification by Faith is ultimate salvation?
And when you have entered into that umbrella of
Justification by Faith, your ultimate salvation is
guaranteed. As Paul says in Romans 8:30:

...Those he justified, he also glorified.

Our part, from beginning to end, is faith.

Never say good-bye to faith, for as long as we are
walking by faith, all these three fruits are
guaranteed:

1. Peace with God,

2. Your standing in grace, and
3. You have a hope of arriving at the glory of
God.
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 There are too many people in our church,
especially the independent ministries, who are
concerned about the ultimate fruit, revealing the
glory of God, without giving their people peace.
We begin with peace. If you don’t have that peace,
you will never be able to experience the glory of
God.

I’ll tell you why. Because it is impossible for

you to be liberated from the fear, fear of death, fear
of judgment, unless you have understood
Justification by Faith. And if you have not been
liberated from fear, you cannot love. In 1 John
4:17-18, John tells us that:

In this way, love is made complete among us so

that we will have confidence on the day of
judgment, because in this world we are like him.
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives
out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.
The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

“Perfect love will cast out fear.” Fear of what?

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The judgment, and torment. If you haven’t been
liberated from the fear of the judgment, I have bad
news for you, you can never experience the love of
God in your heart. You are always a victim of
anguish: “Will I make it?” So it is my prayer that
we understand this, the love of God. First of all,
the gospel must liberate me from the fear of death,
the fear of judgment. I must have peace. Then and
then only can I have the second and third fruit. So
may God bless us, that you shall know the truth
and the truth shall set you free. May God bless
you.

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 Chapter 10

Unconditional Love
(Romans 5:6-10)

Justification by Faith is three fold:

1. First of all, Justification by Faith brings to us

peace with God. This is the first fruit, and do you
remember what Paul says in verse 1 of chapter 5?

Therefore, since we have been justified through

faith, we have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ....

And that’s because our status changes when we

accept Christ as our Saviour. God doesn’t only
forgive us; not only are we reconciled in Christ, but
through Jesus Christ we are looked upon by God as
if we had never sinned. God looks at you and He
looks at me just like He looks at His Son, Jesus
Christ. Do you remember what He said about His
Son? Matthew 3:17:
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 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son,
whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

And this is exactly what He says to you and

me. Because you see, in Justification by Faith,
God doesn’t look at our performance; He looks at
us as we are in His Son. And in His Son we have
peace with God. We can call Him “Abba,” Father.
That is the first, the immediate fruit of Justification
by Faith. It’s the first experience. If you don’t
have that peace, then you haven’t understood
Justification by Faith, you have not experienced
Justification by Faith. But it doesn’t stop there.

2. Justification by Faith also brings us the

experience of power. Paul tells us in verse 2 that
those who are Justified by Faith, this same faith
that brings them peace also gives them access to
the grace of God. As we saw, that grace is the
power of God, power that makes it possible for us
to fulfil God’s purpose for each one of us. Power
that we can withstand temptation, power that we
may behave as children of God. And because we
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are standing in grace, because we have this power
available to us, which the unbeliever doesn’t
have...

3. ...we have a third experience that God wants

each of us to have, and that is to experience the
love of God. The ultimate goal of Justification by
Faith, is that the love of God may be shed abroad
in our hearts, through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now this third ultimate goal is so radical, so

revolutionary, so unlike any human experience,
that Paul spends verses 6,7,8,9 and 10 talking about
this love of God.

You see, the love of God that is shed abroad in

the heart of the believer is unlike any human love,
because human love is egocentric. Paul wants us
to understand what kind of love is shed in our
hearts by the Holy Spirit. It is the love of God.

And, as I said, that is so different that he wants

to spend a whole passage, verses 6-10, explaining
this love. And the way he does it, is not by
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comparing, but by contrasting human love. You
see, you can’t compare human love with God’s
love. You can contrast it, because the two “loves”
are opposite.

In fact, when the New Testament writers

described the love of God, they chose a very
obscure word in the Greek language, a word that
was hardly used in the noun form. They gave it a
meaning that they derived from the cross of Christ;
that word was “agape.” Whereas the highest form
of love in the Greek language, according to Plato
was “heavenly eros,” and the New Testament
writers refused to use that word. Not once is the
word found in the New Testament.

But in order to understand and to appreciate our

passage, I would like first of all to turn to another
passage where Paul deals with the same thing, so
that you understand the importance of
comprehending the love of God. Turn to
Ephesians 3 and, as you turn to this third chapter of
Ephesians, I would like to give some background.

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 This is one of Paul’s prison letters. He was in a
dungeon, he was in prison when He wrote
Ephesians. The Ephesian church was very dear to
him, he had spent almost three years in Ephesus.
But a problem had crept up: the imprisonment of
Paul was bringing great discouragement to the
Ephesian Christians. This is how they were
reasoning: “If Paul — the great servant of God, the
Apostle of Christ — was in prison and God was
not protecting him, what hope is there for us?”
Paul heard about this. So he writes to them, in
verse 14 of chapter 3, he is unburdening his
concern:

For this reason [that is, because of your

discouragement] I kneel before the Father....

Now we need to remember that, in the days of

Paul, people normally prayed standing up; kneeling
was not a common method of praying. They
prayed standing up, their eyes were open, and they
often raised their hands to God. But whenever a
Jew, whenever a person, in those days was very
earnest in their prayer, he would kneel down. Paul
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is simply saying to the Ephesians, “I am very
earnest in my prayer, and my concern is for you.”
And his great burden, his great desire is verse 16
up to verse 19 [of Ephesians 3]:

I pray that out of his glorious riches he [i.e.,

God] may strengthen you [the Ephesian Christians]
with power through his Spirit in your inner being,
so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through
faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and
established in love, may have power, together with
all the saints [that includes you and me], to grasp
how wide and long and high and deep is the love of
Christ, and to know this love that surpasses
knowledge — that you may be filled to the
measure of all the fullness of God.

The only way Christ is strong, the only way

your faith is strong, and Christ dwells in you
permanently, is when you are rooted and grounded
in the love of God, the love of Christ.

He’s using two metaphors, one from botany

(deep roots) and one from architecture (strong
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foundations). Recently we had a terrible
earthquake in Armenia. They are discovering now
that the reason that so many of those buildings
collapsed — because they’ve had similar
earthquakes in California and the buildings there
have withstood those — but the reason they have
discovered is that they used cheap materials, the
foundations were weak. They were not able to take
that shaking. If your knowledge of the love of God
is weak, or incomplete, or wrong, you will never be
able to stand the crisis. Paul is saying we need to
be rooted and grounded in this love.

We cannot come to the knowledge of the love

of God simply through human reasoning, or the
human rationale, because it’s beyond that. The
love of God is a complete contradiction of human
love. And when we have understood the love of
God, when our hearts our filled with the love of
God, Paul says, “We are filled with the fullness of
God.”

That is Paul’s concern here in Romans 5. He

wants us to understand the love of God, for two
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reasons:

1. When you have understood the love of God,

then and then only you have fully
understood Justification by Faith, and you
have fully understood and experienced that
peace with God. Because the ground of our
Justification is God’s love. And the ground
of our peace with God is to be rooted and
grounded in that love.

2. Paul wants to more than simply to give a

speech. Paul wants that same love to be
shed abroad horizontally to our neighbors,
that the world may see that love through the
believers, the church.

With this background, let’s go now to Romans

5:6. Verses 6, 8, 9, and 10 are dealing with the
love of God. Verse 7 is dealing with human love,
and you will notice that there is a contradiction
between human love and God’s love. There is a
difference; they are opposites, and we will look at
it as we go along.
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 There are four words that I want you to catch a
glimpse of, or to notice, as we deal with the love of
God. Two of those words are found in verse 6:

You see, at just the right time, when we were

still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.

The Greek word for “powerless” simply means

“helpless.” What Paul is saying here is: “When
we were still incapable of saving ourselves, in due
time (or at the right time, or at the appointed time)
Christ died for the ungodly.”

Please notice two things:

1. While we were helpless...

2. While we were ungodly...

...Christ died for us.

Now this is such a radical, such a revolutionary

concept, that Paul says, “I want to show you that
this is in complete contradiction to human love.”
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So in verse 7 he describes the ultimate expression
of human love. He says:

Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous

man, though for a good man someone might
possibly dare to die.

People don’t give up their lives for an

unrighteous man. But it is possible, he says, that,
perhaps, for a good man, one would even dare to
die.

Now there was a story that was very familiar to

the population, to the people of Paul’s day. It was
part of Greek mythology, and it’s very likely that
Paul had this story in mind as he used verse 7. But
we are living 2,000 years later, and you are not
familiar with the story, unless you have studied
Greek mythology, so let me give you the story. It’s
the story of two people: one is Alcestis, and the
other one is Admetus.

Admetus was a young man, who was a fairly

good citizen, a good man. But he was accused
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falsely, as the story goes, and was sentenced to
death falsely. Now Alcestis was his girlfriend.
She knew him, she knew that he was a good man.
She knew that he was innocent. She knew that he
did not deserve to die. But she also knew,
according to the law of the country, that she could
not reverse the verdict. So she goes to the Judge
and she says, “Look, I can’t convince you, because
you have already made the judgment, that Admetus
is a good man, he does not deserve to die. I would
like to offer myself in his place.”

And the Judge accepted that. The Greeks said,

“This is the epitome of genuine love. Here is
Alcestis who is willing to die for a good man,
Admetus.”

Paul is saying, “That is possible. Human

beings have been known to give up their lives for a
good cause, or for loved ones, or for a good person.
It is not common, but it has happened.” But, he
says in verse 8, “God’s love is in complete
contradiction to this love. Jesus did not die for
somebody good.” Romans 5:8:
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 But God demonstrates his own love for us in
this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Can you see that? God doesn’t say, “Well, if

you’re good, I’ll die for you.” He didn’t do that.
While we were sinners, while we were helpless,
while we were ungodly: these are the three things
that you need to know. In other words, Paul is
saying, “God loved us unconditionally.” And then
in verse 9 he says:

Since we have now been justified by his blood,

how much more shall we be saved from God’s
wrath through him!

I want you to notice that verse 9 is dealing with

believers, those of us who have accepted
Justification by Faith. He says, “Look, if God
loved us, and He died for us while we were sinners,
ungodly, helpless, why are Christians ever
doubting the love of God, why are they doubting
their justification? Don’t you realize that if God
loved you when you were a sinner, that He loves
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you when you have accepted Him and come back
to Him? Can you imagine that, doubting the love
of God? How much more do you have to be sure
that God will save you now that you have accepted
Justification by Faith? Why are you doubting?”

It is a tragedy when Christians come to me and

say, “I am not sure I’m going to make it to
heaven.” Do you know what you’re saying? “I am
not sure God loves me.” That’s a tragedy. It is
because we have projected human love onto God,
and when we do that, we pervert the character of
God, because human love is conditional. It has to
be aroused, it has to be generated. I don’t love
people automatically; you have to be good to me, if
I am to love you in return.

That’s why, in our world, we always try to

produce love from each other by incentives, by
doing good acts. It’s a human problem. But, thank
God, He loves us in spite of what we are. He loves
us unconditionally. He loves us because He is
love, not because we deserve it.

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 Paul is saying, “Much more, now that you have
accepted Justification by Faith through His blood,
you can be guaranteed that He will do everything
to make sure that you are in heaven with
Him...much more.” Why? He goes on in Romans
5:10:

For if, when we were god’s enemies, we were

reconciled to him through the death of his Son,
how much more, having been reconciled, shall we
be saved through his life!

That’s the fourth word describing us: we were

helpless, we were ungodly, we were sinners, but
now, even worse, we are enemies. Enemies of
God. While we were still enemies, that’s what he
means, while we were enemies, we were reconciled
to God through the death of His Son.

There is one Person in heaven Who is on your

side. He was on your side before you ever turned
to Him. While we were enemies, God said to His
Son, “Son, I know that human race down there is
rebellious, they have turned against us, but I want
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you to go down there and save them — not
condemn them, but save them.”

The Son said, “That is the greatest desire I have

too, Father. I want to save them.”

And the Holy Spirit said the same thing, and

together they came down to save us. Paul is
saying, “This is the kind of love God has for us.”

But now, having done that, having expounded

that passage, let us look at the context. Why is
Paul explaining the love of God? Because, he says,
“This is the kind of love the Holy Spirit pours into
your heart.” That’s in Romans 5:5:

And hope does not disappoint us, because God

has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy
Spirit, whom he has given us.

What does that mean to you? How should it

affect you? In two ways:

1. When you have a God that loves you like

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that, unconditionally, a God whose love is
unchangeable.... You see, human love differs from
God’s love in three ways.

A. Human love is conditional; God’s love is

unconditional.

B. Human love is changeable.

The fact that you love me today is no

guarantee that you will love me tomorrow.
That’s the tragedy with human love. But the
fact that God loves me today, I can
guarantee that He loves me tomorrow
because His love is unchangeable. Jeremiah
tells us that He loves us with an everlasting
love [chapter 31:3]. In 1 Corinthians 13:8
where Paul defines and explains this Agape
love, he says, “Agape never fails.” We have
a God whose love is changeless.

C. Human love is self-seeking.

At the heart of all human love is self,

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 because that’s how we are by the fall. We
have sinful natures that are egocentric. But
God’s love is self-giving. And because it is
self-giving, He has only one desire, to live
for you. Christ had two choices on the
cross: He could chose between Himself and
the world [i.e., fallen humanity].

The devil said, “Don’t be a fool, come down

and save yourself.”

Christ said, “No! I love the world more than

I love myself.” That is the kind of love He
has. When you understand that, you will
have peace with God.

2. It is this kind of love that God wants us to

shed abroad to our neighbors.

The world needs to see the love of God. They

saw it in the face of Jesus Christ. But Christ is no
longer in this world, He’s in heaven. But His body,
the church, is here, and that is His desire.

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 What Paul is doing here in Romans 5:6-10 is
simply telling us what Jesus taught on the Sermon
on the Mount. So I want you to notice what Jesus
taught on the Sermon on the Mount and you will
see that it is identical to what we have just covered.
Turn to Matthew 5, and you will notice here that
Christ is doing the same thing: He is contrasting
human love with God’s love. He is saying, “This
is the kind of love, this Divine love is what
Christians should reflect in their daily living.” This
is the kind of love that Judaism was teaching the
people. It is the kind of love that can be generated
by human beings. Jesus said [Matthew 5:43-44]:

You have heard that it was said, “Love your

neighbor and hate your enermy.” [That is typical
human love.] But [the same word that Paul used in
Romans 5:8, “in contrast” to what you have been
taught] I tell you [this is the truth, this is what you
should really do]: Love your enemies and pray for
those who persecute you, that you may be sons of
you Father in heaven....

Is this natural? Have you tried it? Well, I’ll

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tell you, it is impossible. Jesus is not asking you to
try, because even if you try you cannot do these
things. Man cannot — by will power or by effort
— love his enemies. It is a contradiction to his
nature. This love comes only to those who have
the Holy Spirit living in them, and Whose love is
poured into them through the Holy Spirit.

Then, in Matthew 5:45, Jesus explains that,

when you do this, you are behaving like the
children of God: “...that you may be the sons of
your Father in heaven.” Then He describes the
love of the Father:

He causes his sun to rise on the evil and on the

good, and sends rain on the righteous and the
unrighteous.

The next time God blesses you, don’t you ever

get the idea that He has blessed you, or He has
blessed our church, because we are good. No, He
has blessed us because He is love.

Let me illustrate it to you. During the Exodus,

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did God bless the Jews? Did He protect them?
Did He feed them miraculously? The answer is
yes. You know, in 1975 I did the same route as the
Jews, except this time I went by car, I did not walk.
It took me eight hours to do the Exodus trip. It
took them 40 years. The temperature in the
daytime would reach as much as 120 degrees. It
was hot. The night was cold. In fact, when I was
leaving on the trip I just took light clothing with
me. The Egyptian Pastor said, “Don’t you dare do
that.” They insisted that I take some warm
clothing.

I said, “What for? We’re in the desert.”

They said, “Wait and see.”

They were right. It was bitterly cold. In the

Exodus, God gave them fire at night to keep them
warm. He gave them a cloud, a covering, “air
conditioning” in the daytime. He gave them food
during the day. Why? Were they good? How did
God feel about the Jews during the Exodus? Read
Hebrews 3 and 4. He was very unhappy with
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them. Yet He blessed them. Why? Because
God’s love is unconditional.

Next time you have a problem, don’t say God

is punishing you. God never punishes in the way
that we think man punishes. God loves you; He is
out to bless you. So Jesus says, “He brings rain on
the good and the bad. He brings the sunshine on
the evil and the righteous.” And then, please notice
how Jesus goes on, Matthew 5:46:

If you love those who love you, what reward

will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing
that?

The “tax collectors” were not the IRS [U.S.

Internal Revenue Service]. To the Jewish mind, to
the people of Christ’s day, tax collectors were the
equivalent of sinners. What Christ was saying was
this: that if you love only those who are good to
you, you are no different from sinners. I don’t
have to be a Christian to love my friends; even the
sinners, the atheists, love their friends. Matthew
5:47:
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 And if you greet only your brothers [i.e., your
fellow Jews], what are you doing more than others?
Do not even pagans do that?

“Therefore,” said Jesus, “do not behave in the

natural way.” You don’t have to be a Christian to
love your friends, to love your fellow brethren. It
does take a Christian to love your enemies. It does
take a Christian to pray for those who curse you.
In Matthew 5:48 He says:

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father

is perfect.

We have misused that word “perfect.” Jesus is

not saying, “Be sinless.” What He’s saying here is,
“You must love as Christians, you must love in the
same way that the Father loves, without
discrimination, unconditionally.” That is true
Christianity, and that is the kind of love that Paul is
talking about. This will take place when the love
of God is shed abroad in our hearts.

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 Let me put it another way. Look at John 13,
Jesus says in verse 34:

A new command I give you: Love one another.

As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

He’s talking to His disciples. By the way, the

word “new” does not mean brand new. The Greek
word kainane means “a renewed commandment.”
The commandment was already given in
Deuteronomy, and in Leviticus, too. But the Jews
had perverted the love of God in the Old
Testament. Therefore, Christ is now saying to the
disciples, “I am renewing the commandment. It’s
not new to the Bible, it’s new to you, and that is:
You must love each other in the same way that I
have loved you.” Then look at verse 35, the next
verse:

By this all men will know that you are my

disciples, if you love one another.

When Jesus said, “Be perfect,” He meant, “You

must love as God loves.”
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 There is a heresy that is known as
“perfectionism.” The best description of
perfectionism that I ever heard was from a scholar.
He said, “A perfectionist is a person who takes
infinite pains to follow the blueprint, and he gives
infinite pains to everybody else while trying to
attain to that perfection.” That’s a perfectionist.
But a true Christian will love even though the
person he loves doesn’t deserve it, even though that
person is turned against him.

The greatest need that the world has is to see

the love of God manifested in the church. That is
why Jesus said, “The world will know Me when
they have seen my love revealed in you.”

How can we put this into practice? How can

this become practical? What are the steps? That’s
how I want to conclude. I want to show you how it
works in reality.

First of all, we must be clear that you and I

cannot generate agape.
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 This love is a gift. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 13,
which is in the context of spiritual gifts (because
chapters 12, 13, and 14 of 1 Corinthians are dealing
with spiritual gifts), chapter 13 is dealing with this
agape gift. “It is the supreme gift,” says Paul, “of
the Holy Spirit.” That’s why, in Galatians 5:22-23,
we are told that:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,

patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self-control. Against such things
there is no law.

So, the fruit of the Spirit is — number one —

love.

First of all, we must be clear: you and I cannot

generate this love. We cannot screw up our
willpower and say, “From now onwards I am going
to love my enemies.”

You cannot do that. You can have a desire,

you can make a resolution, you can make a
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promise, but you can’t fulfill it. You don’t have
the capacity to do it. I don’t. None of us have. So,
number one, we can’t do it. Peter had to learn this
the hard way.

When we accept the gift of God, and God

brings in the Holy Spirit to dwell in us and God
brings us this love, the first thing that this love does
is give us peace.

It doesn’t give us victory first, it gives us peace.

We need to know this. Turn to 1 John 4. This
chapter deals with the love of God, and I want to
deal with several verses here. Look at verse 17
first of all:

In this way, love is made complete among us so

that we will have confidence on the day of
judgment, because in this world we are like him.

In other words, the first thing that this love

does is give you peace, gives you assurance, gives
you boldness to face the judgment. Not because
you are good, not because your performance is up
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to par, it’s because as He is, as Christ is, so are you
in this world. God looks at you as you are in His
Son. And since God is pleased with His Son, so
He is with you. Now look at verse 18:

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives

out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.
The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

As long as you are scared about the judgment,

as long as you are scared about facing the final
conflict, as long as you’re not sure about your
salvation, the love of God can never be perfected in
you.

So as long as you are insecure about your

salvation, as long as you are biting your teeth and
saying, “I wonder if I will make the judgment,”
God’s love can never be perfected in you. Why?
Because fear and God’s love cannot live in the
same camp. They are opposites. You see, you and
I are born victims to fear. Hebrews 2:14,15 says
so:

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 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too
shared in their humanity so that by his death he
might destroy him who holds the power of death —
that is, the devil — and free those who all their
lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

The ultimate fear that we all have is the fear of

death. Every other fear is a ramification of that one
fear. But a Christian is not afraid of death, because
he has the guarantee of life. Because a Christian
who has accepted Christ and who is justified by
faith “has crossed over from death to life” [John
5:24].

The love of God also does something else.

Look at verse 7 and verse 12 of this same chapter.
First, 1 John 4:7:

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love

comes from God. Everyone who loves has been
born of God and knows God.

The source of love is God. And everyone who

loves, everyone who manifests this agape, is
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proving that he is born of God and knows God. So
please remember that Christian love is not the
means of justification but is the evidence of
justification by faith. Now, 1 John 4:12:

No one has ever seen God, but if we love one

another, God lives in us and his love is made
complete in us.

Remember, God is love. Nobody has seen

God. Christ came here to manifest that God is
love, but now He’s in heaven. He’s depending on
us to manifest that love.

Okay, you have accepted Jesus Christ as your

righteousness. He is your righteousness, you have
been justified by faith. God gives you the Holy
Spirit, and the first thing the Holy Spirit does, is
give you peace. But there is a problem.

The problem is: what is the standard of

righteousness that we must now live? We all know
that the standard of righteousness is the Ten
Commandments. But here’s the problem: in order
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for you and me to keep the Ten Commandments,
we need an ingredient. That ingredient is Agape.
Jesus made that clear in Matthew 22:35-40:

One of them [the Parisees], an expert in the

law, tested him [Jesus] with this question:
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in
the Law?” Jesus replied, “‘Love the Lord your
God with all your heart and with all your soul and
with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest
commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love
your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the
Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

A young man came to Jesus; He said, “What is

the greatest commandment?” And Jesus divided
the commandments into two camps, just as we as a
church have done, rightly so.

The first four commandments deal with our

relationship to God. The last six deal with our
relationship to one another, our neighbors and so
on. Jesus said to this young man, “Love your God
with all your heart, and with all your soul and with
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all your being; that’s the first commandment. The
second is like the first: love your neighbors like
you love yourself.” Just like you naturally,
spontaneously, unconditionally love yourself,
that’s the way you must love your neighbors now.

Now here’s the problem. If I don’t have this

agape, if I cannot generate it naturally (I can’t
produce it naturally), then I can’t love my God or
my neighbors naturally. But if God gives me this
agape as a gift, so that I may, in turn, return it back
to Him by keeping the first four commandments,
you make God selfish. He gives you His love that
it may come back to Him. That is why you will
find almost nowhere — it’s hardly found in the
New Testament — where we are told to keep the
first four commandments.

Does it mean that God doesn’t want us to keep

the first four commandments? No. But the way
we keep the commandments is by belief. Please
look at 1 John 3:23. Two things are required of
you:

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 And this is his command: to believe in the
name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one
another as he commanded us.

That is how you and I can keep the first four

commandments. In other words, the basis of
keeping the first four commandments is faith. If I
have faith, I will have only one God, no other. If I
have faith, I will not rest in my performance, or in
the government, or in Social Security; I will rest in
the Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus Christ. If you are
keeping the Sabbath without the faith motive, you
are not keeping the Sabbath, according to the
commandments. The only way you and I can keep
the first four commandments is by faith alone.
That’s all that God wants from you. That’s why
Jesus said, in Matthew 6:33, in the Sermon on the
Mount:

But seek first his [God’s] kingdom and his

righteousness, and all these things [to eat, drink,
wear] will be given to you as well.

Put your confidence in God, His salvation, and

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He will supply all your needs.

So God gives you agape, not that it may go

back to Him. All He wants from you is faith.
Without faith it is impossible to please God. He
gives you this agape, not that it may go back
vertically (it comes down vertically) but that it may
go back horizontally to our neighbors.

That’s why Paul can say that all the Law is

fulfilled when you love one another. In other
words, God gives you this agape that it may go out
horizontally to our neighbors. And when the world
sees that, then they will say, “Now we know that
the gospel is the power of God, unto salvation.”

That is why the world needs to see not how

good you and I are; the world needs to see the love
of God shed abroad through the Holy Spirit. When
the world sees that, the earth will be lighted with
His glory. And the human race — even the atheist,
even the scientist who is looking for evidence and
for demonstration — will say, “It is true, now I
have seen it; these people love, as no other human
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beings can love, except God be with them.”

For you see, this love was demonstrated once,

in the early church. Read the book of Acts, chapter
4, especially verse 32 onwards. Acts 4:32-35:

All the believers were one in heart and mind.

No one claimed that any of his possessions was his
own, but they shared everything they had. With
great power the apostles continued to testify to the
resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was
upon them all. There were no needy persons
among them. For from time to time those who
owned lands or houses sold them, brought the
money from the sales and put it at the apostles’
feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had
need.

This love was demonstrated, and enemies of

Christianity — Cicero, Celsus, historians who
hated Christianity — had to confess, “We are
against them, but we must admit, these people
know how to love each other.”

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 When they talked about the agape feast, they
were not talking about nicely decorated tables, with
candles, like we have today. That’s not an agape
feast. They were talking about a master and a slave
sitting together and sharing the same meal; that
was agape, something that was a complete
contradiction to their culture.

This is the revelation that the world needs to

see today. That is the why the greatest fruit of
Justification by Faith that the world needs to see is
not raising our hands and saying, “Praise the Lord,
I am saved!” The world doesn’t want to know
you’re saved. That we have here inside. What the
world needs to see is, “Do you have the love of
God?” Because that’s the only way they can know
God, through His body the church. It is my prayer
that the gospel will transform you and me:

1. That you have peace with God; that you can

face anything because you know God is on
your side.

2. That the world around you will see this love

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 of God — this unconditional, this
changeless, this self-giving love that was
revealed in Jesus Christ.

When that has happened, the work will be

finished; the world will be lighted with His glory
and the end will come. May God bless us, that you
should know the truth, and the truth will set you
free.

I have some homework for you. In the next

study, we are dealing with a very difficult text, one
that is controversial, one that caused a lot of
controversy in the history of the Christian church
and in our own church. It’s Romans 5:12. It’s the
key text used by those who preach the doctrine of
original sin. I’ll give you the problem, and I want
you to prayerfully wrestle with it.

The problem is in the last phrase of that verse.

Paul says that, “All die because all have sinned.”
And that’s an incomplete phrase. What did He
mean? Did he mean all die because all sinned like
Adam, or did he mean that all die because all
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sinned in Adam? That’s the big issue. I want you
to wrestle with it. I wrestled with it for five years.
I have come to a conclusion and I’ll give it next
study. But I want you to wrestle with it,
prayerfully, because it’s a crucial passage. It
makes a world of difference between truth and
error. So I want you to wrestle with it, and may
God bless you.

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 Chapter 11

Adam, a Type of Christ

(Romans 5:11-14)

Beginning with this and the next two studies,

we will be turning our attention to, as far as I’m
concerned, the most important passage not in only
the whole of Romans, but also in the whole of the
Bible. It is this passage, that we shall spend three
studies on, that really opened my eyes to the gospel
of our Lord Jesus Christ. It really laid the
foundation to an understanding of righteousness by
faith and I hope that you will also receive a
blessing.

I would like to start by reading you a statement

made by a well known Bible scholar. He is the
great Swedish theologian, Anders Nygren. He’s
the man who wrote that wonderful volume, Agape
and Eros. He’s the man that Dr. Froom mentions
in his book, Movement of Destiny, as one of the
few non-Adventist scholars who was preaching and
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who was teaching the message of the gospel that
was taught by Waggoner and Jones and Ellen G.
White. So here’s a man who has written an
excellent commentary on Romans, and in this
commentary on Romans this is what he says about
this passage, Romans 5:12-21:

“The best place to begin for an inclusive view

of the meaning of Romans is the fifth chapter’s
comparison of Adam and Christ. This gives the
key to the whole epistle. We have already labelled
this passage the high point of Romans....”

That’s on page 20. This is page 27:

“When we attain to its height, all that precedes

and all that follows spread out before us in one
inclusive view, we see how part fits directly into
part, how Paul’s thought moves from step to step
under its inherent compulsion. With this passage
as our point of orientation, we can with surer
understanding pursue the epistle from beginning to
end.”

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 I believe this man is making a correct
statement! If you can understand this passage, I
can assure you, you have understood the gospel
and you have understood righteousness by faith!
But having said that, I would like to add two
statements.

First, this is a very difficult passage. It will

probably give you spiritual indigestion. It is
difficult primarily because the thoughts that Paul
presents here are in complete contradiction to the
western mind. So you will have to remove your
American caps and put on Jewish caps as we look
at this passage.

I’ll give you a text which I hope will help you.

In II Timothy 2:7 Paul gives young Timothy some
advice and I would like to give the same advice to
you. Let me read it for you. Paul had written to
Timothy some difficult things and this is what Paul
says in II Timothy 2:7:

Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will

give you insight into all this.
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 I would say to you: consider what Paul tells us
in Romans 5:12-21 and may the Lord give you
understanding. I’ll do my best to try and make it
simple. But I would request you to remove, to put
aside your preconceived ideas. You know,
preconceived ideas are the greatest hindrance to
Bible study. What we want to discover is not what
we THINK Paul is saying, but what Paul IS saying.
What is Paul telling us here? That is our concern!
The issue is not who is right and who is wrong.
The issue is “what is Paul saying?” because it is
Paul who was inspired to write this passage. We
must simply accept what God is saying through
Paul.

Secondly, this passage is not only difficult, it is

very controversial. It is controversial because it is
the key passage used by those who preach the
doctrine of “original sin.” Now you may not be
aware of it, but our church has not taken a stand on
this doctrine, and you know why? Because we are
divided. Those who deal with this doctrine fight
like cats and dogs. We are divided on the doctrine
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of original sin. Now I am not going to discuss
original sin because we are discussing this passage,
but I will say this much about “original sin.”

Today, there are many definitions of “original

sin.” When I take all those definitions and evaluate
them on the basis of scripture, I have come to the
conclusion that this doctrine is a mixture of truth
and error.

But our concern this morning is what Paul is

saying in this passage. There are three things that
we could do with a difficult passage. (By the way,
Romans 5 to Romans 8 has some very difficult
passages, and I’m going to use the same method
for all of them.)

You see, you can either ignore the passage like

some do and say, “Well, it is too difficult, so I
won’t preach on it.” And that’s why I have yet to
hear a sermon on Romans 5:12-21. I don’t know
how many sermons you’ve heard on that passage,
but that’s no solution. Because when Paul wrote
this passage, he was not intending it to be difficult.
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He was intending to pass on a message that is
extremely important to us. So it doesn’t bless us
by simply ignoring it. The other method, of
course, is to skim over it so that there will be no
controversy. Well, that’s no solution either.

I prefer the third method and that is to wrestle

with this passage. That’s why I’m spending three
studies on this passage. I believe we should
wrestle with it like Jacob wrestled with that angel
and not let go until God has blessed us! I’ll be
frank with you. I wrestled with this passage for
five years. But I’m an old man. You young
fellows are living in the atomic age, in the
computer age, you know. I’m just learning typing
and I have reached that enormous speed of 17
words a minute. I hope by the end of this quarter, I
will break the sound barrier. But you young
fellows, you take computers and you whiz through
it as if it was nothing, so I hope it won’t take you
five years to wrestle with this passage.

But I would like to share with you what I

discovered. It was a tremendous blessing to me
339
and I want it to be a tremendous blessing to you!
And that’s why I’m taking so long. If I had my
own way, I would have spent more than three
studies on this. But I think that three studies will
give enough meat for you to chew, or, as one
African said to me, “That is not meat! You have
given us bones to chew!” Well, I hope you enjoy
it. These are Loma Linda bones. They’re all
kosher.

Now, this time we will deal with four verses in

Romans 5: 11, 12, 13, and 14. This passage that
we are going to study now will lay the foundation
for the next two studies. Before we look at the
passage itself, I want to pinpoint one verse of these
four verses that is the problem text. It’s verse 12
and I mentioned it at the end of the last study, but I
want you to look at it. Let’s read it and then I will
pinpoint the problem. Romans 5:12:

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through

one man, and death through sin, and in this way
death came to all men, because all sinned....

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 Now Paul is saying three things in this one
verse:

1. He is saying that sin entered the world

through one man. Now the word “world” — the
Greek word is “kosmos“ — has more than one
meaning. I have discovered at least six meanings
for that one word. The context tells you what is the
meaning of the word and here the word “world”
has the same meaning as it has in John 3:16:

For God so loved the world that he gave his

one and only Son that whoever believes in him
shall not perish but have eternal life.

Here the word “world” means the human race,

or mankind, or humanity, to which all of us belong.
What Paul is saying in the first statement is that sin
became our heritage! It became part of us through
one man.

2. He is saying that this sin that this one man

committed brought death to him. The reason for
this is obvious because God said to our first parents
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that the day they eat of the forbidden fruit, the day
they sin, they will surely — or as the Hebrew word
puts it, they will “certainly” — die. So that is no
problem. The problem is in the third statement.

3. This death did not only come to Adam, but it

spread to the whole human race, which is you and
me, all of us. This death spread; it became
universal.

Now Paul was an ex-Pharisee. He was an

expert on the law. He knew what Deuteronomy
24:16 said:

Fathers shall not be put to death for their

children, nor children put to death for their fathers;
each is to die for his own sin.

He knew what Ezekiel 18 said. [Read the

entire chapter, but here is Ezekiel 18:20:]

The soul who sins is the one who will die. The
son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will
the father share the guilt of the son. The
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righteousness of the righteous man will be credited
to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be
charged against him.

He knew that, legally, you cannot transfer guilt

and punishment. You can’t transfer. No law
allows that. And so, because he knows that, he
makes a statement. He says, “This death spread to
all men because all sinned.”

It is that last phrase which is an incomplete

statement that is the cause of the problem. I can
imagine in heaven, some of those great scholars
who wrestled with this through the ages of the
Christian church will go to Paul and they will
shake their heads at him and they will say, “Paul,
why didn’t you finish the sentence! Don’t you
know what headaches you caused us?!” I know
what he will say. “Why didn’t you read the
context?”

There are only two ways you and I can finish

the sentence. Did Paul mean that all die because
all sinned IN Adam? Or did he mean all die
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because all sinned LIKE Adam? Which one? That
is the big issue. I don’t know if you wrestled with
the problem, but those who have belong to one of
these two camps.

Now we can’t get the answer to the problem in

verse 12. We have to look at the context, we have
to approach it from every angle. I want to tell you
the position I have taken: I am convinced that
what Paul is saying here is that we all die because
we all sinned IN Adam and not LIKE Adam. I’m
going to give you five reasons.

I want you to wrestle with this, and I don’t care

who you go to, but I would say this much: if you
take the position that we all die because we sin
LIKE Adam, I want you to know that I will not
turn against you. I will not report you to the
conference. I will still be your friend and your
brother in Christ. I’ll respect you. All I ask is for
you to be honest with the text and give me a reason
from the Bible — not from your own viewpoint,
from the Bible — why you have taken the position.
I’m going to give you my reasons.
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 Four of them are Biblical reasons. One is an
historical reason because you have to take history
into account, too. Let’s go through these five
reasons so that after we do that we can go to the
passage and understand what Paul is saying.

Argument #1. Historically, it is not true that all

die because all sinned LIKE Adam. Take babies,
for example. Do babies die? Yes. Yet they don’t
have personal sin. A baby of three months doesn’t
have personal sin. It has not sinned like Adam, yet
it dies. Therefore, it’s contradicting what Paul
says. Because Paul says that death spread to all
men. No exception.

Argument #2. This is a grammatical reason, in

that Paul uses the aorist tense. That’s a tense we
don’t have in the English language, but it’s a past
historical tense. Therefore, it implies a once-and-
for-all act that took place in the past. If Paul had in
mind that it is our personal sins that bring death to
us, then he would use the present continuous tense.
He doesn’t. I say this because, in chapter 3 of
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Romans, Paul makes a similar statement in verse
23, except there he adds something else. Romans
3:22-23:

This righteousness from God comes through

faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no
difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the
glory of God.

In Romans 3:22,23 he says the gospel of

Righteousness by Faith applies to ALL men, Jews
and Gentiles. And the reason is there is no
difference between Jews and Gentiles. Why?
Because all — that is, Jews and Gentiles — have
sinned, the very same statement that he uses in
verse 12 of chapter 5, in the same aorist tense. All
have sinned. But he adds, “and besides all having
sinned,” and he says, “fall short of the glory of
God.” And there in the second statement he is
using the present continuous tense.

What did Paul mean, to fall short of the glory

of God? It is another way of simply saying “sin.”
Because “sin” simply means “coming short of the
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mark.” And the mark is always the glory of God,
which we know is the love of God. When we
come short of Agape, we are sinning. So when
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:3:

If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender

my body to the flames, but have not love [agape], I
gain nothing.

That’s means you are sinning. So what Paul is

saying in Romans 3:23 is: “All sinned in the past,
plus all are presently, personally sinning
themselves.”

So if the second statement refers to our

personal sins, the first statement has to be what
took place in Adam. What Paul is saying is that we
sinned in Adam, but that’s not all. We also have
personal sins. We are sinning presently. So the
aorist tense implies an act that took place in the
past.

Argument #3. Let’s go back to chapter 5. In

verses 13 and 14 of Romans 5, which is an
347
explanation of verse 12, which we will come to in a
moment, Paul makes it clear that the people who
live from Adam to Moses were dying even though
their sins were not identical or like Adam’s
transgression. In other words, they were dying
even though their personal sins were unlike
Adams’ sin, which is a contradiction of the idea
that we all die because we all sinned like Adam.
Paul is saying the very opposite. They were dying
even though they did not sin LIKE Adam’s
transgression.

Argument #4. In part of the context, verses 15

to 18, not once, not twice, but, you will discover,
four times, Paul makes it very clear that we are
judged, we are condemned, and we MUST die
BECAUSE OF ADAM’S SIN and NOT our
personal sins! Therefore, the context tells me that
Paul says Adam’s death spread to all men because
ALL SINNED IN ADAM! Or, to be more
accurate with the Greek, “in as much as all sinned,”
and we finish the sentence by the context, “in
Adam.”

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 Argument #5. But now I want to give you the
fifth reason, which to me is the most important
argument. If you forget the first four, I don’t mind.
But this fifth argument is so crucial that it is
important that you clearly understand what Paul is
doing here. In Romans 5, verses 12 to 21, Paul is
comparing Adam with Christ. The reason why he
is discussing Adam and our situation in Adam in
verses 12 to 14 is because he wants to use Adam as
a type or as a pattern of Christ. In other words, he
is saying: “What happens to us because of Adam
in the same way happens to us because of Christ.”

There is a parallel. I want you to notice

something here. After discussing our situation in
Adam, how does he end up in verse 14? Because
that’s why he’s discussing Adam. He says:

...Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.

He’s a pattern or type. He’s a figure of the One

to come. If you keep this in mind, then listen to
this very carefully: what is true of us in Adam
must also be true of us in Christ! That’s the
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pattern! That’s the parallel.

Therefore, if you insist that we all die because

we sinned LIKE Adam, to be honest with this
passage, you have to teach that we are saved, we
are justified because we have obeyed LIKE Christ.
And I’ll ask you one question: how many of you
have obeyed like Christ? None. Therefore, none
of us are saved. And this text is no longer good
news; it’s bad news.

If you insist that we are lost because we sinned

LIKE Adam, then you must insist, to be fair with
Paul’s writings, that we are saved because we
obeyed LIKE Christ. Not only is this a
contradiction of Paul’s thought here and in the rest
of Romans, but we would be guilty of teaching
legalism, which is a far cry from the message of
salvation in Christ.

This is not the end of the problem, so I’m going

to give you two more facts, two more things that I
hope will help you. When I preach this to
Adventist congregations, I know there is a question
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that rises up. What about Ellen G. White? I have
no problem. I believe Ellen G. White and Paul
were in perfect harmony. So I’m going to read you
three quotations from Ellen G. White, and you will
see that she takes the position that in Adam we are
lost! It is his sin that brings condemnation. The
first one is from Bible Commentary, vol.6, page
1,074:

“As related to the first Adam, men [it includes

women, because that’s a generic term] receive
from him [that is, from Adam] nothing but guilt
and the sentence of death.”

Statement #2 is from Faith and Works, page 88:

“We have reason for ceaseless gratitude to God

that Christ, by His perfect obedience [not by you
obeying like Him, but by His perfect obedience]
has won back the heaven that Adam lost through
disobedience. Adam sinned and the children of
Adam [which is all of us] share his guilt and it’s
consequences. But Jesus bore the guilt of Adam,
and all the children of Adam that will flee to
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Christ, the second Adam, may escape the penalty
of transgression.”

One more quote, from Sons and Daughters,

page 120 [notice the last one in particular]:

“Blessed is the soul who can say I am guilty

before God, but Jesus is my advocate. I have
transgressed His law, I cannot save myself, but I
make the precious blood that was shed on Calvary
all my plea. I am lost in Adam, but restored in
Christ.”

So I have the Spirit of Prophecy to back me up.

But our final argument must be from scripture.

We have a message for the world. But now let me
bring you to another problem. Some will say (and
I’m not making this up), “Yes, it is true. We all die
because of Adam’s sin.” Now this is a typical
Adventist argument. “But,” they say, “we die
because of Adam’s sin, but this is only the first
death. The second death is because of our personal
sins.”
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 That may sound like good Adventist theology,
but it does not stand up to the scrutiny of scripture,
because the word “death” appears twice in verse 12
and I want you to look at it. Twice, not once. If
you analyze the text, if you use exegesis [“an
explanation or critical interpretation of a text”],
look at the grammar, and the verbs and everything
from the original, you will discover that the death
that came to Adam, the same death spread to all
men.

Therefore, if you say that the death we receive

from Adam was only the first death, then we must
also teach that all that Adam received when he
sinned, when he ate the forbidden fruit, was the
first death. And the question I will ask you, “When
did the second death come in?” What did God
mean when He said to Adam and Eve, “The day
that you eat of this forbidden fruit you shall surely
die!” Did He mean the first death, or did He mean
the second death?

Well, you all know He meant good-bye to life

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forever. In fact, that is the official position of our
church, and a correct position, too. I would say
that the first death was a requirement, a necessity
because of the gospel. I compare the first death to
a doctor’s waiting room. I have yet to go to a
doctor’s appointment where the appointment is on
time. I don’t blame the doctor, because he’s
human. He cannot predict, he does not have
foreknowledge that this will take him exactly 20
minutes for his previous patient. So if the previous
patient is 25 minutes, I am to sit down in his
waiting room for five minutes. Often it is more
that that.

But the thing is this: if this world, because of

the gospel, would continue for six thousand years,
then what happens to the people who die? They
have to wait for the judgment. Judgment is at the
end of time. So the first death is a waiting room
until the judgment.

But if there was no gospel, Adam legally

should have died the very day he sinned because
the Hebrew text says that in the same day that you
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sin, you shall certainly die. That very same day.
So the moment Adam sinned, he actually belonged
to death row. And if he had died that same day,
where would you be? In the grave with him, being
eaten by worms! That’s all. So the death that
comes to us through Adam’s sin is not just the first
death. It includes the second death. We are born
to a lost race because of Adam.

The whole force of the parallel in Romans

5:12-21 between Adam and Christ depends on the
idea of the solidarity of mankind in Adam and in
Christ. In the great majority of the 510 times the
word “Adam” is used in the Old Testament (i.e., in
the Hebrew language), with only rare exception, it
possesses a collective significance. When you read
the word “Adam” in the Old Testament, it is not
referring to an individual. It is referring to all men
in one man. It’s a solidarity statement. The word
“Adam” means “mankind,” not just singular
“man.”

In the same sense, Christ is referred to as the

last or “second Adam” in the New Testament.
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(Actually, the New Testament only calls Him the
last Adam, but Sister White calls Him the second
Adam and there’s nothing wrong with that as long
as we don’t have a third Adam; there’re only two.
The second is also the last.) So when the New
Testament calls Christ the second or the last Adam,
it is not referring to one man among many men.
It’s referring to a corporate man, Jesus Christ.
Because the reason why God condemned us to
death, because of Adam’s sin, is not because He’s
transferring guilt. It’s because we participated in
Adam’s sin. We were implicated, or, to use the
language of Hebrews, we were “in the loins of
Adam” when he sinned.

The life that Adam passed on to his children is

a life that has already sinned. It’s a life that stands
condemned and, therefore, it’s a life that must die!
Therefore, the only way the righteousness of Christ
can be ours is not through transfers. It’s because
we were implicated in Christ’s obedience. And the
only way that can happen is because the humanity
of Christ had to be the corporate humanity of the
fallen race that needed redeeming. Otherwise, we
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are preaching an unethical gospel. That is what the
Christian church is being accused of today. Legal
fiction. I want now quickly to go to the passage.

Let’s look now with this in mind, let’s look at

the passage itself, Romans 5, verses 11-14. Paul
has been discussing with us in verses 6-10, about
the wonderful, unconditional love of God. And we
covered that last study. Now in verse 11 he says:

Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God

through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we
have now received reconciliation.

“Not only are we happy because of God’s love

being unconditional, but we Christians also rejoice
in God through our Lord Jesus Christ because we
have already [once again, the aorist tense, the past
tense, “we have already”] received the atonement
(or reconciliation).”

Do you realize that there is no barrier between

you and a Holy God? Do you know that, in Christ,
God looks at you as if you are perfect? As if you
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have never sinned? Do you realize that you can
come BOLDLY to God, through Christ, without
any doubt, with a clean conscience? Not because
your performance is good, but because, in Christ,
you stand perfect.

Paul tells us that that’s the statement in verse

11. But now he wants to expound on it and he
turns immediately to Adam. Why to Adam? What
has Adam to do with our atonement? No, Adam
has nothing to do with our atonement, but he wants
to use Adam as a pattern, as a model.

So he says those three things in verse 12.

Having made the statement in verse 12 that all men
die, that the death of Adam spread to all men
because all sinned “in Adam,” he goes on to prove
it in verses 13 and 14.

Now his proof is also a difficult passage

(mainly to Adventists, because of our preconceived
ideas about the law). We, as a church, believe that
the law was always existing. That is correct! I’m
not denying it. Neither is Paul. So please keep that
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in mind as we look at verse 13. Paul is not
discussing here about the existence of the law.
What is he saying in Romans 5:13?

...For before the law was given, sin was in the

world. But sin is not taken into account when there
is no law.

He is giving us an implication here that there

was a time when there was no law. (Some
translations read “until the law,” which means
before God gave the law.) He’s using the word
“law” and he’s referring to the Ten
Commandments, as a legal code. The law was
existing from before. But when did God post up
His Ten Commandments in black and white for
men to see? It was at Mount Sinai.

Were people sinning before God actually gave

the law in writing? And the answer is yes. For
Paul is saying in verse 13:

“Sin was in the world.” That is, in the human

race. The human race who lived from Adam to
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Moses were sinning.

“But,” he says, “sin is not imputed (or counted

or reckoned) when there is no law.”

In other words, legally, God could not say to

those people, “You have broken My Ten
Commandments, therefore, you must die.” He
could not do that because he had not yet posted the
Commandments.

If tomorrow the U.S. government decides to

reverse the law of our freeways and return back to
55 miles per hour, no policeman can touch me until
they have repainted the new speed limit on the
posters. As long as it says 65 miles per hour, even
though the U.S. federal government passes a law,
they can’t touch me until they change the law on
those posters.

So God legally could not touch them for their

sins. Since God is a just God, He could not do it.
And yet he says in verse 14:

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 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of
Adam to the time of Moses....

These people were dying. If they were not

dying for their personal sins, then the only reason
they were dying is because they transgressed in
Adam. That’s his argument.

I want you to notice the play of words, which is

also important. Listen to all of Romans 5:14:

Nevertheless, death reigned [that means they

were all dying] from the time of Adam to the time
of Moses, even over those who did not sin by
breaking a command [they were sinning, but they
had not sinned], as did Adam, who was a pattern of
the one to come.

Yes, they were sinning, but their sinning was

different. It was not the same as Adam’s
transgression. I want you to notice the play of
words. There are twelve words in the Bible, Old
and New Testament, for sin. [For details, see
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Biblical Definition of Sin.] Each word has a
specific meaning. The word “sin” is “missing the
mark.” The word “transgression” is not missing the
mark; the word “transgression” means a willful,
deliberate violation of a law. In other words, you
can never transgress without the knowledge of the
law. The prerequisite for transgression is the
knowledge of the law.

The people from Adam to Moses were sinning.

But they were not transgressing. Why? God had
not spelled out the law in clear terms. They had an
understanding in their conscience. We saw that in
chapter 2. But there was no clear statement from
God, “Thou shall not kill. Thou shall not steal.”
That came at Mount Sinai.

Adam’s sin was a transgression because he

willfully disobeyed. When Eve brought that fruit
to him, he knew that it was the forbidden fruit. He
knew that God had commanded them not to touch
it. So when Adam sinned, he was willfully
violating a law. He transgressed. And God said to
Adam that, ’The day you transgress, you will die.’
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 These people were sinning, but they did not
transgress. Yet they were dying. Was God being
unfair to them? Was He being unjust? No! They
were not dying because of their personal sins.
They were dying because they participated, they
were implicated, or, to use the language of
Hebrews 7, they were “in the loins of Adam” when
Adam transgressed.

I know what some of you will say who come to

me: ”What about the flood? Wasn’t that before
the Ten Commandments were given?” I want you
to read I Peter 3:19-21, where Peter tells us why
the people in the flood died.

...Through whom [the Spirit] also he [Jesus]

went and preached to the spirits in prison who
disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in
the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In
it only a few people, eight in all, were saved
through water, and this water symbolizes baptism
that now saves you also — not the removal of dirt
from the body but the pledge of a good conscience
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toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of
Jesus Christ.

They died because they were disobedient to the

gospel, not the law. God said to Noah, “Build an
ark and invite the people in!” And how many souls
entered in? Only eight! The rest were disobedient.

And read your New Testament; it’s clear about

the end. People will not be lost because they are
bad or because they broke His law. People are lost
only for one reason. They have deliberately,
willfully rejected the gift of God, Jesus Christ.
Look at John 3:18:

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but

whoever does not believe stands condemned
already because he has not believed in the name of
God’s one and only Son.

Look at Mark 16:15-16:

He said to them, “Go into all the world and

preach the good news to all creation. Whoever
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believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever
does not believe will be condemned....”

Man is lost because he deliberately, willfully

rejects the gift. In other words, what did God do to
save us? He took you, He took me, He took
corporate man — the human race — and He put us
into Christ.

In Christ He rewrote our history and, in that

history, we have salvation, full and complete. In
that history, the human race stands legally justified.
That is the unconditional good news of the gospel.

But now you will say, “Why isn’t everybody

saved?”

Read Romans 5:15-18, which is our next study.

Read very carefully. Notice two things that Paul
says about us “in Christ” that he does not say about
us “in Adam”:

1. He refers to our position in Christ as a gift.

Now you all know that a gift can never be
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 enjoyed until you receive it. The gift is for
all people, all mankind. John 3:16:

For God so loved the world that he gave his

one and only Son, that whoever believes in
him shall not perish but have eternal life.

He did not give the Son to the elect. He gave

His Son to all mankind. Who will enjoy the
blessing? “Whoever believes.”

No mention of gift in terms of Adam, because

our position in Adam is a natural position.
We are in Adam by native rights. That’s the
way we belong by nature. Our position in
Christ is a GIFT and, like any gift, you have
to receive it to enjoy it. We’ll cover that,
too, in the next study.

2. The second, which is also important, is that

Paul uses a phrase for Christ that he never
uses for Adam. The phrase is “much more.”
By that, which we will see in the next study,
he means that in Christ we receive much
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 more than what we lost in Adam. God
simply doesn’t reverse the situation of the
human race in Adam. He gives us MUCH
MORE than what we lost in Adam, even at
his best.

Therefore, I will never complain to Adam,

“Why did you sin?” Because, if he did not sin, I
would not have that “much more.”

I’ll even say, “Thank you, Adam, for sinning,

because now I have much more than what I lost.”

If I lost ten dollars and I can’t get it back, then

I’ll be very disappointed. But if one of you comes
and says, “I hear that you lost ten dollars; here’s a
hundred dollars in exchange.”

I’ll say, “Thank God, I lost ten!”

Just before we came here we had a terrible hail

storm in Idaho. My wife had an old car. It wasn’t
worth $500. But we had a terrible hail storm and,
because of conference policy, we had to insure it
367
comprehensive. There was no choice. That hail
damaged the car pretty badly. We did not report it
to the insurance company because it was an old
junkheap. But some friend of ours said, “Look, if
you have insurance, claim it!” So she took it to the
insurance company. They examined it and gave
her $800. We thanked the Lord for that hail storm
because we were better off. We could even now
sell it for $300. In fact, I sold it for $50, then we
left to come here.

We are much better off in Christ than we ever

were in Adam. God has given us super abundant
grace. I thank God that Jesus was willing to link
Himself with us, to redeem me not only from
Adam and from my personal sins, but to give us
MUCH MORE than we ever lost in Adam. So I
have some wonderful good news for you next
study. The foundation is that:

As all men die in Adam, likewise all men shall

be made alive in Christ.

Do you know where that is found? I won’t tell

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you. You look for it. It’s in Corinthians, but I
won’t use the reference.

May God bless us as we wrestle with this

passage. We shall know the truth and the truth will
set us free.

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 Chapter 12

The Two Adams

(Romans 5:15-18)

The Doctrine of “The Two Adams” is the most

neglected doctrine in all of Christendom, including
our own church. Yet I am convinced, without a
shadow of a doubt, that this doctrine is the most
important doctrine pertaining to the gospel. I want
you to study it carefully, because I am sure of one
thing: if this doctrine could be clearly understood
by God’s people and applied (as Paul will do in
chapters 6, 7, and 8), I believe that this doctrine
will do three things for our church:

1. It will cure Adventism and cure Christianity

of legalism in all its forms, an age-long
problem.

2. I believe that this message, clearly

understood and applied, will cure us of all
the antinomianism, the libertinism, and the
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 “cheap grace” that has been infiltrating the
church in the last decade or so.

Because, you see, cheap grace,

antinomianism simply means that, since
Christ did it all, we can live as we like. If
you really understand this gospel, you will
never find that the gospel gives you that
liberty. The gospel does not give us that
liberty.

3. I believe that if we have understood this

doctrine and apply it, there will be a revival
and reformation in this church that will end
up in lighting the earth with His glory. That
is why I want to put so much emphasis on
this passage.

As I mentioned, it is a difficult passage. I’ll try

and make it very simple, but I’ll tell you one thing:
if you are to understand this message, you’ll have
to come to this passage with an open mind. You
must be willing to put aside your preconceived
ideas. You must be willing to put aside your
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prejudices; otherwise, you will not be able to see
what Paul is trying to say. And our greatest
concern, as I mentioned last study, is to ask
ourselves, “What exactly is Paul saying here?”

He is the inspired writer, not we. We are not to

put into the text what we think Paul is saying. But
we are to ask ourselves, “What exactly is Paul
saying?”

A hundred years ago, God brought a very

special message to this [Adventist] church. That
message was Christ, our Righteousness, and this
passage was the heart of that message. But I’ll tell
you something, many of our brethren would not
accept the message because of preconceived ideas,
because of prejudices. They felt that Waggoner and
Jones were departing from the pillars of the church.
I would like to read as an introduction, a statement
that Ellen G. White made to those brethren. It is
now found in Counsels to Editors, page 35.

But I want to read it because I feel that we must

take counsel from this statement. the subtitle is
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called, “Investigation of Doctrine,” and that’s what
we’re going to do. We’re going to investigate the
doctrine of The Two Adams. Sister White wrote:

“There is no excuse for anyone in taking the

position there is no more truth to be revealed and
that all our expositions of Scripture are without an
error. The fact that certain doctrines have been held
as truth for many years by our people is not a proof
that our ideas are infallible. Age will not make
error into truth and truth can afford to be fair.”

I want you honestly to look at that passage.

Don’t believe a word this African bush preacher is
telling you! I want you to wrestle with it yourself,
because truth can afford to be fair. No true doctrine
will lose anything by close investigation, and that
is what we are going to do with this passage —
close investigation.

Now, in the last study we dealt with verses 12

to 14, which actually laid the foundation to a
meaningful study of “The Two Adams.” I want to
bring to your attention a quick review of what we
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covered. I want to remind you of that we covered
in detail last time.

Point #1, Paul discusses mankind’s situation in

Adam in verses 12-14, in order to show that Adam
is a type, a figure, a pattern of Christ. You will find
this in the last part of verse 14, where Paul says, in
different ways, “Adam is a type of Him who was to
come” (i.e., Christ). So Adam is a type of Christ.

Now we need to ask ourselves, in what sense is

Adam a type, or similar to Christ? You will
discover, as you look at verses 15-18, that Adam is
a type of Christ only in one sense. In other ways,
he’s opposite. We will see that, too. But, in one
sense, Adam and Christ are similar, they are
parallels, and that is this: that what Adam did
affected all mankind. Likewise, what Christ did
affected all mankind.

That is true of only Adam and Christ. That is

why, in the New Testament, Christ is called “the
last Adam,” because the Hebrew word “Adam”
does mean mankind. It’s a solidarity statement.
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 This is the sense in which Adam and Christ are
equal, are parallels. We will discover that they are
also opposites. They are opposites in what they did,
therefore, they are opposites in how they have
affected humanity. Adam sinned; Christ obeyed.
Adam brought condemnation and death; Christ
brought justification unto life, because what they
did was different.

But point #2, and this is also crucial. It is

crucial because the Christian church, since the
Reformation, has been accused by nonChristians,
and even by Roman Catholic theologians, of “legal
fiction.” That’s the term they use. So number 2 is
important to solve that problem.

The reason Adam’s sin brought the death

sentence on all mankind is not because God
transfers Adam’s punishment to us. If He did that,
God would become unlawful because He Himself
said in Deuteronomy 24:16, that you cannot
transfer guilt and punishment:

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 Fathers shall not be put to death for their
children, nor children put to death for their fathers;
each is to die for his own sin.

We have many such texts in the Bible. 2 Kings

14:6 brings this out:

Yet he did not put the sons of the assassins to

death, in accordance with what is written in the
Book of the Law of Moses where the Lord
commanded: “Fathers shall not be put to death for
their children, nor children put to death for their
fathers; each is to die for his own sins.”

Ezekiel chapter 18 right from the beginning,

right up to verse 20, especially verses 5 to 20, deals
with this one issue. Ezekiel 18:1-20:

The word of the Lord came to me: “What do

you people mean by quoting this proverb about the
land of Israel: ‘The fathers eat sour grapes, and the
children’s teeth are set on edge’? As surely as I
live, declares the Sovereign Lord, you will no
longer quote this proverb in Israel. For every living
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soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son —
both alike belong to me. The soul who sins is the
one who will die. Suppose there is a righteous man
who does what is just and right. He does not eat at
the amountain shrines or look to the idols of the
house of Israel. He does not defile his neighbor’s
wife or lie with a woman during her period. He
does not oppress anyone, but returns what he took
in pledge for a loan. He does not commit robbery
but gives his food to the hungry and provides
clothing for the naked. He does not lend at usury or
take excessive interest. He withholds his hand from
doing wrong and judges fairly between man and
man. He follows my decrees and faithfully keeps
my laws. That man is righteous; he will surely live,
declares the Sovereign Lord.

Suppose he has a violent son, who sheds blood

or does any of these other things (though the father
has done none of them): He eats at the mountain
shrines. He defiles his neighbor’s wife. He
oppresses the poor and needy. He commits
robbery. He does not return what he took in pledge.
He looks to the idols. He does detestable things. He
377
lends at usury and takes excessive interest. Will
such a man live? He will not! Because he has done
all these detestable things, he will surely be put to
death and his blood will be on his own head.

But suppose this son has a son who sees all the
sins his father commits, and though he sees them,
he does not do such things: He does not eat at the
mountain shrines or look to the idols of the house
of Israel. He does not defile his neighbor’s wife.
He does not oppress anyone or require a pledge for
a loan. He does not commit robbery but gives his
food to the hungry and provides clothing for the
naked. He withholds his hand from sin and takes
no usury or excessive interest. He keeps my laws
and follows my decrees. He will not die for his
father’s sin; he will surely live. But his father will
die for his own sin, because he practiced extortion,
robbed his brother and di what was wrong among
his people.

Yet you ask, ‘Why does the son not share the
guilt of his father?’ Since the son had done what is
just and right and has been careful to keep all my
378
decrees, he will surely live. The soul who sins is
the one who will die. The son will not share the
guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt
of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man
will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the
wicked will be charged against him.”

You cannot legally transfer guilt and

punishment. Let me put it this way. If the mother
of Ted Bundy, the [serial murderer] who was
executed in Florida, if his mother goes to the judge
and says, “Look, I love my son. I don’t want to see
him dead. He’s young. I would like to die in his
place. I volunteer to die in the electric chair in the
place of my son.”

Could the judge say, “Okay”? Could he be

legally right in doing it? The answer is no.
Because, legally, whether it is the law of the land
or the law of God, you cannot transfer guilt.

Then how come we all die? It’s because, as we

saw in the last study, all sinned in Adam. We
participated in his sin. We were implicated in his
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sin. Let me put it this way. We all believe that God
created us. There’s no problem there. The question
is, “When did God create you? When did He create
me?” There are only two choices: either when my
mother conceived me or when God created Adam.

If I say that I was created by God when my

mother conceived me, then I must point my finger
to God for creating me sinful, with a depraved
nature, and that would be blasphemy. The Bible
doesn’t teach that. For example, in Genesis 2:7:

The Lord God formed the man from the dust of

the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life, and the man became a living being.

In Geneis 2:7, where God “breathed into Adam

the breath of life,” the word “life” there in the
Hebrew text is in the plural form, not in the
singular. He breathed into Adam “the breath of
lives.” And Acts 17:26 says that out of one, God
created all men to dwell on this earth:

From one man he made every nation of men,

380
that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he
determined the times set for them and the exact
places where they should live.

In other words, we are the multiplication of

Adam’s life. And the life that Adam passed on to
us, was a life:

1. It was a life that has sinned.

2. It is a life that is condemned.
3. It is a life that legally has no right to live.
That is, in Adam we all belong to death row
because we participated in his sin.

Likewise, by uniting Christ’s divinity with the

corporate humanity of the human race that needed
redeeming, Christ qualified to be the second, the
last Adam.

In other words, His obedience can legally be

credited to us — to you, to me, to every human
being. It can be done legally because all mankind
obeyed in Christ. We participated in His obedience.
We were implicated in His obedience of the law
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and His obedience unto death.

This is where we need to distinguish ourselves

as a people from the common understanding of
evangelical Christianity, because, you see, the
evangelical gospel teaches that, on the cross, one
man died in the place of all men. That is unethical.
That is why the Christian church has come under
the fire of “legal fiction”; the Counter Reformation
accused the reformers of legal fiction. Today, the
Muslims are accusing Christianity of legal fiction.

The gospel is not legal fiction. We actually died

in Christ. II Corinthians 5:14 does not say one man
died for all. It goes on to say that because of what
Christ did, all men died in Christ:

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are

convinced that one died for all, and therefore all
died.

So, on the cross, it wasn’t one man dying for all

men. But, it was all men dying in one man.

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 That is the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that is
the reason why so many people are ignoring this
passage, because they can’t fathom how all men
could die in one man, as long as they separate the
humanity of Christ from the humanity that needs
redeeming.

I thank God that modern scholars are opening

their eyes. I thank God that the International
Critical Commentary takes the position now that
Christ’s humanity had to be the corporate humanity
of the human race.

I thank God that Nygren, even Karl Barth,

Cranfield, all these fellows are moving to the
position that Christ’s humanity has to be the
humanity that needs redeeming; otherwise, we are
preaching an unethical gospel. As I Corinthians
1:30 says, God put you, He put me into Christ and
God made Christ to be our wisdom, our
righteousness, our redemption, our everything:

It is because of [God] that you are in Christ

Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God —
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that is, our righteousness, holiness, and
redemption.

That is why this passage we are covering today,

The Two Adams, is the foundation of Christ Our
Righteousness, of the in Christ motif, which many
scholars today are admitting is the central theme of
Paul’s theology. It is the heart of the message of
Righteousness by Faith.

Having emphasized this, let’s go to Romans,

chapter 5, verses 15 to 18. Before we look at the
passage, there are two things I want you to observe.
You may not be aware of it, so I want to bring it to
your attention. There are two things that Paul says
about Christ, and about our situation in Christ, that
he does not apply to Adam. Apart from the fact that
these men did opposite things, there are two things
that Paul applies to Christ that is not true of us in
Adam:

1. When he refers to the obedience of Christ

which justifies us, he calls it a “gift”; he uses that
phrase. You’ll find that in verses 15, 16, and 17.
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The word “gift” [which means it’s free] he applies
towards Christ, but never towards Adam.

Now this is very important. I’ll tell you why.

Because a gift can never be enjoyed until you
receive it. You will discover that in verse 17 as we
come to it.

What is true of us in Adam is not a gift. It

belongs to us by native right. We are by creation,
we are by nature, we are by native right belonging
to Adam. That’s where we belong. Our lawful right
is Adam. Therefore, it is not a gift, it is a native
right, just like most of you are, by birth,
Americans. You were born in this country. This is
your right. I wasn’t. I’m a naturalized American
citizen. I had to relinquish, publicly, with my hand
raised, swearing before the U.S. flag, that I would
give up all my allegiance to foreign potentates. I
had to take a test — you didn’t have to take a test
— I had to take a test on American history. I’m
still struggling to understand the American system.

But we are not naturally in Christ. That’s a gift.

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You can reject that gift and I will show you what
happens when you do.

2. The second thing I want you to notice in this

passage about Christ which is not true of Adam, is
the phrase “much more,” a phrase that Paul loves
to apply to our situation in Christ. What does that
mean? It means that what we receive in Christ is
MUCH MORE than what we lost in Adam! And
I’ll tell you that, when you begin to discover what
we receive in Christ, it is wonderful.

Anyway, keep these two in mind as we go to

our passage. Now, look at Romans 5:15:

But the gift is not like the trespass....

In other words, Christ did not do the same thing

as Adam did. The word “tresspass” or “offense”
refers to Adam’s sin. Please notice it is in the
singular. It refers to that sin that Adam committed
in the Garden of Eden, the sin that brought death to
all people. So he says:

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 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the
many died by the trespass of the one man, how
much more did God’s grace and the gift that came
by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow
to the many!

Paul is saying when one man sinned, many

died. What God gave to us is not only a gift, but He
also defines it as grace. Do you know what the
word “grace” means? If you give a gift to your
children at Christmas or on their birthday, is that
grace? The answer is no. It’s a free gift. They
haven’t earned it, but it is not grace.

If I were to go to Steve’s house while I know

he away and I beat up his wife, Kathy, and smash
his furniture and burn his house down, and Steve
comes back and he sees his house in ashes and he
sees Kathy lying there all bruised and he sees
everything gone and smashed and he says, “What
happened?”

And she says, “That pastor, your friend called

Jack, did it.”
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 Steve gets into his car and he rushes to my
house and I see him coming and I say, “Boy, I
wonder if he has a shotgun behind his back.” And
he has something behind his back. I don’t know
what it is. And with trembling — I keep my
German Shepherd next to me in case I need his
help — I open the door and you know what he
does? He gives me a check for a thousand dollars!
That is grace!

Grace is doing something very special to your

enemy and Romans 5, verses 6 to 10 says that
while we were enemies, sinners, ungodly, we were
reconciled to God by the death of His Son. That is
grace!

Paul is saying that much more than Adam’s sin,

the grace of our Lord, the gift by grace, that of one
man, Jesus Christ, abounds or overflows to many.
Just like what Adam did brought death to many,
what Christ did, as a gift, overflows to many.

Now we go on to verse 16:

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 Again, the gift of God is not like the result of
the one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin
and brought condemnation, but the gift followed
many trespasses and brought justification.

When Adam sinned, condemnation to death

came to all people, all mankind. But the gift, which
came from many offenses, resulted in justification.

Now I want to pause here and look at the

words, “much more.” I want you to look at the
phrase in verse 16 that is very important: “many
trespasses.” You see, you and I have two problems.
Paul has already exposed us to those two problems
in Romans chapter 3, verse 23:

...For all have sinned and fall short of the glory

of God....

What did he say there? He said that there is no

difference between Jew and Gentile in verse 22 and
the reason there is no difference is because all have
sinned (that is, in the past tense). As I showed you
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in the last study, all of us participated in Adam’s
sin. We sinned in Adam, but we also, besides that,
have our own personal sins. We are coming short
of the glory of God. And that phrase “coming
short” is another way of saying “sinning,” because
the word “sin” means coming short of the mark.

So what Paul is saying in Romans 3:23 is: all

have sinned and all are sinning. We have sinned in
Adam, plus we have our own personal sins. If
Christ died, if He cancelled only Adam’s sin, we
still would have a problem. We would have our
personal sins. We would need another Savior for
our personal sins.

But Christ did much more than cancel Adam’s

sin. His death was not only the death that Adam
brought to us, His death was also the death that we
deserved because of our own personal sins. In other
words, the cross cancelled Adam’s sins, plus our
sins — past, present, and future. That is super
abundance.

But that’s not all, because, even if God were to

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cancel my sins plus Adam’s sin which condemns
me, it still would not save me. I’ll tell you why.
Because only the righteous, says the Bible, can go
to heaven. Cancelling my sins and Adam’s sin
which condemns me, doesn’t make me righteous. It
simply makes me neutral.

But Christ did much more than simply cancel

sins by His life and by His death or by His
obedience. He, besides doing that, brought in
justification. As we shall see in verse 18, He has
brought justification to life. In other words, He has
not only taken care of the sin problem, but He has
made us, in Christ, positively righteous, so that, in
Christ, you and I stand perfect before God and His
holy law, or as Paul says in Romans 10:4:

Christ is the end of the law so that there may be

righteousness for everyone who believes.

And that is much more than losing what we lost

in Adam. That’s why Paul loved that phrase “much
more.”

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 That’s not the end of the matter. Romans 5:17:

For if, by the trespass of the one man, death

reigned through that one man,....

What is he saying here? He’s saying that

Adam’s sin, it simply did not bring condemnation
unto death. It brought death as a conqueror! The
word “reign” means to rule over. The king reigns
over a nation. When Adam sinned, death came as a
conqueror, which means that none of us, apart from
the gospel, none of us can escape death.

I remember when we were in Uganda. Oh, I tell

you, it was hard in those Idi Amin days. But one of
the idiotic things he did, he took four English men
(Remember, Uganda was under the British in the
olden days; it was a protectorate, under the English
government.) and he made them carry him on one
of those thrones. He sat right there on top with
these four English men and a big placard; he called
it “the white man’s burden.” He had T-shirts made
for all the people there; on the T-shirt was his
picture and below it read: “Idi Amin, the conqueror
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of the British Empire.” Of course, it was a big joke,
you know, but that was Idi Amin.

Well, a few months later, he began hearing

shelling and some terrible explosives coming from
the Tanzanian soldiers which were coming too
close to his palace. And even though he was — I’m
quoting now what many people thought he was —
even though he was an idiot (because his name was
Idi, you know), he was smart enough to know that
he could not conquer death. He fled, first to Libya,
then to Saudi Arabia, where he’s in exile.

You see, nobody can conquer death. Even you

young fellows, one of these days, death is going to
catch you. I don’t care how strong your muscles
are. None of us can escape death. But there is one
man who conquered death! Jesus Christ.

And He conquered it as the corporate man.

Death came as a conqueror when Adam sinned. No
human being has been able to escape death. Yes,
thanks to medical science, we have some solutions
to sickness. But medical science can’t cure us of
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sin or death. It’s the Grim Reaper. But look at the
second half of verse 17:

...How much more will those who receive

God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift
of righteousness reign in life through the one man,
Jesus Christ.

What does he mean, “much more we’ll reign in

life”? Adam brought death. If Christ only replaced
that with life, that would be doing the opposite. But
Christ did much more. Paul says that, in Christ, we
will “reign in life.” What does that mean?

When you discover that, you will never

complain for the sin problem. Because Paul is
saying here that, in Christ, we are “much more”
better off than we ever were in Adam. And I’m
going to give you a taste of this.

In chapter 8 of Romans, Paul tells us in verse

17 that we are joint-heirs with Christ:

Now if we are children, then we are heirs —

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heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we
share in his sufferings in order that we may also
share in his glory.

Do you know what a joint banking account is?

A joint account means that both people have the
right to that account, legally. That’s what it means.
Therefore, “joint-heirs with Christ” means Christ
shares with us, not only His life, but His throne.
And that is much more than what we lost in Adam.
I’ll give you a couple of texts. Revelation 20:6:

Blessed [which means happy] and holy are

those who have part in the first resurrection. The
second death has no power over them, but they will
be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with
him for a thousand years.

We know from Thessalonians and other

passages, that the Christians, the believers have the
first resurrection. “The second death has no power
over them” for the simple reason that we have
already died the second death in Christ and we
have accepted that.
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 We “will reign with him.” We will not simply
have eternal life, but we will reign with Christ. For
how long? A thousand years. And after that, what?
Christ will move His throne from heaven to this
earth.

And I read in Revelation 22:5 that. when that

happens, we will reign with Him forever:

There will be no more night. They will not

need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for
the Lord God will give them light. And they will
reign for ever and ever.

That, folks, is super abundance.

Let me put it another way. We in Adam, at our

very best, were third-class citizens in this universe.
For I read in the Bible that God is number one, He
created the angels below Him, and we were created
a little below the angels, number three. When
Christ redeemed us, He does not take us back to
our lost state. That would be wonderful if He did.
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But he did much more than that. He took us above
the angels. Ephesians 2:6:

And God raised us up with Christ and seated us

with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus....

We shall share His throne.

We are much better off in Christ than we ever

were in Adam. Don’t you ever complain because
God allowed sin to come into this world. He
allowed sin that He may make us better in Christ. I
thank God for that.

We are much better off in Christ than we ever

were in Adam. Therefore, anyone who rejects the
gift of Christ is a fool. He needs his head
examined.

Let’s go on to the conclusion. Romans 5:18:

Consequently, just as the result of one trespass

was condemnation for all men, so also the result of
one act of righteousness was justification that
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brings life for all men.

Not simply justification, but justification of

life. It means that we are qualified for life in Jesus
Christ.

One man legally condemned all people. One

man legally redeemed all people. That is what Paul
is saying here. In Adam, the whole world stood
legally condemned. In Adam, the whole world
belonged to death row. But thank God for His gift.
John 3:16:

For God so loved the world that he gave his

one and only Son, that whoever believes in him
shall not perish but have eternal life.

In Christ, the whole world stands legally

justified unto life. The only difference is that this
justification of life is a gift and it has to be
received. I want to go to the second half of Romans
5, verse 17:

...How much more will those who receive

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God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift
of righteousness reign in life through the one man,
Jesus Christ.

Please remember, you have to receive it.

Otherwise, it is not effective.

Here are three points in summary.

1. Adam’s sin — in other words, Adam’s

offense or trespass — brought all mankind under
the death sentence. As I have made it clear here,
it’s the first and second death. Both the deaths
come to us through Adam’s sin. The first death
being a necessity because of the gospel program,
the second death being the actual wages of sin.

Let me put it this way. If there was no gospel,

there would be no first death. Am I correct?
Because God said to Adam [Genesis 2:17]:

...But you must not eat from the tree of the

knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it
you will surely die.
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 God said to Adam and Eve, “The moment, the
day you sin, you’re dead.”

The reason Adam and Eve did not die the same
day was because there was a lamb who was slain
from the foundation of the world. Legally, Adam
had no right to live one more minute after he
sinned. Which means, if he had died, you and I
would have died in him. That’s where we belong,
legally, in Adam. But there was a first death
because of the gospel program. Adam knew
nothing about the first death or the second death.
He knew of only one death: “Good-bye to life
forever.” That’s the only death he knew when God
commanded him not to eat of the forbidden fruit.
That’s why we, as a church, believe that Adam had
“conditional” immortality. What was the
condition? “If you obey, you will live; if you
disobey, you will die ... forever.”

2. Christ’s obedience did two things for all

mankind. What are they?

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 First of all, it saved all humanity from the
second death. And I would like to add the word
“only.” It saved us only from the second death.
Christ’s death on the cross did not save us from the
first death, because the first death is not the wages
of sin. It is the second death that is the wages of
sin. So when Paul says, “He bore the curse of the
law for us,” that means He bore the second death.

When Hebrews 2:9 says that Christ “tasted

death for everyone,” the author is referring to the
second death. Because in 2 Timothy 1:10, it reads
like this:

...But it has now been revealed through the

appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has
destroyed death and has brought life and
immortality to light through the gospel.

When Christ came He did two things:

• He abolished death, and

• He brought to light immortality and life.

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 In other words, He abolished the second death
on the cross. And the greatest proof I can give you
is the fact that, even when you accept Christ, as a
Christian, you still have to die the first death.
Christians have funerals, don’t they? Yes. But we
don’t have to mourn like the unbeliever because
that first death is only sleep.

But Revelation 20:6 says:

Blessed and holy are those who have part in the

first resurrection. The second death has no power
over them, but they will be priests of God and of
Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years.

Those who accept Christ, those who have part

in the first resurrection, on them the second death
has no power. Why? Because Jesus abolished that
death!

3. But now number 3, a very important point I

want to bring up. Salvation from the second death
and the verdict of justification to life, these two
things, are God’s supreme gift, in Christ, to
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humanity. So when you talk about God’s gift to the
world, it is these two things which were
accomplished in the holy history of our Lord Jesus
Christ.

He liberated us from the second death, and

number two, He gave us justification unto life.
These are the two things. This constitutes the good
news of the gospel. This is what Jesus
commissioned His disciples to go and tell the
world: “Tell the world that I have rewritten their
history in My Son, and in that history they have
been liberated from the second death, and they
have received eternal life.”

This is the Good News. BUT — there’s a “but”

there — like any gift, it has to be received to be
enjoyed. When you get a gift all wrapped up in a
parcel, that gift is valueless unless you open up the
parcel. The gift of God is for all people, but if you
refuse that gift you cannot enjoy it.

That brings us to the most important point.

Those who knowingly, willfully, and persistently
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(those three words: knowingly, willfully, and
persistently) reject God’s gift of salvation in Christ
are deliberately choosing the second death instead
of eternal life. Since God is a just God, in the
judgment He will give them what they have
chosen. But they can blame Adam no longer.
Because Christ cancelled the death that pertained to
Adam or even to our own personal sin.

The only person they can blame is themselves.

They can’t blame Adam, they can’t blame God, for
God will say, I did EVERYTHING to save you, in
My Son ... and you refused.

If you deliberately, willfully, knowingly, and

persistently reject the gospel, there is no hope for
you. There is no hope. The only reason man is lost
is because of unbelief. UNBELIEF is one sin God
cannot forgive because unbelief is knowingly,
willfully, persistently rejecting the gift of God.

And I want now to turn, in my conclusion, to

the text that clearly presents this. Hebrews chapter
10. But as you you’re turning to Hebrews, first
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look at chapter 2, verse 3. Here it is, Hebrews 2:3:

...How shall we escape [the judgment] if we

ignore such a great salvation? This salvation,
which was first announced by the Lord, was
confirmed to us by those who heard him.

But Hebrews 10:26 is really what I want to give

you. Now I want you to look at this in the context
of the gospel, because Hebrews 10 is dealing with
the gospel. Verse 26, a text that is so difficult for
many of us to understand because of our
misconceptions of the “Two Adams” and of the
gospel. But here it is now, Hebrews 10:26:

If we deliberately keep on sinning after we

have received the knowledge of the truth, no
sacrifice for sins is left....

Now the word “sin” to us normally means

transgression of the law, but I would like to remind
you that the word “sin” here must be given the
same definition as Christ gave the definition of sin
in John 16:9 where He defines sin as unbelief:
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 [When the Holy Spirit comes, he will convict
the world of guilt...] In regard to sin, because men
do not believe in me....

The Holy Spirit will convince the world of sin

because they do not believe in Jesus. Hebrews
10:26 is saying, “If we sin willfully after we have
received the knowledge of the truth (which you
have done today), if you now willfully, deliberately
reject the knowledge of the truth (and the truth is
Jesus Christ: “I am the Way and the Truth and the
Life,” John 14:6), there no longer remains a
sacrifice for sin.

Now I want you to look at Hebrews 10:14.

There I read:

...Because by one sacrifice he has made perfect

forever those who are being made holy.

And who are sanctified, made perfect? Those

who enter into God’s rest, of which the Sabbath is
a sign. The “rest” is belief, because Hebrews 4:2-3
406
makes it clear:

For we also have had the gospel preached to us,

just as they did, but the message they heard was of
no value to them, because those who heard did not
combine it with faith. Now we who have believed
enter that rest, just as God has said, “So I declared
on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my
rest.’”

“For we who believe do enter into His rest.”

Okay, now, here it is. If you deliberately reject that
sacrifice, there is no other sacrifice that can take
away your sins. That’s what he’s saying. What is
left? Hebrews 10:27:

...No sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful

expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will
consume the enemies of God.

This is the third angel, who says: “If you

receive the mark of the beast (which is unbelief),
then you will receive the wrath of God poured
without mixture (without mercy), because you have
407
deliberately, willfully, persistently rejected the
gospel.” There is nothing but a “fearful expectation
of judgment.”

Hebrews 10:29 clarifies the issue clearly:

How much more severely do you think a man

deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son
of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy
thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him,
and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?

So please understand, it was at infinite cost that

God saved us in Christ. That salvation is perfect,
complete, and full. But if you deliberately,
willfully reject it, there is no hope for you. That is
why Jesus said that [Matthew 24:14]:

And this gospel of the kingdom will be

preached into the whole world as a testimony to all
nations, and then the end will come.

What does He mean by the word “testimony”

or “witness”? It means that you can no longer find
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an excuse for being lost. Because once the gospel,
the knowledge of the truth, comes to you, and you
willfully reject it, you are inexcusable, because that
salvation is a GIFT! It is much easier to be saved
than to be lost, because to reject that gift is to
choose the second death instead of eternal life and
reigning with Christ.

But let us present the gospel to the world; that

is what God has commissioned us to do. That is
why it is my concern that you understand the Two
Adams, because whether you are saved or whether
you are lost depends on which humanity you
belong to: the humanity in Adam or the humanity
that was initiated in Christ.

But let me conclude with these words. When

you accept your position in Christ, you have to say
good-bye to Adam. You can’t be in Adam and in
Christ at the same time; they belong to opposite
camps. I want you to keep this in mind as we come
to chapter 6 of Romans. When you chose your
position in Christ, you have to say good-bye to
your position in Adam. And when you say good-
409
bye to Adam, you’re not only saying good-bye to
death, you’re saying good-bye to sin. When you
chose Christ, you’re not only accepting life but
you’re choosing, accepting righteousness. Keep
this in mind, because Paul will apply it as we come
to chapter 6.

But I want you to understand the foundation,

for Jesus said [John 8:32],

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will
set you free.

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 Chapter 13

The Reign of Sin and Grace

(Romans 5:19-21)

I receive in the mail now and then a little

package that comes from Palo Alto, California.
It’s a bunch of papers called “Discovery Papers”
and they are actual transcripts of Biblical sermons
preached by different Evangelical preachers put
together by a very famous evangelical scholar by
the name of Ray Steadman. He does it because he
has a tremendous burden; his burden is the
preaching of the Bible be restored in the pulpits of
North America. I think it is a very worthwhile
burden because the crying need of not only the
Evangelicals but the Adventist church is Biblical
preaching.

When I received my last package, I looked

through to see what the sermons were all about and
one of the sermons was on Romans 5:12-21. My
ears pricked because normally most preachers,
411
Evangelical or Adventist, won’t touch this passage.
It’s too controversial; it has too many difficulties.
And I said, “Here is somebody who is trying to
preach it, I wonder what he has to say.”

I read through the paper but, unfortunately, he

tried to deal with the whole passage in one sermon.
You cannot do justice to such a passage in one
sermon but I was impressed at his introduction; so I
thought I would read it to you because it is
basically what I have been trying to tell you and I
am glad that there is somebody else who feels the
same.

The preacher is Brian Morgan and this is what

he says in his introduction: “Of all of Romans, I
find this text [i.e., Rom.5:12-21] the most difficult
to teach. In fact, I was dreading it.” [He wanted to
bypass it, but he felt his conscience wouldn’t allow
him.] “For years I taught this material without
discovering a clear outline or an understanding of
Paul’s argument.” If you read most of the
Evangelical scholars on this passage you will see
what he’s talking about. “But, as I meditated on
412
this truth this week, I realized that our difficulty
lies in the fact that we do not approach this passage
with the mind of Paul. Because we do not think as
he does, we cannot fully comprehend the thoughts
of God.” So how does he solve this problem?
Here it is: “By changing my way of thinking.”
Not by changing Paul’s way of thinking, which is
what most people do, but “by changing my way of
thinking, the magnitude and the glory of the work
of Christ revealed in the passage became greater
than ever before.”

Then he ends, “I pray that this might happen

for you as well,” and this is my prayer, too.

I’m convinced that it is essential that we

understand this passage to understand “Christ our
Righteousness.” It is essential to understand this
passage to understand the “In Christ Motif” which
is the central theme of Paul’s theology. To me, it is
crucial that we understand this passage if we are to
understand Romans 6, 7, and 8, which are key
passages in Romans.

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 As I said before, please put away your
preconceived ideas. Come to this text with an open
mind. I was amazed that, when this man came to
the text with an open mind, we came to the basic
same conclusion. So it gave me courage. But I
will respect you if we disagree. However, please
be honest with the text. Don’t go beating around
the bush; give me a correct exegesis of this text. If
I’m wrong, I’m willing to change, but be honest
with the text.

Now we’re spending three studies on this.

We’ve covered two and we come to our final study
on this passage. I want to remind you that, in the
last study we dealt with verses 15 to 18 and we
discovered that, because of Adam’s sin, we
received condemnation and the sentence of death.
And because of Christ’s obedience, we receive the
verdict of justification by faith. Christ cancelled
not only Adam’s sin, but ours also by His life and
death.

As I mentioned once before, this is the passage

that is used primarily by those who teach the
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doctrine of “original sin.” I want to go on record
so that you are aware of my thinking on this. I
believe that Augustine was the one who coined the
term “original sin” and he had a mixture of truth
and error. For example, he taught “original guilt,”
which is unbiblical because guilt in its legal sense
involves responsibility; it involves volition. And
God doesn’t hold me responsible for Adam’s sin.
He doesn’t hold me guilty. The Bible doesn’t
teach that.

Yes, I participated in his sin so I suffer the

results, but I am not guilty. I am guilty, according
to the New Testament, if I willfully, deliberately
reject the gift of God, Jesus Christ; then I become
responsible.

This teaching of Augustine was a mixture of

truth and error. He taught that every baby is born
with a stain of sin, which is unbiblical, and which
has to be removed by baptism, which is also
wrong. Baptism doesn’t remove any stain of sin,
Adam’s or yours. Baptism is a public confession
of faith and we will deal with this and the
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significance of baptism at another time when we
study Romans 6.

Please remember that, while Augustine had

errors, so did Pelagian, who was the opposite of
Augustine and who taught that babies are born
innocent. He was just as much a heretic. So
whichever we belong to, we must forget names; we
must go to Scripture and ask God, “What are You
saying?”

When we come to Romans 5, verse 19, we

discover that Paul adds another dimension to our
problem in Adam and also another dimension to
the solution in Christ. So let’s look at verse 19.
What is this added dimension that Paul adds to
what he said in verses 15 to 18?

For just as through the disobedience of the one

man the many were made sinners....

I’m not saying it; Paul is saying it. Adam’s sin

not only brings the condemnation of death, but
Adam’s sin made us sinners. But many don’t like
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that. Many feel that babies are born innocent and
that it is when they sin they are made sinners; so
they don’t like the word “made.” The Greek word
actually means “constituted.” But whatever
meaning you give the word, you have to give the
same meaning when it’s used in terms of Christ
and us, because Paul uses the very same verb. He
doesn’t use a different word; the tense is different
but the verb is identical. The same word is used in
terms of Adam and and us and in terms of Christ.

Now let me emphasize this because if you get

this wrong in terms of Adam you will go wrong in
terms of Christ. For example, let me start with
babies. The New Testament and the Old
Testament have very little to say about the
salvation of babies and I prefer to keep silent. So
is E.G. White. The fact that she makes one
statement in The Great Controversy that when
Christ comes there will be some babies who are
resurrected without mothers does not prove that all
babies will be saved because they are innocent.
That’s reading into the statement more than she is
saying. The Bible is silent. I have my views and I
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can explain them to you if you come to me
privately. But I will not express them here because
I prefer to stick with Scripture and the Bible is
silent.

However, I do know one thing from Scripture

and the writings of Ellen G. White and that is that
no human being — whether it’s a baby or an adult,
whether it’s male or female or whether Jew or
Gentile, whether you lived in Old Testament times
or New Testament times — no human being will
be in heaven apart from the saving grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Everybody born in this world
needs a Savior and nobody will be in heaven apart
from the grace of Christ. That is the clear teaching
of the Scriptures.

Now we come to the second issue which is a

continuation of the first. “Do we sin because we
are sinners, or is it our sin that made us sinners?”
Which is true? Let me put it another way. When
does an apple tree become an apple tree: from the
time it germinates, from the time it’s a seed, or
when it begins producing fruit? If I go to the
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nursery to buy an apple tree and I say to the man,
“I need an apple tree.”

“Well,” he replies, “this tree looks like an apple

tree but I can’t guarantee that it is. You wait until
it produces fruit and then you will know whether or
not it’s an apple tree.”

Do you think I’ll buy that tree? I’d say to the

man, “Where did you go to school? You’d better
learn your job before you sell things you’re not
sure of.” How do I know it’s not a crab apple? I
don’t want crab apples, although some folks can
make jam out of it. I don’t enjoy jam; I like apples.

When do we become sinners? According to

this passage, we are made sinners by Adam’s sin.
Therefore, we are born sinners and our sins are
simply the fruit of what we already are. Now if I
reverse it, then I have to reverse my situation in
Christ. Is it my righteousness that makes me
righteous or is my righteousness evidence or fruits
of what I already am in Christ? Does God first
make you righteous before He declares you
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righteous? If you teach that, I have news for you,
you belong to the Roman Catholic Church and
your name has no right to be in the Adventist
Church, because that is Roman Catholic theology:
God infuses you with grace, makes you righteous,
then He declares you a saint.

But I thank God that all believers, according to

Paul, are sanctified. Look at 1 Corinthians, where
Paul introduces his letter; he’s talking to the
“saints” in Corinth. 1 Corinthians 1:2:

To the church of God in Corinth, to those

sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy,
together with all those everywhere who call on the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ — their Lord and
ours....
They were anything but saints in their behavior,
but he calls them saints because, in Christ, we are
righteous. The righteousness that God produces in
me is simply the evidence, the fruit of what I
already am in Christ. This is the conclusion, if I
understand Romans 5:19. Let’s look at the text a
little closer. First of all, let’s read the whole verse,
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Romans 5:19:

For just as through the disobedience of the one

man the many were made sinners, so also through
the obedience of the one man the many will be
made righteous.

Is there any difference between those two

statements, especially in the word “made”? You
will discover there is a difference in the tense. Paul
uses what we call in Greek the “aorist” tense when
he talks in terms of our position in Adam. He uses
the future tense when he talks of our situation in
Christ. In other words, everyone of us was already
born a sinner because Adam made us sinners at the
fall. When we are born, we are born sinners (past
tense). But we are not yet made righteous. We
will be made righteous at the second coming of
Christ when “this corruption puts on incorruption.”
Then and only then will you and I and all of us be
made righteous who accept Christ. Until then, the
just shall live by faith. And both justification and
sanctification are by faith alone.

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 Now let me give you some texts to show that
this is what Paul is teaching in other places. Turn
to 1 Corinthians 15:49. Paul is saying the same
thing but from a different angle. Read verses 48
and 49 to get the whole picture. 1 Corinthians
15:48:

As was the earthly man [Adam], so are those

who are of the earth; and as is the man from
heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.

Adam was made of dust and you and I were

born made of dust. “Those who are of heaven” are
those who accept Christ. Now look at verse 49.
When will this take place?

And just as we have borne [please notice, it is

not future, it is something that is already true of us]
the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear
[future] the likeness of the man from heaven.

When shall we bear? Paul goes on to explain it

was sown in corruption, it was raised in
incorruption. At the resurrection, we shall be
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raised incorruptible. Read the whole passage of
chapter 15. By the way, 1 Corinthians 15:21 to the
end deals with the same topic, the two Adams.
Maybe I should read you verses 21 and 22, which
is the key statement on this passage in Corinthians:

For since death came through a man [singular],

the resurrection of the dead comes also through a
man [singular again]. For as in Adam all die, so in
Christ all will be made alive [future tense].

We shall be made alive in Christ; we shall be

made righteous (future tense), but now we are
righteous only in Him by faith. Our position in
Him is by faith not by reality. Does this mean that
we can’t live a righteous life? No, I’m not saying
that; we’ll come to that when we reach verse 21.
But I’m simply saying that even when God gives
you total victory over sin you are still a sinner by
nature. Your nature will not change until the
second coming of Christ, and this is what Paul
means when he says we are made or constituted
sinners through Adam’s sin.

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 I would recommend that you read the second
chapter of Steps to Christ [by Ellen G. White].
When Adam sinned, his nature became bent. Love
disappeared; selfishness took its place. And we
were born, every one of us, with a bent towards sin
which is with Satan and not with God.

But now let’s go on, back to Romans 5. In

Romans 5:20 Paul proves what he says in verse 19:

The law was added so that the trespass might

increase.

Some translations read, “the law entered...”

Let’s look at the word “entered.” Entered what?
What did Paul mean? It entered what?

God came to Abraham and gave him a promise.

The promise was of a Messiah that He had given
before to Adam and Eve at the fall. Four hundred
years after Abraham, God comes to Moses and
says, “You know, Moses, I really goofed up. I
meant to give the law to Abraham but I forgot so I
need to add this.”
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 Did He do that? Was the law added as an extra
requirement for salvation which He forgot to give
Abraham? No. What Paul means by the word
“entered” is the law entered the promise. The
reason God gave the law was not an extra
requirement to faith. “The law entered that the
offense might abound” [KJV]. If you look at the
statement at its face value it sounds terrible. It
sounds as if God gave the law to increase sin; but
that is not what Paul is saying. Look at the word
“offense” or “trespass” or whatever word is used in
your translation. Is it singular or plural? Is it
“offenses” or “offense”? It is singular. Therefore,
in the light of the context of this passage, the word
“offense” or “trespass” from verse 15 onwards, all
through, always refers to Adam’s sin.

So what is Paul saying in the first half of

Romans 5, verse 20? He has told us in verse 19
that Adam’s sin made us sinners. Now let’s go
back to verse 19 again because there is something I
need to add. Let’s read the statement again.
Romans 5:19:
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 For just as through the disobedience of the one
man the many were made sinners....

Some translations read “many,” which has

caused a problem to many of our people. They say
that not all were made sinners, only “many.” The
King James Version omits one word that is in the
original, and that’s the word “the,” the definite
article. So what Paul is really saying in verse 19 is,
“THE many were made sinners.”

And when he uses the definite article it means,

“the human race, mankind.” The same is true in
verse 15. Paul is saying in verse 19 that Adam’s
sin made the human race sinners. Then in verse 20
he says that God gave the law to prove that Adam’s
sin made the human race sinners. In other words,
we were all born sinners, and sinners all produce
sin. But how do you know that you are a sinner?
Who told you that you are a sinner? The law. God
gave the law to prove that this human race
produced by Adam is a bunch of sinners. That is
why, in chapter 7, Paul says [Romans 7:7]:
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 ...Indeed I would not have known what sin was
except through the law.

It was Adam who made us sinners. God gave

the law to open our eyes to prove to us that we are
sinners. Why? So that we may accept His grace,
His Son Jesus Christ. Because He goes on to say
in the second half of Romans 5:20 that:

But where sin increased, grace increased all the

more....

We are sinners by nature. Therefore, the only

thing that you and I can produce is sin. You cannot
produce righteousness out of sin. That is
impossible.

I mentioned this illustration before, but I will

repeat it. When we were in Kenya, two brilliant
young men from Oxford University came to our
college there. Since I was in charge of the
Department of Religion, they asked me if they
could show a film on moral rearmament. It is a
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movement that is dying out today but it was a
theory that, if every human being could arm
themselves with three fundamental principles —
love, purity, and honesty — this world would have
peace and we would have no need of war. They
had a beautiful film. You know what films are
like, they can prove anything. They can make you
do anything; you know Hollywood is expert at that.
They were trying to prove to young people that if
they armed themselves with these three
fundamental principles, Africa would be a
wonderful place to live in.

They needed my permission to show the film.

So I said, “I have nothing against this film. I
appreciate your concern, but you are trying to
produce bananas from an orange tree.”

They asked me what I meant, so I told them,

“You can only produce sin from sinners and you
are trying to produce righteousness from sinners.
You can’t do that, only God can. The thing you
need to teach is that you must be born again. That
is what Jesus taught Nicodemus. He said, “Flesh
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gives birth to flesh” [John 3:6]. That which is born
of the flesh will always remain flesh, and the flesh
can only produce sin. It can produce self-
righteousness, but in God’s eyes, self-righteousness
is sin also. It may not be in our eyes, but it is in
God’s eyes.

Remember that the law simply proved that we

human beings are sinners. The law did not make
us sin, it simply took the lid off of our self-
respectability and showed us what we are like
inside: rotten. Don’t tell me that babies are not
born sinners. When they awake at 3:00 a.m. and
demand breakfast, if that is not sin I don’t know
what is. I couldn’t tell our son to go back to sleep,
that 6:00 a.m. is breakfast time. “Nothing doing! I
want it now!” He got it from me and I got it from
my parents and so on and so on until we come to
Adam. Now let’s go on to the second half of verse
20:

But where sin increased, grace increased all the

more....

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 What God did in Christ is superabundance. He
not only cancelled Adam’s sin but He also
cancelled our sins — past, present, and future. We
touched that in verse 16. But more than that, He
did not only cancel sin (which would make us
neutral, clear up a bad debt), He also brought in the
verdict of justification to life for all men. He didn’t
only do that. He did much more. He condemned
sin in the flesh. So where sin increased, grace
increased all the more. He did it for us, He did it
for the whole human race. In view of this, Paul
says in verse 21:

...So that, just as sin reigned in death, so also

grace might reign through righteousness to bring
eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

You were born a sinner and if you allow sin to

reign in your life it would end up with eternal
death. But now that grace has come in, may grace
reign through righteousness to eternal life through
our Lord Jesus Christ. You see, Adam brought to
this world a reign of sin. You and I were born
under that reign. You had no choice. Just like you
430
had no choice being born in America. You had no
choice.

When we first came to this country in 1964, I

was on a student visa and they charged me Social
Security even though I was not an American
citizen. One day I asked the Social Security people
why I had to pay Social Security since I wasn’t
born here and I wouldn’t enjoy the benefits. He
said, “Too bad, you were born in the wrong
country.” Well, I wish I knew who he was. I
would write him and say, “Now I belong to this
country. Shell out that money so that I can retire.”
Now they’re telling me it’s about to go bankrupt.
You can’t win in this world but by grace we have
much more than what this world and what this
country can give us.

Now Paul is here saying that we were born

under the reign of sin and death and, if you remain
there, you would end up dying eternally. But we
don’t need to remain there, he says, because there
has been a new reign that has been established in
Christ Jesus and if we move to that reign, letting it
431
reign over us, producing righteousness in us, the
end will be eternal life.

I would like to turn back to 1 Corinthians 15

because there is a point that is not extremely clear
in Romans 5:19-21 but which Paul makes clear in 1
Corinthians 15. This chapter is important as it
helps us understand the reign of sin and the reign
of grace. So please turn once again to 1
Corinthians 15. And this time I’m going to look at
two verses, 45 and 47. I want you to notice the two
terms Paul uses concerning Christ. 1 Corinthians
15:45,47:

So it is written: “The first man Adam became a

living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.
...The first man was of the dust of the earth, the
second man from heaven.

Now look at the two terms applied to Christ. In

verse 45 He is called the “the last Adam.” (By the
way, the term “second Adam,” does not appear in
the New Testament. It’s a term used by Ellen G.
White. Nothing wrong with the term as long as
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you don’t bring a third Adam; there’s no third
Adam. The second Adam is also the last Adam,
but the New Testament only uses the expression
“the last Adam.”) In verse 47, He is called the
“second man.”

These two terms — “last Adam” and “second

man” — are very significant, especially as you read
the entire passage. What do they mean? As the
last Adam, Christ gathered to Himself all that is of
the first Adam, i.e., you and me and everybody
else. He gathered to Himself all that is of the first
Adam and He did away with the Adamic race at
the cross. Because the life of Adam has to die;
there is no choice there. The Lord never changes
and Christ did not come to change the law or to
sidetrack it. He came to fulfill it and the law says
[Ezekiel 18:4]:

The soul who sins is the one who will die.

And we have sinned in Adam plus we have our

personal sins. So whichever way you look at it, we
have to die. At the cross, in Christ, the human
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race, died. That is why in 2 Corinthians 5:14 Paul
says:

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are

convinced that one died for all, and therefore all
died.

The death of Christ was not one man dying in

the place of all men, which is the false teaching of
substitution. It was all men dying in one man,
which is the Biblical definition of substitution. We
all died, the Adamic race came to an end, at the
cross. But in the resurrection, God raised up the
human race, in Christ, with a new life, the very life
of His Son, which is eternal and which is immortal.
And so I read in in 1 John 5:11

And this is the testimony: God has given us

eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

So Christ rose up with a new human race that

was redeemed from the old. It is in this sense Paul
can say in 2 Corinthians 5:17:

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 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new
creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

To review from Romans 5:

Verse 15. Adam’s sin brought death “to the

many.” “The many” refers to mankind; the context
makes that clear. Adam’s sin brought death to the
many, that’s mankind. Likewise, Christ’s
obedience brought the gift of grace — that is, life
— to the many. I want to remind you, it is a gift.
The word “gift” is not used in reference to Adam;
it is used in reference to Christ.

Verse 16. Adam’s sin resulted in the judgment

of condemnation to all humanity. Christ’s
obedience did much more. He did not only cancel
Adam’s sin, but all our personal sins, past, present,
and future. In reference to us, it was all future
because He died 2,000 years ago. And that’s why
Paul uses the word “many offenses” or
“trespasses.” He did not only cancel that but He
brought the gift of justification to all humanity.

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 Verse 17. Death rules or reigns over all
mankind because of Adam’s sin. Much more those
who receive (and I emphasize the word because a
gift to be enjoyed has to be received) the gift of
Christ’s abundant grace and righteousness will rule
with Christ throughout eternity.

Verse 18. Because of Adam’s sin, all

humanity faces the eternal death sentence. In other
words, we are all born in death row; that is where
we belong by nature. And if you want a good text,
which I challenge those who don’t like this
statement to look at, it’s Eph. 2:3:

All of us also lived among them at one time,

gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and
following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest,
we were by nature objects of wrath.

“We are by nature the children of wrath,”

which is saying the same thing as here. In the
same way, says Paul, Christ’s perfect righteousness
brought the verdict of justification to life to all
humanity. This, by the way, constitutes the good
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news of the gospel.

Verse 19. Adam’s sin resulted in all men being

born sinners, that is, with a sinful nature, which, by
the way, Paul does call sin in Romans 7. He talks
about sin dwelling in him: “the law of sin at work
within my members” [Romans 7:23]. Christ’s
obedience will result in all born again Christians to
be made righteous, i.e., with a glorified nature at
the second coming of Christ.

Verse 20. The law simply proves that Adam’s

sin has produced a human race of sinners. The law
did not make us sinners; it simply proved what we
already are in Adam. But much more Christ’s
saving grace has not only redeemed humanity from
sin but also legally justified all men in Christ.

Verse 21. Therefore, just as sin dominates all

men from birth, and would do so until death, let
now grace take over, says Paul (that’s what he
means by the word “might” in “grace might
reign”), let grace now take over and dominate your
life, producing righteousness, until eternity is
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ushered in by Christ’s second advent.

Okay, these are the facts. But simply giving

you the exegesis of a passage is not preaching; it
has to be applied to our lives. So I want to apply
this. I want you to listen very closely now. I just
have three points, but very important:

1. Every baby is born under the reign of sin,

condemnation, and death, because of the fall. By
the way, Paul is simply proving here what we
already covered in Romans 3:9-20: “All are under
sin, there is none righteous, there is none that does
good.” Why? He explains that “why” here; it’s
because of the fall.

To continue to live under this reign is to end up

with eternal death. There is no reason why we
should remain under this reign. Why? Because
Christ has made a way of escape. To deliberately
remain under this reign is to ask for eternal death,
which means that you can no longer blame Adam.
Because no longer are we lost because of Adam’s
sin, because that was cancelled by Christ. We are
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lost because we deliberately, willfully, persistently
reject the gift of God.

That’s why the real issue in the judgment is not

the “sin question” but the “Son question.” God
will ask each unbeliever, “Why did you
deliberately reject My Son, Whom I gave you at
infinite cost?” (I’ve already touched on this last
study.) To accept this gift of grace by faith is to
live under the reign of righteousness which ends up
with eternal life.

2. You cannot — and I repeat, folks, you

cannot — chose to remain in Adam. You’re born
in Adam but you cannot chose to remain in Adam
and at the same time accept by faith to be in Christ,
because these two men represent two opposite
camps. One represents sin; One represents
righteousness. One represents death; One represent
life.

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say,

“I’ll accept Christ because I want to go to heaven,
but at the same time I want to enjoy sin.” That’s a
439
contradiction, and when we come to Romans 6 we
will see, he brings it out very clearly that you can’t.
To receive Christ, the Author of Righteousness,
means to say “good-bye” to Adam, the author of
sin. That is why I touched 1 Corinthians 15:45 and
47. He did away with Adam and raised up you in a
new humanity. So, if you want to accept Christ,
you have to give up your position in Adam.

Let me put it this way, and I will explain it in

more detail when we come to Romans 6. In this
world, you begin by life that is passed on to you
from Adam. But you end up with death, because
the life he passes on to you is a life that is
condemned to death. So you begin with life in this
world, and you end up with death. In the gospel, it
is the reverse: you begin with death and you end
up with life. And there is no life unless you first
die. You cannot belong to Adam and Christ at the
same time.

Several years ago there was a man who

emigrated to America from Germany. He was very
clever and became an excellent photographer; he
440
became a millionaire in this country in New York.
Several years later, He decided to visit His
homeland, Germany, that was his birthplace. And
because he was famous, and because he was
wealthy, He wrote to Emperor William. And this
is how he wrote: “You’ve probably heard of me. I
am a German-American and I want to visit my
birthplace, and I would like to have an audience
with you.”

Emperor William wrote back, a very nice letter.

He said, “Germans I know, and Americans I know,
but German-Americans I do not know. If you were
a German, and became an American, you no longer
have the right to claim to be a German.”

When you become a Christian, you are no

longer an “Adamite”; you’re a Christian. Your
citizenship is in heaven. You are no longer of the
world; you are living in the world, but you are no
longer of it. You cannot be in Adam and in Christ
at the same time. You have to make your choice.
That is the clear teaching of the New Testament.

441
 3. Your eternal destiny depends on which
humanity you have chosen. When the Bible uses
the word “unbelief” as a sin that brings eternal
death (or as the unpardonable sin in the New
Testament), it means a deliberate choosing to
remain in Adam and the reign of sin. When you
deliberately choose, after the gospel has come to
you, to remain in Adam and under the reign of sin,
then my advice for you is: don’t come to church;
you’re wasting your time. Eat, drink, and be
merry, for tomorrow you will die. But please don’t
expect to enjoy sin and go to heaven at the same
time.

Now I’m not talking of the struggle, I’m talking

now of choosing. Unbelief is the deliberate, willful
choosing to remain under the reign of sin which is
in Adam. Belief means willfully choosing to be in
Christ and in the reign of righteousness. And this
Paul spells out in detail when we come to the
second half of Romans 6. The master you have
chosen you must serve: sin unto death or
righteousness unto life. You can’t have both. And
that is why this passage is crucial in order for you
442
to understand chapter 6, 7, and 8.

So what is Paul telling us. He thinks there are

two humanities: one that was introduced by
Adam’s fall and the other one that was initiated by
Christ’s obedience, His life and His death. We are
by nature in Adam. We are born in Adam;
therefore, by nature, we are children of wrath. But
“whoever believes in Jesus Christ shall not perish
but have eternal life.” It is possible for every one
of us to move from that position to the new
humanity, because, in Christ, God has already
accomplished it as a gift.

He put you in Christ 2,000 years ago, and

rewrote your history in Christ, so that, in Him, you
stand perfect, or, as I may use the words of Steps to
Christ, “God looks at you as if you had never
sinned” (in Christ) and He gave you a new life, a
new position, and a new destiny. And He says,
“Please, will you accept it? I can’t force it, I’m not
a Communist, please accept it.” And if you say,
“Yes,” then Jesus will say to you what He said in
John 5:24:
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 I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and
believes him who sent me has eternal life and will
not be condemned; he has crossed over from death
to life.

It is my prayer that on this platform you will

build your Christianity. Christianity is not simply
joining a denomination. Becoming a Seventh-day
Adventist will not save you. Christianity is not
baptism by the act; the act doesn’t save anybody.
It is the truth of baptism that saves.

And what is the truth of baptism? Dying in

Christ, saying good-bye to Adam, being buried in
Christ, terminating in sin, and resurrecting to
newness of life in Christ. And that is why it is
important that we really preach the true meaning of
baptism.

I even heard last week on the radio that baptism

is a memorial service. Show me one text in the
Bible that teaches that. Baptism is not a memorial
service; it is a confession service. The Lord’s
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Supper is a memorial service. But baptism is a
confession to the world, just like when my wife
and I became American citizens. We had to swear
that we would give up all allegiance to foreign
potentates. My wife said in her heart, “I can’t say
good-bye to the queen.” But you can’t belong to
Britain and America. Now I know there are people
with dual passports; but, when it comes to a crisis,
you have to choose one.

And as for me and my household I have chosen

Christ, to be my Righteousness, to be my Life, to
be my Savior and my Hope. And I have lost all
confidence in the flesh.

It my prayer that you will join me. And if we

build our Christianity on this platform, the platform
of “not I, but Christ,” there will be revival in this
church, and we will lighten this valley not with our
human glory but with the glory of our Lord Jesus
Christ. And this is my prayer in Jesus’ name.
Amen.

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 Chapter 14

Baptized into Christ

(Romans 6:3-6)

“Our first baptism was not genuine. Some of

us were forced into it; some of us were pressured
by our friends; some of us were baptized because
our classmates were baptized. But one thing we all
have in common: we did not understand the
meaning of baptism. And so would you please
rebaptize us? We want it to be genuine.”

This was the request of 450 young people who

wanted to be rebaptized. They had not experienced
the new birth.

Unfortunately, that experience is not unique.

There are a great number of Christians, in all
denominations, who have been baptized, but who
were “buried alive.” I remind my pastors when I
train them, that it is a crime to bury anyone that is
alive. A pastor only has authority to bury dead
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people.

I would like, therefore, to look at Romans 6:3-6

which is the clearest explanation of the significance
of baptism. As a people, we have put tremendous
emphasis on the mode of baptism. Even though
you may have the correct mode, that doesn’t mean
that you have the truth. The mode is correct only
when it signifies the truth.

Many Christians have not understood the true

meaning of baptism. I had the same experience. I
was taught — and I was 25 — that baptism is a
memorial service. I can’t find a single text that
says that. Baptism is not a memorial service; the
Lord’s Supper is, yes. Baptism is a confession
service. It’s a public confession of a very special
experience the believer who is baptized has
experienced. We are looking now not at the mode,
but at the truth. For Jesus said in Mark 16, where
he gave the great commission in verses 15 and 16:

...Go into all the world and preach the good

news to all creation. Whoever believes and is
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baptized will be saved, but whoever does not
believe will be condemned.

Now baptism as an act is done by the pastor.

He baptizes you in the name of the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost. Baptism as a truth is not done
by a pastor; it’s done by the Holy Spirit.

Turn to 1 Corinthians 12. I want you to notice

how Paul explains, (at least, he doesn’t explain, but
he states) the true significance of baptism.

The thief on the cross, whom Christ promised

heaven, may not have gone through the act of
baptism, but he certainly had to go through this,
because it is this that Jesus meant. The act doesn’t
save anybody. The truth saves. The act becomes
important only when it’s accompanied by the truth.
1 Corinthians 12:13:

For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one

body — whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free —
and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

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 Baptized not by one man (and please notice, the
Spirit is in capital S, referring to the Holy Spirit)
but we were all baptized into one Body, and that
body refers to Christ. Now this is the truth of
baptism, but this is the foundation. Let us now turn
to Romans 6 and look at it in detail.

Now I’m ignoring the context. I will come to

the context later. But Romans 6:3 begins with a
statement: “Don’t you know?” And the tragedy is
that many Christians do not know.

Or don’t you know that all of us who were

baptized into Christ Jesus....

That’s the first thing I want to start with:

baptism is always into Christ Jesus. It is not into
the Seventh-day Adventist church or any other
denomination, because no denomination can save
you. It is into Christ Jesus. Yes, the pastor
baptizes in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost, but the truth of baptism is always into
Christ Jesus.

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 Now what did Paul mean by being baptized
into Christ Jesus? Well, I’ll give you a text that
will help you. That’s Galatians 3:27. Here Paul
explains what it means to be baptized into Christ
Jesus, because he uses the same phrase, but he also
amplifies on it. So we read in verse 27 of
Galatians 3 these words:

...For all of you who were baptized into Christ

have clothed yourselves with Christ.

Some translations read that those baptized

“have put on Christ.” They have become one with
Christ. That’s what it means to be baptized into
Christ.

Let me explain this. In order for Christ to save

us, in order for Him to be our Savior, He had to
identify Himself with us. He had to take us unto
Himself. In order for that salvation to become
effective, in your case, in my case, we have to
identify ourselves with Christ. It has to be
reciprocal. Why? Because God is love. And even
though He has redeemed all men in Christ, that
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redemption can only become effective when you
accept that identification with the holy history of
Christ. Because God is love, He is not a Marxist.

You see, Marxism believes in sharing, but it

shares at the point of a gun. God doesn’t give you
His Son at the point of a gun. He says, “I have
given you my Son at infinite cost to me, but it is a
gift to you. You have two choices: you can accept
it or reject it.” And so it has to be reciprocal. That
is why Jesus said in John 15:4 to the Christian:

Remain in me, and I will remain in you....

It’s a two-way thing for the picture to become

complete.

So while it is true that all men have been

legally justified in Christ, even though it is true that
all men have already been reconciled in Jesus
Christ, that salvation has to be made effective by
faith and baptism. And baptism is simply the
public confession of a faith union with Jesus
Christ. That is what it means to be baptized into
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Christ.

Now let’s go on to the second half of Romans

6:3. Our union with Christ in baptism is not in any
vague manner. It is very specific:

Or don’t you know that all of us who were

baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his
death?

Which means that we accept His death as our

death. It is crucial that we know this, otherwise,
there is no effective justification. (I’ll bring it out
in a moment.) But first, what kind of death did
Christ die? Paul explains that in Romans 6:10:

The death he died, he died to sin once for all;

but the life he lives, he lives to God.

So His death was to sin. What does that mean?

The law of God says, “The wages of sin is

death.” And it is a tragedy in our church that
anyone does away with the legal framework of the
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atonement. The law demands a death. Hebrews
9:22 says:

In fact, the law requires that nearly everything

be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding
of blood [death] there is no forgiveness.

As it says in Ezekiel 18:4, “The soul who sins

is the one who will die.” That’s the clear teaching
of Scripture.

Christ did not come to change the death

sentence. If He changed the death sentence, He
would be breaking His own law. He came to fulfill
the death sentence. And, on the cross, He died to
sin. He met the justice of the law. And, when He
rose again, He left sin in the grave, not for three
days but forever. That’s why Paul says He died
once. You cannot die the second death twice. The
second death you can only die once, because it’s
good-bye to that sinful life forever.

And when Christ rose up, says Paul in Romans

6:10:
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 The death he died, he died to sin once for all;
but the life he lives [now, the life of the
resurrection], he lives to God.

What does He mean by that? What did sin do

to Christ? It separated Him from God. Sin
separates you from God. Do you know what that
means? It means that it separates you from the
source of life, of peace, of joy, of happiness.

And that’s why Christ cried out in agony, with

sweat of blood, “Father, Father, Why? Why have
you forsaken Me?” He was experiencing the curse
of the law. But never again will Christ be
separated from His Father. Never again!

And so I go to verse 11. Romans 6:10 deals

with Christ’s death. But remember, a Christian is
baptized into His death. Therefore, in verse 11
Paul says:

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin

but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
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 In other words, just as Christ brought sin to an
end on the cross, now, by being baptized into
Christ, you have said in your heart good-bye to sin.
You have left it on the cross.

By the way, it is this that was nailed on the

cross. It was against us, it was contrary to us, it
was condemning us, it was nailed with Christ. And
you, in baptism, have put it there of your own
choice. You have said, “This life of sin deserves to
be on the cross and nowhere else.”

Now you can live unto God. For it says in the

second half of verse 11 that you are “alive to God
in Christ Jesus.”

Do you know that God will never separate

Himself from you who have been baptized into
Christ? There will never be a separation. Yes,
there will be a separation for those who ultimately,
persistently reject the gift of Christ at the end of the
millennium. God will withdraw Himself and,
when He does that, the source of life is gone.
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 But with you who have been baptized into His
death and have been raised with Christ there will
never be a separation, because God has promised
that. But now let’s go on. Let’s go back to
Romans 6:4:

We were therefore buried with him through

baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was
raised from the dead through the glory of the
Father, we too may live a new life.

What do you do with a person who is dead?

You can keep him for awhile, but, eventually, he
has to go down under. You have to bury him. And
in this context I want you to know what Ellen G.
White said. She was not commenting on this
passage; she was applying it to this church. She
says:

“The new birth is a rare experience in this age

of the world. This is the reason why there are so
many perplexities in the churches. Many, so many
who assume the name of Christ, are unsanctified
456
and unholy. They have been baptized, but they
were buried alive. Self did not die and, therefore,
they did not rise to newness of life in Christ.”

May I warn every theological student here,

don’t you ever bury anyone alive. You have no
right to. Make sure that you confront them with
the cross of Christ. They may say yes to the 13
points of [Adventist] doctrine, but if they say no to
the cross of Christ, you have no right to baptize
them.

But when I read, “This is the reason why there

are so many perplexities in the churches,” I know
why so many ministers have to lose their hair,
trying to solve the perplexities, put out the brush
fires, everywhere in the world. And that is why
many ministers are giving up. They can’t take it.
But I thank God that the grace of God is able to
keep them. Now let’s finish verse 4, which says:

1. You died with Christ.

2. You are buried.

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 There is a very interesting society in England
that prevents the premature burial of people who
have not died. They give several incidents in their
literature. One of them occurred right here in
America, in California. They buried a man, he was
covered and everything and, in the middle of the
night, the man who was in charge of the cemetery
was walking along and he heard some noise. It
was right where the person was buried. He rushed
to the police and they dug it out. It was too late.
They opened the coffin. Obviously, this man came
back to life and was trying to come out. He pulled
his hair out. He was frantic. He was buried before
he died.

That was a tragedy. But, I’ll tell you, it’s a

worse tragedy when people are buried when
they’re not spiritually dead. Because they do come
out. They don’t remain in the grave. They come
out. But the trouble is, they give the pastors and
every other member headaches. We need to
remember this. That is why the next quotation
from E.G. White is:

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 “The accession of members who have not been
renewed in heart and reformed in life is a source of
weakness to the church. This fact is ignored.
HENCE, MANY JOIN THE CHURCH
WITHOUT FIRST BECOMING UNITED TO
CHRIST.” [Emphasis by Pastor Sequeira.]

Was your baptism a union with Christ crucified

and buried?

But I thank God it goes on: not only do we die

with Christ, not only are we buried with Him, but
[Romans 6:4]:

...Just as Christ was raised from the dead

through the glory of the Father, we too may live a
new life.

Every true Christian must say with the Apostle

Paul what he says in Galatians 2:20:

I have been crucified with Christ....

Not “Christ died in my place.” That is a false

459
concept of substitution. The death of Christ was a
corporate death. One man cannot die in the place
of another. The law won’t allow that. Unless you
die with Him, that death doesn’t become legal to
you. (I will come to it when we come to verse 8.)
But there it is. We have died with Him, we are
now to rise in newness of life. And Paul says [all
of Galatians 2:20]:

I have been crucified with Christ and I no

longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in
the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who
loved me and gave himself for me.

“I am crucified with Christ, but I am still

living! Now, it is no longer I who lives, but Christ
lives in me. And the life I now live, I live by faith
in the One Who loved me, and gave Himself for
me.”

Let me jump now to Romans 6, verse 7. I

made a statement, I want to back it up from
scripture:

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 ...Because anyone who has died has been freed
from sin.

Now that’s what your English Bible says.

That’s not what the Greek says. You see, the word
“freed” appears three times in Romans 6. The first
time is in verse 7, the second time is in verse 18,
and the third time is in verse 22. But verse 18 and
verse 22 use the same word; verse 7 has another,
completely different word. In fact, if you want a
word in your English Bible that is identical to the
word Paul uses for “freed” in verse 7, look at Acts
13:39 where the word is “justified”:

Through him everyone who believes is justified

from everything you could not be justified from by
the law of Moses.

The King James Version puts Romans 6:7 this

way:

He that is dead is justified from sin.

That’s the word Paul used: dikaiouno. That’s

461
the Greek word He used: “justified,” not freed in
the other sense.

Now what does it mean by the word,

“justified”? Well, the translation “freed” is correct,
because the word “justified” does mean “freed.”
But free in what sense? Two things:

1. You are free from the rulership of sin.

Remember, in Romans 3:9, where Paul concludes
the sin problem, he says, “The whole world is
under sin, ruled by sin, slaves to sin.” (Romans
7:14 brings that out too.) But now you and I are no
longer under the rulership of sin. Why? The sin
has died. The sin that rules over us has been
crucified with Christ.

2. But there is a second sense where Paul is

using the word “justified” which we need to know.
Please notice, the law says, “The soul who sins is
the one who will die” [Ezekiel 18:4]. The moment
you are born in this world, even though your
parents and your friends and your relatives and the
visitors said, “You are a beautiful baby,” the law
462
said, “You must die.” We are born in death row
because of the fall (see Romans 5:12-21). We are
born under the condemnation of the law, by one
man’s sin. And that law is relentless, will not give
up, until you die. And when you die the law says,
“Now I’m satisfied.” If I steal $10,000 and I’m
caught and sent to the penitentiary for five years,
after those five years in prison, when I come out,
no law can touch me for that crime. If the
policeman tries, I can say, “Look, I am a free man
now.” And it is in that sense that the law is
satisfied.

So sin can no longer destroy you. Not because

you’re good, but because you have already died in
Christ. (We will touch that when we come to
Romans 6:14.) But now I want to go to Romans
6:5:

If we have been united with him like this in his

death, we will certainly also be united with him in
his resurrection.

The word that Paul uses is the word we use

463
today for grafting, where you take two branches
and join them together as one. That is what
baptism is. It is our grafting into Christ, crucified,
buried, and resurrected. So:

If we have been united with him like this in his

death [which is to sin], we will certainly
[guaranteed, folks] also be united with him in his
resurrection.

In other words, if your baptism is genuine, God

says to you what Christ said to the thief: “Today,
heaven is yours!” Your resurrection is guaranteed.
But I want to make one thing very clear, and that is
brought up in verse 8 of Romans 6:

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we

will also live with him.

I want you to notice very carefully what Paul is

saying here. Because what he is saying here is in
complete contradiction to our natural situation.
Because, in this world, we begin with life.

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 Now don’t ask me: when does life begin?
That’s the big argument over abortion. I believe
life begins the moment conception takes place. But
I’m not a medical man and I won’t argue with you.

But you begin with life, you end up with death;

that’s the natural order of things. In the gospel, it
is the opposite: you begin with death and you end
up with life. And the word “if” in these two texts
means that if you don’t die, you don’t live!

Let me give you another text that is much

stronger. It’s a text given to Timothy. And I know
why Paul gave it to Timothy. It was because
Timothy was young and many young people think
they will never die. Don’t kid yourselves, folks,
you can die even as a kid. But turn to 2 Timothy
2:11 and listen to Paul’s statement:

Here is a trusthworthy saying: if we died with

him, we will also live with him.

Please notice, if you refuse to die with Christ,

you will not live with him. And if you were buried
465
alive, you don’t have to go through the act again. I
discovered the meaning of this passage 10 years
after my actual baptism. I was already a minister
for five years. Can you imagine what would
happen if this minister would be rebaptized? There
would be tongue-wagging: “I wonder what he did
wrong?”

No, I had done nothing wrong; I just discovered

the truth. So there in Uganda I did not ask for
rebaptism. I went under a fig tree, very symbolic,
and I said, “God, You have opened my eyes, I want
to surrender to the truth. From now onwards, Lord,
it is no longer I but Christ Who must live in me.”
And that must be the goal.

Now please remember, Romans 6 is dealing

with attitude. Paul realizes that even though in
your heart you have died to sin, you are still
struggling, you are still falling, but in your heart
you have said good-bye to sin. We will deal with
that in more detail when we come to the actual
study of the passage in its context.

466
 But one thing is clear: there is no resurrection
with Christ unless you first die with Him. It’s as
simple as that.

Then we go to Romans 6:6:

For we know that our old self was crucified

with him so that the body of sin might be done
away with, that we should no longer be slaves to
sin....

The King James Version reads: “Knowing this,

that our old man was crucified with Him.” I’ve
always hated that phrase in this text, because Paul
did not use the phrase “old man.” When I was
growing up, my brother and I, when we always
talked about my Dad, we called him the “old man.”
So when we were doing something mischievous,
my brother would say, “The old man is coming
around the corner.”

We were smoking in the bathroom. Don’t you

ever try it, young folks; it wasn’t worth it. We
used to collect the stubs from my fathers cigarette.
467
And he would smoke, but he wouldn’t allow us to
smoke. What an example! Anyway, he wasn’t a
heavy smoker.

Please remember the “old man” is not your

father, it is your old life. That’s why the New
International Version of the Bible says your “old
self.” That’s your old life that you were born with,
that stood condemned, which had to die, which was
crucified with Christ. Here Paul uses the phrase
“old self,” but in Galatians he uses the word “I,”
the old self-life.

For we know that our old self was crucified

with him so that the body of sin might be done
away with [or destroyed]....

But that’s not what Paul says. So I will need to

explain this. The actual thing that Paul says is:
“...that the body of sin might be deprived of its
power or may be rendered powerless.” That’s what
the Greek word says.

Now let me explain what he’s saying here. The

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Greeks believed that matter was evil. The Bible
doesn’t teach that. This body of ours is not evil.
The problem is not my body. The problem is the
driver. He is the rascal. Say we were to go in a
long bus ride; it’s a long way, so we have two
drivers. The first driver is very reckless, he takes
corners on two wheels, and every time he takes a
corner, your heart is in your mouth because he’s
taking it on two wheels. You have no peace. The
problem is not the bus; the problem is the driver.
When he steps off and the new driver takes over —
and he’s a very careful driver — you sit back and
relax and say, “Boy, this is a good driver!”

Well, “the flesh” is your old driver. And every

day you have to remind him, because he has died
on the cross as far as you are concerned — only by
faith, and faith is not reality. He is still alive and,
given the chance, he wants to pop his ugly head up.
And I’ll tell you the worst form of his ugly head:
when he comes up in the guise of religion. He acts
like a very “holy Joe.” But he is the flesh. And so
I have to remind you of the words of Jesus to
Nicodemus [John 3:6]:
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 Flesh gives birth to flesh....

He may be able to do many good things. He

may be able to do many religious things. But he’s
always motivated by self. So our works are
polluted, filthy rags in God’s eyes. It is only the
Spirit, the new driver, that can produce
righteousness in us. So we must say, everyday,
“Not I, but Christ.”

Paul says, “Do not walk in the flesh but walk in

the Spirit” because the flesh is crucified. Galatians
5:24 says:

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have

crucified the sinful nature with its passions and
desires.

Please notice: the old man is crucified;

therefore, this human body, which in itself is not
sinful, has been deprived of its power of sin. The
driver is dead.

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 Romans 6:6 ends:

...that we should no longer be slaves to sin....

Please don’t come to me and say, “Pastor, I

can’t help it. I have a sinful nature.”

I would say, “Friend, you need to be baptized.”

Because, it is no longer “I, but Christ” Who

must walk in us. And I’ll tell you, the Christ of
2,000 years ago has not changed. He is the same
today, tomorrow, and forever. And the life He
lived, the life of love, the life of caring, the life of
self-giving, He can live today in you. And the
world needs to see that.

Well, I have given you a study; now I want to

give you some examples from the Bible. Because
the Bible uses this truth from many various angles.
The first example is from the exodus. In 1
Corinthians 10, Paul takes the experience of the
Jews, and links it with salvation. I read in verse 2
that, Moses being a type of Christ:
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 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud
and in the sea.

And in verses 3 and 4:

They all ate the same spiritual food and drank

the same spiritual drink....

Please notice the symbolism here of the Lord’s

Supper. They ate and they drank the spiritual food.
And then he defines what he means by this [in the
rest of verse 4]:

...for they drank from the spiritual rock that

accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.

But I want you to notice verse 5:

Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most

of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert.

You see, the exodus out of Egypt was a symbol

of salvation. Egypt represents the world. Pharaoh
472
represents Satan, the enemy of God. And the
crossing of the Red Sea represents the baptism.
Now they are heading for Canaan — the promised
land — and, while they’re going there, they are
living on the spiritual food: the bread and blood of
Jesus Christ. Now, there was a problem. They did
not say good-bye to the life of Egypt. So while
they were physically out of Egypt, there hearts
were still there: “Oh, I wish we could go back.
We miss the cucumbers, and the leeks, and
especially the Kentucky Fried Chicken! We miss
it.”

Therefore, their baptism was a sham. And you

know what happened? They died in the
wilderness. There are three kinds of people who
will die: those who are unbelievers, those who are
believers, and those who are in the wilderness. Of
the three, the wilderness people are worst. I’ll tell
you why. Those who are in the world, they at least
enjoy the world before they die. Those who are
Christians will die, but then there’s a resurrection,
and eternal life. But in the wilderness, you have
neither of the two. You don’t even enjoy the world
473
fully, because every time you enjoy it, you’re full
of guilt. And you don’t even enjoy heaven because
you were buried alive.

So what did God do? He did not bring them

back to Canaan until they were rebaptized. He did
not take them the easy way, He took them through
Petra. And those of you who have ever been
through Petra know it’s rocky, it’s mountainous,
it’s really rugged. And they walked through that,
and they came to the Jordan. Joshua 4:1-9:

When the whole nation had finished crossing

the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, “Choose 12
men from among the people, one from each tribe,
and tell them to take up 12 stones from the middle
of the Jordan from right where the priests stood and
to carry them over with you and put them down at
the place where you stay tonight.” So Joshua
called together the 12 men he had appointed from
the Israelites, one from each tribe, and said to
them, “Go over before the ark of the Lord your
God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is
to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the
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number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a
sign among you. In the future, when your children
ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them
that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the
ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed
the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off.
These stones are to be a memorial to the people of
Israel forever.” So the Israelites did as Joshua
commanded them. They took 12 stones from the
middle of the Jordan according to the number of
the tribes of the Israelites, as the Lord had told
Joshua; and they carried them over with them to
their camp, where they put them down. Joshua set
up the 12 stones that had been in the middle of the
Jordan at the spot where the priests who carried the
ark of the covenant had stood. And they are there
to this day.

God said to Joshua, “Do two things, when you

cross the Jordan [which is their rebaptism]. When
you cross the Jordan take 12 stones from the
wilderness, and put them in the middle of the river.
And take 12 stones from the river, and take them to
the promised land and build an altar.”
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 What did those 12 stones represent? “Twelve”
represents the church. What God was saying to
Joshua was, “The life of Egypt, which they brought
with them, cannot go with them to Canaan. It must
be buried in the Jordan. And the life of mine,
which you must resurrect, must be taken to the
promised land.” And so Jordan becomes the true
baptism. That’s why Jesus was baptized not in the
Red Sea, but in the Jordan. Remember what He
said to John the Baptist? “You must baptize me to
fulfill all righteousness.” Because that’s the true
baptism.

In 1975, I was crossing the Jordan with my

family; they have a bridge now, so you don’t have
to wait for the waters to separate. I stopped in the
middle of that bridge and I looked down at that
dirty water. It’s very clean at the source in the
Golan Heights, but when it comes to where the
Jews crossed it in the exodus it’s quite dirty. And
an Israeli soldier came with his rifle and bayonet
and he dug me in the shoulder, in the waist. And I
jumped, I said, “What’s up?”
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 He said, “What are you looking for!?” He
thought maybe I was an Arab or somebody.

I said, “No, I’m looking for the stones.”

And he said, “What stones?”

I said, “The Bible says it’s ‘there unto this day.’

Don’t you know your history?”

And he said, “Oh yes, my mother believed in

that stuff. I don’t.”

And I said, “Too bad! That’s why you’re losing

the war.”

And he said, “Get along!”

And I said, “Okay sir.” Too bad, folks. He has

given up the truth as it in Christ.

In 1981, I took a week of prayer in Middle East

College and one of the young men requested
477
baptism. He was a Marionite, which is an offshoot
of the Roman Catholic Church. It’s a Middle East
religion; it’s a Christian church. His parents were
furious, absolutely furious. So the father came up
to me, and he said, “Do you know what you’re
doing?”

I said, “Yes, I’m baptizing your son.”

He said, “Let me tell you, when my son was

two months old, I drove — at tremendous risk to
myself — I drove all the way to the Jordan.”

Now he was a Lebanese in the Arab camp.

Don’t you ever call a Lebanese an Arab, because
they are Phoenicians. But he said, “I drove all the
way to the Jordan. And I took a barrel of Jordan
water, and I baptized my son in the very water in
which Christ was baptized, and now you baptized
him in this dirty Middle East College water.”

“Retrogression,” he said to me.

I said, “You may have baptized him in the

478
water, but may I ask you one question?”

He said, “Yes.”

“Did your baby, did this boy cry?”

“Yes,” he said, “he yelled his head off.”

“I’ll tell you why,” I replied. “He was rejecting

that baptism. Now he is accepting it. That’s the
difference.” And I explained to him the truth. He
wouldn’t accept it.

He yelled, “You Adventists!”

Well, have you been buried alive? It is

important that we know the truth of baptism.

I want to conclude with an experience I had in

Ethiopia. I hope you don’t have to go through that
experience. I’m especially talking to the young
people. I took a week of prayer at the Adventist
college in Ethiopia, and I gave the kids time for
questions. There was an Egyptian there, a Janan
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Egyptian. His name was Dahoud; he was a student
of mechanized agriculture. He was a senior.
Apparently, in the class, they had an argument with
the teacher, a discussion, “Should Christians carry
arms?”

Now in Egypt you have to serve two years in

the military. And they don’t have, like you have in
this country, a medical corps. You have to carry
guns. So this Egyptian said to me, “Is it a sin for a
Christian to carry arms?” Now he knew what the
teacher had told him, that it is not right. But,
unfortunately, the teacher had quoted Ellen G.
White, and he wanted me to prove it from
scripture, which is pretty right for him to ask.

So I said to him, “Dahoud, any Egyptian who

does not fight for his country should be ashamed of
himself.” And he liked that. But I said, “I’d like to
ask you a question. Are you a Christian?”

He said, “Yes.”

Then I said, “Have you seen any dead

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Egyptians fight for his country?”

He said, “No.”

I said, “If you’re a Christian, you are dead to

that old life that belonged to Egypt. And you were
raised in newness of life in Christ. And by the
way....” Now this may not mean anything to you,
but to him it meant something. “By the way,” I
said, “Christ was a Jew.”

Have you told an Arab that he’s a Jew? He

didn’t like it. He said, “No, I’m not dead!”

I said, “Well, I don’t want you to argue with

me. I can give you a whole host of texts. Let me
give you just one. I gave him Colossians 3:3. I
said, “Please read it from your Bible, your Arabic
Bible.” And he read it. And Paul says there:

For you died, and your life is now hidden with

Christ in God.

He refused to accept it. I said, “Okay Dahoud,

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I’m not going to argue.” So I left; I went back to
Addis Abbaba, which was 150 miles away. Two
weeks later, just two weeks after the week of
prayer, he and one of his instructors were testing
out a John Deere tractor. Most of our colleges in
Africa are on hills. They were trying this tractor,
they were coming down this hill, and the brakes
failed. Dahoud was sitting on the fender, and the
driver, his instructor, was sitting on the seat. When
the brakes failed, the tractor began gaining
momentum because it was downhill. In his panic,
he tried to slow down the tractor by bringing it to a
lower gear, and the gears weren’t synchronized, so
the moment he got it into neutral, he could not get
it into a lower gear. It just wouldn’t go. So the
momentum increased, and he went faster and
faster, and the driver was white. He jumped off.
“Save thyself.” Dahoud froze on that fender. He
was scared, too. He should have jumped. He
didn’t. The tractor hit a tree and he was pinned
under it. It took them 20 minutes to lift that heavy
stuff and pull him out.

We had a nurse there, she examined his heart

482
beat and said, “I’m afraid he’s dead.” He was
crushed. His whole chest was crushed. There was
a hospital three miles away and they rushed him
there. The kids went into the chapel and began
praying. Two doctors — one a Swede, the other an
Ethiopian trained in the U.S. — examined him,
and they both admitted that he was dead. They
asked the nurse to take care of his body, and she
went with a bed sheet to cover his body and, as she
was covering his head, his eyes blinked. She cried
out, “He’s alive!”

The Swedish doctor said, “I guess you’re

imagining things.”

The Ethiopian doctor said, “Let me examine

him again.” He used his stethoscope and examined
him again and heard a faint heartbeat. Well, they
didn’t have the needed equipment so they radioed
our headquarters because we had a mission plane.
We sent our plane and they brought him to our
hospital in Addis Abbaba. He was there,
unconscious, for about two weeks, all bandaged;
they had done surgery and everything. Two weeks
483
later he gained consciousness. So I went to visit
him.

His face was all covered with bandages. All

there was open were his eyes and his mouth. He
looked at me, and I looked at him, and I bent down
to his ears, and I said, “Dahoud, how are you?”

He whispered to me, “Dahoud is dead. You’re

talking to a Christian.”

He told me later on that God had taught him the

hard way the truth as it is in Christ. He went back
to Egypt, but refused to carry arms because he was
a Christian.

I hope that you don’t have to go through that

experience. It was bitter! He had scars for the rest
of his life. But if you were buried alive, your
baptism was a sham. It is my prayer that you will
surrender to the cross today. Let us pray:

Loving Father, we thank you that Jesus was

willing to go to the cross. Not for any sin that he
484
committed, but to meet the justice of the law, to
bear the pain, the anguish of the second death for
us. But Lord, we realize that unless we identify
ourselves with Him crucified, buried, and
resurrected, that great, supreme sacrifice is only a
theory that has not yet been made effective in our
lives. We ask you, Lord, that Thou wilt take us
today, make us willing to be one with Christ, in His
death, that we may be one with Him in His
resurrection, is our prayer in Jesus’ name. Amen.

485
 Chapter 15

The Danger of Libertinism

(Romans 6:1-13)

Review

We have already covered the first five chapters

of Romans, and so, before we turn to chapter 6, I
would like to go through a quick review so that you
keep in mind what Paul has already told us,
because Paul is a logical writer and we need to
keep in mind what he has already told us.

After introducing himself, and his welcome,

and his theme of this epistle, which is “The Gospel
of God,” in chapter 1:18 right up to 3:20 he deals
with the universal sin problem of mankind. He
concludes with two facts:

1. The first fact is found in Romans 3:9:

What shall we conclude then? Are we any

486
better? Not at all! We have already made the
charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under
sin.

All of us, Jews and Gentiles, with no exception,

are all under sin. That means we are ruled by sin,
we are slaves to it, and sin is our master.

2. Paul tells us in verse 3:19:

Now we know that whatever the law says, it

says to those who are under the law, so that every
mouth may be silenced and the whole world held
accountable to God.

We are also under the law and, because we are

sinners, to be under the law means to be guilty and
to be condemned.

So Paul paints a very dark, dismal picture of

the human race in that section. Then, in chapter 3,
with those two wonderful words, “But now,” verse
21 up to verse 31, he introduces the gospel. There
are two things he tells us about the gospel:
487
 1. First he defines the gospel as “the
Righteousness of God,” and I want you always to
remember that. The gospel is the righteousness of
God. By that he means it is a righteousness:

a. originated by God,
b. planned by God,
c. fulfilled by God, and
d. it is all of God.

2. The second thing he tells us is that this

righteousness is something we have not contributed
to one iota. It’s all of God, fulfilled in Christ,
without any contribution from us. Therefore, it is a
gift to us so that we are saved by grace. When we
accept that gift by faith, that is called
Righteousness or Justification by faith.

In chapter 4, Paul goes on to defend this

wonderful doctrine, this wonderful truth against the
three-fold argument that came mainly from the
Judaizers. And that is:

488
 1. Our works,
2. Circumcision (which was of tremendous
significance to the Jews), and
3. The law keeping...

...in no way contribute to Justification by faith.

It is entirely the work of God.

In chapter 5, he turns now to the subjective

experience, to the fruits of Justification by faith.
Again, it is three-fold:

1. Peace with God. This is the crying need of

many Adventists; they don’t have peace. Please
remember, the peace comes through faith, through
Justification by faith, not what God does in you,
but what He accomplished in Christ, which you
have accepted by faith. Peace with God. But that
is not all.

2. You are standing in grace, which means that

you are now in a position where you can claim the
power of God through the indwelling Spirit to live
the life that God wants you to live.
489
 3. There is a hope that Justification by faith
brings to you, and that hope is two-fold:

a. You can now experience the love of Christ

and shed it abroad, the love “that seeketh not
her own,” the love that is the power of the
gospel, the love that is the fulfilling of the
law.

b. But the hope is also beyond that; the hope is

also glorification, when this corruption will
put on incorruption at the second coming of
Christ.

Then, in the second half of chapter 5 of

Romans, is a very difficult passage: Romans 5:12-
21. Paul is really laying the foundation of our
salvation and our condemnation. He has dealt with
the universal sin problem, he has dealt with the
righteousness of God, and now he is saying that the
source of these two are Adam and Christ. We are
lost in Adam in the same way that we are saved in
Christ. In other words, your eternal destiny is
490
based on the performance of two men. In Adam all
die; in Christ all shall be made alive. That is what
Paul did.

Chapter Six

Now we go to chapter 6. I used chapter 6 in the

last study to touch baptism, but I want to look now
in its context. Chapter 6 of Romans is dealing with
the DANGER of the gospel. You may ask, “Is the
gospel dangerous?” Yes! I’m afraid it is
dangerous. Whenever a pastor preaches the gospel,
the true gospel, he is always in the danger of
people twisting that message. And EVERYONE
who preaches the everlasting gospel faces this
problem.

Let me explain to you. You see, there are two

things that the devil does not like, in fact, that he
hates. And he does everything to keep these two
things from you. These are:

1. A clear understanding of the love of God.

He doesn’t want you to understand that
491
 God’s love is unconditional, that it is
everlasting, that it never changes. He
doesn’t want you to know.

2. A clear understanding of the gospel. He

doesn’t want you to know the gospel.

So, what he has done, is to the unbelievers he

has tried to blind their thinking. In fact, if you read
2 Corinthians 4:3,4, Paul tells us:

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to

those who are perishing. The god of this age
[Satan] has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so
that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the
glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

But he doesn’t stop there. When he steps into

the Christian church, how does he deal with
Christians who have already accepted the gospel?
Well, he has prepared two counterfeits; both
resemble the gospel on the surface, but, at their
foundations, they are the enemies of the gospel.

492
 Let me explain to you what a counterfeit is.
When I was a missionary in Ethiopia, my father
wrote to me. He’s a collector; he collects stamps,
and he used to collect coins. He said, “In Ethiopia
there is a coin called Marie Theresa. (It is a coin
that was minted by the Italians when they ruled
over Ethiopia for those five years, 1930 to 1935.)
They are rare coins but I want you to find one
because they are also very valuable coins.”

So I spoke to an Ethiopian, I said, “Is it hard to

get these coins?”

He said, “No, you can get them everywhere.

The little kids on the street sell them to you.”

So I stopped a kid who was selling trinkets and,

sure enough, he had not one but three coins. I said,
“Boy, I’m in luck.” And I haggled with him; I felt
I got a good price. It was still quite a bit of money,
but my father said they’re very valuable, so I
thought he may give me something in return.

I sent the coins to my father and he wrote to me

493
and he said, “My son, you need to learn something.
Only one of those three was genuine. The other
two were counterfeits.”

But I could swear they had no difference. I

looked and looked at them and I could not see any
difference between the counterfeit and the genuine.
But to the expert eye, they knew what was
counterfeit and what was genuine. So he said,
“The two counterfeits are worth nothing; you paid
too much for them.” And I thought I had a bargain.
But he thanked me for the one coin that was
genuine.

So, when you look at these two counterfeits,

without a clear understanding of the gospel, you
fall for it, because Satan is very clever. Now what
are these two counterfeits? We have labeled them.

1. The first one Paul already dealt with in

Romans chapter four. We call it “legalism.”
Legalism, in many areas, resembles the gospel.

2. The other one, there are many names for it, I

494
have chosen only one name: “libertinism.” But
it’s sometimes called antinomianism. (“Anti”
means “against” in the English language, and
“nomianism” is from the Greek word nomos,
which is the law.) “Libertinism” is the word I
prefer to use now, or “cheap grace.” These are the
terms. But, basically, this is what this false gospel
teaches:

We have seen, so far, that the gospel is the

righteousness of God, and that, in the holy history
of Christ, everything that is necessary for you and
for this rascal to go to heaven is already fulfilled.
So what libertinism says is: “Since I am already
saved by the doing and dying of Christ, since
Christ did it all, then surely I have the liberty to do
what I like.”

In other words, the gospel and its free gift of

salvation is used now as an excuse to enjoy the
things of this world and even sin (not gross sins but
sinful desires that are fulfilled).

Well, I would like to make it clear as we look

495
at chapter 6 that this is not true. Liberty and
license are not the same thing. Yes, the gospel sets
me free, but it does not set me free to do as I
please.

I remember when Kenya was getting

independence from Britain. Some of the Africans
were very wise; they played on this wonderful
event. They bought little receipt pads and they
went to all their fellow Africans who weren’t too
well educated and they said to them, “Do you
know when we get independence [they called it
“Uhuru”], these European cars will be ours. Do
you want one?”

And they would say, “Yes.”

“All you have to pay is two shillings and we’ll

give you a receipt and, when independence comes,
that car is yours.” So they went collecting money,
giving them receipts. And on independence day
you had these poor little fellows with their receipts
looking for the number plates of their cars to see
which car was theirs. They were deceived as to
496
what true independence meant.

But a few years later we were working in a

school there in Kamagambo, and my wife enjoys
visiting African markets. I think it’s a waste of
time for me, so I would drop her off, because it’s
very difficult to drive cars when there’s chickens
and donkeys going in front of you, so she let me do
the driving. So I dropped her off at the market. I
saw a group of Africans sitting all handcuffed.
They were older men, and I said to myself, “Well,
these fellows look very miserable. Let me go and
sit down with them and have a chat.” Since I
spoke their language, I would talk to them as my
wife did the shopping. I said, “What on earth have
you done that you should be in handcuffs with a
policeman with his rifle [guarding you]?”

One of the older men, he was the oldest of the

group said to me, “When is independence going to
be over?”

I said, “I’m sorry; it is here to stay.”

497
 “Oh,” he said, “I wish it was over.”

I asked, “You want the British back?”

He said, “Yes. This government has deceived

us.”

“What do you mean?” I said.

He replied, “When we were told we were

getting independence, we thought that now we
won’t have to pay tax.”

They thought, “No tax paying because that is

freedom.” The old man said, “You know what?
We are paying more tax now than when the British
were here. So we want them back.”

“Freedom means responsibility,” I told him.

“If you want freedom, no longer can you depend
on the British budget to help you out. You have to
be self-supporting, and how do you think your
government is going to support itself without
charging you tax?”
498
 “But,” he said, “they never told us this when
they were fighting for independence and got our
support.”

“Well,” I said, “that is typical for politicians.

They never tell the truth, except what is appealing
to our flesh.”

But Paul doesn’t keep the truth away from us.

He is telling us the truth. What does it mean to be
free in Christ? Does it mean license to do what
you like? The answer is no.

Now I mentioned earlier that the gospel is

dangerous. I’m going to give you statements,
wonderful statements, but dangerous. Because
they are dangerous, some Pastors won’t even quote
them. But I am not paid to give my opinion; I am
paid to quote scripture and so I am going to quote
that to you. One is Romans 5:20, an excellent
statement:

The law was added so that the trespass might

499
increase. But where sin increased, grace increased
all the more....

What Paul meant by this statement is this: “It

doesn’t matter how terrible a sinner you are, the
gospel can save you.”

But you see, here is the problem: you and all

of us have a nature that is not only sinful, even
after conversion, but have a nature that loves sin.
And stop deceiving yourself; yes, your converted
MIND might hate sin, but your nature, all our
natures, will love sin to your dying day.

So what happens when you read or hear of this

wonderful statement that Paul makes in Romans
5:20? You can pervert the statement, and interpret
it like this: “Oh, Paul, what you are saying is that
grace is so wonderful that the more I sin the more
grace will cancel my sin. Praise the Lord! Let us
keep on sinning that grace may abound.”

Does Paul mean that? No, but the flesh tells

you that’s what he means. So we pervert Paul for
500
our own personal benefit. And Paul will deal with
that problem in verses 1 of Romans 6 right up to
verse 14 of that same chapter.

Now let me give you a second statement. Now

the second statement is a hard one, especially to
Adventists; so I’m going to spend two studies on
that part. I’m going to cover only up to verse 13 in
this study. The second statement is found in
Romans 6:14:

For sin shall not be your master, because you

are not under law, but under grace.

By the way, Paul did mean the Ten

Commandments here. (We’ll come to this. Paul
spends quite a bit of time on this topic.)

Do you know what that means? It means that

every time you fall, the law cannot condemn you
because you’re no longer under it. It means that
sin has no longer authority to execute you.

Let me give you a text (and I’ll deal with it in

501
detail in our next study). Look at 1 Corinthians
15:56:

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is

the law.

But where does sin get its authority to kill you?

From the law. But if you are no longer under the
law, sin can’t do that to you. You are free from the
condemnation of the law, and its curse. Under the
law, every time you sin, the law says, “The soul
that sins must die.” But to a Christian, the law
can’t say that to you, because you’re no longer
under it, you’re under grace.

Now I know that’s heavy stuff. So be patient;

in the next three studies we’ll touch it. But it is
good news; it is also dangerous news.

What I want to deal with now is the danger.

The danger is in believing that, “since the law can’t
condemn me, then I can now do what I like.”

Let me give you an example. My wife and I

502
worked mostly in Third World countries, and there
the diplomats — that’s the embassy people — had
what they call diplomatic immunity, which means
the law of the land could not touch them. So if a
diplomat was speeding and a policeman caught him
speeding, he could not fine him. He had a special
license plate with a “CD” on it, “Corps Diplomat,”
and it meant that the police could not touch him.
So a diplomat could speed and still go scot-free.
He could park his car in the “No Parking” area and
no policeman could give him a ticket. And some
of them were doing that; they were enjoying the
liberty they had to break the law of the country.

The flesh will say the same thing: “Keep on

sinning. After all, you are no longer under the law.
You’re under grace.” Does “under grace” give you
that liberty? The answer is, “God forbid, it is
unthinkable!”

So Paul is now dealing with the danger. I want

to emphasize this, because there is a problem
within our [Adventist] church. You need to know
the historical background, because we need to take
503
into account Romans 6. Here is the problem.

Because of our historical background (trying to

fight the dispensational teachings and other
reasons), we as a church began to emphasize the
law and the law and the law in our early years. The
result is that we — not consciously, but
subconsciously and unwittingly — became
legalists. Then, in the 1950s, we realized that, if
we are to produce ministers who are acknowledged
by the American Association of Theology, the
legal system of the theology in this country, we had
to send our scholars to universities that would give
them Ph.D.s so that they could come and teach to
us.

These scholars — very fine men who were

second, third, and even fourth generation
Adventists — went to these universities (many of
which were Evangelical) and there they discovered
something that they never had in their own church:
peace in Christ. It gave them such a wonderful
feeling to have peace in Christ, and they came back
with a burden of bringing peace to their church.
504
 That is why the main emphasis in the books
they write and in the sermons that they preach,
most of them are trying to give our people peace,
through Justification by faith. But the devil is very
clever. He’s quite happy to move the people of this
church from legalism, which is one camp, one
counterfeit, to the other extreme, antinomianism,
the opposite camp. He doesn’t care which camp
you belong to. And that is what he has done.

The result is that, today, the movement of our

younger generation is no longer legalism, it is
antinomianism. These old people look at these
young people and say, “Oh, what’s happening to
our church!?” So we write books — Creeping
Compromise and others.

Now which camp is worse? The first camp,

legalism, is worse, in a sense, because, outwardly,
legalism ALWAYS looks good. Your performance
is always good in legalism. The problem with
legalism is inward, inside, not outward. So Jesus,
505
when He condemned the Pharisees, do you know
what He called them? Matthew 23:27:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees,

you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs,
which look beautiful on the outside but on the
inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything
unclean.

That is Christ’s evaluation of legalism.

Antinomianism has one advantage: it is open,

and you can see it, and, therefore, there is hope of
correcting it. So, outwardly, antinomianism looks
worse than legalism; but they both belong to Satan.

What we want is the truth as it is in Christ.

Neither legalism nor antinomianism belong to the
true gospel. Here Paul is dealing with
antinomianism. Let’s quickly go step-by-step, and
you will see the logic; it’s very clear. Romans 6:1:

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on

sinning [notice the present continuous tense] so
506
that grace may increase?

He’s referring to Romans 5:20:

The law was added so that the trespass might

increase. But where sin increased, grace increased
all the more.

“Is this what I am telling you,” he says in

Romans 6:1, “is this what I’m teaching, that you
can enjoy sin because the more you sin the more
grace will cover up your sin?” I want you to notice
his answer [Romans 6:2]:

By no means!

“God forbid! Certainly not! It is unthinkable

that a Christian should come to such a conclusion.”
Then he gives the reason. The reason is not based
on our promises to be good, but it is based in the
truth as it is in Christ to which we have submitted
[rest of Romans 6:2]

...We died to sin; how can we live in it any

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longer?

When did you and I die to sin? That phrase,

“died to sin,” appears three times in Romans 6:1-
13. This is the first time and applies to the
believer. The second time it appears in verse 10
and does not apply to the believer; it applies to
Christ, because our subjective experience is always
based on an objective truth: the historical Christ.
Look at Romans 6:10:

The death he [Christ] died, he died to sin once

for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

In other words, when Christ died on the cross,

He brought sin to an end. He did not only die or
carry or bear our acts of sin which condemn us, but
He also brought to an end sin as a principle that
dwells in us. He took sin to the grave and He left it
there, not for three days but forever. He left sin in
the grave, once and for all; He’s finished with sin.
So the book of Hebrews says, when He comes the
second time, He will not deal with the sin problem;
He has dealt with that on the cross, left it in the
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grave. He died once and for all; He will not die
any more. That’s what Romans 6:9 says:

For we know that since Christ was raised from

the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has
mastery over him [because sin no longer has
dominion over Him].

He took our sins, it had dominion over Him.

He took our sins, it took Him to the grave. But
when He rose from the dead, He left sin in the
grave forever. So the second half of Romans 6:10
says:

...but the life he lives, he lives to God.

Which means now He will never, ever have to

experience God abandonment which our sins
produced on the cross. But now look at Romans
6:11:

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin

but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

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 In other words, a Christian is a person who has
accepted his identity with Christ. Two thousand
years ago, God joined His Son to us so that, in
Christ, He redeemed us. Now, in baptism, we join
ourselves by public confession, through faith, to
Him, so that it is now reciprocal. He joined to us
and redeemed us; we join to Him and accept His
history as our history.

What does that mean in terms of practical

Christianity? I want you to look at two verses. We
will not deal with verses 3 and 6 because we
covered that in our last study on the meaning of
baptism. But I want now to look at it in the context
of what we are studying. Look at verse 5 and look
at verse 8, and what I want you to look at is the
grammar. Romans 6:5:

If we have been united with him like this in his

death,...

“Have been united.” What tense is that?

“Have been united” is in the perfect tense, which
means it’s a past act, something that has already
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happened because, when you were baptized, it
became a historical fact to you. But when it comes
to the resurrection, suddenly [end of Romans 6:5]:

...we will certainly also be united with him in

his resurrection.

You have the past tense for death; you have the
future tense for the resurrection. So God is not
saying, “One day you will die to sin.” No, you
have already died to sin. Yes, one day you will rise
and go to heaven; that’s future. Look at verse 8, in
the aorist tense, which is much stronger, something
that happened once and for all [Romans 6:8]:

Now if we died with Christ [past], we believe

that we will also live [future] with Him.

That’s the condition of the gospel, not of the

law, but of the gospel. If you want to live with
Christ, you must die with Him. And if you have
died with Christ, it means that you have left sin in
your grave, which is not a tomb but is the water
which you were baptized into. You left sin in the
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grave.

“How then,” says Paul, “if you have died to sin,

and finished with that relationship, how then can
you say it is okay to sin? Don’t you realize your
baptism? You’re contradicting your righteousness
by faith.” Look at Romans 6:7:

...Because anyone who has died has been freed

from sin.

Now what did Paul mean, “Anyone who has

died has been freed from sin”? Now first of all,
look at it very carefully. He does not say, “He that
has died has been freed TO sin.” He doesn’t say
that. So don’t pervert Paul. You have been freed
FROM sin, a world of difference.

But what does he mean by the word “freed”? If

you look at Romans 6 you will find that the word
“free” or “freed,” past tense, is used three times in
Romans 6. The first time is in Romans 6:7:

...Because anyone who has died has been freed

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from sin.

The second time is in verse 18:

You have been set free from sin and have

become slaves to righteousness.

Again, not “to sin” but “from sin.” The last

time is in verse 22, which says:

But now that you have been set free from sin
and have become slaves to God, the benefit you
reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.

But that is in your English Bibles. In the

original, the word “free” used in verses 18 and 22
is a different word all together than the word used
in verse 7. Now why did Paul change words? I’ll
tell you why, because in verse 7 he has two
meanings, whereas in verse 18 and verse 22 he has
only one meaning of the word “freed.” Let me
explain to you.

I want you to remember what I mentioned

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when we did the review under the sin problem
(Universal Sin and Guilt). Remember, I said that
the conclusion that Paul comes to in Romans 3:9 is
that we are all under sin. To be under sin means
that we are ruled by sin, we are slaves of sin, sin is
our master. How long is sin your master? As long
as you are living. When you die, sin can no longer
rule over you. That’s the meaning of verse 18,
verse 22, and also verse 7.

But Paul has another meaning in verse 7; that’s

why He uses another word. Do you know what
word he uses in verse 7? It may surprise some of
you. He uses the word “justified,” the same word
you will find in your King James in Acts 13:39. So
Romans 6:7 says:

...Because anyone who has died has been

justified from sin.

Now “justified” would mean more than simply

freed from the ruling power of sin. It is also freed
from the condemnation of sin. A justified person
can never be condemned by the law, because the
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law only condemns the sinner, whereas in Christ
you are not a sinner.

Now let me explain how Paul uses it. It’s very

important that you understand it. Let us say that I
have stolen $10,000, and I’m caught. I’m taken to
court and I’m found guilty, and the judge sentences
me to five years in prison. I go to the penitentiary
and I spend my five years there. When I come out,
where do I stand legally? Am I still condemned for
that robbery or am I acquitted (which is another
word for “justified”)? The answer is: I am
acquitted. No longer can a policeman touch me for
that crime; not because I did not steal that money,
but because I paid the price for that crime. I took
the sentence which that crime involved. Now the
law of God says [Ezekiel 18:20]:

The soul who sins is the one who will die.

When you died to sin with Christ, you were set

free from under the law. Romans 7:1 says:

Do you not know, brothers — for I am

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speaking to men who know the law — that the law
has authority over a man only as long as he lives?

But the moment you die, the law says, “You

have met the justice of the law; I won’t touch you
any more.”

So you are free legally, also, when you die with

Christ. So you have two freedoms:

1. You have been freed from the rulership,

from the power of sin. That doesn’t mean
that sins power is not in you, but legally,
through the cross of Christ, it no longer has a
claim on you. So when the flesh, when the
law of sin tempts you and says, “Why don’t
you sin?” you can tell the law of sin, “Look,
you are no longer my boss! I’m finished
with you forever!”

2. And you have a right to do that, because,

when you died with Christ you were freed
from the dominion of sin. But that doesn’t
mean that you do not fall.
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 And now I come to a very important point, and
I want you to be clear on this. Paul is not dealing
in Romans 6 with performance; he is dealing with
attitude towards sin. I want you to keep this in
mind. Paul is not dealing with performance, he’s
dealing with attitude. I’ll tell you why.

You may have said good-bye to sin in your

heart, but does that mean that you don’t fall? Does
it mean that you don’t have struggles? If I said,
“You have no more struggles,” I would be lying to
you. You know very well that you are still
struggling and that you still fall. But a Christian’s
performance must never be because he condones
sin. In other words, our attitude towards sin must
always be negative, even though in performance
we fall many times.

Now, I want you to be clear: God can give you

total victory. I believe that with all my heart
because I believe that God’s power is greater than
the power of sin. (We’ll come to that when we
cover Romans 8.) But I want you to be clear that
517
Paul is not dealing here with performance. He’s
dealing here with attitude towards sin. Can a
Christian say in his mind, “It’s okay to sin”? The
answer is, “No!”

Why? Because you died to it. There is another

reason, but that is for the study after next. But the
reason we are looking at today is, “How can you
who died to sin say that it is okay to sin?” So
please remember, Paul is dealing here with
attitudes, not performance.

Okay, with this in mind, let’s go to Romans

6:11:

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin

but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

“A Christian should consider himself dead to

sin.” If you consider yourself dead to sin, you
cannot say, “It is okay to sin.” That would be a
contradiction. How can you say, “I’m dead to sin”
on one hand and on the other hand say, “It’s okay
to sin.” Then please, you need to look up your
518
dictionary and see what it means “to be dead” to
something. It means to completely bring to an end
that relationship. When a person dies, he says
good-bye to life; when you say “died to sin” you
say good-bye to sin. But now look at Romans
6:12:

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal

body so that you obey its evil desires.

“Therefore, because you have died to sin,

because you have accepted your death to sin in
Christ, and you are alive now only to God, Who is
the Author of Righteousness and not sin (and this is
all “in Christ”), therefore do not let sin rule or reign
over you.”

You see, before you accepted Christ, sin ruled

over you; you had no choice there. There is no
such thing as a free man when we talk in the
spiritual realm. Yes, a country can be
economically free, it can be politically free. We
can be free, we are living in a free country. I can
speak what I like about the President. I dare not do
519
that in some parts of the world. I have freedom of
speech here; I have political freedom. And, of
course, this country is free economically.

But spiritually, none of us are free from sin by

birth. We are born under the law, under sin, too.
But when you accepted Christ and you died with
Him, you were freed from the dominion, the
rulership of sin. Yes, it is still in you, because you
died by faith, not by reality. Only Christ died in
reality. But you don’t have to now listen to sin’s
demands.

The other day, I was talking to a person whose

ex-husband was demanding something from her.
She said to me, “Do I have to obey him?”

I asked, “Are you divorced?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“Then,” I said, “you don’t have to obey him.

You’re free. It’s too bad you had to get a divorce
but you don’t have to obey him. He no longer has
520
authority over you.”

It’s the same with sin. Sin has no more

dominion over you, in Christ. You are free. So
Paul says, “Enjoy and apply that freedom.”

So when sin comes to you and says, “I want

you to sin,” you can say to the law of sin, “Go get
lost! You’re no longer my husband; you’re no
longer my boss.” Romans 6:12:

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal

body so that you obey its evil desires.

“So don’t let sin rule your mortal body that you
should obey it in its lusts (which you did before
your conversion).” Romans 6:13:

Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as

instruments of wickedness, but rather offer
yourselves to God [remember, you’re alive to God
now], as those who have been brought from death
to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as
instruments of righteousness.
521
 It is not our bodies that are sinful. We have a
driver who is sinful. Have you seen some reckless
driving? The problem is not the car, the problem is
the driver. The old driver has died, and that’s in
verse 6. So when Paul says:

For we know that our old self was crucified

with him so that the body of sin might be done
away with, that we should no longer be slaves to
sin....

Some translations say “our old man” was

crucified. He does mot mean your father, young
people. It means your old life. Because in
England, and in English countries, the kids call
their father “the old man.” Paul is not talking
about the old man in terms of your father. It means
your old life that you were born with died on the
cross. When that happened, the body was deprived
of its power to sin. No longer should sin rule over
you.

Can you imagine what would happen if a

522
church would surrender to this truth? We wouldn’t
have to worry about legalism, and we would not
have to worry about “creeping compromises“
either. Because the gospel is neither of the two. It
is neither legalism, nor antinomianism.

It my prayer that you will remind yourself daily

who you are in Christ, that you are dead to sin. No
longer has it authority to rule over you. But you
are not only dead to sin, but you are alive to God.
Let God’s Spirit now control you. Let God’s Spirit
give you the power (we will see this more in
chapter 8). But Paul wants you to know who we
are as Christians. We are dead to sin, and alive to
God, and baptism was a public confession that we
have accepted this dual truth, in Christ: dead to sin
and alive to God.

So my prayer is, let sin no longer rule over you.

You don’t have to be a slave to sin any more. We
have been freed from its dominion. Let God be
your boss. I’ll tell you, there is not anything so
wonderful as to have God as your boss, because He
is a benevolent, loving Father Who loves you
523
eternally, and Who will give you everything that
He knows is best for you, not what you know, but
what He knows, and He knows more than us. So
may God bless us that you will know this truth, you
will apply it, and there will be a reformation and a
transformation in this church. Because the cross of
Christ is the power of God unto salvation. May
God bless you.

Next I’m going to deal with only two verses:

14 and 15. Read these. What did Paul mean when
He says, “We are no longer under the law, but
under grace”? I want you to wrestle with that.
What did he mean? Did he mean just the
ceremonial law? Does it include the moral law?
What does it mean? We’ll wrestle with that next,
and may God bless us.

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 Chapter 16

Not Under Law – Under Grace

(Romans 6:14, 15)

I was at a conference and, during a short break,

I ran up to Pastor Eva and whispered, “Look, I
have a concern. I won’t be there [at the next
Adventist Annual Conference] to bring it up but I
would like to share it with you since you are the
chairman [of the Church Manual Committee].”

We went into my office and I pulled down the

Church Manual and I shared with him my concern.
It was Baptismal Vow #6. Do you remember your
baptismal vows? I copied it from my old Church
Manual and I’m going to read what it says to you,
and then I’ll tell you what I had explained to him as
my concern. This is how it goes, and I’m reading it
verbatim:

“Do you accept the 10 commandments as still

binding upon Christians, and is it your purpose by
525
the power of the indwelling Christ to keep this law
including the fourth commandment which requires
the observance of the seventh day of the week as
the Sabbath of the Lord?”

Now the thing that bothered me were those two

words, “still binding.” I said to Brother Eva, “This
is a contradiction of Romans 6:14, because the
impression we are giving in this vow is that a
Christian is still under the law. He was under the
law before, but it’s still binding on him, therefore,
he’s still under the law after he becomes a
Christian. Paul tells us that we are no longer under
the law.”

He looked at me and said, “You know, you

have a point there.” He took down notes furiously;
I gave him some arguments, some other passages
also in the Bible. I want to read now what appears
in our modern baptismal vow, and I’m glad for the
change:

“Loving the Lord with all my heart, it is my

purpose, by the power of the indwelling Christ of
526
God, to keep the 10 commandments, including the
fourth commandment which requires the
observance of the seventh day of the week as the
Sabbath of the Lord.”

There is a world of difference between those

two statements. But I’ve been in this country
seven years now, and I am convinced that the
changing of the baptismal vow hasn’t solved the
problem. I would say that the majority of
Adventists still feel that they are “under the law.” I
realize that this is a difficult area, but we have to
face it honestly. We have to ask ourselves, “Paul,
what did you mean when you said that we
Christians are no longer under the law, but under
grace?”

Now I know why the vow was introduced. We

were trying to counteract the teaching of
dispensationalism, which was something that was
introduced to the Christian church about the same
time our church was established, in the 19th
century, by a scholar by the name of John Nelson
Darby. This is what he taught, and this is what the
527
Christian church has accepted to a large degree, a
very strong idea still today.

The idea was that God used the law as a means

of salvation from Moses to Christ; in other words,
our salvation was based on our relationship to the
law from Moses to Christ. That is the “Old
Covenant” dispensation.

Then Christ came along and He did away with

the Old Covenant, which means He did away with
the law, and replaced it with grace, so that since
Christ we are under grace and not under law.
Therefore, anyone who teaches that the law is still
binding is still under the Old Covenant. And that’s
one of the accusations that comes to us.

It is true that no way does the Bible teach the

concept of dispensationalism. In other words, God
doesn’t have different methods of saving men in
different periods of earth’s history. There is only
one way that God saves man ever since the fall of
Adam, and that is by grace alone. Paul made that
clear in Romans 4. Abraham was saved not by
528
works, not by circumcision, not by law, but by
faith in the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

But as I mentioned to Brother Eva, two wrongs

don’t make a right. In trying to counteract
dispensational teaching, we went to the other
extreme, which is legalism, which is just as bad as
antinomianism. So we have to come to grips with
what did Paul mean when he says we are not under
the law. First of all, let us look at what he did not
mean:

1. He did not mean that the law was done away

with in order to replace it with grace.

He did not mean that; nowhere in the Bible

does he teach that. Neither does he mean
that grace and law are antagonistic. Let me
put it this way: Who is the Author of the
law? God. Who is the Author of grace?
God. If grace and law are antagonistic then
God is against Himself, and we have a
problem.

529
 2. The second thing that we need to know is
that the definition of righteousness is the
law, whether we take it in the context of the
Old Covenant or the context of the New
Covenant. There are no two definitions of
righteousness. The measuring stick of
righteousness is the law, period. Therefore,
the law refers to both covenants.

The difference is this: that in the Old

Covenant man was to fulfill that law in order
to be saved. In the New Covenant, God
fulfills the law to save us. That’s the
difference. The difference is not one has the
law and one doesn’t have the law. Paul does
not mean that when He delivers us from
under law and puts us under grace He did
away with the law or that grace has nothing
to do with law. We shall see that grace and
law are compatible.

Now when we come to Romans 7, where Paul

spends a whole chapter on this issue — because it’s
not a problem that exists only today, it was a
530
problem that existed in his day — he will tell us
how and why we were delivered from under the
law. We are not finished with this study; wait till
we come to Romans 7, where Paul will go on into
more detail. But we need to look at the facts.
What are the facts when he says, “We are no longer
under law but under grace”?

As I mentioned, grace and law are not

antagonistic. In fact, when Paul talks to the
Christian in terms of Christian living, he uses the
law as the measuring stick of righteousness.

Let me give you two examples. (I can give you

one from Romans 13 but I’ll leave that till we
come to Romans 13.) But look at Galatians
5:13,14. Now, to understand that, let’s look at
verse 1 to get the background. Paul says in
Galatians 5:1:

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be
burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

531
 Now Paul tells us that Jesus set us free. Free
from what? What is he referring to when he says
we are free? What does he mean by the yoke of
bondage [or slavery]? Well, he explains this to us
in Galatians 4:4,5, so we need to go backwards still
so that we can understand what it is he set us free
from:

But when the time had fully come, God sent his
Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem
those under law, that we might receive the full
rights of sons.

Christ came here under the law. Why? To

redeem those who were under the law. God set us
free from under the law through Christ. Romans
6:14:

For sin shall not be your master, because you

are not under law, but under grace.

In Romans 6:14, he’s simply stating the fact

that we are no longer under the law. Why?
Because Christ freed us from under the law. He’ll
532
explain how and why in chapter 7 of Romans.

But now, in chapter 5 of Galatians, he’s telling

the Galatians — who had given up the gospel of
righteousness by faith and had gone back to under
law — he’s saying to them, “Please, you stand fast
under the umbrella of grace. Don’t go back to
under law, because it’s the yoke of bondage.”

Does it sound like Paul is against the law? Yes,

maybe. But what he’s against is not the law, he’s
against legalism: that is the yoke of bondage. I’ll
explain why in a moment. But look at Galatians 5,
verses 13 and 14 now with this in mind:

You, my brothers, were called to be free. But

do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful
nature; rather, serve one another in love. The
entire law is summed up in a single command:
“Love your neighbor as yourself.”

“You, my brothers” or, as some translations

read, “brethren,” is referring to Christians. We
have been called to be free in the sense we are no
533
longer under the law.

And, Paul is saying, don’t misuse your freedom

from under law. “In fact,” he says, “you must love
one another.” “In fact,” he goes on to say in verse
14, “when you love one another, you are obeying
the law.”

So Paul is not against the law as a standard of

Christian living. But what does he mean by, “You
are free from under the law”?

I want to remind you of our study of the “sin

problem,” which began in Romans 1:18 right up to
Romans 3:20. I want you to notice the conclusions
that Paul came to, two of them:

1. Number one is found in Romans 3:9, and

that is: “All of us, Jews and Gentiles, with
no exception, are all under sin.”

2. And number 2, Romans 3:19, “Jew and

Gentiles are all also under law.”

534
 When you put those two together, you have an
awful picture. The whole world is guilty when you
put those together. Let me explain to you. Turn to
1 Corinthians 15. Why is it so terrible to be under
sin and to be under law at the same time? Here it
is: 1 Corinthians 15:56:

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is

the law.

Sin kills, folks. But sin cannot kill by itself; it

needs to get power to kill you. When you put sin
and law together, the end result is death. That’s the
problem. It was no problem for Adam, before the
fall, to be under law. It is no problem today for the
unfallen angels to be under law. It is a problem for
you and me to be under law, because we are
sinners, and a sinner who is under law is a person
who is condemned.

Did Christ deliver me only from under sin?

No. Because even though you have accepted
Christ, even though you have been freed from sin
as we saw in our last study, don’t you commit sins?
535
Or are you sinless? If you are committing sin,
then, if you are under law, the law will condemn
you, every time you fall.

That is a result that has happened in our church.

Our people are full of guilt. Many have no peace,
you have no assurance, because every time you fall
“you’ve had it.” Then you have to go on your
knees and say, “God, please forgive me, I did not
mean what I did.” When all the time you did mean
what you did. I don’t know who you’re trying to
kid. God can read your motives; He knows your
flesh loves sin, including this rascal’s flesh. So
please don’t bluff God. You can bluff your Pastor,
and your spouse, and your friends, but you can’t
bluff God. God knows that. So He delivered us
from under law that we might have peace.

Is that good news? Yes, but it is dangerous

news. That’s the context of Romans 6. “Sin
cannot touch you, sin cannot destroy you,” that’s
what Paul is saying, “because you are not under
law, you’re under grace.”

536
 Let me give you a little experience. In 1975,
when we were on furlough from Ethiopia, we were
at Andrews University, and my wife has a sister in
Toronto [Canada] so we went to visit her. Of
course, the cheapest car we could buy, like it is
today, were those big cars, with eight cylinders that
drink all the gas, but you can buy it cheap.

So I had this V8 engine under my hood. But I

had a terrible problem. The American government
had passed a law: 55 miles per hour — “double
nickels” — that’s no speed for a V8 engine. And I
had two backseat drivers: my son and my
daughter, especially my daughter. Every time that
needle passed 55, she told me in no uncertain terms
that I was under law, that if I did not slow down,
the police would get me.

She was amazed, as I was, that in America they

don’t catch you speeding by coming and driving
along side you. They have a little gun, called
radar, that tells them your speed, and they hide in
corners where you don’t see them. My daughter
knew that; she said, “This is America, this is not
537
Africa where they chase you.” [In Africa,] when
you have a faster car, or a faster motorcycle, they
have a hard time to give you tickets. That was the
freedom we had in Africa.

But we crossed the border, and we were in

Canada. In Canada, the roads look very much like
America’s. What she did not notice, but what I
noticed, was that the speed limit in Canada was 75
miles per hour. Now I was free, no longer under
“double nickels.” So that needle went up, to 65, to
70. And my daughter’s heart rate went up, and up,
and up. She kept screaming at me, and then she
looked back and what do you think she saw? A
police car, with the lights flashing, coming towards
us. I was doing 70 m.p.h., and she thought that the
police were coming for me. Now I did not know
what he was coming for. I thought for a moment
maybe I had done something wrong. But I kept to
70, and she said, “Look, he’ll get you!”

I said, “All he can do is put me in jail.”

And she said, “Who will drive?” I was the only

538
driver in that car. You can see why my kids suffer.
Anyway, the car came, it passed us, and she sighed
in relief and said, “Daddy, you are lucky.” No, I
wasn’t lucky. I was no longer under “double
nickels.” I was free. He couldn’t touch me for
speeding because I was not speeding in Canada.

I would be taking advantage if I went over 75.

I was free, but I was not free to go any speed I
wanted. Under grace you’re free, but you are not
free to do what you like.

To be freed from under law is wonderful news.

You can sleep tonight, not having to worry whether
you will make it or not. BUT, it’s dangerous.
Look at Romans 6:15. You will notice Paul is
repeating the same question that he does in verse 1,
except in verse 1 he’s dealing with the other
dangerous statement which we covered in Romans
5:20:

The law was added so that the trespass might

increase. But where sin increased, grace increased
all the more.
539
 The only reason why he’s asking the question
in Romans 6:15 is because to be free from under
law is dangerous for sinful mankind because they
can pervert it. Romans 6:15:

What then? Shall we sin [using the present

continuous tense, “Let us enjoy sin”] because we
are not under law but under grace? By no means!

“Is this what it means to be free from under the

law, that we can sin, do what we like?” And the
answer is “God forbid!” or “By no means!” (Now
he’ll give a good reason after having made this
statement, but that is our next study, verses 16-23.)

But now I want to tell you about the good

news. But I want to warn you that, after you hear
the good news, if you go out and tell your friends,
“Isn’t it wonderful that we are no longer under the
law? Therefore we don’t need to keep it,” I will
come after you, because I am not teaching that. Is
that clear?

540
 Paul is not giving us this freedom; neither is
your Pastor giving you that freedom. But it is
important for us to know that we are free from
under the law. I’ll tell you why. Because God is
not concerned with your performance, He’s
concerned with your motive, or why you do what
you do.

If you are doing the right thing out of fear of

punishment or out of a desire for reward, that is not
Christianity, that is Paganism. That is why we
need to understand that Christians serve God for a
different reason than the Pagans serve their gods.
Otherwise, Christianity is no different from other
religions. They have very high moral standards
too, sometimes higher than ours. But the
difference is that a Christian serves God with
appreciation, with joy, with peace, with love.

Now what does it mean, what are the privileges

to be under grace? First of all, as I mentioned,
grace is not antagonistic to law. Secondly, grace
has not done away with the law. We are not under
the Old Covenant, but that doesn’t mean that law
541
has been done away with. I gave you Galatians
5:13,14; now let me give you Hebrews 8:10:

This is the covenant I will make with the house

of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will
put my laws in their minds and write them on their
hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my
people.

What does God do in the New Covenant? He

takes the same law that He freed you from under,
but He doesn’t put you back under it, but He puts it
where? Where does God put that law? Not on
tables of stone to put fear into you, but He puts it in
our hearts. He makes it part of our desires, and
that’s where He puts it.

Now, what does it mean to be under grace? Let

me give you some of the privileges, or some of the
advantages. To be under grace, and not under law,
means that every time you fall, you do not become
unjustified. Is that good news? Yes. But as I
mentioned, that does not give you the liberty to do
what you like. Is that clear? When you sin under
542
law, who get’s punished? Does the law say to you,
“Well, I love you, and I know you disobeyed me,
but, because I love you, I will take the
punishment.”

The answer is no. The law will never

sympathize with you, and the law will never take
your punishment. The law will only execute
punishment on you. In other words, under law,
who suffers when the person sins? The sinner or
the law? The sinner. That’s our problem.

Does grace ignore sin? No. Does grace excuse

sin? No. Is grace righteous? Yes. Is grace just?
Yes. Therefore, it can’t ignore sin. But the
difference is that, under grace, who suffers, the
sinner or the Author of grace, Jesus Christ? Jesus
Christ.

Let me explain it, and the way that I’ll explain

it is basically in terms of the statement we read in
Galatians 4:4:

But when the time had fully come, God sent his
543
Son, born of a woman, born under law....

When God sent His Son, He sent His Son under

law. Suppose I have a tithe envelope here, which I
hold over my head. Let us say that this is the law;
it’s above me. I was born under the law, you were
born under the law, because in Adam all men were
placed under the law. Now what did Christ do?
Did He do away with the law? No. What did God
do? He sent His Son under the law. So Christ
came under the law, and I, I am no longer under the
law, I’m under Christ, or I’m under grace.

So Christ has taken my place under the law. If

I had a choice of myself being under the law, or
Christ being under the law in my place, which one
would I prefer? Well, I know that I’m a failure, but
I do know one thing: that Christ obeyed the law
perfectly. And my position in Him does not
condemn me because there is no condemnation for
those who are in Christ. Is it because Christ did
away with the law? No, He did not do away with
the law, but He fulfilled the law. Christ is the end
of the law for righteousness to all who believe.
544
 So if the law says to me, “You’re a sinner; you
must die!” I will say to the law, “But I already
died, in Christ.”

Or, if the law says to me, “You must obey me

to live,” I will not say to the law, “I’m trying.” I
will say, “In Christ, I have already obeyed you.”
Because under grace I have righteousness. The
righteousness that the law demands from me I
already have, in Jesus Christ. That’s good news. I
have peace, I have assurance.

Now I gave you Galatians 5:13,14: “Do we

allow this freedom to lead a licentious life?” And
the answer is “No.” Let me give you another text,
this time not from Paul but from Peter. Turn to 1
Peter 2:13-16:

Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every

authority instituted among men: whether to the
king, as the supreme authority, or to governors,
who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong
and to commend those who do right. For it is
545
God’s will that by doing good you should silence
the ignorant talk of foolish men. Live as free
men....

What does he mean by living as “free” people?

We are not doing good because we will be
punished or to get a reward. We are free from that
anxiety. Christians don’t do good or try to keep the
law because they want to escape punishment. They
are free from that problem. But then why do we do
good? 1 Peter 2:16:

Live as free men, but do not use your freedom

as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God.

Paul will expand on this Himself when we

come to our next study, Romans 6:16-23. We are
servants of God, of Jesus Christ, and Christ is the
Author of righteousness, not sin.

Please remember that sin has results. Under the

law, sin punishes the sinner. Under grace, sin
punishes the Author of grace. In other words, to
sin under grace does not mean condemnation, but
546
to sin under grace is saying it is okay for Christ to
be crucified. Sin to a Christian is not breaking a
commandment; sin is putting a knife into Christ.
Because that is what the Old Testament taught the
believer about sin. In the Old Testament, when the
believer sinned, he brought a Lamb to the
sanctuary and what did the priest do? The priest
gave him a knife. What did he do with the knife,
kill himself? No. What did he kill? The lamb,
confessing that, “My sins killed you.” How then
can you treat sin lightly under grace? Sinning
under grace is putting a knife into Christ. We must
hate sin for what it is and what it does to our
Savior.

But I want to bring a third privilege of being

under grace, and that is this: under the law, when
you did good or when you tried to keep the law,
you did it for two reasons: out of fear of
punishment or out of a desire for reward. That is
what we normally do when we are under law.

Let me give you an example. Yesterday I sent

a big fat check to a place called IRS [Internal
547
Revenue Service, to which U.S. citizens pay
taxes]. I’ll tell you honestly, I did not do this out
of joy, or because I love to do it. If I had my own
way, I would not send a single penny, especially
the way they spend their money in this country for
things that I don’t agree with.

But when I pay my tithe, I don’t pay for the

same reason I pay my taxes. I pay my tithe for one
reason, I pay my taxes for another reason. I pay
my taxes because I’m under the law while I live in
America. I discovered that an American who
travels abroad is still under the law of America as
far as the taxes are concerned. I learned it the hard
way.

During my years in the mission field, I did not

send any tax return. I said, “Well, I’m living in
Ethiopia.” When I came here, they caught me and
said, “Why haven’t you paid tax? Why didn’t you
send a return?”

I said, “Nobody told me; I was living in a

foreign country.”
548
 “That doesn’t matter,” they said. “You’re
going to pay a six percent fine for all that you
owe.”

So I had to bring my papers, and they

calculated, and you know how much I owed?
Zero. Because six percent of zero is zero. I said,
“I’ll be happy to pay that.” Because I wasn’t
earning enough to pay a single cent [in taxes] in the
mission field. Thank God for that part, at least. I
could do with more money, but that’s a different
story.

But why are you trying to obey God’s law? Is

it the same reason that you have to pay your tax?
Then you haven’t understood the gospel. When I
look at the law, I do not look upon it as dos and
don’ts: “You better obey me or else!” That no
longer applies to me, because I am no longer under
the law. But when I look at the law, I look at the
character of my Savior, and I say, “This is how I
want to be.”

549
 But I want to give you one more privilege
under grace. Grace doesn’t only free you from
condemnation, grace doesn’t only free you from
the curse, but grace, as we saw when we did
Romans 5:2, is also a POWER that makes it
possible for you to keep the law. “I am what I am
by the grace of God,” says Paul to the Corinthians.
“And the grace that was given to me was not in
vain, I labored more than you all [the apostles].”

Grace is a power that can give you victory over

sin and produce in you the character of our Lord
Jesus Christ. That is grace, and that is the privilege
that we have as Christians. So it is a wonderful
thing to be under grace: no more condemnation,
no more insecurity. There is peace, there is
assurance, but there is also power under grace.

I want to conclude with the danger of saying

good-bye to grace. Let me put it this way: as long
as you are living under the umbrella of grace there
can be no condemnation, sin has no more dominion
over you, sin can’t execute you. You know why?
Because sin can execute you only when it gets
550
power from the law. But you are no longer under
the law. Therefore, sin can’t touch you in terms of
the wages of sin. Sin can hurt you, yes, but sin
can’t touch you. Because, under grace, it is not the
sinner who suffers, but Christ. And it is only when
you have understood this that you can understand
the words of David. You know what David said
about those terrible things he did with Bathsheba
and her husband? You know how he prayed? He
said [Psalm 51:4]:

Against you [God], you only, have I sinned and

done what is evil in your sight....

What did he mean? Didn’t he hurt Bathsheba?

Didn’t he hurt her husband? Her husband died
because of what David did. But what David did to
those two did not deprive them of heaven, do you
know that? But what David did to Christ was put
Him on the cross for his sins. And David realized
that the real person that he hurt when he sinned
was not Bathsheba, was not her husband, but was a
Savior. Therefore, he said [Psalm 51:10]:

551
 Create in me a pure heart, O God....

When Joseph was tempted [by Potiphar’s wife]

he did not say, “I better not do this because I’ll be
punished.” He said [Genesis 39:9]:

How then could I do such a wicked thing and

sin against God?

That’s how our attitude should be towards sin.

As long as you are living under grace, you are

free from condemnation, you are free from the
curse, because sin can’t touch you, because you are
no longer under the law. But please remember that
the day you say good-bye to that umbrella of grace,
which is possible, you are finished. How do you
say good-bye to grace? Not by falling, but by
deliberately, willfully, persistently saying, “I don’t
want Christ any more.”

There are three ways that the devil will try and
get you to say good-bye to grace. So one of the
greatest burdens of the devil is to get Christians out
552
of grace. I want to expose you to the three ways.
I’ll give you one text for each of them.

1. The first way is the worst way, in the sense

that it is the way that he has been most successful
in the lives of many Christians, including our own
church. That way is by perverting the gospel.
What do I mean by perverting the gospel? Read
the book of Galatians. What was the problem with
the Galatians? Look at Galatians 1:6-7:

I am astonished that you are so quickly

deserting the one who called you by the grace of
Christ and are turning to a different gospel —
which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some
people are throwing you into confusion and are
trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.

Some men had come and perverted the gospel

of Jesus Christ. What was the perversion, found in
chapter 3? “You were perfect in Christ, through
the Spirit. Now you’re trying to improve your
perfection by works, by circumcision, by keeping
the law.” In other words, perverting the gospel is
553
making salvation partly of Christ and partly of you.
That’s what happened to the Galatian Christians.

I mentioned before that grace and law are not

antagonistic; they are in the same camp. BUT
grace and sin are never partners. Grace and sin are
antagonistic. Therefore, if you try and save
yourself by your performance, you are not saving
yourself by grace, you are saving yourself by under
law. To save yourself by lawkeeping and to save
yourself by grace are not compatible; they can
never be married together. So Paul says in
Galatians 5:4, that’s the text I’ll give you for that
one:

You who are trying to be justified by law have

been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away
from grace.

In Christ we have righteousness full and

complete, 100 percent. You can’t add to that, you
can’t improve on that. The moment you try to
improve on that you are saying good-bye to Christ,
you’re denying Him, you’re rejecting Him. So one
554
way the devil will destroy your position under
grace is to put you under legalism, and it is in this
sense that Paul says to the Galatians, “Please don’t
give up your freedom in Christ and go back to the
yoke of bondage.” That’s Galatians 5:1:

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be
burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

In verse 4, “If you use the law as a means of

salvation, you’ve fallen from grace.”

2. The second method that Satan uses is by

dangling the trinkets of this world in front of your
eyes so that the things of this world become more
attractive than the things of heaven. Because being
a Christian does involve some hardships, because
[being in] heaven is still in the future; we’re living
now in enemy territory. So he will dangle the
trinkets, and he gets the young people mostly in
this. “Look man, the grass is green there in the
world.”

555
 The prodigal son is an example. He says, “I’m
tired of living under my father.” He discovered
later on that living under his father was ten times
better than living under the world. So I’ll give you
a text, 2 Timothy 4:10. Demas was a core
evangelist with Paul. But what does Paul, in
prison, say to Timothy? He says [2 Timothy 4:10]:

...For Demas, because he loved this world, has

deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica.

When he deserted Paul, Demas deserted what

Paul stood for, the gospel, because Paul was in
prison for the gospel. Tragedy.

3. Number three is future for most of us. The

third way that Satan will destroy your position
under grace is by persecution. He’ll make life so
hell for you that you can’t bear it any longer and
you say, “I give up,” and you go back to the world.
And so Jesus said in Matthew 10:22, that’s the text:

All men will hate you because of me, but he

who stands firm to the end will be saved.
556
 In other words, how did you come under grace?
Grace belongs to God. The umbrella is for all
people. But how did you come under it? By faith.
How do you leave it? By unbelief. Unbelief is a
deliberate rejection of Christ.

It is my prayer that you will never, ever say

good-bye to your faith. As long as you are a
believer, you are under the umbrella of grace and
sin has no dominion over you, because you are no
longer under the law. Therefore, sin no longer has
the authority to execute you, because the law
cannot give sin the authority to execute you when
you’re under grace. The law, by the way, has
already executed you in Christ. (That is what we
will cover in Romans 7.)

So may God bless us, that we may understand

this wonderful privilege of being under grace. But,
at the same time, let us not pervert this truth and
use it as an excuse for sinning. May grace control
you. May the grace of our Lord be the source of
your peace but also the source of your Christian
557
living. It is my prayer that we will learn to enjoy
the privilege of being under grace, and not under
law. It is my prayer that this grace will be seen in
the lives of each one of us. This is my prayer, in
Jesus’ name. Amen.

558
 Chapter 17

Slaves of God
(Romans 6:16-23)

In the mission service, my colaborer in the

ministerial department was a Black American by
the name of Art Bushnel. We had many
workshops together. We were in the Ministerial
Department; we had workshops with the pastors.
He had a favorite story, an illustration to show the
relationship between the gospel and our acceptance
of the gospel. Of course, he could tell this story
with real conviction because the story had to do
with a slave that was sold here in the south in this
country before the Civil War days.

The slave happened to be a young, strapping,

strong man. He was on the auction block and the
auctioneer was trying to convince the crowd that, if
they bought him, they would get tremendous work
out of him, because he was strong, muscular.
While he was giving this speech — you know, the
559
sales pitch — the slave opened his mouth and said,
“I ain’t goin’ to work for nobody!”

The auctioneer turned round to this slave and

said, “You keep quiet! You’re going to work
whether you like it or not!”

The bidding went up and up, and a man at the

back gave the highest bid, which was quite a high
price, for this slave. Finally the bid went to him,
and he came forward with the money, paid the
auctioneer, and the auctioneer gave him the key
that would unlock the shackles off the slave’s
hands and feet. The man grabbed the chains that
were holding the slave’s hands together, and said,
“Come along.”

As this new owner dragged him through the

crowd, this slave kept on muttering to him, “I ain’t
goin’ to work for you!”

The new owner kept quiet; he didn’t say a word

until they went some distance away from the
crowd. Then he took the key and unlocked the
560
shackles off the slave’s legs and hands, and then he
spoke to the slave. He said, “Look, I did not buy
you to get work out of you; I bought you that I
might set you free.”

The poor slave did not know how to handle

that; he’d never experienced anything like that.
For a few moments he was dumbfounded. Then,
realizing what this man had done, he fell on his
knees and said, “Master, as long as I live, I will
serve you!”

Basically, that’s the argument of Paul in this

passage that we are covering. You must be aware
of the fact that slavery was something that was
practiced in the Roman world during Paul’s time.
In fact, some scholars tell us that anywhere
between 40 to 60 percent of the population of the
Roman empire were slaves. That’s quite a high
number. Slavery was quite common in Paul’s day,
so he can use this illustration to present a truth that
he’s trying to get across in terms of what it means
to live under grace.

561
 But before we look at the passage, I would like
to remind you of the context of Romans 6. You
need to keep this in mind, because what Paul is
doing in chapter 6 is one of the dangers of the
gospel. The dangers are twofold. The devil
doesn’t love the gospel, he hates the gospel, and
there are two things he does within the Christian
church. He does something else outside the
Christian church to blind the eyes so that they don’t
accept the gospel. But within Christianity he has
two counterfeits which we covered last time:

1. The first counterfeit is legalism, which, in

many respects, resembles the gospel but is
really a perversion of the gospel. In a
nutshell, legalism simply means something
that you experience subjectively, whether
it’s good works, or whether it’s circumcision
which the Judiazers were pushing in Paul’s
day, whether it’s the keeping of the law, or
even whether it is experiencing the gift of
tongues. Anything subjective which you
depend on, either to a small degree or to a
larger degree for your salvation, that is
562
 legalism.

The gospel is clear: it does produce fruits.

But we must distinguish fruits of the gospel,
which is holiness of living, which we will
see in a moment, from legalism, which is
living a holy life so that you may improve
your standing before God or so that you may
have salvation. Paul dealt with that problem
in chapter 4, where he showed us clearly that
our works, circumcision, and law-keeping in
no way contribute towards our salvation.

2. Now in chapter 6 he’s dealing with the other

problem, and that is antinomianism, or
libertinism, or cheap grace.

The gospel is that we are saved entirely as a

free gift. It’s entirely God’s action in Christ that
saves us. But, having a sinful nature, it is very
easy for us to pervert that truth and say, “Since I’m
no longer under the law but under grace, then why
don’t I keep on sinning? After all, the law can’t
condemn me! I’m under grace, no longer under
563
law.”

You see, the gospel is excellent good news, it’s

unconditional good news, but it is dangerous. The
two dangerous statements that Paul is dealing with
in Romans 6 are found in Romans 5:20, and
Romans 6:14. In verse 20 he has made a
statement:

The law was added so that the trespass might

increase. But where sin increased, grace increased
all the more....

In other words, you can pervert that to say,

“Paul, the more I sin the more grace will forgive
me, the more grace will save me. So praise the
Lord, let us keep on sinning, that grace may
abound all the more!”

Can you see that’s a perversion? So Paul says,

“Is this what I mean?” in verse 1 of chapter 6:

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on

sinning so that grace may increase?
564
 And his answer is, “Unthinkable! Certainly
not!” The King James Version reads, “God
forbid!” Because a Christian is a person who has
died to sin in Christ. “How can you who are dead
to sin say it’s okay to sin? You’re contradicting
your acceptance of the gospel.”

Then in Romans 6:14 he makes the other

wonderful statement:

For sin shall not be your master, because you

are not under law, but under grace.

What he means here is that sin no longer has

authority. It no longer has the legal right to
condemn you, to execute you. Why? Because
you’re no longer under law but under grace.

As we saw in the last study, in 1 Corinthians

15:56:

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is

the law.
565
 Like the diplomats in the Third World, they
have diplomatic immunity. An embassy person
can break the speed limit in Kenya and the
policeman can’t touch him because he’s no longer
under the law of Kenya; he has diplomatic
immunity. Well, a Christian has immunity from
the condemnation of the law. The law can no
longer say to you if you sin, “If you fall you must
die!” Now is that good news? Yes! But is it
dangerous? It sure is. So Paul is asking that
question in Romans 6:15:

What then? Shall we sin because we are not

under law but under grace?

Notice that this is the same question as verse

one except from a different approach. “Does this
freedom under grace give us the license to enjoy
sin?”

What is his answer? The same answer as in

verse 2 of chapter 6:

566
 By no means!

“Certainly not! It is unthinkable! God forbid!”

Then he begins in verse 16-23, which is our

passage for this study, to illustrate, using the slave
society, or the slavery practice, to tell us that this
attitude is a contradiction of the gospel. He knows
Christians struggle, and we will see that in chapter
7, but he’s dealing with attitudes towards sin.

Let’s begin with Romans 6:16. A Christian

must know two things:

1. He must know that when he was baptized

into Christ he died to sin. That’s in Romans
6:3:

Or don’t you know that all of us who were

baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into
his death?

The death he died, he died to sin once for

all... [verse 10].
567
 In the same way, count yourselves dead to
sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus [verse
11].

2. The second thing that we must know is

[Romans 6:16]:

Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves

to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to
the one whom you obey — whether you are slaves
to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which
leads to righteousness?

The first thing that I would like to bring out

here as we look at verse 16 is something that is
very hard for us Americans to grasp. Because, to
an American, freedom is everything. You fought
for the freedom, that is, our forefathers did.
Freedom is everything. I remember when I was in
Idaho, the state was trying to pass a law. It was
during the time when a man killed a policeman,
and they were trying to pass a law where they
would remove the freedom for the American living
568
in Idaho to carry firearms. What a noise! The
people rose up in anger: “You are depriving us of
our freedom!”

It is wonderful to have political freedom. It is

wonderful to have economic freedom. But let us
be very clear: when we talk in the realm of
spirituality, in terms of spiritual realms, there is no
such thing as freedom. You’re either a slave of sin,
and the Devil, who’s the author of sin, or you’re a
slave of God, the Author of righteousness. There is
no such thing as independence in the spiritual
realm. We need to face that.

But, as you look at the passage, you will notice

that slavery under sin is our natural inheritance. In
other words, if there was no gospel, we would have
no choice, we would all be born slaves to sin, as we
are today, but we would have no choice. But,
because of the gospel, you have a choice as to
which of the two will be your master.

Now I want to make this clear because we will

come to Romans 7 where Paul will make this clear.
569
But I want to go to the words of Jesus Christ. But
let me remind you when we come to Romans 7,
which will be the next three studies, Paul makes it
clear in Romans 7:14:

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am

unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.

It was when Adam fell that we were sold as

slaves to sin.

You see, in a slave society, if a man was

bought as a slave, and then he had children after he
was bought as a slave, his children were not born
free. They were born slaves, too. In other words,
the master owned not only his slave, he owned his
slave’s wife, he owned his clothing, he owned his
house, he owned his family, his kids, everything.
That is what slavery is all about; you own nothing!
And sin is our master, by inheritance.

With this in mind, turn to John 8. You see, the

Jews had lost the truth of this. They failed to
understand what the Reformers called “total
570
depravity.” They applied it to the Gentiles: “Yes,
these Gentiles are under sin, but not us.”

Remember, when we did Romans 3, Paul went

through all the length of Romans 1:18 right up to
Romans 3:20 to prove that both Jews and Gentiles
are all under sin (chapter 3:9), that there is no
difference between Jew and Gentile, all have
sinned, all are under the law.

But now look at John 8. Here is Jesus trying to

correct, to show the Jews that they need a Savior,
that they, too, were slaves to sin. The statement is
found in John 8:32. Jesus is talking to the Jews
and He says in verse 32:

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will
set you free.

What he meant by the word “truth” is found in

verse 36. He meant Himself. John 8:36:

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free

indeed.
571
 But you see, the Jews felt that Jesus was
insulting them. So they responded in verse 33:

They answered him, “We are Abraham’s

descendants [we are not Gentiles] and have never
been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we
shall be set free?”

Listen to Jesus’ response, John 8:34:

Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone

who sins is a slave to sin.”

Paul will prove this in Romans 7:14-25. He

will say that even if you chose, apart from grace, to
keep the law, if you chose to do good, you cannot
do it. Your mind will be brought into captivity and
it will make you do what you don’t want to do.

Now I don’t have to convince you, because I

hope you all have experienced what I’m talking
about. You have made resolutions, you have made
promises; have you kept them?
572
 So, young ladies, when a man says to you, “If
you marry me I will love you for the rest of my
days,” remember: unless he’s under grace, he may
not be able to keep that promise. Some of you may
have to learn the hard way. The same holds true
for you men. So please, it is only by grace that we
can be set free from the power, the slavery of sin.
Let me go to another passage, and I’m concerned
about this. But please remember what I’m saying:
according to verse 16, we have no freedom in the
spiritual realm. There are two masters in this
world, Satan and Christ, sin and righteousness, and
you and I are either a slave of one or the other.
Turn to the second statement of Jesus Christ,
Matthew 6, the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is
trying to do the same thing, but now He’s
preaching to His followers. Matthew 6:24, this is
the statement, then He goes to prove and explain
the statement in verse 25 to the end of that chapter:

No one can serve two masters....

There are two masters; nobody can serve both

573
the masters at the same time. I’ll tell you why:
because these masters belong to opposite camps.

...Either he will hate the one and love the other,

or he will be devoted to the one and despise the
other....

And then he explains who the two masters are:

You cannot serve both God and Money.

If Paul or Jesus were here today, they probably

would have said, “You can’t serve God and
materialism,” or “You can’t serve God and self,”
because at the heart of all materialistic problems is
self. You can’t be under God and still allow self,
or sin, to dominate you. You have to choose your
master. Then he goes on to explain this.

I am concerned about this. We had a board

meeting at my former church once and we had a
report from the treasurer which was very
disheartening: only one-forth of the families of
that church were supporting the church budget.
574
You know what that means? It means that three-
quarters of the members were having a problem.

I’ll come to the problem in a moment. But I

will say one thing: if you have chosen Christ as a
Master — and this is what Christ is saying — if
you have chosen Christ as your master you will not
worry about what you will eat, what you will drink,
or what you will wear. That’s the person who’s
under Money [or “Mammon”]. Because you will
seek the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness
and God will supply all your needs.

But we’ll come to that. Let’s go back to

Romans 6. Paul is saying there are two masters.
Before the gospel came, there was only one master:
sin. But now there are two masters. Yes, we are
born under sin, that is our natural master. But
because of the gospel, you have the choice, you
have the freedom to choose your master. And Paul
is saying in Romans 6:16:

Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves

to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to
575
the one whom you obey — whether you are slaves
to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which
leads to righteousness?

If you have chosen sin as your master then you

will sin until sin takes you to the grave. But if you
have chosen God as Master, if you have chosen
Righteousness as Master, then you have said good-
bye to sin. You can’t have both as your masters.

Now I want you to look once again very

carefully at the two masters: sin and righteousness.
Why did Paul not use the word “faith”? Because
one is obedience to sin and the other one is
righteousness by faith. Why does he use the word
“obedience?” It sounds too legalistic.

Let me explain. You see, for Paul, the word

“faith” was more than a mental assent to truth.
You know, we had a Brother and Sister who had a
car accident recently, and one of the questions I
asked him (his car was wrecked) was, “Was it
insured?”

576
 And he said, “Thank God! Both my car and the
car of the boy who ran into us were insured.” He
believed now that the insurance company would
pay him back. That’s a mental assent to a truth.
But to Paul, faith was more than that. It was
obedience to the truth. I’m going to demonstrate
this from Scripture, but I’ll stick to Romans. There
are many passages I can give you from Paul, but
I’ll stick to Romans. Turn to chapter one of
Romans. In his very introduction, what does he
do? First of all, he introduces himself.

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an

apostle and set apart for the gospel of God....

I want you to notice how he introduces himself.

Does he say, “I, Paul, the great Apostle”? No. “I,
Paul,” a what of Jesus Christ? If your Bible says
servant, the Greek doesn’t say that. Paul used the
word doulos, which is the word “slave.”

Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus....

Right at the very introduction, he tells the

577
Roman Christians Whom he has chosen as his
Master. And the moment he became a slave of
Jesus Christ, he had to do what Christ told him to
do. On the Damascus Road, that’s where he made
his choice. On the Damascus Road he said to the
Lord: “Lord, what would you have me do? I’m
your slave now. What do you want me to do?”

God said two things: “Number one, I want you

to be my Apostle. Number two, I have chosen you
to go to the Gentiles and preach the gospel.” Paul
was “set apart for the gospel of God.”

Then in verse 2, and verse 3, and verse 4, he

puts in a nutshell what he means by the word
“gospel”:

1. It is the promise of God (in the Old

Testament the gospel was the promise of
God);

2. This promise was fulfilled in Jesus Christ,

Who became one of us in order to be our
Savior; and
578
 3. Who demonstrated that He was Divine and
the Son of God by His holiness.

But now look at verse 5, the human response:

Through him and for his name’s sake, we

received grace and apostleship to call people from
among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes
from faith.

Now the word “obedience” there is what we

would call in Greek a genitive of apposition, which
means it’s a word describing faith. So, to Paul,
faith is obedience. That is Paul’s fundamental
definition of faith. So when I go to chapter 6 of
Romans and look at verse 17, listen to what he
says:

But thanks be to God that, though you used to

be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the
form of teaching to which you were entrusted.

The Roman Christians had obeyed the gospel.

579
He’s reminding them of that fact. Therefore, if
they have obeyed the gospel, they have said good-
bye to their slavery to sin.

Now let me give you one more chapter in

Romans. This is in chapter 10, where he uses the
word “obedience” in the negative. He’s dealing in
chapter 10 with the Jews. He’s telling his Jews, “I
have deep concern for you, but you are lost. And
the reason you are lost is not because you are bad,
it is not because God did not keep his promise.” It
is not because God did not fulfill what He
promised them; it is because of one reason. And
that’s in Romans 10:16:

But not all the Israelites accepted the good

news....

“That’s the reason why you are lost: you have

not obeyed the gospel.” But then he quotes Isaiah
to defend himself; and I want you to notice the
quotation. The quotation does not have the word
“obey”; the quotation has the word “believe.”
Because, to Paul, “believe” and “obey” are
580
synonymous.

...For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our

message?” [Isaiah 53:1]

Now what does it mean “to obey the gospel”?

What does it mean? Is it doing something? No.
Obeying the gospel is surrendering yourself or your
will to the truth as it is in Christ.

God comes to you through the gospel and says,

“In my Son, you have died. You have to die,
you’re a sinner. But in My Son you have died.”

Obeying the gospel is saying, “God, I accept

the death of Christ as my death.” THAT is obeying
the gospel! In the gospel you are told that you are
alive to God, you have become a slave of God.
Obeying the gospel is saying, “Now, Lord, I am
your slave. Use me, do with me what you want.”
That is obeying the gospel. It is the total surrender
of yourself to Jesus Christ.

But you say, “I don’t want to be a slave!”

581
Well, if you reject that, you are a slave of Satan,
and sin. You have no choice there. You may bluff
yourself, “I am free.” If you are free, let me ask
you one question, “Prove it!” Live for one day — I
don’t ask you for one week — live for one day
without sinning, in thought, word, and deed. If you
can do it, please, let me know. You deserve a
medal. But you deserve more than that, you
deserve to live somewhere else, not on this earth.
We’ll send you to Mars. Because this world is full
of sinners. Only by the grace of God can we be
what God wants us to be. Jesus said in John 15:5:

...Apart from me you can do nothing.

Never forget that.

Let’s go on. Paul is reminding the Christians in

Rome and, through them to us: “Remember, a
Christian is a person who is a slave of God, no
longer of sin but of God and His righteousness.”
And he says in Romans 6:17:

But thanks be to God that, though you used to

582
be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the
form of teaching to which you were entrusted.

“God be thanked. You were slaves of sin, then

the gospel came to you, and what did you do? You
did not reject the gospel, you surrendered to it, you
obeyed it.” Verse 18:

You have been set free from sin and have

become slaves to righteousness.

“And now, having been set free from sin, from

its slavery, you became slaves of righteousness.”

But there is a difference between these two

slaveries. Under sin, you have no choice. When
you are a slave of sin, you do what sin tells you.
As we deal with Romans 7, you will notice how
Paul will explain that.

But, under Christ, God never uses compulsion.

He doesn’t say, “You better do righteousness or I
will punish you.” Christ doesn’t do that, because
His slavery is the slavery of One Who is a loving
583
Master.

I want to give you an example. In the Old

Testament, and even in Paul’s day in Rome, there
were two kinds of slaves. You see, if you were
freed in Paul’s day from slavery, that would not
solve your problem. I’ll tell you why. There was
no social security in Paul’s day, there was no
welfare. You would starve to death sometimes.

So, there were two kinds of slavery. Slaves

that were bought and were working under a
dictator, like that auctioneer was telling the slave,
“You will work whether you like it or not.” That’s
one kind of slavery. The other kind of slavery is
when you have the freedom to leave the person you
work for but you have chosen to be his slave.

In the Old Testament, this was symbolized by a

very interesting practice. God gave a law to the
Jews: if you buy a slave you cannot own him more
than seven years. After seven years, you must set
him free. But freedom to that slave would mean a
lot of problems. So, sometimes, especially when
584
the master was kind and loving and helpful and
considerate, the slave would come to his master
and say, “Look. I know my period of seven years
is over, but I would like to be your slave for the
rest of my life.”

Do you know what they did, ladies? They

pierced the ears of the slave; that’s the only reason
you need to have your ears pierced. Not to put
some gold stuff on it or some shiny stuff, but to tell
yourself you are a slave of Jesus Christ. They
pierced the ears, and that was a sign that you are a
slave by choice. Now that is the kind of slave that
God wants you to be. That is why I want you to
notice in verse 17:

...You wholeheartedly obeyed....

“You have obeyed from the heart.” It was no

compulsion, God never forces. I’ll give you an
example: the Jews in the Exodus. God fed them
with manna. Now I don’t know if you know what
manna tasted like, but the Bible tells us it was like
wafer with a little touch of honey. It kind of
585
dissolved in your mouth. But can you imagine
living on wafers breakfast, lunch, and supper,
seven days a week for 40 years? No Sabbath
dessert, all you had was manna. On Sabbath
especially it was worse because it was leftovers.
So here you were, you know, manna for breakfast,
manna for lunch, manna for supper, and the Jews
began to murmer, “God, we are tired of this manna,
manna, manna. We are dying for Kentucky Fried
Chicken.”

And God said, “You’ll have it, all you want.”

Do you know how much He gave them? [A

layer in the camp] three feet high. Have you been
swimming in Kentucky Fried Chicken, not 13
pieces in a bowl but three feet high of chicken.
Well, it was pheasant, you know, or quail, which is
a lot tastier than chicken, and a lot healthier,
probably, because they didn’t pump them with all
kinds of chemicals. They ate it until it came out of
their ears. Now that’s a wonderful Hebrew
expression. Who gave them those quails? God
did. Was it His wish? No, they demanded it.
586
That’s the kind of Master we have. And if you ask
God, “I want to enjoy sin,” He doesn’t say, “You
can enjoy sin but I will punish you.” He says, “My
dear child, sin will hurt you, and because it hurts
you, it hurts me, because I love you.”

So there is no compulsion. But God doesn’t

want any compulsive obedience. He wants
obedience from the heart.

I want to give you another example. Turn your

Bible to Acts 8. Do you know who was the first
Gentile to be baptized in the Christian church,
according to the records? We don’t know whether
he was the first in actual history but, as far as the
Bible record is concerned, in terms of actual
baptism, he is the first person, Gentile, to be
baptized. Do you know who he was? The
Ethiopian Eunuch. He was what they would call
an “abba-sha.” They call us “foranji.” It isn’t too
bad a word. The word in Swahili is worse. They
call us “pongo,” which is a “white monkey.” It’s
Afrikaans; it came from South Africa, but they
have good reason you know. But the thing is this:
587
Here was this Ethiopian. He was in Jerusalem
worshipping as a Jew, a converted Jew, he was
struggling with the book of Isaiah, and God led
Philip to him. And the Ethiopian asked Philip
[Acts 8:34]:

Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking

about, himself or someone else?

Philip preached to him about Jesus Christ and

Him crucified. And you know what the Ethiopian
said [Acts 8:36]:

Look, here is water. Why shouldn’t I be

baptized?

And Philip said, “No no no, one moment. I

have to ask you 13 questions.” He didn’t do that.
One question only. Here it is, verse 37:

Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart,

you may.” The eunuch answered, “I believe that
Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”

588
 That’s the question. And remember, belief is
obedience. “If you obey from the heart, I’ll baptize
you.”

The first time I was in Ethiopia they gave me a

young evangelist to work under me. Within three
weeks, I said to myself, “This man is not
converted.” He was an evangelist; that means he
was an intern. (That’s the word we use in Africa
for interns. Here we use “pastors” and “elders”;
there they use “evangelists” and “pastors.”) So a
Pastor there is an ordained minister, an evangelist
is an intern. I don’t know why they call it by these
terms, but, anyway, that’s how it is.

I said to myself, “This man needs to be

converted first.” He had all gold teeth; when he
smiled, it sparkled. He was a good actor, would
love to pat you on the back to get something out of
you. I said, this man needs to know the message of
the cross. So I spent some time and gave him the
cross, and he said, “Boy, you’re making it hard.”

“No, Brother,” I said, “it is only the cross that

589
sets us free.”

He said, “Can you give me a couple of days to

think about it?”

“Okay, sure, you have to count the cost,” I said.

He came back two days later, smiling from ear

to ear, “Brother Sequeira, I have accepted the
cross!”

I said to myself, “It sounds to me like he is

lying, but I can’t judge him.” I said, “Praise the
Lord.” But I thought, “I will know you by your
fruits.”

I discovered, three weeks later, that he was

lying from beginning to end. Do you know what
he was doing? He was working for two
denominations at the same time: for us, and
getting a salary, and for the Norwegian mission,
and getting a salary. And he could do it, because
we kept Sabbath, they kept Sunday, so he could go
to church on Sabbath and be on the platform and
590
help me out. On Sunday he would go to the
Norwegian mission. When I discovered that, I
went to visit him. He didn’t know that I was
coming. You see, the lady in charge spoke
Swedish, she was Swedish, and I speak Swedish,
and so I spoke to her one day when I met her. And
she said, “You know about ______?”

“Is this the same ______ that I know,” I asked,

“with gold teeth?”

“Yes,” she said.

So I went to visit him. If he turned red in the

face you couldn’t see it because of his color. But
I’ll tell you, he sure was embarrassed. He lied.

I do not know whether you have obeyed the

gospel from the heart. But when I look at three-
fourths of the families not supporting a church in
terms of budget, I am concerned. Because by the
fruits I can tell that there is something wrong.

Folks, coming to church won’t help you. And

591
I’ll tell you, of our tithe, we don’t keep one cent
here. It goes all to the General Conference; that’s
the policy. But my concern is spiritual. If you
have not obeyed, if you’re still depending on
yourself for support, if you’re still depending on
yourself for survival, WHAT WILL YOU DO
when the crisis comes and when your faith will be
tested?

It is my prayer that you will obey the gospel

from the heart and no longer worry what you will
eat and what you will drink. Let God take care of
that. And if you have to starve to death, that’s His
problem, not yours. But your eternal security is
sure, folks, when you are under Christ, because the
chapter ends that way. But let’s go on. Romans
6:19:

I put this in human terms because you are weak

in your natural selves....

Here I would like to say a few words to young

budding theologians studying for the ministry. I
wrestled with the first part of verse 19, “I speak in
592
human terms, because of the weakness of your
flesh.” What is he talking about?

Well, when you go into the background, you

discover that the public speakers of Paul’s day
were experts at telling stories and using philosophy
to get across to the people what they wanted. Paul
is saying here, “I am behaving like one of them,
giving you an illustration, a story about slaves,
because you have difficulty understanding what I
am trying to get across.” In other words, Paul is
saying, “I’m not a story teller.” When he spoke to
the Corinthians, he said [1 Corinthians 1:17]:

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to

preach the gospel — not with words of human
wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its
power.

There are too many stories being told from the

pulpit, and not enough preaching. The pulpit is for
expounding the word of God. Paul is saying, “If I
use illustrations, it is not to entertain you.”

593
 And I dare not compete at entertaining in
America. Because when I look at your videos, I
have no chance to try to entertain you people. I
have no way to entertain you the way the videos
can. In this country, you have all the entertainment
that you need. Like the Jews had quails, you have
videos here until they are coming out of your ears.
So I don’t have to add to that. But I do know one
thing, that Paul is saying, “I’m giving you this
illustration, because that’s not my pattern, but
because you are having difficulty understanding
this truth.” And then he goes on, second half of
Romans 6:19:

...Just as you used to offer the parts of your

body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing
wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to
righteousness leading to holiness.

What is Paul saying here? That both slaveries

have development. And once again, young people,
I want to warn you that both slaveries have
development. I remember a young man in college
in Ethiopia said to me, “Pastor, what you are
594
teaching is the truth, but I want to enjoy this world,
so, when I get to your age, I will accept Christ, but
please don’t ask me to do it now. I need to enjoy
life.”

But what he failed to understand is this: that

the more you turn your back to Christ, sin is
developing. You look at alcoholics, look at those
who are hooked on drugs. Where did they begin?
Just by sampling, or by social drinking. And what
does sin do? It hooks you. And once it hooks you,
boy, then you have all kinds of problems, and your
family has all kinds of problems, because there is a
development. So just because you reject the gospel
now doesn’t mean that you’ll have the same
opportunity, because sin develops. It gets ahold of
you until you reach the point of no return. Don’t
you ever play with the gospel and postpone your
acceptance, because that’s what the devil wants
you to do. The devil will say, “Look man, you’re
too young. You need to enjoy life, until you get
old. When your one leg is in the grave then accept
Christ.”

595
 That’s a deception, young people, because
there is a development. If you allow sin to
continue to develop in you it will get a stronger and
stronger hold on you until you reach the point
where you cannot, like Saul, turn back to God.
And you’re finished. I have seen too many people
in that camp. So please, young people, do not treat
the gospel lightly. Yes, sin will give you fun, it
will give you wonderful pleasure, but please look
at Romans 6:23:

For the wages of sin is death....

The end result, says Paul, of sin is death. Yes,

have fun today but tomorrow you must die.
Romans 6:20:

When you were slaves to sin, you were free

from the control of righteousness.

That doesn’t mean that you were incapable of

doing righteousness, but you were incapable of
doing GENUINE righteousness. There are some
people who don’t like verse 20. It is true that the
596
sinful man can do many right things, but never
with a right motive. Therefore, only the Christian
can produce righteousness without “self” in it
because he has received the gift of Agape. That is
why God says in Isaiah 64:6:

...All our righteous acts are like filthy rags....

Not because the acts are bad; it’s because the

motives are bad, because you’re a slave to sin. It is
impossible for an unconverted man to produce
righteousness without selfish motives. That is
what the Reformers meant by “total depravity.”

Verses 21 and 22 say that, when you were born

a slave of sin, it began to develop. When you
accept Christ, and righteousness becomes now your
way of life, please notice there is a development
there, too. So please don’t expect brand-new
Christians to live the same way as those who have
lived 30 years after accepting Christ. There must
be a growth.

And what happens? While you are growing in

597
righteousness and holiness and in sanctification,
you fall. Is there condemnation? No, because you
are not under law but under grace. But please
remember the direction or development must be
toward righteousness. And, therefore, verses 21
and 22 say that each slavery has fruit:

What benefit did you reap at that time from the

things you are now ashamed of? Those things
result in death! But now that you have been set
free from sin and have become slaves to God, the
benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is
eternal life.

Whom is he talking to? He’s talking to those

who have obeyed from the heart the gospel of Jesus
Christ. Paul, in Galatians 5, will explain, the fruit
of the Spirit is love, joy, holiness, temperance, and
here (Romans 6:22) he puts it in one word:
holiness (or sanctification). And the end is
everlasting life.

So both slaveries have a development, both

slaveries have fruit [or benefit], and both slaveries
598
have an end result [Romans 6:23]:

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of

God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Please notice, Paul does not use the word

“wages” for eternal life, because eternal life is a
gift. Yes, righteousness is produced in you but
never as a contribution towards eternal life. That’s
the evidence, that is the fruit, but never the means
of salvation.

599
 Chapter 18

Delivered from Under the Law

(Romans 7:1-6)

Do you not know, brothers — for I am

speaking to men who know the law — that the law
has authority over a man only as long as he lives?
For example, by law a married woman is bound to
her husband as long as he is alive, but if her
husband dies, she is released from the law of
marriage. So then, if she marries another man
while her husband is still alive, she is called an
adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released
from that law and is not an adulteress, even though
she marries another man. So, my brothers, you
also died to the law through the body of Christ, that
you might belong to another, to him who was
raised from the dead, in order that we might bear
fruit to God. For when we were controlled by the
sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law
were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for
death. But now, by dying to what once bound us,
600
we have been released from the law so that we
serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the
old way of the written code. [Romans 7:1-6]

Is Paul talking about believers or nonbelievers?

The question is not new. Right through the history
of the Christian church this has been the great
argument of Romans 7. Men like Origen, or
Wesley, or the great scholar Wyse, or Moffat, or
the British scholar C.H. Dodd — all take the
position that this is the unconverted person that
Paul is talking about. On the other side you have
Augustine, and you have Luther, and you have
Calvin, and you have that famous Swedish
theologian, Anders Nygren, and the British scholar
John Stott, who say, “No, he’s talking about the
Christian.” And so the battle has been going on.

I do not know if you have wrestled with the

battle, but I have. If I had a choice, I would say
that Paul is talking about the Christian. I’ll give
you my reasons:

1. From verse 14 onwards, Paul moves from

601
the past tense, which was predominant in the
previous verses, to the present continuous tense in
verse 14 onwards. That would hardly be the case if
he were talking of his preconverted experience.

2. My second argument would be: what Paul is

talking of in Romans 7, this tremendous struggle
with defeat, completely contradicts what he says
about himself as a Pharisee, in Philippians 3:6.
There he says:

...As for legalistic righteousness, [I was]

faultless.

Here [Romans 7:24] he cries:

What a wretched man I am!

This is a complete contradiction to his

preconverted experience.

3. The third argument I will give is Romans

7:22, where Paul says:

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 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law....

It is not normal for an unconverted man to

delight in the law of God. In fact, Romans 8:7
says:

...The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not

submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.

So, again, verse 22 implies that he’s talking of

his Christian experience.

4. Then, look at the context of the whole

section. Romans 5, 6, 7, and 8 are dealing with the
Christian. Why would he suddenly turn to his non-
Christian experience?

5. Finally, there are statements, like Romans

8:23, where he talks about groaning, and Galatians
5:17 where he talks about the struggle between
flesh and spirit which agree with Romans 7, and
which have to do with Christian experience.

But I would take that if I had a choice. But

603
when I look at Romans 7 as a unit, I am convinced
now that to ask the question whether Paul is talking
about the believer or the unbeliever is to miss the
point Paul had in mind when he wrote the chapter.

Paul did not even think of that issue because

what Paul is doing in Romans 7 is proving a very
important point, a point that you and I need to
come to grips with. And that is this: God’s holy
law, which is good, which is spiritual, which is
righteous, and sinful human nature, which is the
same in the believer and in the unbeliever (that’s
why the question is meaningless), these two are
incompatible. And because they are incompatible,
you and I can never be saved by the works of the
law.

You see, Paul made a statement in Romans

6:14 which, to the Jewish community, would be
blasphemy, and would be blasphemy probably
even to some Adventist communities. Because,
you see, in Romans 6:14, Paul says:

For sin shall not be your master, because you

604
are not under law, but under grace.

Now he has told us in Romans 3:19 and 20 that

we are under the law. And, because we are under
the law, the whole world stands condemned.

In Romans 6:14 he says that you Christians are

no longer under the law and the reason for that is
because we have been delivered from under the
law. But for Paul to make such a statement was
very risky, because Paul was planning to visit
Rome. If he did not explain what he meant, and
why he believed what he believed (not just because
he was inspired but because there was a real
reason), he would be lynched if he went to Rome
without explaining.

How do I know? Turn to Acts 21. Let me

show you an experience that Paul went through.
Paul had returned from his third missionary
journey and, like a good evangelist, he gave his
report. And his report was that God had blessed
his ministry tremendously, so that the gentiles all
over the Middle East had accepted the gospel. And
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the brethren in Jerusalem, the pillars of the church,
said to Paul, “Do you know, we have had a similar
blessing in Jerusalem. Many of the Jews have also
accepted the gospel.” And they all said, “Praise the
Lord.”

But James, the “General Conference

President,” said to Paul, “But we have a problem.
These Jewish Christians have been hearing about
you and they think that you are a heretic, that you
are against the law of God, and against the temple,
and against the people. But we know that you are
not against the law, you are against legalism. But
they don’t understand what you’re talking about.
They have misunderstood you. So please, Paul,
why don’t you so something. Shave your head (it
wasn’t hard for Paul because he didn’t have too
much hair, that’s what the scholars tell us; so I am
happy to have good company) and go through the
cleansing process to show the Jewish Christians
that you are not against the law.”

Unfortunately, this wonderful scheme

backfired. I believe myself that that was not advice
606
from God. It was James’ good counsel and it
backfired. I can see why, because if somebody
goes through a cleansing process, he is admitting
that he is wrong. They were accusing him against
the law.

So after he had gone through the process and

finally entered the temple, because he could not
before that time, a group of Jews grabbed him. I
want you to notice what they said in Acts 21:28.
They grabbed him and they cried out:

“Men of Israel, help us! This is the man who

teaches all men everywhere against our people and
our law and this place. And besides, he has
brought Greeks into the temple area and defiled
this holy place.

“We’ve got the rascal! This is the man who

teaches everyone everywhere against:

1. the people (he’s anti-Jew);

2. the law, and
3. this place (the temple).
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 And furthermore, he also brought Greeks
(barbarians, nonbelievers) into the temple, defiling
God’s holy place.”

So when Paul says in Romans 6:14, “We are no

longer under the law,” those are the kind of
statements that got Paul into trouble. So he has to
explain.

Chapter 7 is telling us how we were delivered

from the law and why. Now verses 1-6 deal with
“how” we were delivered. He also touches on
“why” there a little bit but his main thrust is how
we were delivered from under the law. Verse 7 to
the end, in two other sections, verse 7 to 13 or 14,
and (then) the rest, is dealing with “why.” Being
such an important passage, I want to spend three
studies on chapter 7. But first of all, let’s look at
the first six verses. This is what I want to
concentrate on now. Listen to how he introduces
the subject [Romans 7:1]:

Do you not know, brothers — for I am

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speaking to men who know the law....

So he has a specific group within the Roman

community to whom he’s addressing this problem.
Who do you think he’s talking about? “I speak to
those who know the law.” Well, if he were living
today he would say, “I speak to you Adventists.”

I was listening to John Stott, the great British

scholar, one day and he made a statement. He said,
“I’m asking my congregation [he has about a
thousand people attending his church] how many
of you can recite the Ten Commandments without
looking in the Bible?”

Of that thousand people, only one hand went

up. Now I did not put up my hand because I was a
visitor, but I said to myself, “I bet that one hand is
an Adventist.” If I were to ask today, “How many
of you can recite the Ten Commandments?” I
probably would have one hand that would NOT go
up.

...I am speaking to men who know the law....

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 The very first thing the Jews were taught when
they were growing up as babies was the law. Then
he makes this fundamental statement [Romans
7:1]:

...The law has authority over a man only as

long as he lives.

The word “dominion” [used in some

translations] means rulership, jurisdiction. What
he’s saying is true of any law. As long as you are
living you are under the law of where you are. We
are living in America, we are under the law of
America. But you can be under the law of America
even outside of America. I remember when I was a
missionary in Africa, I didn’t realize that I still had
to write in my tax form papers. I thought I was
exempt for two reasons:

1. I was not yet an American citizen, I was a

resident.
2. I was not living in America; I was living in
the Third World.
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 When I came back they said, “Have you been
filing your tax returns?”

I said, “What’s that? Never heard of it.”

They said, “Well, you’re guilty. You have to

pay a fine.” And I was happy to pay the fine
because it was six percent of my tax and my tax
was zero. And so six percent of zero was zero.

But I was under the law. You are under the law
as long as you are living. If you die, then the law
no longer has a hold on you. That is true of any
law. The question is, of course, “Which law is he
talking about?”

I was explaining to my pastors in Ethiopia that

this was primarily the moral law that Paul had in
mind; he was including the whole of the law
because the Jews did not make that distinction
between ceremonial and moral like we do. One of
the pastors was horrified at me for saying this was
the moral law. I said, “Why?”
611
 He said, “Because I have just come from
Middle East College, and we were taught that this
was the ceremonial law.”

I asked, “Who taught you?”

He said, “I can’t remember his name.” It was a

very difficult name. “But I know he had a Ph.D.”

I replied, “Well, let’s see what Paul, the Ph.D.,

has to say. Please read verse 7” [of Romans 7].
And he read. And I said, “Read it aloud.”

What shall we say, then? Is the law sin?

Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known
what sin was except through the law. For I would
not have known what coveting really was if the law
had not said, “Do not covet.”

“Which law is Paul quoting from?” I asked.

He responded, “We never read verse 7.”

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 Let us be honest with the passage. Well, that
shut him up but there still was a problem. You
mean to say that we are delivered from under the
law? Yes, but in what sense? Why? That is what
Romans 7 is all about.

Now Paul then presents an illustration in verses

2 and 3. It’s a difficult illustration, but it is one
that we need to understand in the context of the
Bible. I say difficult because some of you ladies
will disagree with Paul’s argument here, but let’s
look at it:

For example, by law a married woman is bound

to her husband as long as he is alive....

In other words, when a woman marries a man,

she’s stuck with him for the rest of her life, until he
dies. That’s what Paul is saying. Why? Because
the Bible teaches that when two people get married
they are married until “death do us part.” But the
word “bound” means more than simply, “She’s
stuck to him.” It also means that she is under him,
by the law.
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 Which law? Well, there are three laws. Paul is
not talking of all three laws. He’s talking of law
number two. I’m saying this because I don’t want
any man to take advantage of law number two if
you’re a Christian. Law number three applies to
Christians which is found in Ephesians 5:25:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved

the church and gave himself up for her....

And, please remember, Christ loved the church

even when “she” was not good to Him. Keep that
in mind.

But law number one was when God created

Adam and Eve. They were equal. But when sin
came in, he gave them another law. It’s found in
Genesis three, and it’s in verse 16:

To the woman he said [that is, God said to

Eve], “I will greatly increase your pains in
childbearing; with pain you will give birth to
children. Your desire will be for your husband,
614
and he will rule over you.”

Well, I could do that in Africa with my wife,

but in America I dare not do it. In Ethiopia, when
the Marxists took over, the Ethiopian government
said to the wives, “You are now equal with your
husband, don’t let him rule over you.” One
Ethiopian came home and his wife did not cook
him his supper. He said, “Where’s supper?”

She said, “I have decided that you can cook

your own supper.” He was not willing to accept
the Marxist philosophy; he went to his cupboard,
pulled out his revolver, and shot her dead. Many
men have taken advantage. Even in America wife
abuse is terrible, primarily because of sin. He
wants to rule over his wife. But Paul says:

...By law a married woman is bound to her

husband as long as he is alive....

The problem is that this woman has found

another man, a wonderful fellow. She says, “Boy,
I wish I could marry him.”
615
 Now, what’s the problem with the first
marriage? Well, there are three problems with the
first marriage.

First of all, her husband is not sympathetic.

When she makes a mistake, when she burns his
spaghetti, he says to her, “I’m going to punish you
for this!”

She says, “Look, please, I was busy. I didn’t

realize the knob was on high.”

He says, “I don’t care whether you made a

mistake or not, I’m going to punish you.” That’s
all he can do; no sympathy.

Secondly, he won’t lift a single finger to help

her. One day he tells her, “Please cook for me
some rice and curry.”

She says, “But I’ve never cooked it before!” So

she calls her Pastor, “Can you come and help me?”
Well, her Pastor can. But she says to the husband,
616
“You know how to cook it, can you help me?“

He says, “My job is not to help, my job is to

order you around.”

The third problem is that all he can do is to

command her to obey him and, when she disobeys,
he condemns her.

So she’s always under guilt, always living in

fear, with no peace, trying her best to please her
husband, and now she finds another man. But she
can’t marry him because he’s also a good fellow.
She thinks, “Boy, I wish my old man would die.”
And that’s the problem, that’s the worst problem,
he won’t die. Even when she puts arsenic in the
Postum [cereal drink], he won’t die.

You know why? Because the first husband is

the law. Now, let’s be very clear: the law is good,
it is holy, what it is demanding is good. But there
are certain things that the law cannot do.

First of all, it cannot sympathize with you.

617
Why? Because the law is not a person, it is rules.
When you are caught by the policeman for
speeding, and by grace he forgives you, which is
very seldom, please remember it is not the traffic
law that forgave, it is the policeman. And what he
did was really contrary to the law. He’s breaking
the law in forgiving you because he’s not
employed to forgive you. You didn’t pay him tax
money to forgive you, you paid him tax money to
punish you. Because that’s all that the law can do.
It’s not a person, it has no feelings, no sympathy.

Secondly, neither is the law capable of helping

you. For I read in Romans 8:3:

For what the law was powerless to do....

What is it that the law cannot do? The law

cannot produce righteousness in a sinful person. It
can demand righteousness, but never produce it. It
can’t help you even. All the law can do is say to
you, as Galatians 3:10 says:

All who rely on observing the law are under a

618
curse, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who
does not continue to do everything written in the
Book of the Law.”

“Cursed is the one who doesn’t obey me and do

everything I tell you to do.” Can you see why to
live under the law means to live under fear, to live
under insecurity, to live without peace, without
assurance? And you say, “Boy, I wish I could
marry the second man.” Do you know who the
second man is? He is Jesus Christ:

1. He can sympathize with you. Hebrews 4:15:

For we do not have a high priest who is unable

to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have
one who has been tempted in every way, just as we
are — yet was without sin.

So He can overcome it. Can you imagine such

a wonderful husband?

2. He can do more than sympathize with you,

He can help you. The trouble is I’m already stuck
619
with this old man. What do I do? Hebrews 2:18:

Because he himself suffered when he was

tempted, he is able to help those who are being
tempted.

So Christ can sympathize, He can help.

3. But I’ll tell you what’s best about Christ: He

doesn’t condemn. Romans 8:1:

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for

those who are in Christ Jesus....

If you look at the last verse of chapter 6, before

he began chapter 7, Paul says two things:

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of

God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Who pays wages for sin? The law, because I

read in 1 Corinthians 15:56:

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is

620
the law.

The law says to sin, “You must die.” Grace

doesn’t say to the sinner, “You must die.” Grace
says to the sinner, “I have a gift for you. It is
eternal life.” That’s the gift of God. John 3:16:

For God so loved the world that he gave his

one and only Son, that whoever believes in him
shall not perish but have eternal life.

So eternal life is not earned, it’s a gift to

sinners.

But now, the problem is “my first husband will

not die. I put poison in his Postum, he refuses to
die.” Why? Because I read in Matthew 5:18:

I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth

disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least
stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from
the Law until everything is accomplished.

So she does not have a solution. According to

621
the illustration, the woman wants the husband to
die, but the problem is he will not die. And those
who say that the law was done away with do not
know that the law cannot die.

“Well,” the second man says, “I can’t marry

you if you are still married to the first man; so the
first thing I have to do is to make your marriage
null and void.” How do you do it? Well, there are
two problems:

1. You can’t get the first husband to commit

adultery because then you would have
Biblical grounds for divorce. But the
husband is good, he’s holy. You give him
all the woman you want, he won’t touch
them.

2. He refuses to die.

Whichever you look at it, there is no solution

from the human point of view. So Christ says, “I
have a solution.”

622
 And the wife says, “Really? What is it?”

“Why don’t YOU die?”

She says, “I? If I die, how can I marry you?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean die by yourself. Let me

take you and put an end to you. By putting an end
to you, I annul your first marriage, then I’ll raise
you up and you’ll be my wife.”

Look at verse 4, that’s the solution. Please

notice in the illustration the woman wants the
husband to die, but in the application, it’s not the
husband who dies, it is we, the woman [Romans
7:4]:

So, my brothers, you also died to the law [that’s

the first marriage] through the body of Christ, that
you might belong to another, to him who was
raised from the dead, in order that we might bear
fruit to God.

Remember from our studies on Romans 6:

623
 1. The death of Christ was a corporate death.
2. When you were baptized, you were baptized
into Christ’s death.

Two things happen when you die with Christ:

1. You are delivered from sin (Romans 6), and

2. You are delivered from under the law
(Romans 7).

The law is still there, but you are no longer

married to the law. So the law comes to you and
says, “You obey me; otherwise, you will die.”

You can say to him, “You can find another

woman to say that to because I am no longer under
your jurisdiction!”

But does that mean you can do what you like?

No, you are not a widow, you are not free, there’s
no single person here. You’re married in both
cases, but now you’re married to somebody else.
Let’s look at the whole thing. Verse 4:
624
 So, my brothers, you also died to the law
through the body of Christ, that you might belong
to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in
order that we might bear fruit to God.

What kind of fruit? Turn to the gospel of John.

Let’s see what this second husband has to say
about this fruit. You see, under the first marriage,
you lived under what we call rules, dos and don’ts.
But this is the policy under the new marriage. John
15:1:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the

gardener.

You are familiar with all that. But let’s look at

John 15, verse 4 onwards:

Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No

branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the
vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain
in me.

625
 In the first marriage, what did you produce?
Well, we’ll come to verse 5 and see what you
produced there. “But if you’re married to me,”
says Christ, “I am not asking you to DO things, I
am asking you to abide in Me.” John 15:5:

I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man

remains in me and I in him, he will bear much
fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

Here the Apostle Paul is saying, “If you’re

married to Christ you will bear much fruit.” Now
back to Romans 7:5:

For when we were controlled by the sinful

nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were
at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for
death.

Now what did Paul mean by the words “when

we were controlled by the sinful nature” or, as
some translations read, “when we were in the
flesh”? It means “before we died,” in our pre-
converted state, while we were still under the law,
626
married to the law, depending on ourselves because
the law will not help us. The only kind of fruit you
bear under the law is sin, which ends up in death.
Romans 7:6:

But now [now that you have accepted Christ

and have become His bride], by dying to what once
bound us, we have been released from the law so
that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not
in the old way of the written code.

Before you accepted Christ, before you were

baptized into Christ, the law held you in its grips.
Which means that every time you disobeyed, the
law says, “You must die!” It is a tragedy when we
tell our people that every time a Christian falls, the
law says you must die. We are still putting them
under the law. That is why we have a most
insecure church. The result is that we are not
bearing fruits. Because, to God, fruit is not only
doing something good, it is doing it with the right
motive.

I’ll tell you a problem. Turn to Hebrews 2 and

627
see what the Apostle there says to us in Hebrews
2:14,15:

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too

shared in their humanity so that by his death he
might destroy him who holds the power of death —
that is, the devil — and free those who all their
lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

Paul is saying here that we human beings are

born with a fear of dying. And I don’t care how
tough you are, young men, when you face death,
that fear takes hold of you.

I had a cousin who worked for the United

Nations. He was an agronomist. There were three
countries in the world that were trying to produce a
new grain, a marriage between wheat and rye,
called triticale (you may have heard of it): Canada,
Mexico, and Ethiopia. My cousin was in charge of
Ethiopia. He was a Roman Catholic but he wasn’t
a practicing one and didn’t see the need of God.

One day he was flying from one of the stations

628
in a an Ethiopian Airlines plane, and the pilot and
the copilot were having an argument. Now, of
course, he had been there seven years so he
understood the language. They were arguing as to
which direction they should take off. The pilot was
a jet pilot from those big planes but they were short
of a pilot so they asked him to fly this propeller
plane. The copilot was accustomed to this plane
and he said, “No, you’re going in the wrong
direction.”

The jet pilot said, “Look, who knows better, me

or you?” So they were arguing, and here was my
cousin, sitting in the front row, listening to these
two fellows arguing, because there was no
separation between the pilot and the passengers.
While they were taking off the plane began to
shudder and refused to climb. My cousin looked
out and there were the eucalyptus trees coming
right in front of them. Suddenly he remembered
God. He put his head down and held on and said,
“Lord, save me!”

And the Lord saved him. That wing hit one of

629
the branches of the trees and the engine with the
propeller took off, and the propeller was still
travelling at a tremendous speed and it tore in front
of the plane, and ripped the front. He opened his
eyes and the propeller nicked off his watch without
touching him. That’s how close he came to death.
He looked up and there was the blue sky, with the
plane in front, completely wiped out, six people,
two pilots, and three tourists were simply churned
up. The plane was sitting at an angle, so it was
about nine feet to the ground. He jumped to save
his life, because the Lord had saved him. Then he
remembered there were passengers in the back, so
he opened the door and pulled them out.

We have a God Who is able to save. And we

have a God who doesn’t keep on bugging you with
guilt every time you fall. He says, “Look, the
reason you fell is because, for that moment, you
stopped abiding in Me. Please, let this be a
reminder that only when you abide in Me can you
bear fruit.” And please notice verse 6 of Romans
7:

630
 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we
have been released from the law so that we serve in
the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of
the written code.

Now what is Paul saying in verse 6? Please

notice, the new marriage doesn’t mean sitting idle,
it means serving.

What does he mean by “the new way of the

Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code”?
Under the law, you did serve the law, but for one
reason, out of fear: fear of punishment, fear of
being wiped out, fear of the curse. So every time
you were keeping the law you were doing it our of
fear. Why? Because if you did not obey the law,
what would it do? Punish you! It is a tragedy
when you have Christians serving God out of fear.

But what is “the new way of the Spirit”? It

means you serve God out of love, out of
appreciation. When Paul says in Philippians, “For
me to live is Christ,” when Paul says, “I am a slave
of Jesus Christ,” he is not saying it out of
631
compulsion. “I, with all my heart, want to be a
slave of Jesus Christ. I want to serve Him, I’ll go
where He sends me, I will do what He tells me,
because He is my Friend and my Savior, and I am
willing to do anything for Him, because I love
Him.” And so Paul will say [Galatians 5:6]:

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor

uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that
counts is faith expressing itself through love.

If you are not delivered from under the law,

and you call yourself a Christian, you are guilty of
committing adultery, because the illustration says,
if the woman marries the second man while she’s
still married to the first man, she’s committing
adultery. I have a feeling that we have a lot of
spiritual adulterers and adulteresses in this church.
Because they still want to be under the law.

Are the law and Christ enemies? No. Are the

law and the sinful nature enemies? Yes. That’s
where the problem is. The problem is not the law;
the law is holy, it is good, it is spiritual, it is
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righteous. The problem is that, in the first
marriage, I am a sinner incompatible with the law
and, therefore, that marriage can never work. All I
do is live in fear, insecurity.

But when I accept Christ and am delivered

from under the law, and I’m married to Christ, I’ll
tell you what happens. Not only does He give me
peace, not only does He give me assurance, and not
only does He give me hope, but He produces fruits.
And you know something about the fruits? It is in
harmony with the law. What I failed to keep in the
first marriage is now in harmony with what I keep.
Because I read in Galatians 5:22-23:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,

patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self-control. Against such things
there is no law.

Which simply means such things are not

against the law.

So what I failed to keep in the first marriage,

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I’m doing in the second marriage, without fear,
with joy and peace. And I think you will agree
with me, the second marriage is a wonderful one.

But may God deliver us from the idea that we

are still ruled by dos and don’ts. We are no longer
under the Old Covenant; we are under the New
Covenant. In the New Covenant, the law is not
written on tables of stone, it is written on our
hearts. It becomes part of our delight, it becomes
part of our desire. But we must remember that
desiring and delighting in the law is not enough;
we need to remain in Christ.

I can assure you that the life Christ lived 2,000

years ago, a life of love, is the life that He wants to
live today in you and in me. It is my prayer that
this life will be manifested in our lives, that the
world will see God manifested in the flesh once
again, and give Him glory and praise.

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 Chapter 19

Exceedingly Sinful
(Romans 7:7-13)

In Romans 6 Paul reminds us — that is, we

baptized Christians — that in Christ we have died
to sin, which means that, in Christ, by this death,
we have been delivered from the dominion of sin.

Then in chapter 7, the first six verses, which we

covered last study, he points out that, in Christ, in
this same death by which we were delivered from
the dominion of sin, we have also been liberated
from the jurisdiction of the law.

When you put those two facts together you

create a problem. Because the law was given to us
by God. In other words, God is the Author of the
law. It sounds like Paul is saying that law and sin
are synonymous, or at least they are partners, they
belong to the same camp. And, if you say that,
then you are saying that God is the Author of sin
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also.

So what Paul does in verse 7 and up to verse 13

is, first of all, clarify the problem. Then he goes on
to show what purpose the law has in God’s plan of
salvation. This is a very important passage because
it has some very important lessons for us as a
people. So let us go step-by-step and look at what
Paul is trying to say. In verse 7 of Romans 7, he
begins with a question:

What shall we say, then? Is the law sin?

Now keep in mind what he said in verse 6. It

was the concluding verse of our last study. In
verse 6 he says:

...We have been released from the law....

And he has already told us in Romans 6:22

that:

...You have been set free from sin....

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 So now comes the question, “Does this mean
that law is synonymous with sin?” What is His
answer?

Certainly not!

Yes, there is a relationship, and the relationship

is this: the law defines for us what sin is.

Indeed I would not have known what sin was

except through the law. For I would not have
known what coveting really was if the law had not
said, “Do not covet.”

Now I want to pause here and bring out two

very important points.

First of all, this statement in verse 7 tells us

what Law Paul had in mind primarily in discussing
our deliverance from under law. “You shall not
covet” belongs to what law? The Ten
Commandments [Exodus 20:17].

I would not have known what sin was except

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through the law.

By the way, there is no other law that defines

sin except the moral law. Every other sin is a
ramification of the moral law. In fact, if you had a
sin outside the moral law then the Ten
Commandments is no longer a perfect definition of
sin. Therefore, any argument that Paul is referring
here to the ceremonial law will not comply or agree
with the passage itself. Of course, to the Jew “the
Law” meant the five books of Moses and
sometimes meant the whole Old Testament. But
you can see that Paul primarily has in mind that it
is the moral law from which we have been
liberated. I know that sounds like heresy. That’s
why this is a difficult chapter.

But let’s be honest. And I’ll tell you, if you

pervert the truth that Paul is bringing out here
you’ll miss out on a blessing, and I will show you
what it is as we go along.

Secondly, Paul had 10 commandments to chose

from; which one did he choose? “You shall not
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covet.” What does it mean to covet? It does not
mean to “do” something. “To covet” means to
cherish a desire, to cherish or to crave for
something that does not belong to you.

I feel that Paul had a special reason for

choosing this commandment. I’ll tell you why,
because here he’s telling us something that we
need to know, that God’s definition of sin is a
complete contradiction, or it is different from
man’s definition of sin. It is important that we
realize this, because if we project man’s definition
of sin onto the law, or unto God, we miss the point
of the purpose that God gave the law.

What do I mean that it is “different”? Let me

give you an illustration. Let us say that I’m
walking on the main street of this town and there I
see parked a current model Porche car with six
forward gears and all the trimmings for leaving
black marks on the tarmac. I look at that car and
my male instincts for speed come into my heart. I
look into the dashboard and I look into the
speedometer to see how much it can do, and I look
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at that gear box — it says six gears — and I say to
myself, “Boy, I wish I had this car.”

Can the policeman come and nab me for

stealing that car? No. Can the law of God accuse
me of sinning? Yes, because man’s definition of
sin is an act. Until you commit the act you are not
guilty for the simple reason that men can’t read the
hearts of men. But God defines sin not as act, but a
desire that has been accepted in your mind.

The moment you realize that this is how the

Lord defines sin you realize that you are in bad
shape. This is why we need to come to grips with
God’s definition of sin. Because the Jews made a
mistake. The Jews defined sin as an act. So the
Pharisee could stand up and say, “I have never
killed anybody,” or “I have never committed
adultery,” and Jesus said, “One moment, one
moment.”

Turn to Matthew 5. Listen to what Jesus said

to this self-righteous Pharisee. I suppose He may
have done the same thing when He wrote on the
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sand, when Mary was taken captive for the “act.”
But look at Matthew 5, we’ll start with verse 21:

You have heard that it was said to the people

long ago [this is what the leaders of your church
taught you], “Do not murder, and anyone who
murders will be subject to judgment.”

That, by the way, is a quotation, “You shall not

murder.” That’s a quotation from the Ten
Commandments [Exodus 20:13].

But how did the Pharisees, how did the scribes,

how did the leaders of Judaism interpret that
commandment? To them murder was an act. They
taught if you kill you will be in danger of the
judgment, i.e., it’s condemnation and death. Jesus
continues in Matthew 5:22:

But I tell you [this is the true definition of that

commandment] that anyone who is angry with his
brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone
who says to his brother, “Raca” [an Aramaic term
of contempt], is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But
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anyone who says, “You fool!” will be in danger of
the fire of hell.

In other words, murdering somebody doesn’t

begin with an act, it begins with a desire that you
have cherished. Now remember that, as Jesus
talked, some of the Jews were already planning his
murder. As far as Christ was concerned, they had
already committed the act in their minds. Then He
goes on in verse 27, the same idea:

You have heard that it was said, “Do not

commit adultery.” But I tell you that anyone who
looks at a woman lustfully has already committed
adultery with her in his heart.

Boy! We’re in trouble, men ... and women.

We are in trouble. So we need to look at sin from
God’s point of view. I’m especially speaking of
those who think that they can go to heaven by
being good. Let me ask you a question. You have
a business deal on Monday: somebody’s coming
to your house and you want to sell it. But today
it’s Sabbath and you’re sitting in church but you
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are thinking, “I wonder if I will get $150,000?”
You are thinking business. Physically, you are in
church. Outwardly it sounds like, it looks like, you
are listening to the Pastor; but inwardly you’re
discussing business with yourself. Have you
broken the Sabbath? From the Pastor’s point of
view, no. From God’s point of view, yes. From
the law’s point of view, yes. So can you
understand why “by observing the law no one will
be justified” [Galatians 2:16]? We have a problem,
folks.

I want to give you one more text, because this

text may help us to deal with the problem that we
are facing. When I say “we,” I mean the Christian
church. And because we as a denomination are
still wrestling with the issue, we have not come up
with a clear statement. It’s a problem in this
country, primarily. But let me give you the text
and I’ll expose to you what the problem is. You
are familiar with it once I mention it. Turn to
James 1. There are three things that James brings
out.

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 First of all, temptation. Is temptation sin?
Temptation is a desire, but temptation is not sin.
The question now is, “When does temptation
become sin?” When? From man’s point of view,
temptation becomes sin when you commit the act.
But I want you to listen to how James defines when
temptation becomes sin. I want you to notice the
analogy that he uses here. Let’s read James 1:14:

...But each one is tempted when, by his own

evil desire [i.e., the lust of the flesh, the lust of the
eyes, and the pride of life — human desires, the
desires of the flesh], he is dragged away and
enticed.

So when there is a craving created in your

humanity, that’s a temptation. Whether it comes
from outside or from within, temptation is to do
something that is outside the will of God. Now
listen to verse 15:

Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth

to sin [that’s the act]; and sin, when it is full-
grown, gives birth to death.
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 So you have conception, you have birth, and
you have death. The big issue today is about
abortion in this country. You are familiar with the
problem. The question is, “Is abortion killing?”
That’s the big question, isn’t it? And there is an
argument. To answer that question rightly we have
to ask ourselves another question, “When does life
begin?”

The answer to that is different from God and

from man. Some medical doctors or scientists will
say that life begins three months after conception.
Some will say later than that, some earlier. There
are all kind of arguments, and I’m not a medical
man. But I do know what the Bible teaches. Life
begins at conception, just like sin begins when the
mind says, “Yes.” All you have to do is read your
Bibles, Old and New Testament; life begins at
conception.

Therefore, as far as I’m concerned, abortion is

murder. And we are accusing the Germans of
holocaust? Boy! Let’s look at ourselves, what we
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are doing in our country. But that’s a different
study; I’m only giving you food for thought.

What I’m saying is that we need to look at

things from God’s perspective, not man’s. I’ll also
address it from another angle: keeping the law. Is
keeping the law an act or is it love? How does the
Bible define keeping the law? Romans 13:10:

Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore,

love is the fulfillment of the law.

But I read in the New Testament, in 1

Corinthians 13, that if I give my goods to the poor,
and even offer up my body to death for a good
cause or even for martyrdom, and I do not have
agape, I am not keeping the law; it’s worth nothing.
1 Corinthians 13:1-8:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels,

but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a
clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and
can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if
I have a faith that can move mountains, but have
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not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the
poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have
not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is
kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not
proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not
easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love
does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes,
always perseveres. Love never fails.

So please remember, we need as Christians not

to be swept by the thinking mentality of our culture
or of the world or of scientists. One of the
arguments today is about the creation. We need to
look at it from God’s point of view. Is it a literal
day that he took to create this world or thousands
of years? The question is not, “Did God create this
world?” We all believe that, at least I hope all of
us do. But we also need to ask the question, “What
does the Bible teach in terms of HOW did He
create this world?” How? Did He use His hands?
No. He did what? Boy, He must be a very slow
speaker if it took Him a thousand years to speak,
“Let there be light.” We ridicule God when we say
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it took Him that long.

Let’s go back and become Bible-centered

Christians, whether we’re dealing with the law or
whether we’re dealing with anything. That’s why
we need to look at this passage from the Biblical
point of view. So let’s go back now to Romans 7;
two things:

1. Paul has in mind here the moral law. Let us

be honest with the context. Please don’t tell me
that verse 7 is the moral law and verse 6 is the
ceremonial law. You are now putting into the text
what you want it to say, not what Paul is saying.
Because verse 7 begins with a question and the
question has to do with verse 6, “We have been
released from the law.”

2. Sin, according to the law, God’s law, is not

beginning with an act, but beginning with a desire
that you have said “yes” to in your conscience. If
I’m traveling and thirsty and I get off the freeway
and stop at a 7-11 for a drink, and I go into the
place and say, “Can you give me a can of root
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beer?”

The storekeeper says, “I’m sorry we’re out in

the sticks here. We’re out of all our drinks, we’re
waiting for the truck. All we have is beer.”

I say to myself, “Well, nobody around here

knows me. One can won’t hurt me and, after all,
Paul did say a little wine is good for your
stomach.” We are experts at rationalizing with the
Bible. So I say, “Okay, I’ll have a can of beer.”
Then I hear a car coming to fill with gas and I look
around and, lo and behold, there is a member of my
local church! I turn around to the storekeeper
who’s just gone to the fridge to bring me the drink
and I say, “By the way, I just remembered I have
an appointment, never mind the drink.”

Have I sinned? Not according to the church

member; he hasn’t seen me do a thing wrong. But
before the law of God, I have already sinned.
When you realize this, it will destroy any idea that
you can save yourself by law keeping or by being
good.
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 Goodness is from God. That is why, to the
man who asked the question “Good teacher, what
must I do to inherit eternal life?” [Luke 18:18-19
or Mark 10:17-18], Jesus said,

Why do you call me good? No one is good

except God alone.

And we read in Romans 3:10-12 when we dealt

with it:

There is no one righteous.... There is no one

who does good, not even one.

But let’s go to Romans 7:8:

But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the

commandment, produced in me every kind of
covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead.

Because Paul was raised up a Jew, and the Jews

looked at sin only in terms of acts, Paul did not
realize that, as a Pharisee, he was sinning. How do
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I know? Because he says so in Philippians 3:6:

...As for legalistic righteousness, [I was]

faultless.

But when he discovered that sin is more than an

act, when he discovered from the law of God that
sin is a desire that I have cherished, he said to
himself, “O wretched man that I am!” He said to
himself, “What I thought was giving me life was
giving me death.” Look at Romans 7, verses 9 and
10:

Once I was alive apart from law; but when the

commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.
I found that the very commandment that was
intended to bring life actually brought death.

What does he mean, “Once I was alive apart

from law”? There are many interpretations. Some
scholars say that what Paul meant is that, when he
was a baby up to the age of accountability, which
to the Jew was 12, 13 years old, at which time he
knew the law, head knowledge, but he did not
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understand the law. He thought he was alive, but,
when he became a son of the commandment, which
is the term used for those who become Pharisees
(because the word “Pharisee” means zealous for
the law), he discovered that he was a sinner worthy
of death.

But I would like to suggest that this

interpretation is wrong. I’ll tell you why: because
nowhere in the New Testament — and, remember,
almost half of the New Testament is Paul —
nowhere does he ever mention this tension when he
was a Pharisee. When you read Paul’s description
of himself before his conversion, he’s always
talking of himself as being good.

So what I believe he’s saying here in verse 9 is

that there was a time that he thought that the law
would give him life because he was keeping it. His
church, his religion had told him, “If you keep the
law, you will live.” What his church had done was
taken that law and made it into rules. And he kept
all those rules, and he thought that by keeping
those rules he was obeying the law, he was alive
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and, therefore, qualified for life. Then one day
God opened his eyes and showed him the true
meaning of the law, and so he says in verse 10:

I found that the very commandment that was

intended to bring life actually brought death.

He discovered that the law never gives life to a

sinner. All that the law gives to a sinner is death.
Romans 6:23:

The wages of sin is death.

Who says that? The law of God.

Now I want you to be clear, because we have

fallen into the same trap. We make rules, and we
think that as long as we keep those rules we are
keeping the law of God and we become self-
righteous, self-satisfied.

The Jews had all kinds of rules. Let me expose

you to a couple of them. Many of the buildings in
the Middle East are flat-roofed, and they use the
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flat roof for a terrace, for evening supper or for
visitation when it’s nice and cool. But they did not
have a staircase like we have in our homes; they
had a wooden ladder that they would put up and
they would climb.

But because at night people would come and

steal, they would put the ladder in the house. Now
on Sabbath, if they wanted to have a little lay
activity, they were not allowed to carry that ladder
to the roof and place it up, from inside the house to
outside. Because if they carried it, that would be
breaking the Sabbath, that would be working.

But if one part of the ladder touched the

ground, in other words, if they dragged the ladder,
it was not sin. Wonderful isn’t it? They had
loopholes. So they would drag the ladder and
make sure that one part touched the ground; as long
as it did, they would not be sinning.

I remember, as a young person, my priest told

me that if I touched the wafer, the Lord’s Supper,
with my teeth and broke it, I would be sinning and
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blood would gush out. So I remember, with great
fear, when the priest put that wafer on my tongue, I
would do my very best that it would not touch my
teeth. One day it did and I panicked. I had visions
of blood gushing out of my mouth.

I can imagine a Jew who, by mistake, lifted the

ladder off the ground would go on his knees and
say, “God, please forgive me. I didn’t intend to do
that; it was a mistake.”

Let me give you another one; this is a good one

for the young boys. They had a law that you could
not walk so many kilometers, so many miles, on
the Sabbath. They called it a Sabbath day’s
journey. Let us say it was half a mile, and a boy
wanted to go and visit his girlfriend, who lived two
miles away. How would he do it and not break the
Sabbath?

Well, they had a wonderful loophole. If you

traveled half a mile and stopped and drank, or had
even a sip of water or anything, or ate, then you
could walk another half mile. So they would walk
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a half mile and knock on a door and say, “Please
excuse me, may I have a glass of water?”
Everybody there knew what it was for. He would
take a sip; he was not thirsty, he just wanted a little
sip. “Thank you.” Then he could walk another
half a mile. Then he would take another sip, and
walk another half a mile, until he came to his
girlfriend’s home. He could visit his girlfriend and
still keep the Sabbath.

Now what happened if it was out in the sticks

where there were no houses? Well, they had a
good solution. If you swallowed your spittle, that
would be acceptable, too.

Now you’re laughing, but I’ll tell you, we have

made rules, too. We enforce these rules in our
homes and in our churches and that’s why some of
you have come to me and said, “Why don’t you tell
us how to keep the Sabbath?” Why don’t you ask
the Lord of the Sabbath? The Sabbath doesn’t
belong to me. Up there, He’s the Boss.

One day my son came up to me and with him

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was a group of kids. They wanted to go and see a
kind of a rodeo. It was on Sunday, but, of course,
they would need to travel on Sabbath. In America
it is not wrong to travel on the Sabbath. You try
that in Africa and boy, you are sinning. But in
America it’s okay; each country has its own rules.
That’s the trouble. In Scandinavia, you can go
swimming on the Sabbath. In Italy, you play
football on the Sabbath; you can even have sports.

So they came to me for permission. I said,

“How can I give you permission to do something
that doesn’t belong to me? It’s like asking me,
‘Can I get some money from someone else’s bank
account?’ I can’t give you money that doesn’t
belong to me.” I said, “Why don’t you ask the
Boss of the day?” They did not see what I meant,
so I gave them a text, Isaiah 58:13-14:

If you keep your feet from breaking the

Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy
day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the
Lord’s holy day honorable, and if you honor it by
not going your own way and not doing as you
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please or speaking idle words, then you will find
your joy in the Lord....

So we don’t want rules. Our kids are tired of

rules, because that is not Christianity. Paul was
given rules and he obeyed those rules. He thought
he could make it to heaven. Then God said, “No,
those rules are not my commandments. They are
the traditions of men. And by those rules you have
turned away the law of God.”

So the commandment, when you understand it

as Paul meant it to be, you’ll find that it brings to
you and to me nothing but death; for I read in
Romans 7:11-12:

For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the

commandment, deceived me, and through the
commandment put me to death. So then, the law is
holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and
good.

Then he creates another problem in verse 13:

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 Did that which is good, then, become death to
me? By no means! But in order that sin might be
recognized as sin, it produced death in me through
what was good, so that through the commandment
sin might become utterly sinful.

Now please notice the word “sin” here is in the

singular. He’s not referring to acts, he’s referring
to what we are.

What is Paul telling us all about here? I would

like to give you four reasons why God gave us the
law. What is the purpose of the law? Paul
discovered the purpose of the law as a Christian,
and he is expounding it to us here, and I need to
expound it to you.

First, the law defines sin. Not as we define it,

but as God defines it. Paul says [Romans 7:7]:

I would not have known what sin was except

through the law. For I would not have known what
coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not
covet.”
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 Man says sin is an act. God’s law says sin is a
cherished desire. “I would not have known that,”
says Paul, “except through the law.”

So I need the law to get a correct, Divine

definition of sin.

Secondly, the law not only defines sin, but it

exposes sin from its hiding place. Sin dwells
inside you, and we will deal with that when we
come to verses 14-25. It needs to be brought out in
the open. If I want to bring an animal out of its
hiding place, I will put out bait. The law brings out
the sin that is in us, hidden, out into the open. If
you want to use modern terms, it brings sin from
the subconscious to the conscious. Sin is hidden
right deep in us, it is part of us. The law brings it
out.

This brings us to reason number three. How

does the law bring it out? This may be hard for
you to swallow, but, when you realize what it’s
saying, it is true. It is because the law provokes
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sin. What do I mean by “provoke sin”?

I’ll give you an illustration that will help.

When I was principal of the Adventist college in
Uganda, thanks to a 13th Sabbath Offering, we had
enough money to buy a tractor for our farm. The
old tractor was in ruins and shambles. One of the
reasons why it was in ruins was because the kids
who were working on the farm would use it as a
taxi. Instead of walking the mile down the road to
the farm, they would pile on it and let the driver
drive them to the farm area. So the fenders broke
and everything went to pieces.

I said, “This tractor is going to last longer than

the old one.” So I made a rule, and the rule was
that no kid was allowed to sit on the fender. If they
did, they would have to pay a fine of 10 shillings,
which in those days was about 75 cents, or maybe
more than that. But, for the African, that was a lot
of money. Lo and behold, the very next day, there
was a kid sitting on it. What made it worse was
that he was not even a farm worker. He was
caught, he was brought to my office, and I said,
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“Why did you do that? You knew the rule.”

He said, “I would never have done it if you did

not make the rule.”

Human nature, which is sinful, does not like to

be told what to do. The best way to stop you
ingathering is to command you, “I want you to go
out, otherwise....” I will get nobody out there, I
know. You don’t produce works by whipping
people.

The human nature, which is sinful, is rebellious

towards the law, and the moment you tell them,
“Don’t do it,” they will do it. When our kids were
small, we were in furlough in this country, in
Michigan. For the first time in their lives — I
think my daughter was three years old — they
tasted cherries. We don’t grow cherries in Africa.
They were excited; this was a wonderful fruit. We
went back to Africa and, a year later, we were
visiting my mother at the coast. She had a pepper
tree that grew cherry peppers. It looked like a
cherry. So my little girl said, “Mommy, cherries!”
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 Her mother said, “No, they are not cherries.”
Then she made a statement. She said, “Don’t eat
them because it will burn.”

To her little mind, “burn” has to do with fire.

How can a fruit produce fire? The only thing she
knew was her mother said, “Don’t do it.” She said,
“I’ll do it!” So she went and ate it. Of course, the
fire alarm sounded. We had to give her doses of
water and whatever we could to cool down the fire,
to put out the fire. She did not describe it as
burning. She said, “The cherry bit me.” So that’s
her definition of burning.

Her dear brother, two years older said, “What

did it feel like?”

She said, “It bit me, it burnt!” trying to use her

mother’s words. He could not fathom it.

We had to remind him, “If you eat, it will do

the same thing to you.”

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 Lo and behold, the next day, he took a bite.
We had to buy ice cream, because he was older,
and you needed some more potent stuff to cool
down the fire. He took a bigger bite than his sister
did.

I believe when we make rules in our schools,

we are encouraging our kids to say, “I’ll do it.”
We have to love our kids into doing. We have to
make it a way so that they will hate to do what sin
is. Because the human nature is naturally
rebellious. The moment you say, “Keep off the
grass” on the school compound, you’ll watch kids
walking right through it. Why? Is it because
they’re worse than we older folks? No, it’s
because we are sinful and the law brings out into
the open the rebellious nature.

But the law also does something else: it

condemns sin to death. It tells us that sin will lead
you to the grave. Let us be frank, sin is enjoyable.
Am I correct? If you tell me sin is not enjoyable,
you are lying. Because if sin is not enjoyable then
temptation becomes meaningless. Temptation is a
664
tremendous pull because the temptation is
desirable. And that’s because sin is enjoyable. But
the end result of sin is death. How do you know it?
The law tells me that. Which law? The moral law.

Therefore, let me summarize:

1. Sin goes beyond an act. The definition of sin

is beyond an act, it’s a cherished desire.

2. It exposes sin from its hiding place.

3. It provokes sin so that we realize that human

nature is enmity with God, and His law.
Romans 8:7:

...The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does

not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.

4. It condemns sin to death.

But as Paul goes to verse 13, he makes it very

clear to us that the law is not responsible for any of
these four things. All that the law does is simply
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make us aware of it. The law is not responsible for
my sins, it is not responsible for my death, it is not
responsible for evoking in me enmity with God.
The law simply opens my eyes and shows me what
I am. It is sin that is to blame for all these four
things.

But what part does the law have in the plan of

salvation? It shows me that sin is a deceiver. You
know why? Because the origin of sin is Satan. Do
you know what the Bible calls Him? “The father
of lies.” Do you know what the first lie he told our
parents was? “If you eat of this fruit, you will not
die” [Genesis 3:4].

Sin deceived Paul, that you could go to heaven

by being good. Sin deceives us today, that it
doesn’t bring any harm. So young people will
enter into drug experiences. “We are too young,
we are too strong, sin can never do anything wrong
to me.” Until it is too late. Sin is a deceiver, and
the end result of that deception is death, it kills.
We need to realize that sin deceives, sin kills.

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 But that is not the only reason why God gave
the moral law. He also gave the moral law so that
when we discover this thing, we may run to Christ
as the solution. That is why, the moment we, as a
people, insisted that the law of Galatians was not
the moral law, we destroyed the purpose of the law.

Galatians 3:19 is the passage that produced that

great controversy 100 years ago. Jones and
Waggoner said, “This is the moral law.” The
brethren said, “No, it is the ceremonial law.” And
we lost the whole point of Galatians 3.

I want to conclude with that because it tells me

what Romans 7 is telling me. The purpose of the
law is twofold: to shut you up into the prison of
sin and to point you to Christ as the only solution
to the sin problem. So I’ll conclude with Galatians
3:19:

What, then, was the purpose of the law?

What law? It is not the ceremonial law that

Paul has in mind. Yes, it’s true that, if you read the
667
whole of Galatians it includes both moral and
ceremonial law. But when I come to Galatians
3:19 onwards, Paul has specifically in mind the
moral law. Paul continues:

It was added [i.e., added to the promise that

was given to Abraham] because of transgressions
until the Seed to whom the promise referred had
come.

In other words, it was added to show us human

beings that we are transgressors. Who is the seed?
Christ. In other words, the law was given to us
before Christ to show us that we were sinners in
need of a Savior. And when the promise comes,
the law has done its job. How do I know? Because
I read Galatians 3:21 onwards:

Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises

of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been
given that could impart life, then righteousness
would certainly have come by the law.

But God never gave the law to give you life.

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Then why did God give the law? Galatians 3:22:

But the Scripture declares that the whole world

is a prisoner of sin [and that’s what the law
convinces me of], so that what was promised,
being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be
given to those who believe.

Believe what? That I am a sinner and I need a

Savior. Galatians 3:23:

Before this faith came [before Christ came], we

were held prisoners by the law, locked up until
faith should be revealed.

We were kept in prison with no hope of escape,

same as Romans 7. Galatians 3:24:

So the law was put in charge to lead us to

Christ that we might be justified by faith.

The law is our tutor, schoolmaster, policeman

(the Greek word is “pedagogi”) to bring us to
Christ. But don’t forget verse 25:
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 Now that faith has come [once we have found
Christ], we are no longer under the supervision of
the law.

And the one in charge, the supervisor, the tutor

is the law. We are no longer under the jurisdiction
of the law. No longer can the law say, “If you
disobey, you will die,” because we are no longer
under it. We are under grace. But the law played a
very important part to bring me under grace. Why?
Because the gospel is “Not I, but Christ.” I’ll be
frank with you, the “not I” is the hardest part in
that formula. So, to make it meaningful to us, God
gave the law that we might say “not I” or, to use
Paul’s words in Philippians 3:3, God gave us the
law that we might “put no confidence in the flesh”
and “glory [rejoice] in Jesus Christ.” That’s the
purpose of Romans 7.

Romans 7 has a very important part to play.

May God give us understanding. May we put aside
all our preconceived ideas and be honest with the
passage. And may the truth set us free is my
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prayer in Jesus’ name.

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 Chapter 20

O Wretched Man
(Romans 7:14-25)

In this study we’ll be talking about whether

Paul in Romans 7 was referring to the pre-
converted Christian or the post-converted. In other
words, is he talking about the believer or the
unbeliever? Then, in our next study, we’ll deal
with Romans 8:1-3, one of the key passages in the
New Testament that deals with the human nature of
Christ, and that’s a big issue.

I’m convinced that the reason there is so much

controversy over this passage is because the devil
knows that these passages are crucial to an
understanding of the gospel, and especially the
doctrine of righteousness by faith. And when a
pastor refuses to touch these passages, the devil is
rejoicing. But I am not going to leave these
passages alone because I know what it meant to my
ministry and to my Christian life and I want the
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same thing to happen to you.

But I would like to request something from

you. I want you to put aside all your preconceived
ideas, because they are the greatest hindrance to an
understanding of the truth. I want to read you a
statement that Ellen G. White made to the brethren
when we as a church struggled over the 1888
Message. It’s found in the Review and Herald, 10
June 1890:

“It is not for us to bring the word of God to our

feelings and ideas...”

We have a special word in theology for this; we

call it eisegesis (in other words, to put into a text
what we want it to say). I’m afraid that problem
still exists today.

“...but we are to bring our feelings and ideas to

the Word of God.”

In other words, what she’s saying is that we

must allow the Word of God to control our ideas.
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Then she quotes that statement:

“To the law and to the testimony, if they do not

preach according to the word, it’s because there is
no light in them.”

So our concern for today and our next study is

to ask ourselves, “What exactly is Paul trying to
say here, in Romans 7:14-22?”

As I mentioned when we first began Romans 7

three studies ago, the issue of this passage we’re
covering today is, “Is Paul talking about the
believer or the unbeliever?” If you look at verse
14, because that’s the key statement in this
passage, Paul says that:

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am

unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.

That word, “I,” the personal pronoun, appears

25 times in this passage of verses 14 to 25 of
Romans 7. Twenty-five times! The impression one
gets is that Paul is talking about himself. I mean,
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that is the understanding we would get in English.
But, please remember, Paul wrote this in Greek,
and he had a Middle-Eastern mind. He was not
referring to himself. Look at the statement in verse
14. He says:

I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.

Is this true only of Paul, or is this true of

mankind? He has already told us in Romans 3:9
and 21 that the whole world is under sin, the whole
world is under law, and, therefore, the whole world
is guilty before God under the law.

So the “I” doesn’t refer to Paul as an

individual. He uses the word “I” to refer to
corporate man. In other words, he’s using the word
“I” in a generic sense. What Paul is saying is,
“This is true of every human being who tries to live
the life of the law INDEPENDENT of God.”
Why? Because the law is spiritual and I am
unspiritual (or “carnal”) and these two cannot
conform. The flesh cannot conform to the law in
and of itself. Therefore, the issue is not whether
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Paul is talking about the believer or the unbeliever.

Let me quickly remind you of what I said in the

previous study. Romans 7:14-25 has divided the
Christian church from almost Apostolic times.
You have men like Origen, who died in about 254
A.D. You have men like John Wesley, the great
English Reformer of the 18th century; Weiss, the
German scholar; Moffat; C.H. Dodd, the British
scholar — all of these men have taken the position
that Paul is referring here to his pre-converted
experience. On the other side, you have Augustine,
Luther, Calvin, the great Swedish theologian
Nygren, and the British scholar John Stott, who
take the position, “No, Paul is talking about his
converted experience.” But modern research is
coming to the conclusion more and more that Paul
is speaking of neither the converted nor the
unconverted. He has one thing in mind: the person
who tries to live a good life independent of God.
And that can apply to the believer or the
unbeliever.

To understand this passage, we must keep in

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mind the key passage of Romans 7, and that is the
first six verses. What is Romans 7 all about? We
must keep the concept, the main theme of Romans
7 in mind to understand this passage. What is the
main theme? “We Christians have been delivered,
liberated from under the jurisdiction of the law.”
Look at Romans 7:4:

So, my brothers, you also died to the law

through the body of Christ....

Then in Romans 7:6:

But now, by dying to what once bound us, we

have been released from the law so that we serve in
the new way of the spirit, and not in the old way of
the written code.

Paul is telling us that, as Christians, we are no

longer under the jurisdiction of the law. And
remember, when we dealt with this passage we saw
that the law Paul had primarily in mind was the
moral law, because in verse 7 he says that it was
the law that told him he was a sinner, because he
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did not know what real sin was until he heard the
law say, “Do not covet.” That is the moral law.
But, of course, Paul, being a Jew, he had the whole
law system in mind, but, primarily, the moral law.

But what does it mean to be released from the

law? It means that a Christian is no longer
depending on his performance in regards to the law
for salvation. He is not dealing here with Christian
living; Paul is going to lay the foundation here for
Christian living. Chapter 8 is the life through the
Spirit. But if you don’t understand Romans 7,
Christian living will become meaningless, or will
become futile, will become a struggle without hope
and without peace.

In verses 7 to 13 Paul explains that the problem

under law was not the law. The law is holy, it is
good, it is spiritual. The problem is me. I am
“unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.” What he does
in verses 15 to 25 is prove that a holy law and
sinful flesh are always incompatible. Whether it’s
before conversion or after conversion, the two will
never be able to live in harmony.
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 Please remember that there is no change that
takes place to your nature when you experience the
new birth. There is a change in your mind, in your
attitude, you have experienced the new birth. But
there is no change to your nature. The nature of a
believer and the nature of an unbeliever are
identical. That is why, when we come to Romans
8:22-23, Paul is saying that we have been
“groaning ... as we wait ... the redemption of our
bodies.”

We as Christians are saved, but our nature has

not yet been redeemed. We have to wait until the
second coming of Christ “when the perishable has
been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal
with immortality” [1 Corinthians 15:54], then we
shall be free from this sinful nature which is a
struggle to live the Christian life. So keep that in
mind.

Now I want to look at some key statements in

Romans 7:14-25. He has made the statement in
verse 14 that the law is spiritual and he — or man
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— is unspiritual. Then he says that this is what
happens when you put the two together: you may
choose to do good, you may choose to keep the
law, but how to perform it, you cannot find that.
That is what his argument is. Romans 7:15-16:

I do not understand what I do. For what I want

to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do
what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is
good.

Please notice, there is a conflict here between

my mind, which wants to do good, my will, which
has chosen to do right, and my nature, which will
not comply.

If you haven’t had this struggle, you better

question your conversion. Because I believe — if I
had a choice — that Paul had the believer in mind.
But I believe that is true of either the believer or
the unbeliever. The reasons why I believe that
Paul had the believer in mind (and I gave the
reasons before) are at least four reasons because:

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 1. Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8 of Romans are
dealing with the Christian, not with the pre-
converted man.

2. Beginning in verse 14, Paul moves from the

past tense, which he has been using in verses 7 to
13, to the present continuous tense, which means
he is not referring to a past experience but to a
present issue.

3. In Romans 7:22 he makes this statement:

For in my inner being I delight in God’s law.

There are two things I would like to say about

this verse 22.

a. First, his phrase “inward man” or “inner

being” is a phrase Paul will use only to the
believer. For example, let me give you a
couple of incidents. Turn to 2 Corinthians
4:16 and you will find that Paul is talking
here about the believer when he uses that
phrase “inward man” or the “inner man” or
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 the “inner mind”:

Therefore we [believers] do not lose heart.

Though outwardly [i.e., the flesh, the body]
we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are
being renewed day by day.

You see, he’s talking about the converted

mind. If you turn to Ephesians 3:16, you
have the same idea there. Paul will never
use that phrase for the unbeliever, he will
use it only for the believer. Ephesians 3:16:

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may

strengthen you [i.e., the Christians of
Ephesus] with power through his Spirit in
your inner being....

b. Secondly, if you look at Ephesians 2:3, Paul

will tell us there that the mind and the flesh
of the unbeliever are in harmony with sin:

...gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature

and following its desires and thoughts....
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 That is the pre-converted man. But when it
comes to the believer, his mind has been
turned towards God. He has a renewed
mind. And that is what the Greek word
“repentance” means: a change of mind. But
his flesh is unchangeable. That is what
Jesus tried to convince Nicodemus in John
3:6 where He said:

Flesh gives birth to flesh....

You cannot change the flesh. The only time

the flesh will change is at the second coming
of Christ. So Paul here is obviously
referring to the believer.

4. I want to give you one more argument.

There are statements that Paul makes in his epistles
(he wrote almost half of the New Testament) where
he does touch on his preconverted experience.
Galatians 1:14 is an example:

I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews

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of my own age and was extremely zealous for the
traditions of my fathers.

Or another good example is Philippians 3:6.

Wherever he talks about his preconverted
experience as a Pharisee, he mentions nothing
about a struggle. For example, Philippians 3:6 he
says:

...As for legalistic righteousness, [I was]

faultless.

There’s no mention of a struggle. Only as a

Christian does he talk about the struggle. He does
it in Romans 8:3, he does it in Galatians 5:17 —
the struggle between flesh and Spirit. Galatians
5:17:

For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to

the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the
sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other,
so that you do not do what you want.

But I want you to notice that Romans 7:14-25

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is not the end of the Christian experience. The real
experience of a Christian should be Romans 8,
“Life Through the Spirit.” But, to prepare us for
that life through the Spirit, he has to do something
that is extremely important, and that is: destroy in
the believer every confidence that you may have,
or that you may cling to, in your natural ability.
Because the gospel formula, whether you talk in
terms of imputed or imparted righteousness, is
always the same: “Not I, but Christ.” And the
hardest part is the “not I.”

He wants to make it very clear, because he goes

on to say that “we know” and that is the conclusion
he wants you to come to, that’s in verse 18, “I
know.” What is it that we should know? Romans
7:18:

I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in

my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what
is good, but I cannot carry it out.

He doesn’t say, “I am partially bad” or “I’m 80

percent bad” or even 99 percent bad. Nothing
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good lives in me. And the greatest evidence is that,
even though I choose to do right, I cannot perform
it.

Now I want to go to that very next point, which

is very important. I want you to let Paul speak.
The reason why the flesh [or our sinful nature] is
incapable of conforming to the law is because it
has something in it that makes it impossible. I
want you to notice how Paul addresses the
problem. He doesn’t call that “a bent towards
sinning.” He doesn’t call it “an inclination” or “a
propensity.” He calls it, “sin dwelling in me.”
Look at Romans 7:17:

As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it

is sin living in me.

He calls it sin. I’m not calling it sin, Paul calls

it sin. Please don’t tell me he was off his mind
when he wrote Romans 7. He was in his full
senses. Look at verse 20, he repeats it:

Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no

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longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that
does it.

Let’s read verse 22 with verse 23 to get the

context. Romans 7:22:

For in my inner being I delight in God’s law....

My mind, which has surrendered to the gospel,

which has accepted Christ, loves the law, wants to
keep the law, has chosen to keep the law. Romans
7:23:

...But I see another law [another force, another

principle] at work in the members of my body,
waging war against the law of my mind and
making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work
within my members.

Folks, sin is not only what you do, but sin is

what you have in you, what you are. But I have
some good news for you: there is no condemnation
for those of you who are in Christ Jesus. And
that’s our next study, Romans 8:1. That statement,
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Romans 8:1, is made in the context not of “sins”
plural, but of “sin” dwelling in you.

The reason why I’m emphasizing this is

because I want to make something very clear
which is the plain teaching of the New Testament.
Even if God were to give you total victory over
sins — and I believe He can do that — you are still
a sinner because your nature doesn’t change in
sanctification. All that changes is your character.
Therefore, you’re still a sinner and your only hope
is the umbrella of justification by faith.

Now I want to make it very clear, and I want to

go on record, that I am a great believer in
sanctification. Anyone who accuses me of not
teaching sanctification needs their ears hosed out
with pressure water. I believe in sanctification,
BUT I am like a farmer who’s trying to grow
apples. When you try to grow apples, where do
you concentrate on, the fruit or the tree? The tree.
The fruit becomes natural if the tree is right. And
the tree in Christianity, the tree in the gospel, is
justification. The fruit is sanctification. That’s
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how even Ellen G. White defines the 1888
message. She called it “justification by faith,
whose fruits are holiness of living.”

And if you have the tree wrong, I don’t care

how long you spend or how much time you hash
and you preach and you proclaim sanctification, if
the tree is wrong, I can guarantee you that the fruit
will be wrong. It becomes a futile, frustrating
experience for the pastor to produce works out of
his congregation when the tree is wrong. It’s
absolutely futile.

I am convinced that where we have gone wrong

as a people is in the tree. I’m spending much time
on the tree because I know, when the tree is right,
when you have finally come to the point, “Not I,
but Christ,” the fruits will come, and the earth will
be lighted with His glory.

Because when God looks at Christian living,

He does not look at Christian living like man does.
Man looks at the outward performance. God looks
at the motivation, at the heart. You cannot have
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the right motivation if you are still under guilt, and
insecurity, and living in fear whether you’ll make it
to heaven or not. It’s impossible, it’s part of the
law of nature.

That is why Paul wants to destroy any idea that

you can make yourself acceptable before God, or
improve your standing before God, by your
performance. Salvation is totally of God; it’s a
gift. Yes, everything else in this world we have to
work for, but, thank God, salvation is a gift! That is
the Biblical teaching.

Paul is saying there is sin dwelling in you. It is

not an act, it is a force. He calls it a law, a
principle, which you and I even with our willpower
cannot conquer. Yes, we can defy it for a few
moments, for a few days, maybe for a few months
depending how strong a willpower you have, but
you cannot conquer the law of sin. It is because of
this Paul cries out in Romans 7:24:

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue

me [not from sins but] from this body of death?
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 Now I want to expose you to something that
you may not have noticed: the word “wretched”
there. Look at it in verse 24. Do you know that
that word appears only twice in the whole of the
New Testament, at least in the original? Some
English translations may have it more than twice,
but in the original it appears only twice. And each
time it is used in an opposite sense.

In Romans 7:24, Paul is talking about the

person, which includes himself, who has
discovered that in him there is nothing good. So he
cries, “What a wretched man I am! Who will
deliver me from this body that has dwelling in it
the law of sin which one day will take me to death?
Who will deliver me? O wretched man that I am.”

Do you know where the same word is found?

Have you ever discovered where the other word is
found? It’s in the book of Revelation, chapter 3
and verse 17. There it isn’t Paul speaking, it is
Christ speaking to a group of people called the
Laodiceans. Now I won’t have to define who they
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are, I think you know who they are. These
Laodiceans are saying to themselves, and about
themselves, “We are rich, and increased with
goods, and have need of nothing.”

But, the True Witness, Christ, says, “You do

not know, that’s your problem. Your problem is
subconscious. You do not know.” And what is it
that you do not know? “That you are wretched.”
Revelation 3:17:

You say, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and

do not need a thing.” But you do not realize that
you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.

That’s the second time. If we knew, there

would be hope, but the trouble is we do not know.

Do we have to learn it the hard way, like Peter?

[See Mark 14:27-31 and Mark 14:66-72.] Jesus
said to the disciples, “You will all forsake me.”

Peter said, “Yes, you may be right about these

other fellows, but you are wrong about me. I will
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die for you!”

He did not know; he was sincere. The issue is

not sincerity; the issue is: he did not know that
there was nothing good in him, that he was
incapable of keeping, of fulfilling that desire. He
really meant what he said, but he did not know that
there was a law of sin in him which made it
impossible to carry out that resolution. So, when
the test came, he denied his Lord — not once, not
twice, but three times. And the third time he did it
with cursing and swearing, which to the Jew was
an unpardonable sin.

Do we have to go that Peter experience for us

to say with Paul, “O wretched man that I am”? But
I’ll tell you, folks, if you do not come to that
position, in you heart — I don’t mean speaking out
with your mouth, because it’s easy to say, “I’m
wretched,” but in your heart say, “I’m not too bad”
— can you say from the heart, “O wretched man
that I am”? If you cannot, you cannot say what
Paul says in Romans 7:25:

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 Thanks be to God — through Jesus Christ our
Lord!

That is the whole purpose of Romans 7: to

destroy whatever confidence we may cling to in
ourselves, so that we can say, “Not I, but I thank
God for Jesus Christ.”

Those who teach that we are justified by Christ

alone, but that we are sanctified by Christ plus me,
need to read Paul, need to wrestle with this
passage. Because all through Paul’s writings, from
beginning to end, he says, “my part is faith, God’s
part is righteousness.”

And now we conclude Romans 7. I want you

to notice the conclusion. He says, “So then, this is
the truth about me apart from Christ. This is my
position if I try to live independent of Christ” [the
end of Romans 7:25]:

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to

God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the
law of sin.
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 Now the word, “I myself” in the Greek is
“ego.” But Paul did not use simply the word
“ego,” he used another word, “autos ego,” which is
much more emphatic than the English brings out.
It means, “Left to my own, in and of myself, apart
from Christ.” Whether before or after conversion it
doesn’t matter, apart from Christ I am totally
incapable of keeping the law in practice, because
my flesh will only serve the law of sin, my human
body will only serve the law of sin. I can only
keep the law in terms of desiring to keep it,
delighting in it, and wanting to keep it, and
choosing to keep it. But in actual practice, I
myself, left on my own, cannot keep it.

But we will discover when we go to Romans 8

that the righteousness of the law can be fulfilled in
us if we walk no longer in the flesh, in our own
strength, but in the Spirit. And that’s the glorious
picture of Romans 8.

But before we can go to Romans 8, I want to

ask you one question: Have you come to the
695
conclusion that the great Apostle Paul came to,
have you come to the position that “there is nothing
good dwelling in me?” Are you willing to say with
Paul, “All those things that I have achieved, ever
since I was a Christian, all those things that I
thought would improve my standing before God, I
am now willing to count it but dung and throw it
away into the garbage pit, that I may find Christ,
not having my own righteousness, which is of the
law, but the righteousness which comes through
faith, the righteousness of God, which is mine,
made effective only by faith alone.”

My prayer is that you will wrestle with Romans

7 and realize that Paul is talking about you, about
me, and saying, “Look fellows, if you want Christ
to be your Righteousness, you have to say good-
bye to all your confidence in yourself, and let
Christ be your Righteousness.”

I hope that this will be true. And when we take

that position, I can assure you, we won’t have to
promote for things. As we walk in the spirit, the
desire to live for self will go — not only the
696
confidence, but the desire — and we will live for
Christ. It is my prayer that our young people will
say that “Christianity is not dos and don’ts, but
Christianity is Jesus Christ. He’s everything to
me.”

May God bless us as we wrestle with Romans 8

in the next study. It’s dealing with a very difficult
area; I want you to wrestle with it and look at what
Paul is trying to say. Because we have a Savior
Who doesn’t only redeem us from our sins —
thank God for that — He also delivers us from sin
that dwells in me. We have a complete Savior in
Jesus Christ. And that’s the Savior I want to
present to you. May God bless you.

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 Chapter 21

The Truth as It is in Christ

(Romans 8:1-3)

Romans 8:1-3 has generated a lot of heat, both

within the Christian church and within our own.
Therefore, before I tackle it, I’d like to lay down
some certain groundwork so that this passage
becomes meaningful.

Not too long ago, Ministry Magazine came out

with two articles, both written by Adventist
scholars, both dealing with the subject of Romans,
the human nature of Christ. The one by Dr.
Herbert Douglas presented the post-fall position;
that is, Christ took the nature of man after the fall
of Adam, that is, like our sinful nature. The other
article, by Dr. Norman Gulley, presented the pre-
fall nature of Christ; that is, He took the nature of
Adam before the fall.

A few months after these articles appeared, I

698
happened to meet with Elder Bob Spangler, the
editor of Ministry Magazine. I asked him a
question, “Did you have any reaction to these two
articles?”

He said, “Did I! I was inundated with letters

from both camps.” In fact, he felt that he had
received more letters over these two articles than
over any other article that had appeared in the
magazine while he had been editor. In fact, he said
that some of the letters were so angry, so bad, that
it almost caused him to cry, that Christians could
write such nasty letters. You see, the humanity of
Christ is one of those hotly debated issues in the
issue of Righteousness by Faith. And Romans 8:3
is one of those texts that has generated much heat:

For what the law was powerless to do in that it

was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by
sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man
to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in
sinful man....

Now, before we tackle this, I would like to say

699
a few things about the subject. The first thing I
would like you to look at is a statement by E.G.
White, of which I think I we need to take note.
7BC 904,905 taken from manuscript 67 published
in 1898, we have the subheading, “The Most
Marvelous Thing in Earth or Heaven.”

“When we want a deep problem to study, let us

fix our minds on the most marvelous thing that
ever took place in earth or heaven, the incarnation
of the Son of God.”

Then, a few lines below she says:

“The humanity of the Son of God is everything

to us. It is the golden-linked chained which binds
our souls to Christ, and through Christ to God.

“This is to be our study. Christ was a real man

and He gave proof of His humility in becoming a
man. He was God in the flesh. When we approach
the subject of Christ’s divinity clothed with the
garb of humanity, we may appropriately heed the
words spoken by Christ to Moses at the burning
700
bush, ‘Put off thy shoes from off thy feet.’”

Please, don’t take that literally, but let us come

humbly, for the place we’re in, the subject we are
going to discuss, is holy ground.

“We must come to the study of this subject

with the humility of a learner and with a contrite
heart. The study of the incarnation of Christ is a
fruitful field and will repay the searcher who digs
deep for hidden truth.”

There are four things we need to look at as we

study this quotation:

1. The incarnation of Christ is a deep study. It

will tax your mind to the fullest, but, please
note, it is the most marvelous thing that ever
happened on earth or in heaven.

2. I want you to take note that the humanity of

Christ is everything to us. Please don’t ask
me, “Why do we need to study this? Is it
important to our salvation?” Yes, folks, it is
701
 vitally important to our salvation, both in
terms of justification as well as
sanctification, as we shall see in a moment.

3. The third thing we can take note of in this

quotation is that we must approach this
study with reverence and humility, willing to
learn. What you think and what I think
doesn’t matter. What the Word teaches is
what matters.

4. Finally, this study is fruitful and will repay

those who dig deeply.

But nowhere in this statement or anywhere else

do we find that this is an issue that we must fight
over, so I would like to suggest a policy that I
normally use myself. I would like to suggest that
you use it, too. In every church, in every
denomination, the teachings of a church may be put
into three categories:

1. We have the fundamentals, we call it the

fundamental beliefs. (A book on these has
702
 come out, The 27 Fundamental Beliefs of
Seventh-day Adventists.)

2. Then you have nonfundamental beliefs.

3. And lastly, there are teachings of the church

which are considered nonessential.

Here is the policy. In fundamental beliefs, we

must be united. If we are not united in
fundamental beliefs, the church is in a problem. In
nonfundamentals, we must have charity. We must
respect each other. In nonessential, there must be
liberty.

Now irrespective of what you think or what I

think of the human nature of Christ, the
denomination looks at which nature he took as a
nonfundamental belief and, therefore, allows both
views to be taught. That is why there were two
articles presenting each different view. We need to
learn to respect each other, for in nonfundamental
beliefs, each one must be persuaded in his own
mind, between him and God. We won’t solve any
703
problems, we won’t receive any blessings when we
fight.

I want to give you an illustration. When the

Pacific Press moved to Idaho, where I was
pastoring, the following year the nominating
committee and the church voted one of the top
leaders of that Press to be the head elder of our
church. He was a very fine, godly, dedicated
Christian, but we did not see eye-to-eye on this
subject. He was the head elder, I was the pastor.
What was I to do? Well, I never condemned him.
I respected him. He was a fine Christian and we
got along very well. We worked together, we
became friends.

Then one day I said, “Can we sit down, when

we have some time and compare notes? I’ll respect
your position. You respect mine. Tell me where
I’m wrong, I’ll tell you where I see a problem in
your position and let’s try and study together.”

He said, “Fine. Let’s work together.” So we

began studying. I gave him material to read, he
704
gave me some and we kept comparing notes,
looking at the weaknesses of each area. Well,
thank God, a year later he said he was willing to
change. But what I want to impress on you, folks,
is that if I began by condemning him, we would
have gotten nowhere. You see, when we condemn
each other on nonfundamental beliefs, when we
become intolerant of each other, it is a sign of
legalism. Legalists don’t like to tolerate different
views. We need to respect each others’ views. So
I want you to be clear that if there are some of you,
and I know there are, who belong to the opposite
camp to where I stand, I’ll respect you. But please,
be honest with the Word of God. Your conscience
must never be against the will of God. Study,
wrestle with this issue, it is important. But let us
learn to respect each other.

Having said this, I would like to answer two

important questions that we must answer when we
are dealing with this subject and which are vital to
Romans 8:1-3. The first question is, “Why? Why
did Christ become a man? What was God’s
purpose in sending His Son in human flesh? Why
705
was ‘the Word made flesh and dwelt among us’?
Why?” Now, that’s an important question. It is, in
fact, at the heart of true Christology. Because, you
see, Christ became a man not because He wanted
to visit this earth. He didn’t need to become a man
to visit this earth. There was a reason. What was
that reason? Within Adventism there are three
answers:

1. Some teach that He became a man to prove

that man can keep the law. Some say, as God
created him; some say in his fallen condition with
the help of the Holy Spirit. But the primary reason
He became a man is to prove that the law can be
kept.

Now it is true: the fact that Christ actually kept

the law in His humanity proves that the law can be
kept by man. But nowhere in scripture do I find
that this is the reason why He became man. In
other words, that is not the primary reason why he
became man. You won’t find that in the Bible.

Now some of you may quote to me E.G. White,

706
so I want to say something about that. Now please
don’t misunderstand me. In 1980, I was discussing
this with Walter Martin, the expert on the cults. He
came to Nairobi, Kenya, and he made a statement
which I believe is true. He said, “If E.G. White
were to rise from the dead she would be horrified
at the way your church has used her after her
death.”

Because when she was alive there were many

theological problems. There was the issue of the
“daily” in Daniel 7 and 8, there was the problem
with the 144,000, there were many other
theological problems. Never did she ever allow her
writings to be used to solve those problems. She
always told the brethren, “Go to Scripture,”
because the fundamental belief of the Adventist
church is that the Bible, and the Bible alone, is the
only rule of faith and practice. And, please
remember, the message God has given us is for the
world. When you preach the gospel to the world,
the only book we can use is the Bible. But, as I
read the Bible, I don’t find it saying that Christ
became a man to prove anything.
707
 2. The second answer is that He became a man
to be our example.

Does the Bible teach this? Yes. Let me give

you a couple of texts. Turn to 1 Peter 2:21. Peter
uses Christ as an example of how we Christians
should suffer when we are mistreated and falsely
accused, that we should not fight back, that we
should suffer as Christ did. There He gives Christ
as an example. In 1 Peter 2:21, Peter says:

To this you [believers] were called, because

Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example,
that you should follow in his steps.

You have the same idea in Philippians 2:5-8,

where Paul is admonishing believers to have the
humility of Christ. In Verse 5 he says:

Your attitude should be the same as that of

Christ Jesus....

Then he talks of the self-emptying of Christ in

708
verses 6-8:

...Who, being in very nature God, did not

consider equality with God something to be
grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very
nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man, he
humbled himself and became obedient to death,
even death on a cross!

But whenever the Bible talks of Christ as an

example, it only uses him as an example to
believers who have already accepted Christ and
who stand justified by faith. But when the Bible
talks of Christ’s humanity in terms of the world, it
never uses Christ as an example. Christ is not an
example to all men. He is only an example to the
born-again Christian.

Those who emphasize the “example” position,

those who put the emphasis there, have often been
accused, and to a large degree rightly so, of
legalism or perfectionism. Because the “example
theory of the atonement,” which is a theological
709
teaching among certain theologians, is a heresy
because it presents Christ as an example in terms of
our salvation. In other words, we must follow his
example in order to be saved and that’s legalism.
That is why I would like to emphasize that “Christ
our example” is not the primary purpose of Christ
taking humanity. It is the secondary purpose, but
not the primary.

3. This brings us to the third answer. Christ

became a man primarily, number one, that He
might save fallen man.

Jesus himself said [Luke 19:10]:

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save

what was lost.

When the angel told Joseph about the

conception that Mary had just experienced, the
angel instructed Joseph, in Matthew 1:21, that
when this boy is born:

...You are to give him the name Jesus, because

710
he will save his people from their sins.

In Galatians 4:4 and 5, Paul tells us:

But when the time had fully come, God sent

His Son, born of a woman, born under law, to
redeem those under law, that we might receive the
full rights of sons.

In Hebrews 2:14-17, we are told that Christ

partook in, or shared, our humanity that he might
save us from death and the fear of death:

Since the children have flesh and blood, he

[Christ] too shared in their humanity so that by his
death he might destroy him who holds the power of
death — that is, the devil — and free those who all
their lives were held in slavery by their fear of
death. For surely it is not angels he helps, but
Abraham’s descendants. For this reason he had to
be made like his brothers in every way, in order
that he might become a merciful and faithful high
priest in service to God, and that he might make
atonement for the sins of the people.
711
 So the primary reason, at the very heart of
Christology, is Christ became a man in order to be
the Savior of the world. And to those who believe
he says, “Now, I want you to use me as an
example.”

Once we establish this, we come to the next

question and that is, “How did His humanity save
us?” We have established the fact that he became a
man to be the Redeemer of the world. The
question is, “How did that humanity save us?”
This is also a very important question, and within
Adventism we have two answers. We are not
agreed on how he saved us.

One camp says he saved us “vicariously.” The

other camp says he saved us “actually.” Now,
because each camp takes a different position on the
human nature of Christ, what do these two
positions mean? Those who teach the vicarious
position teach that Christ had to take the sinless
nature of Adam before the fall.

712
 The word vicarious means “a person who
functions instead of another.” This is their
argument. They say that, “Sin is a dual problem.
Sin is what I am and sin is what I do. I’m a sinner
by nature.” (We touched on this last study where
Paul teaches in Romans 7 that there is sin dwelling
in our very members, in our nature, in verse 17,
verse 20, verse 23. He calls it the law of sin and
death.)

But sin is also performance and Christ had to

save me both from what I am and from my failures.
How did He do it? “It is very simple,” they say.
“He took the sinless nature of Adam to substitute,
to be in place of, the sinful nature of man. So His
sinless nature saves us from our sinful nature. And
His sinless performance, which is his doing and
dying, saves us from our sinful performance. Thus,
His sinless nature plus His sinless performance
together give us salvation full and complete. Christ
is the perfect Redeemer.”

Sounds good! Sounds wonderful! Sounds

convincing! But there is one major problem. In
713
fact, there are two problems, but one major one:
this makes the gospel unethical. You see, it is
perfectly acceptable to have substitutes in football
and basketball and, in the teaching profession, we
have substitute teachers. It is even acceptable that
we have substitute foods, like substitute meats
from Loma Linda and Worthington. That’s a
substitute. It is in place of the real stuff. Now, it’s
a poor imitation but it’s still a substitute.

But when you apply this definition of

substitution, somebody who functions instead of
somebody else, legally you face an ethical
problem. Because it’s a fundamental principle of
all law, God’s or man’s, that you cannot allow an
innocent person to suffer in the place of a guilty
person. No law will allow that. No judge would
be legally right to allow [serial murderer] Ted
Bundy’s mother to suffer the death sentence for her
son no matter how much she wanted to, because it
is unethical.

Now when God established Israel as a

Theocracy, He made it very clear in Deuteronomy
714
24:16 that you cannot transfer guilt and
punishment:

Fathers shall not be put to death for their

children, nor children put to death for their fathers;
each is to die for his own sin.

He made a law and, in fact, He wanted to see

the law carried out. Look at 2 Kings 14:6:

Yet he did not put the sons of the assassins to

death, in accordance with what is written in the
Book of the Law of Moses where the Lord
commanded: “Fathers shall not be put to death for
their children, nor children put to death for their
fathers; each is to die for his own sins.”

You will notice how this law was fulfilled.

And when Israel departed from this principle and
began transferring guilt and punishment, God came
down hard on them through Ezekiel the prophet.
In Ezekiel 18:5-20 you will see how God comes
down hard on people who transfer guilt.

715
 Therefore, if God made it clear that you cannot
transfer guilt and punishment — an innocent man
cannot suffer in the place of a guilty man — then
the vicarious position becomes unethical. And,
because it is unethical, those who preach this
position, like the Reformers, were accused of
“legal fiction” or, “as if passed on righteousness.”

Today the same view is condemned by Muslim

scholars who say that this teaching makes
Christianity the most unethical religion in the
world. The vicarious position has that major
problem.

It has a second problem. If Christ did not have

to become “me” to identify himself with me, to be
my Savior, then obviously I don’t have to identify
myself with Him to be saved. All I have to do is
simply accept, simply believe (and the word
“believe” is understood as a mental assent to truth),
simply say “yes” and Heaven is mine. But genuine
faith, as we saw already, demands identification
with Christ. His death is our death. His life is our
life. His burial is our burial. Paul, in Romans 6:5,
716
will use the same word as he uses in Romans 8:3:

If we have been united with him like this in his

death, we will certainly also be united with him in
his resurrection.

(Our resurrection will be real because His

resurrection was real.) The result is, if you don’t
identify yourself with Christ, you end up with what
is called cheap grace. “He did it all. I’m saved.
Praise the Lord. I can do what I like.” True
salvation, true gospel, true justification by faith
won’t allow that.

What about those who say He actually saved

us? What do they mean by that? Well, they say
that Christ could not save us until first He qualified
to be our Savior. How did He qualify? He took
unto Himself the humanity that needed redeeming,
the humanity that stood condemned. He took it
unto Himself so that He may redeem it; not in
place of it, but to redeem it itself.

So when Christ assumed our corporate

717
humanity that needed redeeming, He qualified to
be the second Adam, the Savior of the world.
Then, by His doing and by His dying, He not only
provided salvation, He actually changed the history
of mankind in Himself. And that, by the way, is
the message of Romans 8:1-3. We have a new
history in Christ, a new identity, a new position.
There we stand perfect in Christ, we stand
reconciled, we stand legally justified. It was not
just a provision, it was an actual salvation for all
man. That is the good news of the gospel.

Now, with this background let’s go now to

Romans 8. Now I know the big issue is over the
word “likeness.” The Greek word for “likeness”
can mean “resemble” or it can mean “similar,” and
Paul will use it in both ways, in Romans, and also
in other passages. We cannot find out the true
meaning of “likeness” in Romans 8 simply by
making a word study. We have to look at it in its
context. And I would say that we have been so
bogged down with that one word, “likeness” in
verse 3, that we forget the entire meaning of the
whole passage that Paul is trying to convey.
718
 So instead of being bogged down with the word
“likeness,” I would like to read for you a very
reliable and a very good commentary by a group of
scholars under the editorship of Cranfield, none of
whom were Seventh-day Adventists but who are
fine Biblical scholars. The commentary is the
International Critical Commentary, the 1982
edition, by Cranfield. Here’s that part which is
pertinent:

“By sinful flesh [this is referring to Romans

8:3], Paul clearly meant sinful flesh, that is, fallen
human nature. But why did he say in “likeness” of
sinful flesh rather than just “in sinful flesh”? At
any rate, there are five alternative solutions to this
problem.”

Now I won’t read you all five, because three of

them are very liberal positions, but I will review
two of them, both taught within our church. Those
who teach the vicarious position and say that Christ
took the pre-fall nature of Adam use the argument
of number two. Here it is:
719
 “Paul introduced ‘likeness’ in order to avoid
implying that the Son of God assumed fallen
human nature. The sense being, ‘like our fallen
flesh, because really flesh, but only like and not
identical with it, because unfallen.’ This, though it
is the traditional solution [i.e. the evangelical
church teaches this], is open to the general
theological objection that it was not unfallen but
fallen human nature which needed redeeming.”

In other words, if Christ came to save fallen

man, it becomes senseless that He took unfallen
human nature.

Here is the fifth argument which is the second

argument taught within our church, taught by the
actual people who take the position that Christ
assumed our fallen nature:

“That the intention being the use of ‘likeness’

here was to take account of the fact that the Son of
God was not in being sent by His Father changed
into a man, but rather assumed human nature while
720
still remaining Himself.”

That is, Divinity did not become humanity,

Divinity took unto Itself humanity, but Christ was
still God. The quote continues:

“On this view the word “likeness” does have its

sense of “likeness” but the intention is not in any
way to call in question or to water down the reality
of Christ’s sinful flesh, but to draw attention to the
fact that while the Son of God truly assumed sinful
flesh, He never became sinful flesh and nothing
more, nor even sinful flesh indwelt by the Holy
Spirit [which is what believers are] and nothing
more. But He always remained Himself.”

In other words, God, His divinity, never

changed. It remained divinity or, to use the words
of E.G. White, she puts it very nicely:

“He took upon his sinless divine nature our

sinful nature.” (MM 181)

And then it begins to critique each of these

721
positions, and I’ll read what it says about position
number two:

“We have already indicated the serious

theological objection which lies against number
two position.”

That objection was that Christ came to save

fallen man and not unfallen man. Then, regarding
five, which is the fallen position:

“We conclude that position number five is to be

accepted as the most probable explanation of
Paul’s use of the word “likeness,” and understand
Paul’s thought to be that the Son of God assumed
the self same fallen human nature that is ours; but
that in His case, that fallen human nature was never
the whole of Him. He never ceased to be the
Eternal Son of God.”

“If we recognize that Paul had this in mind and

believe that it was fallen human nature which the
Son of God assumed, we shall probably be inclined
to see here also a reference to the unintermittent
722
warfare [the constant warfare that Jesus Christ
battled His whole earthly life] by which He forced
our rebellious nature [i.e., our sinful nature] to
render a perfect obedience to God.”

Then they quote the neo-orthodox scholar, Karl

Barth:

“Those who believe that it was fallen human

nature which was assumed have even more cause
than that of the authors of the Heidelburg
Catechism to see the whole of Christ’s life on earth
as having redemptive significance; for in this view
Christ’s life before his actual ministry and death,
was not just a standing where unfallen Adam had
stood, without yielding to the temptation to which
Adam succumbed, but a matter of starting from
where we start, subject to all the evil pressures
which we inherit and using the altogether
unpromising and unsuitable material of our corrupt
nature to work out a perfect sinless obedience.”

This, by the way, was the 1888 message.

Today scholars — non-adventist scholars — are
723
preaching it. Don’t ever tell me that there are no
scholars that back this position. I have just read to
you from one of the top commentaries of the
Christian church. The International Critical
Commentary takes the position that Christ took the
fallen nature. But now let’s look at the context.
Romans 8:1:

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for

those who are in Christ Jesus....

The word “therefore” immediately tells me that

this verse is connected with the previous statements
that Paul made. What did Paul say previously to
verse 1 of chapter 8? Remember, there were no
chapter and verse divisions when Paul wrote.
What is he saying? He has just told us in Romans
7:14-25 that there is a problem in his life, a
problem in every human life. And that is: sin
dwells in us. The law of sin is in our members.
And in Romans 7:24 he cries out in desperation:

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue

me from this body of death?
724
 I have a body that stands condemned to death
because it has sin dwelling in it. Who will deliver
me not from my sin, my acts, but from what I am?
That is the issue. I want you to know his answer,
Romans 7:25:

Thanks be to God — through Jesus Christ our

Lord!

Now he didn’t explain any further there. He

goes to Romans 8 to explain what he means by,
“Thanks be to God — through Jesus Christ our
Lord!” In view of this, he says:

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for

those who are in Christ Jesus....

Do you still have sin dwelling in your

members? I’m not talking about performance, I’m
talking of sin dwelling in you, in your members.
The answer is “yes,” because Christians still have
sinful flesh. Do you stand condemned? Not in
Christ; there is no condemnation for those in
725
Christ.

Now I would like to say for those of you who

have the King James version of the Bible, because
you will notice, those of you who have a modern
translation like the NIV, Good News Bible, or any
contemporary version, the second half of verse one
from the King James is not there:

...who do walk not according to the flesh [the

sinful nature], but according to the Spirit.

The most reliable manuscripts do not have that

second part. I am convinced this is a scribal
addition, not mainly because of the textual fact but
because if Paul put that statement there in verse 1,
he would be contradicting his own theology.
Because he would be saying that we are justified
because we are doing something, we are walking in
the Spirit. He would be making sanctification the
means of justification, which Paul condemned.

Yes, sanctification is the fruit of justification,

never the means. That part, “walking in the spirit
726
and not in the flesh,” does belong to verse 4 but not
to verse 3. All that Paul says in verse 1 is that,
“There is no condemnation for those who are in
Christ.” Why is there no condemnation for those
who are in Christ? The answer is found in verse 2,
because something took place in Christ. Romans
8:2:

...Because through Christ Jesus the law of the

Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and
death.

Please notice it’s not through you, but through

Christ. Now the words “set me free” are in the past
historic tense, the Aorist. It’s something that has
already happened in the past. I have and you have
already been freed from the law of sin and death,
but we have been freed in Christ. Now how could
Christ free you from the law of sin and death if he
did not assume the nature that had it? Then in
verse 3 he goes on to say how this happened, he
gives the details. Romans 8:3:

For what the law was powerless to do in that it

727
was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by
sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man
to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in
sinful man....

The law of God could not free you from the

law of sin and death, and he’s already covered that
in chapter 7. The flesh is incapable of keeping the
law of God because it’s weak. What the law could
not do, God did. How did God do it? By sending
His own son in a human nature that is like yours
and mine.

Now please notice what he condemned. He did

not condemn “sins,” your performance or mine.
He condemned “SIN,” singular. What is Paul
referring to when he uses the phrase “sin in sinful
man” (or “sin in the flesh,” as some translations
read)? The phrase “sin in the flesh,” found in verse
3, the phrase “the law of sin and death” found in
verse 2, the phrase “the law of sin at work within
my members” found in Romans 7:23, the phrase
“sin living in me” found in Romans 7:17 and 20
are all synonymous terms. Paul is not dealing here
728
with our performance; he is dealing with the source
of our problem, the foundation of our problem,
which is sin dwelling in me.

Now, those who teach the post-fall position, to

which I belong, have a problem. We must also be
honest with our position. If Christ took that sinful
nature which has sin dwelling in it, and which
condemns me, doesn’t that make Christ a sinner in
need of a Savior? That’s the argument of the pre-
fall people. That’s a valid argument.

Unfortunately, the solution that is offered to

them is unacceptable. Even I won’t accept it.
They [the post-fall group] say that sinful nature is
not sin. “Yes,” they say, “we have an inclination
towards sin, we have a bent toward sinning, but it
is not sin.”

Folks, you would have a hard time proving it

from Romans 7 and from other passages. The
Bible does call it sin, so that is not the solution.
Sin is not a singular problem, it is a dual problem.

729
 Then what’s the solution? Well, as I read the
New Testament, I discovered something, that
whenever the New Testament talks about the
humanity of Christ, it always uses a qualifying
word. In Romans 8:3 the qualifying word is
“likeness.” In John 1:14 and Galatians 4:4 the
word used is “made” or “to become,” the Greek
word “ginomai.” In 2 Corinthians 5:21 you have
the word “made” also, “He was made sin.” In
Hebrews 2:14 the qualifying word is “partake” or
“share”: He shared in our humanity.

In other words, what the New Testament

teaches is this: in the incarnation Jesus Christ
became, was made, shared, what we are, but what
we are did not belong to him by native right. We
must never ever teach that Christ HAD a sinful
nature. That would be heresy. That would be
making Him altogether like us. He ASSUMED our
sinful nature. He TOOK upon Himself what
belongs to us, not to Him.

Now it is true that if Christ consented to the

sinful desires of that nature, if He yielded to that
730
nature even by a thought, He would have become a
sinner in need of a redeemer. But as long as He
would not allow that nature to control Him or to
express itself in Him, He was not a sinner. He was
made sin, He was made flesh, but He was not sin.
In other words, we must never drag the will of
Christ, the mind of Christ into sin. That would be
making Him a sinner. Yes, He took our nature, He
struggled with our nature, but He conquered that
nature and He executed that nature on the cross,
and that is what verse 3 is saying. On the cross He
took that nature and executed it or He allowed the
executioners to execute it so that we may be set
free from the law of sin and death. Now, what is
our conclusion? What is the blessing of this
wonderful truth? The blessing is twofold, not one,
but twofold.

1. You and I are sinners, not because of our

sins only, but because of what we are. I am a
sinner by nature, plus I am a sinner by
performance. Jesus saved me from both, not
vicariously. He took my nature and He executed
that nature on the cross so I’m saved from my sin.
731
But in that death, all my sins which that nature
produced also died. When you cut down an apple
tree the apples also die. Am I correct? And when
He dealt with the very core of my sin problem He
dealt with the other problem too, the sin. Because
of this there is no condemnation, and that’s the first
blessing [Romans 8:1]:

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for

those who are in Christ Jesus....

Even if God were to give you total victory over

sin, you still stand as a sinner because your nature
will condemn you. But in Christ I have freedom
from my nature as well as from my performance. I
have a perfect Savior.

2. But that is not the only blessing that we

receive, we receive a second blessing from this
truth, which we will study in detail as we go along
to verse 4, but I’ll just review verse 4. The second
blessing is this: that the righteous requirements of
the law which we could not keep ourselves, might
be fulfilled, are possible to be fulfilled in us who
732
do not walk according to the flesh (because if you
walk in the flesh you will have the frustration of
Romans 7), but who walk according to the Spirit.

This same Spirit that conquered the law of sin

in Christ and executed the law of sin in Christ, this
same Holy Spirit that produced righteousness in the
humanity of Christ that is identical to ours, that
same Spirit is now available to you and to me who
are born-again Christians.

And as we walk in the Spirit, the righteous

requirements, not some of the righteous
requirements, but the righteous requirements of the
law might be fulfilled in us, not to justify us, but as
evidence that the gospel is the power of God unto
salvation. So the humanity of Christ is everything.

These three verses are extremely crucial

because in these verses Paul is telling me that Jesus
did not only come to save me from my sins which
are many, but to quote John the Baptist in John
1:29:

733
 Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the
sin of the world!

He takes away sin, singular, the SIN of the

world. He took the cause, the source of our
problem and with it He took also our sins. And so
in Christ, Who became one of us, we have a perfect
Redeemer. We have a new history and we have a
new hope. And I say praise the Lord for a Savior
who came not halfway between God and man
where Adam stood before the fall, but came to
where I am, struggled with the struggles I am going
through. So we have a Priest in heaven now who
can sympathize with me and who can help me. I
thank God for such a Savior. He is my elder
brother. I hope He is yours, too, is my prayer in
Jesus’ name.

734
 Chapter 22

Life in the Spirit

(Romans 8:4-13)

It is not until chapter 8 of Romans that Paul

brings in the Holy Spirit. Have you wondered
why? Is it because Paul doesn’t have a high place
for the Holy Spirit? Is it because the Holy Spirit is
of less importance to him? The answer to those
questions is a definite “No!” But, you see, Paul is
a very systematic theologian and, of all his
writings, Romans is his most systematic
presentation of the plan of redemption. It is
important that we follow his logic and his steps.

Since we’ve been covering this for many

studies, let me put in a nutshell where he is coming
from and where he is going. Having introduced
himself and the purpose of writing Romans, the
first thing that Paul begins with is the universal sin
problem. He begins in Romans 1:18 right up to
Romans 3:20, and in that section of Romans he
735
paints a very dark, dismal, hopeless picture of the
human race, both Jews and Gentiles [meaning
everyone].

Then, having destroyed any confidence his

readers may have in themselves and their ability to
save themselves, he introduces the gospel. To Paul
the gospel is “The righteousness of God realized in
the holy history of our Lord Jesus Christ.” There,
in that righteousness, is man’s only hope of
salvation.

He then expounds on this from every

conceivable angle. He defends it, he expounds on
it, he looks at it from every angle, and he comes to
the clear conclusion that “not I, but Christ” is
man’s only hope of standing righteous before God,
both now and in the judgment.

When he has finished this, then he turns to the

work of the Holy Spirit in the plan of salvation.
You see, that’s very systematic. Now, why does he
do that? You will notice that in Paul’s writings and
in the writings of the New Testament — especially
736
the teachings of Jesus Himself — every member of
the Godhead has a very important vital part in our
salvation. If you read your New Testament you
will notice God the Father is the “Chairman.” For
example in John 3:16 and 17 we read:

For God so loved the world that he gave his

one and only Son, that whoever believes in him
shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did
not send his Son into the world to condemn the
world, but to save the world through him.

In Galatians 4:4 we read that:

But when the time had fully come, God sent his
Son....

And all through the life of Christ he made it

clear, “I have come to do the will of Him Who sent
Me.”

The Father is the Director, the Chairman of the

plan of salvation. Christ is the Savior. If you turn
to Matthew 1:21, please notice the instruction that
737
was given to Joseph when the angel announced the
birth of the Savior. In verse 21, the angel tells
Joseph that Mary, whom he was to marry, will
bring forth a son:

...You are to give him the name Jesus, because

he will save his people from their sins.

You see, the word “Jesus” means “Savior.”

What about the Holy Spirit? His work is to

communicate to the human race what God has
already obtained in His Son Jesus Christ, which is
eternal redemption. So the Holy Spirit is the
Communicator, and it is this that Paul expounds in
Romans 8. The work of the Holy Spirit is not to
save us but to make the salvation which has already
been realized in the holy history of Christ, to make
that effective, and to make it real in our experience.
The work of the Holy Spirit may be divided into
three stages:

1. The first stage is justification.

738
 2. The second stage is sanctification.

3. The final, third stage is glorification.

We have spent some time already in

justification. I want to simply remind you of some
important facts by looking at one passage from the
words of Jesus Christ. Paul has expounded on it
clearly, that the Holy Spirit points us to Christ as
man’s only hope of salvation. But this Christ also
expounded very clearly, and so turn to John 16.
Jesus put in a nutshell how the legal justification
which Christ already obtained on the cross is made
effective in the human race. In John 16:8 Jesus
described to His disciples what one of the missions
of the Holy Spirit was:

When he comes, he will convict the world of

guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and
judgment....

When the Holy Spirit had come, when His

dispensation begins, He will convict or convince
the world of three things:
739
 1. of sin
2. of righteousness, and
3. of judgment.

John 16:9:

...In regard to sin, because men do not believe

in me...

In other words, man is lost not because he’s a

sinner; man is lost because he’s without Christ.
The Holy Spirit convinces the world that without
Christ there is no hope. That’s what Paul has been
trying to explain in the first section of Romans.
The whole world is under sin, the whole world is
guilty before God, man’s only hope is Christ.
Then, in John 16:10, Jesus goes on to explain in
what sense the Holy Spirit will convict the world of
righteousness:

...in regard to righteousness, because I am

going to the Father, where you can see me no
longer...
740
 What Christ meant is that God sent Him to this
world to prepare righteousness for the world, and
the fact that He has gone back means that His work
of preparing that righteousness, of obtaining that
righteousness is a finished work. He’s gone back
to the Father, having finished the work. In fact,
one of His last prayers that He prayed, found in
John 17:4, is:

I have brought you glory on earth by

completing the work you gave me to do.

Then, of course, John 16:11 says that the world

is judged, and that if you reject that gospel, if you
reject the gift of God, then you have judgment.

...and in regard to judgment, because the prince

of this world now stands condemned.

But what happens when a person realizes that

his only hope is Christ and accepts Jesus as his
personal Savior? Is the work of the Holy Spirit
finished? The answer is no. Then His work is to
741
reproduce in the believer, who now has peace and
assurance, His work is to produce in the believer
the righteous character of Christ. And that is what
He intends to do with each one of us who has
accepted Christ as a Savior.

I want to emphasize, because of confusion,

sanctification must never be taught as contributing
to salvation. Our salvation is only in the history of
Christ. But sanctification is extremely important
because it is the fruit, it is the evidence of
justification by faith.

The world today will not believe until they see.

The world today has become like Thomas. He
refused to believe that Christ was raised from the
dead until he saw the Savior with his own eyes and
put his fingers into those nail holes in his hands
and side [see John 20:24-29]. The world today is
living in a scientific age, and the scientific method
will not allow, will not accept anything as a fact
unless it is demonstrated. So sanctification has a
very special significance for those of us who are
today living in the last days.
742
 But we need to know the place of
sanctification. Because sanctification, at its very
best, only gives us one-third of what is true of us in
Christ through justification. In Christ we have
three things:

1. We have a perfect character. We stand

perfect in Christ in performance.

2. We stand perfect in justice in Christ. “There

is no condemnation for those who are in
Christ.” Why? Because He liberated us
from that condemnation. Every sin that you
have committed, and every sin that you will
commit to your dying day, has already been
taken care of on the cross of Christ.

3. But that is not all. We have a third

wonderful blessing in Christ. We stand
perfect in nature in Christ. Why? Because,
as we saw when we studied the first three
verses of Romans 8, He condemned the law
of sin and death in His flesh. He condemned
743
 it, He executed it.

Sanctification is the process of experiencing

only the character of Christ, not the justice.
Because the justice is realized only by dying the
second death, and only Christ has died the second
death for us.

In sanctification, no change takes place in your

nature. Your nature will remain sinful as it was
before your conversion, 100 percent sinful until
your dying day. It is only at glorification, at the
second coming of Christ when “this corruption will
put on incorruption.” In fact, in Romans 8:22-25
Paul will tell us, and we’ll come to that in another
study, that the whole creation, including ourselves
who have received the Holy Spirit, are groaning
waiting for the redemption of the body. When that
happens, the struggle will be over.

In Philippians 3:20-21, Paul tells us that he is

anxiously waiting for the coming of Christ — he
called it the blessed hope — not because he wants
to walk in golden streets and live in mansions.
744
That’s an egocentric view of the second coming.
He wants the second coming because he’s tired of
this sinful body. So he says, “I look forward to the
second coming of Christ, that this vile, corrupt
body may be transformed to be like His glorious
body, which He prepared for us.” Philippians
3:20-21:

But our citizenship is in heaven. And we

eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus
Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring
everything under his control, will transform our
lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious
body.

This study, Romans 8:4-13 is dealing with the

life in the Spirit, or the life led by God’s Holy
Spirit, which is what God intends for every
Christian. The Christian life is a Spirit-led life;
that’s the goal. What Paul is doing here is laying
the foundation for that. Then, in chapters 12, 13,
14, 15, and a part of 16, he will give us practical
applications to that foundation. But right now, in
this passage, he’s laying the foundation. Let us
745
now go to the passage.

Please notice verse 4 is a continuation of verse

3. In verses 1, 2, and 3, Paul tells us that the
answer to the sin problem is Jesus Christ. In
Romans 7:24, at the end of his argument there, he
concludes with this cry, a desperate cry for help:

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue

me from this body of death? [This body that is
dominated by the law of sin and death. And his
answer is...] Thanks be to God — through Jesus
Christ our Lord!

Then in Romans 8, verses 1, 2, and 3 he tells us

how God liberated us. The Spirit of life that was in
Christ, and the law of sin and death which He
assumed by taking our humanity, met in Jesus
Christ, and there, Jesus, through the power of the
Holy Spirit, was victorious and He executed the
law of sin and death. He did that for two reasons:

1. The first reason is in verse 1, that there may

be:
746
 ...no condemnation for those who are in
Christ Jesus....

2. The second reason is in verse 4:

...In order that the righteous requirements of

the law might be fully met in us, who do not
live according to the sinful nature but
according to the Spirit.

What does Paul mean by the word “us”? When

he spoke of the gospel, he said Christ died for all
men. But when he uses the word “us” here in verse
4, he is not talking of all men, he is talking of the
believer who has said in his heart, “O wretched
man that I am, who will save me? I thank God
through Jesus Christ.”

I am going to ask you a question: “Do you say

‘I thank God through Jesus Christ’?” I ask that
question because there is another passage in the
New Testament which uses the word “wretched.”
By the way, let me remind you, the word
747
“wretched” in the original appears only twice in the
whole of the New Testament. This is the first time,
Romans 7:24. The second time it appears is in the
Laodicean message, where Christ, the True
Witness, speaks to a group of people. I won’t have
to tell you who they are. He says to them, “You do
not know that you are wretched.”

The day we can say, “What a wretched man I

am,” we can say, “I thank God through Jesus
Christ.” Because the formula of the gospel is “Not
I, but Christ.”

To such a people he is talking. The “us” refers

to those who have no confidence in the flesh, but
are rejoicing in Christ. He is saying that if there’s
a condition there for sanctification), if we walk in
the Spirit and not in the flesh, the righteous
requirement of the law will be fulfilled in us, and
by that Paul is not referring to the mechanical
obedience to the law. You don’t have to have the
Spirit to mechanically obey the law. The Pharisees
were experts at mechanically obeying the law.

748
 When the Bible talks of obeying the law, when
Paul talks of obeying the law, and he will bring this
out in chapter 13, verse 10 especially, he will tell
us that love, this unconditional agape love of God,
this love is the fulfilment of the law. In other
words, when we are led by the Holy Spirit, the fruit
of the Spirit is love and love is the fulfillment of
the law. But there is a condition:

...who do not live according to the sinful nature

but according to the Spirit.

May I make it clear that the word “live,” which

is the key verb in verse 4, is in the present
continuous tense. So what Paul is saying here is,
“The righteous requirement of the law might be
fulfilled in we believers who continually do not
live according to the sinful nature but continually
live according to the Spirit.”

Now there are two words here in verse 4 that

we need to be clear on: the word “flesh” [in some
translations] and the word “Spirit.” What does
Paul mean by those two words? We spent some
749
time in chapter 4 in dealing with the flesh.
Because Paul asks the question:

What shall we say about Abraham pertaining to

the flesh?

I made it clear then that the word flesh does not

mean the soft part of your body. Some of you may
have more of it than others, but that is not what
Paul is talking about. What does he mean by the
word flesh? He means the natural life that you and
I were born with, which we received through our
parents, who, in turn, received from their parents,
until we come to Adam. In other words, “the
flesh” refers to the sinful human nature which is
ours by birth, the natural life.

What does he mean by the Spirit? He means

the life of Christ which He laid down for us on the
cross, and which comes into us through the
indwelling Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the One
Who communicates the life of Christ to us.

So you have two lives, which is what makes

750
you different from the unbeliever. The unbeliever
has only one life, the natural life. With that life he
can do only two things: he can do sin and he can
do self-righteousness. But in God’s eyes both of
those are not acceptable. For I read in Isaiah 64:6
that:

...All our righteous acts are like filthy rags....

But the life of the Spirit is something only the

believer has. In fact, please look at Romans 8,
verses 9 and 10:

You, however, are controlled not by the sinful

nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in
you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of
Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ
is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet
your spirit is alive because of righteousness.

You don’t belong to Christ if you have not

experienced the new birth. Jesus made this clear to
Nicodemus. Nicodemus was trying to produce
righteousness by the flesh, and Jesus said in John
751
3:6:

Flesh gives birth to flesh....

You can’t change it! That is what the terrible

thing is about legalism. Legalism is righteousness
produced by the flesh. And I’ll tell you what it
looks like: it looks very nice outwardly, very holy
outwardly, but inwardly it is full of rot.

One of my pastors in Ethiopia, a die-hard

legalist who thought that I was preaching heresy,
came up to me one day and said, “Can you please
help me?”

He had been opposing me all this time and now

he comes and says, “Will you help me?” I said,
“Sure. What’s your problem?”

He said, “My daughter has left the church and

has joined the Pentecostal church and she has
brought disgrace to my ministry. I have tried,” he
said, with tears in his eyes, “I have tried to put
sense into her mind and she won’t listen to me, but
752
I know she has a high regard for you. Please, can
you convince her to come back to God’s remnant?”

So I said, “Well, I’ll try and do all I can.” She

was a university student, so I went to the university
and visited her.

This is what she said to me. “Pastor, you want

to know the truth?”

“Yes,” I said. “What’s the problem?”

She said, “I’ll tell you. When my father comes

to church, when he stands behind that pulpit, he
looks like a saint. In fact, you can even see a halo
over his head.” (That’s because he had my
hairstyle [bald]. And when a light shines on my
hairstyle there is a halo, but it is artificial, folks.)
“But,” she said, “when he’s at home, he’s a devil.”

That’s exactly what legalism does. It produces

hypocrites, people who in church look like saints
but at home are devils. Do you know, folks, that
we have a problem in our church because of
753
legalism? We keep it hidden underneath but we
have a problem of child and wife abuse in this
denomination. It’s a problem. We don’t confess it
publicly, but you speak with those who are
working with those kids from Adventist homes, in
foster homes. Why? Because legalists appear holy
when they come to church, but at home they are
devils.

That is why we need to understand that it is

only in Christ, and as we walk in the Spirit and not
in the flesh, that the life of Christ is reproduced in
us. He will only do it for those who are resting in
Justification by faith. Because sanctification is not
the fruits of legalism; it’s the fruits of justification
by faith and nothing else. So it is important that
we come to grips with this, and Paul will bring this
out, especially in Romans 8.

But let’s look at Romans 8:5. Why is it that we

should “not live according to the sinful nature but
according to the Spirit”? He’s told us in verse 4
that’s the way, by living according to the Spirit, the
righteousness of the law is reproduced in us. Then
754
in verse 5 he says:

Those who live according to the sinful nature

have their minds set on what that nature desires;
but those who live in accordance with the Spirit
have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.

What is he saying here? As I mentioned, the

flesh [used in some translations] has to do with our
sinful nature. The Spirit has to do with the life of
Christ which has come into us through the Holy
Spirit.

By the way, maybe before I explain verse 5, let

me give you a text that puts it very nicely. Please
turn to 2 Peter 1:4. Listen to how Peter puts this,
because Paul is doing the same thing here and you
will notice that Peter is in perfect harmony with
Paul. In verse 1-3, he talks about the wonderful
promises that are ours through Jesus Christ. Please
remember how he addresses Christ in verse 2; he
calls Christ our God and Savior Jesus Christ. Jesus
Christ is our Savior, that was His part of the
salvation plan. But in verse 4, I read:
755
 Through these he has given us his very great
and precious promises, so that through them you
may participate in the divine nature and escape the
corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

You see, the flesh, the natural life of man, is

dominated by three drives, and you’ll find these
three drives in 1 John 2:16:

For everything in the world — the cravings of

sinful man, the lust of his eyes, and the boasting of
what he has and does — comes not from the Father
but from the world.

[In some translations these three drives are

called “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and
the pride of life.”]

The other day I was in a supermarket, trying to

buy an oil filter for my car, and there was a lady
with her son shopping, too. Everything the son
saw he wanted, so he grabbed it. His mother kept
reminding him, “Put it back!” But he kept on
756
doing it and she kept reminding him and, in the
end, she couldn’t take it any longer and she gave
him a paddy-wack, which he needed in the first
place.

Then he cried and said, “Mother, why can’t I

HAVE it?”

I nearly told her, “Sister, he is simply being

natural.” Because the flesh wants what it sees.

You know, that’s one blessing we had in

Africa, especially some parts of Africa. You went
to the supermarket and you saw nothing but rows
and rows and rows of toilet paper. My kids never
said, “I want one of them.”

But it is a problem in America. You see things

that you have never thought of before. I was in
Los Angeles, California, at the campmeeting there,
and the pastor took me to what they call a price
club where he was a member. They had a
microwave pressure cooker. And I said, “Boy!”

757
 The lady behind the counter said, “You can
cook your food in one minute, less than half the
time than the microwave itself, because you have
now two things working, a microwave which is
fast, and now a pressure cooker in the microwave.”

“Fantastic,” I said, “I should buy this.” Then I

reminded myself: the flesh wants everything.
What’s wrong with waiting one more extra minute?
So I said, “No.” But, you see, that’s the flesh, it
wants everything: bigger fireworks, bigger cars,
bigger houses, you name it. And when you fathers
buy a train set for your kids, please, it’s for you
that you want it.

I was in Mexico for the first time and I saw

something wonderful. I saw hammocks. I said,
“I’ll buy one for my son and one for my daughter.”
Guess who is enjoying it? Folks, the flesh wants
everything. The lust of the flesh, and then the lust
of the eyes, and the pride of life: you want to be
number one.

But Paul says the mind must not be set. The

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word “set,” by the way, in Romans 8:5 means
“direct.” The people who are controlled by the
natural life will let their minds be dominated by the
flesh. Remember, your flesh, my flesh, our nature,
is unchangeable until the second coming of Christ.
Don’t you ever get the idea that your nature will
improve as you grow older and older as a
Christian. Your nature will remain flesh to your
dying day. What changes is your character. The
reason why it changes is because the change that
has taken place in the Christian is not in his nature
but in the mind.

The Greek word “metanoia,” which we have in

English “repentance,” means a change of mind.
Paul is saying, “Let your mind be controlled now
by the Spirit and no longer by the flesh.” How do
we do it? How do we direct our minds onto the
things of the Spirit?

Paul gives us a help in Philippians 4:8. Here

he’s simply admonishing us to walk in the Spirit,
but what does that mean? It means setting your
mind on the things of the Spirit. What does that
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involve? Look at Philippians 4:8 where he’s
giving the same counsel:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is

noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure,
whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if
anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think
about such things.

So the question I want to ask you is, “What

goes on between your ears when you are driving
your car on the freeway, or when you’re having
your shower, when you are in those free moments
and not concentrating on your work? What goes
on between your ears, what do you think about? Is
it about worldly things, is it about making money,
is it about improving your standard of living, is it
about trying to keep up with the Jones, or is about
the things of God? What goes on between your
ears?” That is the way to tell whether you’re
walking in the flesh or walking in the Spirit.

Paul does not say that the Christian walking in

the flesh is lost. He does say that a person walking
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in the flesh is on dangerous ground. For I read in
Romans 8:6:

The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind

controlled by the Spirit is life and peace....

The Greek actually says, “To be carnally

minded leads to death.” That’s how the text is.
Now what does the word “carnal” mean? The
word “flesh” in Greek is “sarks.” The word Paul
uses for carnal is “sarkicos,” which means “a mind
controlled by the flesh” or we would say in
English, “fleshly mind.” In other words, if you let
your mind dwell on those three basic drives of the
flesh, that is what it means to be carnally minded.
If your mind is always preoccupied with the things
of this world, the material things of this world, then
you are walking in the flesh. And if you do that, it
will lead you unto death. In other words, to be
carnally minded is dangerous, because the flesh is
the tool of Satan that he will use to eventually pull
you out of Christ.

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 We had a teacher in the mission field who once
told me a very interesting experience in her own
life. She said when she was in college, she had one
desire, and that was to be a missionary. So she got
friendly with a student who was a theology major,
because he had the same desire. They decided to
get married even before they finished college.
They married, and then, in the last year of his
schooling, he changed his major from theology to
engineering. They were from Colorado.

She was very disappointed that he had changed

his major but he felt that he was not called to the
ministry. But he was still a good Adventist, he
graduated, went back to Colorado, got an excellent
job, and was an active member in the church, in
fact, became an elder. Sometime later his
workmate said to him, “Why don’t we go out
golfing?”

This man said, “I have never played golf in my

life.”

He went golfing and liked it, so they went once

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a week. There’s nothing wrong with that. But the
trouble was that he began to crave it. So they went
twice a week. That was not enough, so they went
three times a week. And the third time, of course,
was Wednesday, so he stopped going to prayer
meeting. Then he was going four times a week,
and then he would come home dog tired and so
Sabbath was time for lay activities, he didn’t have
time to go to church. So he slept on Sabbaths and
very seldom came to church.

His wife saw that he was very gradually

slipping away from Christ. She realized that, if this
continued, he would be lost. So she went on her
knees after pleading with him, “Please, don’t you
see what’s happening to you?”

He would not listen, he would not take advice.

So she finally went to the Lord, after spending
three days in fasting and prayer she said, “Lord, I
don’t care what you do to him; please, I want him
in heaven. I can see that he’s slipping away from
Christ. Do whatever is necessary.”

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 She was on her knees, pleading with the Lord,
and the telephone rang. It was her husband’s firm.
He was in a tank, welding, and there was some gas
that was not removed, and he went to sleep and he
died in the tank. God laid him to rest.

She believed, and I believe she’s right, that

God laid him to rest as the only way of resurrecting
him in the kingdom. She said, “When I discovered
that there was no longer any need for me to remain
in Colorado, I applied for mission service.” And
there she was in Ethiopia.

God will do anything to save us. But the thing

is this, if you keep walking in the flesh, you are
following the road that leads to death. Because the
flesh has no right to live. That is the clear verdict
of the Bible. The only place for the flesh is the
cross. And I read in Galatians 5:24:

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have

crucified the sinful nature with its passions and
desires.

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 “But if you walk in the Spirit,” says Paul, “you
have peace and you have life.” Because the life of
the Spirit is a life that brings peace and it brings
victory, it brings the righteousness of the law.
Look at Romans 8:7:

...The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not

submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.

Our sinful natures and a holy God are not

compatible. The law of God and our flesh are
incompatible. We spent a whole study when we
dealt with Romans 7:15-25. That is the whole
emphasis of Romans 7, that your natural life and
the law are incompatible. It is impossible for me,
naturally, to keep the law. It’s impossible. I can
keep the letter of the law, but never the Spirit. That
is what Paul is saying here. Verse 8:

Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot

please God.

You may please man, you may please yourself,

you may please the brethren, you may please the
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pastor, but you cannot please God, because God
doesn’t look at your acts, He looks at your heart.
And only the heart that is transformed, that has
repented, can be pleasing to God. But now look at
verse 9:

You, however, are controlled not by the sinful

nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in
you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of
Christ, he does not belong to Christ.

Paul is saying, “If you do not have the Spirit,

you may be a church member, your names may be
in the books, but if you have not experienced the
new birth you are none of His.”

One day a Jehovah’s Witness came to my

house. We were discussing theology and, because
I know something about the Jehovah’s Witnesses, I
said to her, “Do you belong to the 144,000?” They
divide their members into two camps — the
144,000 who will go to heaven and who are
allowed to take the Lord’s Supper, and the rest who
will not go to heaven but will enjoy heaven on
766
earth. I said to her, “Do you belong to the
144,000?”

She said, “No.”

Then I said, “According to your theology, you

don’t have the Spirit.”

“That’s right, she said. “I don’t have the Spirit,

only the 144,000 have the Spirit.”

Then I read her this text, and she was shocked

to read that text that says that if you don’t have the
Spirit you don’t belong to Christ. I said, “Take this
to your brethren and have a Bible study.” If you
don’t have the Spirit you are none of His. But
verse 10:

But if Christ is in you...

Please notice: to Paul, the Spirit of God

dwelling in you and Christ dwelling in you are
synonymous because the Spirit is Christ’s
representative. He is the Paraclate. He’s the One
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Who is representing Christ. If he dwells in you...

...your body is dead because of sin...

In other words, you have surrendered your

natural life to the cross.

...yet your spirit is alive because of

righteousness.

Can you see in verse 10 the formula, “Not I,

but Christ”? There you have it. Verse 11:

And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from

the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from
the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies
through his Spirit, who lives in you.

Do you understand what Paul is saying here?

Paul is saying that there are two forces in you: one
is the force of the flesh, the law of sin and death;
the other one is the law of Spirit and life. Which of
these two are stronger, are greater? What is the
power of the law of sin and death? What is the
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greatest power of the flesh? It is the grave. Sin
kills. If you can conquer death, you can conquer
sin. No human being in and of himself has ever
conquered the grave.

But there is one Man Who has conquered the

grave and that is Jesus Christ. He did it by the
power of the indwelling Spirit. That’s what Paul is
saying. This same power which demonstrated the
power of God greater than the power of sin in
Christ is now available to us. Romans 8:12:

Therefore [now is the application], brothers

[you believers, you and me], we have an obligation
— but it is not to the sinful nature, to live
according to it.

We have an obligation, but the obligation is not

to the flesh. Why not? Because a Christian is a
person who has surrendered the flesh to the cross.
That’s where it belongs. It has no right to control
us. Romans 8:13:

For if you live according to the sinful nature,

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you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death
the misdeeds of the body, you will live....

In other words, let the new life that you

received at your conversion now dominate you,
direct you, control you. When the Holy Spirit lives
in us, two things will happen:

1. We will put to death — that means we will

put to an end — the sinful deeds of the body.

2. The righteousness of the law will be fulfilled

in us.

But, please remember, all these wonderful

privileges are the fruits of justification. Never look
at sanctification for assurance of salvation. But we
must be concerned about sanctification, we must be
concerned about Christian living. I’ll tell you why,
because we are a spectacle to the world. The world
is keeping their eyes on us. I have said before, and
I will repeat many times, the words of the famous
pagan philosopher Nietzsche, when he said to the
Christian church, “If you Christians expect me to
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believe in your Redeemer, you will have to look a
lot more redeemed.”

No longer should we be concerned about

ourselves; heaven is ours, guaranteed. “There is no
condemnation for those who are in Christ.” Then
there must be only one concern, “Lord, please, let
the world see what You are like in me.” When that
happens, we will turn this town upside down, we
will turn this state upside down, and we will turn
the world upside down. God is not depending on
numbers, He’s depending on men and women who,
putting self aside, are willing to totally surrender
themselves to the Spirit that dwells within them.

When that happens, we will no longer have to

push people, “Do this and do that.” There are
some who want me to push from the pulpit, “Tell
our people what they should not do.”

Folks, I can tell you till I’m blue in the face, but
if you’re not walking in the Spirit, I’ll lose more
hair and you will lose your patience with me. My
dear people, we have a Spirit Who is willing to
771
walk in you. We have a power that is available to
us. And that power is to reproduce in us the
character of our Lord Jesus Christ. The world
desperately needs to see Him. Please, don’t
disappoint Him.

772
 Chapter 23

The Blessed Hope

(Romans 8:14-30)

A few years ago, I had to fly to Boise, Idaho, to

conduct a very sad funeral. A young boy, 16 years
old, whom I had baptized three years before, had
just dropped off his buddy at Gemstate Academy.
He was returning home, and about a mile down the
road, for some reason nobody knows, he veered off
and ran into a stationary tractor at about 50 mph.
The tractor broke in two and he, of course, died
instantly.

It was quite a sad funeral. All his buddies were

there; it was packed. As they said farewell to this
young boy, one of the questions that we normally
ask in these circumstances was, “Why, Lord? Why
this young man? Why was his life snatched away
at such a tender, early age, a very promising young
boy?” Well, Paul tells us in Romans 8:28 that:

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 ...In all things God works for the good of those
who love him....

Sometimes that’s hard to believe, isn’t it? But

now we’re going to deal with one of God’s
wonderful ways of helping us during the time that
we are here on this earth waiting for the glorious
hope, the return of Christ.

We may not understand why things happen.

But we do know one thing, that God has not left us
without a Helper. I would like for you to consider
the passage that we are going to cover today, which
is really a continuation of what we covered last
study.

In Romans 8, Paul turns, for the first time, to

the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the
believer. In the last study, we saw that the
Christian life is a life that is led by the Holy Spirit;
it is a life that is controlled by the Holy Spirit; it is
a life that is dominated by the Holy Spirit because
it is a life of the Spirit.

774
 When Jesus introduced the Holy Spirit to His
disciples, He gave the Holy Spirit a very special
name. I want to introduce you to that name. It is
not in English, it is in Greek, but I want you to
learn this word, because you will find that this
word is very useful. So turn to John 14, and this is
the promise that Jesus gave to His disciples, which
promise is to us until the end of the world. John
14:16. Jesus says:

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you

another Counselor to be with you forever....

The King James Version reads “Comforter.”

But that word, “Counselor” or “Comforter,” comes
from a very interesting Greek word called,
“Paraclaytos,” from the verb “paracaleo.” And that
word — made up of two words, “para” and “caleo”
— means, “One Who is by your side to help you.”
So a better translation, and I’m glad to notice that
my New King James has the correct translation of
the Greek word:

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you

775
another Helper to be with you forever....

You see, the word “Helper” is all-inclusive.

When you need comfort, the Holy Spirit will give
you comfort. When you need teaching, He will
guide you into all truth. When you need an
intercessor, He will be your Intercessor.

Jesus brought this out. He’s our Comforter in

verse 16. He’s our Teacher in verse 26. Then, in
John 16:13, He’s our Guide. I want to introduce
you to the Paraclaytos. I want you to learn this
word. Don’t you ever forget that word, because it
means Helper.

Christ came to help us in terms of salvation.

The Holy Spirit is our Helper in terms of Christian
living until the glorious and blessed hope. With
this in mind, let us go back to Romans 8. For here,
Paul presents the Holy Spirit as our Helper. We
will discover that, in this passage, the Spirit helps
us in three important areas:

1. In Romans 8:14-17, the Spirit helps us to

776
 behave, to act, to live like children of God.

2. In verses 18-25, Paul tells us that the Spirit

helps us to endure hardships and sufferings
while we wait for the glorious appearing of
our Lord Jesus Christ, which is glorification.

3. In verses 26-30, Paul tells us the Spirit helps

us and shows us how to pray, to make our
prayers meaningful and in Christian growth.

So here Paul presents the Holy Spirit as Christ

introduced Him to the Christian church. He is our
Paraclaytos. I would like you to go step-by-step
with me and see how the Spirit helps us.

In verses 13 and 14, Paul reminds the Christian

that we have an obligation. It is not an option; we
have an obligation. And the obligation is both
negative and positive. The negative is that we are
no longer to walk in the flesh, which is our natural
life. That is how the unbeliever walks. Now we
still have the natural life, and it is possible for us to
walk in the natural life. Paul will define such
777
Christians as carnal Christians, Christians whose
behavior is unlike what it should be. Romans 8:12-
13:

Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation —

but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to
it. For if you live according to the sinful nature,
you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death
the misdeeds of the body, you will live....

“We have an obligation,” says Paul, “and our

obligation is to walk not in the flesh, but to walk in
the Spirit. Let this new life, that has come into you
through the Holy Spirit, control you, dominate you,
guide you, that the world may see Christ in you
through the Holy Spirit.”

Having said that, in verse 14, which is where

our passage begins in this study:

...Because those who are led by the Spirit of

God are sons of God.

Now the actual text says it a little bit

778
differently. This is how the literal translation
should be:

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God,

these behave like children of God.

You see, God wants us to behave like His

children. Why? Because we are His children. We
don’t behave like His children in order to become
His children, we are already His children and He
says, “So please behave like who you are.”

Because if you behave like what you are not,

then the Bible calls such people hypocrites. A
hypocrite is one who acts what he’s not. God
doesn’t want us to act like Christians, in terms of
acting. He want’s us to behave as what we already
are, children of God.

Now He realizes we cannot do it ourselves. So

we need the Paraclaytos to fulfill that. So he says,
“Those who are led by the Spirit, they will reveal
this leading by their lifestyle, they will walk as
children of God.” What does that mean? What
779
does it mean to walk as children of God? Let me
give you one clear example.

Turn to Matthew 5 where Jesus, in the Sermon

on the Mount, is contrasting the walking in the
flesh with walking in the Spirit. He doesn’t say so,
but it’s obvious, it’s implied. In verse 43, He’s
discussing or He’s stating what the people of
Judaism were taught by a people who had gone
astray, and were trapped into legalism. Legalism is
man trying to behave like God’s children. And this
is how it ends up in verse 43:

You have heard that it was said, “Love your

neighbor and hate your enemy.”

Christ expounds on this and says, “You don’t

have to be a Christian to love your neighbor and
hate your enemy; anybody can do that. But I say to
you, this is how I want you to live” [Matthew
5:44]:

But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for

those who persecute you...
780
 “Love your enemies, bless those who curse
you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for
those who spitefully use you and persecute you.”
Boy, can you do that? Without the Paraclaytos, it
is impossible. But why does Jesus say that you
should do this thing? Look at verse 45:

...that you may be sons of your Father in

heaven....

“Please behave like children of God. This is

how God’s children behave: they love their
enemies, they bless those who curse them, they do
good to those who hate them, that they may be the
children of their Father in heaven.” Then Christ
goes on to explain in verse 45 His Father’s love
towards the human race, both good and evil:

He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the

good, and sends rain on the righteous and the
unrighteous.

As I read Romans 8, Paul tells us that if we are

781
led by the Spirit, the people around us will know it.
They will say, “These people are behaving like
God’s children.”

In the same Sermon on the Mount Jesus said in

Matthew 5:14,16:

You are the light of the world.... Let your light

shine before men, that they may see your good
deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

“You believers are the light of the world.”

Then, in verse 16, He says, “Let your light shine
that the world may see your good works, your love
for your enemies, your blessing of those who curse
you, praying for those who hate you. Let them see
this, and glorify your Father that is in heaven.”

But, please remember, only those who are led

by the Spirit can do this. You can’t do it by
screwing up your willpower and making
resolutions. The Jews tried that. “We will do
everything the Lord has said” [Exodus 19:8]. Did
they do it? No. But, as you are led of the Spirit, it
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will be revealed because it is possible for the Holy
Spirit Who raised Christ up from the dead to
mortify your mortal bodies and produce
righteousness. Then, in Romans 8:15, he goes on
to say:

For you did not receive a spirit that makes you

a slave again....

All through Paul’s writings, slavery or bondage

is linked with legalism. In Galatians 5:1 he says,
“You have been set free, don’t go back to the yoke
of bondage.”

For you did not receive a spirit that makes you

a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of
sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”

There is no peace, there is no assurance, there

is no hope in legalism. Outwardly it may appear
wonderful, but you are constantly living in fear.
And that, folks, is a tragedy, that Christians should
live in fear.

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 I want to give you a text that is very important
for us who are living in the hour of judgment.
Turn to 1 John 4:16-18. I want you to notice what
the Apostle John has to say to those who believe in
God. Verse 16:

And so we know and rely on the love God has

for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in
God, and God in him.

Two things. The question I am going to ask

you is, “Do you know and do you believe?” What
are we to know and what are we to believe as
Christians? The love that God has for us. The
unconditional, the self-giving love that God has for
us; we saw that when we dealt with Romans 5:6-
10. We know and we believe [or rely on] that love
God has for us. And the reason that God loves us
is not because we are good or because we deserve
it, it is because God is love. The natural thing for
God to do is to love us, because His love is
unconditional.

What is the result of this? Verse 17:

784
 In this way, love is made complete among us
[i.e., our knowledge and our belief of love is
perfected among us in this] so that we will have
confidence on the day of judgment, because in this
world we are like him.

If you are still afraid of God’s judgment while

you are a Christian, you have not understood God’s
love, you have not been made perfect, you are still
a victim of fear, and he will bring this out in verse
18. And the reason we have boldness in the day of
judgment is not because we are satisfied with our
performance, but because:

...in this world we are like him.

That’s good news. Verse 18:

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives

out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.
The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

All works produced out of fear are

785
unacceptable to God. “Such religion,” says Ellen
G. White, “is worth nothing.”

So let’s go back to Romans 8. What is Paul

saying? Paul is saying that we who are led by the
Spirit will give evidence by our behavior that we
shall live like children of God. Romans 8:15:

For you did not receive a spirit that makes you

a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of
sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”

That’s very interesting, two words, “Abba,

Father.” Abba is an Aramaic word, the language of
the Jews in Christ’s day, in Paul’s day. The word
means, simply, “Father.” The second word that
Paul used is “Pater” which is “Father” in Greek.
So if you really translate those two words, it
means, “Father, Father.”

Whether you are a Jew or whether you’re a

Gentile, it doesn’t matter, if you’re a Christian, you
can refer to God as “Father.” Paul is saying He is
our Father, not our Judge, not our Executer, but our
786
Father, Who loves His children, and He wants to
bestow all kinds of blessings. Then he goes into
verse 16:

The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that

we are God’s children.

The human being is made up of three elements,

and Paul points this out in 1 Thessalonians 5:23.
We are made up of spirit, soul, and body. None of
these elements are capable of independent
existence. That is a Greek concept, not a Christian,
Biblical concept. But each of these three elements
has a function. Animals have body and soul, but
human beings have body, soul, and spirit.

One of the aspects of the Spirit is our

conscience. Our consciences belong to the realm
of spirit. What Paul is saying here is that the Holy
Spirit, Who is now dwelling in us, convinces us
through our conscience that we are the children of
God. You may not feel like a child of God, but,
please remember, the Spirit convinces us in our
conscience that we are the children of God because
787
we are in Christ. And because we are the children
of God, verse 17 goes on to say:

Now if we are children, then we are heirs —

heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ [we share
with Christ what belongs to Him], if indeed we
share in his sufferings in order that we may also
share in his glory.

I want to emphasize what I’ve been trying to

hammer away for the last few studies, and that is:
in order for Christ to save us, He had to identify
Himself with us. In order for that salvation to be
made effective, we have to identify ourselves with
with Him. When you do that, everything that is
true of Christ you must accept as true of you, not
only the good, but even the bad.

When Christ came to this world He came from

heaven; His citizenship did not belong to this
world. He is the Son of God, He came from
heaven. But He came to a world that is under the
evil one, under Satan. And Satan, using the world,
made life hard for Jesus Christ. Jesus suffered
788
when He was here because He was not one of the
world. He said clearly, “My kingdom is not of this
world.” He suffered, but His suffering was only
for a season. He suffered, and He was willing to
suffer that we might be saved.

Now we must be willing to suffer, that His

name might be glorified. But what Paul is saying
here is that if you want to enjoy the glorification
that Christ received when He went back to heaven,
you must also identify yourself with the suffering
He experienced in this world. Paul is saying in
verse 17 that we are joint-heirs with Christ in all
the blessings that we have. I want to pause here
because we need to remind ourselves constantly
who we are in Christ. We are joint-heirs with Him.
What does that mean?

I hope you are familiar with Daniel 2. There

we have the great image made of different metals
and each metal represents a kingdom. There were
Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. These
are all great nations. There were also the divided
kingdoms, but the kingdom that I want you to
789
focus on is the kingdom that was represented not
by the statue but by the stone.

If you read Daniel 2, you will discover that

more time, more space, more words are being used
to explain the stone than the others. But the
difference between the stone kingdom and the rest
is that all of them will be destroyed. But the stone
kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom. And it
will occupy all the territory of the other kingdoms.

In Daniel 7 we are told that the saints of the

Most High will reign with Christ forever in that
kingdom when it is established. I want to give you
two more texts to help you, because we need to
keep in mind that glorious hope. Revelation 20:6,
where John tells us:

Blessed [the word means “happy”] and holy are

those who have part in the first resurrection. The
second death has no power over them, but they will
be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with
him for a thousand years.

790
 Who has part in the first resurrection? The
believers. What about them? Number one, on
them the second death has no power. Why?
Because, in Christ, we have already died the
second death. He took the pain, we enjoy the
benefits. But you and I will never have to die the
second death because we have already died the
second death in Christ.

But John doesn’t stop there. Not only does the

second death have no power, but we will reign with
Christ for a thousand years. Now that seems a long
time, but please remember it is a long time because
we human beings today are living in the context of
time, we are time-bound people. But when we go
to heaven we will be living in the context of
eternity, and a thousand years in eternity is like the
twinkle of an eye, it’s like a moment, a split second
moment. It’s like a drop in the ocean.

If you take a cup of water from the Pacific

Ocean, how much would the level of the water
drop? Nothing. It’s insignificant. So the thousand
years will be like nothing.
791
 Some will say, “What will we do after a
thousand years? Will we have retirement?”

It is only those who work at things that they

don’t enjoy who want to retire. But there are some
things from which we don’t want retirement. For
example, if we are kings of a country, we don’t
want to retire. You go to the countries where they
have no laws like we have in this country, where a
ruler, a president can rule as long as he wants.
They don’t want to give up.

You take Ethiopia. Do you know how old

Haile Selassi was when he was taken captive by the
Marxist government, the revolution? 83 years old!
Long past the retirement period. But he did not
want to give up that throne, even though he was
senile. Do you know how old Jomo Kenyatta was
when he died in Kenya? Close to 84 years of age.
We don’t want to give up.

Well, folks, I have good news: you don’t have

to give up your reigning. What will happen after
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the thousand years is that God will remove His
throne from heaven to this Earth. This Earth that
rebelled against Him is going to be made the center
of His kingdom. And I read in Revelation 22 that,
when He moves His throne here, we will come
with Him, and we will reign with Him. Revelation
22:5:

...And they will reign for ever and ever.

Because His kingdom is an everlasting

kingdom. Why should we reign? Because we are
joint-heirs with Christ. He is the King of Whom
we are the kings. He is the King of kings, of whom
we are the kings.

So Paul is saying here that this is going to be

our privilege. But when will that take place? At
glorification. What about the meantime? We will
have to suffer, because we are living in enemy
territory. I want to give you a text, it is out of
context, but it is a text that my wife always uses in
times of trouble, and it’s very, very useful. The
text is:
793
 It came to pass....

So whenever you go through a hard time,

remember “it came to pass.” Nothing that you are
facing in this world is permanent. Nothing! It’s
temporary. And I want to remind you that while
we may have to suffer for a short time, it is only for
a season. Our real hope, our blessed hope is the
coming of Christ.

But, you know, we human beings can’t wait.

We want everything now. It is worse in America
for one reason: because this country has taught us
that we can enjoy things now and pay for it later.
But, folks, the Bible doesn’t say that about heaven.
The Bible makes it clear that you have to suffer
now and enjoy heaven later. Is it worth suffering?
Well, listen to Paul. In Romans 8:18, listen to what
Paul says about the suffering, and may God give us
this attitude:

I consider that our present sufferings are not

worth comparing with the glory that will be
794
revealed in us.

I don’t care what you’re going through, but it

won’t be as much as what Paul did. Paul went
through a lot of problems. He was shipwrecked, he
was flogged, he was mistreated, he was accused
falsely by his own brethren. The suffering that you
and I have to go through is like a drop in the ocean,
because Paul is talking in the context of eternity.
And we should live in the context of eternity
because we have already received eternal life in
Jesus Christ. But while we are waiting for that
glorious hope we are going to groan, and so he says
in verses 19-20:

The creation waits in eager expectation for the

sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was
subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but
by the will of the one who subjected it....

In other words, when sin came into this world,

God did not destroy the world. He said, “Yes, the
world is cursed because of the fall, but I have given
you a hope, and, until that hope becomes a reality
795
(which he will talk about in verses 24 and 25), we
may have to suffer, we may have to groan, we may
have to wait patiently.” Verses 21, 22:

...In hope that the creation itself will be

liberated from its bondage to decay and brought
into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
We know that the whole creation has been
groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the
present time.

One day there in Kenya, an African teacher

came up to me in desperation. It was 11 o’clock at
night. He said, “My wife is having a baby. Could
you please rush her to the hospital?” The hospital
was more than five miles down the road.

So I rushed there, and we put her in the car, and

she was having the baby in the car. I’m not a
doctor; I was horrified. Here I was breaking the
speed limit, and all I heard was screaming and
shouting and I said, “Boy, it must be very painful.”

We men don’t understand it, but I’ll tell you, I

796
saw it. And I understand what this text is saying,
therefore. But after the baby’s born, it’s
wonderful. And the mother says, “It was worth it.”
But I’ll tell you, folks, the suffering of this present
time is worth it.

Let me make it clear. The whole world today is

under the evil one. 1 John 5:19:

We know that we are children of God, and that

the whole world is under the control of the evil
one.

And because it is under the evil one, Jesus

made it clear in John 15:18,19:

If the world hates you, keep in mind that it

hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it
would love you as its own. As it is, you do not
belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of
the world. That is why the world hates you.

So we have to suffer, we have to groan. Look

at Romans 8:23:
797
 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the
firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait
eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of
our bodies.

We have been saved but our bodies are still

sinful. We are still plagued with the flesh, and we
are struggling with the flesh. Paul says, “No, it
won’t be forever.” And so he goes on in verses 24
and 25 and says:

For in this hope we were saved. But hope that

is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he
already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet
have, we wait for it patiently.

In other words, our minds must be focused not

in the present situation but in the future. We have
a future, and that future is glorious. And if you
look at that future and keep that in mind, your
present suffering will seem as if it is nothing. But
if you focus your minds on the present sufferings,
you will feel like Jonah.
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 Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three
days and three nights, but when you read his
account of it, he says, “I was there forever.” That’s
how he felt. So keep your eyes on the future.

But now I want to say something about the

word “hope.” Because in English, the word “hope”
can have more than one meaning. Sometimes we
use the word hope in a doubtful connotation:

“Have you passed your exams?” “I hope so.”

“Will you make it to heaven?” “I hope so.”

That is not the word that Paul uses. Paul is not

doubting his salvation. He is sure. But he’s using
the word “hope” in terms of something that he
knows he will get but he doesn’t have at the
moment. But he’s sure of it.

So he says, “Because I’m sure of what I’m

going to get...” (that’s why he uses the word hope:
“We were saved, but we were saved in hope...”),
799
“because I’m sure, I’m eagerly waiting with
perseverance. And while I’m waiting, the Holy
Spirit helps me. He helps me to endure the
suffering, He helps me, guides me, comforts me,
He intercedes for me.” And so Paul says in verse
26:

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our

weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray
for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with
groans that words cannot express.

The Spirit, besides giving me strength to suffer,

the same Spirit, the Paraclaytos, also helps in our
weaknesses. He understands when we groan, He
understands when we complain, “Why, Lord, are
you allowing this?” He understands. He
understands our groaning and He makes our
prayers meaningful.

We do not know what we ought to pray for...

Because we are plagued with this flesh. Often

our prayers are egocentric.
800
 ...but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with
groans that words cannot express.

God doesn’t need words. He knows the

groaning of your heart. Romans 8:27:

And he who searches our hearts knows the

mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for
the saints in accordance with God’s will.

You see, Jesus redeemed us. And that

redemption is unconditional; I want to emphasize
it. For 400 years now, the Christian church — and
it doesn’t matter to which camp you belong to,
whether you’re a Calvinist, or an Armenian, or
even a Roman Catholic — the Christian church has
presented the idea that all men are lost except those
who the Bible says will be saved. And to the
Calvinist, those are the elect, whom God
predetermined He will save, which is only a few, or
some.

The Armenian says, “Yes, Christ died for

801
everybody but it was only a provision, and you
have to fulfill certain conditions before that
provision is yours.”

So for 400 years, the Calvinist has been saying,

“How can I be sure I am among the elect?” And for
400 years the Armenian, to which the Adventists
belong, have been saying, “How can I be sure that I
have fulfilled all the conditions, so that I can be
sure of my salvation?”

The Bible teaches neither of these. The Bible

teaches that God saved us unconditionally, that all
men were redeemed in Christ. Only those will be
lost who deliberately, willfully, persistently say,
“God, we don’t want You!” Those who push Him
away and say, “We don’t want You; we don’t want
your gift!”

Then God will not force that upon you. But

please remember that the Holy Spirit is there. You
know why? Because when Jesus went up to
heaven, He said, “Father, I have redeemed the
world. But these people who have accepted Me,
802
who follow Me, need help. They cannot manage
on their own. Can I send them the Holy Spirit?”
Jesus said [John 14:16]:

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you

another Counselor to be with you forever....

The Third Person of the Godhead, Who will be

by your side not seven hours or ten hours a day.
He doesn’t have office hours. He has 24 hours a
day, He’s by your side until you die or until Christ
comes. That is the kind of God that I worship,
Who leaves me not helpless, but He has sent me a
Paraclaytos to be by my side.

The question is, “Do you know this?” For Paul

says in verse 28:

And we know...

If you don’t know this, then you have not

understood the gospel. The unbeliever doesn’t
know this, even though what is true of the text may
apply to Him, but he doesn’t know this. The key
803
words here are, “and we know.” What do we
know?

...that in all things God works for the good of

those who love him, who have been called
according to this purpose.

Now, some of the best manuscripts do not say

it exactly like this. Some read, “And we know that
all things work together for good to those who love
God.” So I’m going to read to you from the
Revised Standard Version. Because the RSV and
the New International Version are really the more
accurate texts. This is what it says:

We know that in everything God works for

good with those who love God.

In other words, not everything that happens to

you is from God. But God will use anything that
happens, the bad and the good, He will use it for
your good. Because that’s all God has in mind.

Sometimes, when you are in the dumps, when

804
you have lost your job and everything goes wrong
and the world is collapsing, please remember the
Paraclaytos is by your side. You can’t see Him,
you can’t feel Him, but “do you know, do you
believe” that He is by your side? He’s there to help
you, to guide you, to lead you. And then Paul says
in verse 29:

For those God foreknew he also predestined to

be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he
might be the firstborn among many brothers.

This text has caused problems. There are two

words, and they are not synonymous:
“foreknowledge” and “foreordained.” Foreknew
and predestined are not the same words. Who is
Paul referring to? He is not discussing here
salvation; he is discussing whom God knew
beforehand would accept the gift of salvation. The
salvation is for all people. But he’s not talking
about the predestination of those whom he will
save; he’s talking about the predestination of those
whom He foreknew would accept the gift of His
Son: “Those whom God knew beforehand would
805
accept His Son He predestined (not in terms of
salvation) but He predestined to be conformed to
the image of His Son that Christ might be the
firstborn among many brothers and sisters.”

So what is Paul doing here? He is not talking

Calvinism here, he’s not saying that God
predestined some to be saved. What he is saying is
that he knows beforehand those that will accept His
gift. He’s not responsible, but He knows because
He’s all knowing.

And those He knows, He has a special plan for

them. He has predestined that He reproduce in you
and in me the character of His Son. You see, He
has predestined all people to be saved, but He will
not force that salvation on all people. But He has
predestined all that will accept that salvation,

...to be conformed to the likeness of his Son,

that he [Christ] might be the firstborn among many
brothers.

The word “firstborn” here means “prototype.”

806
Here Paul is using Christ not as a Savior. He is our
Savior, He is our Redeemer, but here he is using
Him as a prototype, which means that all that God
accomplished in Christ’s humanity is for our
experience. He wants to reproduce in us what He
has already accomplished in Jesus Christ. In other
words, He wants us to reflect His Son, Jesus Christ.
That is what He has predestined for every believer.
For the world, He has predestined salvation; for the
believer He has predestined, foreordained, a
transformation of character until we reflect the
image of His Son. And these are the steps,
Romans 8:30:

And those he predestined, he also called; those

he called, he also justified; those he justified, he
also glorified.

Remember, the “predestined” has to do with

reproducing the character of Christ. God doesn’t
do a half and half work with us. I want to leave
you with a promise. The promise if found in 1
Thessalonians 5:24. And verse 23 also but verse
24 is the one that I want you to keep in mind:
807
 The one who calls you is faithful and he will do
it.

He will do it! The work of justification, the

work of sanctification, the work of glorification is
not our job, it’s the work of God. Through the
Spirit, God is going to fulfill what He has already
accomplished in Jesus Christ. Our job is faith.
Our job is to walk in the Spirit. Our job is to say,
“Not I, but Christ.”

It is my prayer that we learn, daily, to walk in

the Spirit, that we learn to say daily, “Not I, but
Christ,” that we will daily allow ourselves to be led
by the Spirit, so that He may produce in us the
character of His Son that we may behave and act
like children of God.

While we may have to suffer in this world in

many ways — physically, socially, mentally,
economically — please remember, the suffering in
this world, while we are waiting for the actual
adoption to be a tangible reality, remember it is
808
only for a season. And remember that this
suffering is not worth mentioning when you
compare it to the eternal glory we will have in
Christ.

So I leave with you God’s Paraclaytos for us,

our Helper. Don’t depend on the church, don’t
depend on the pastor, don’t depend on human
beings, because when the time of trouble comes,
the church will disintegrate. Your pastor will not
be here. You will be out in the mountains. But
please remember there is One by your side Who
will never leave you, never forsake you. And He’s
there to help you, to guide you, to strengthen you,
to comfort you.

809
 Chapter 24

Agape Never Fails

(Romans 8:31-39)

How are we to prepare ourselves to face this

time of trouble that is known in scripture and in
Theology as the Great Tribulation? Many answers
are given today by many people. There are some
who say to the Christian church, “Don’t worry,
there will be a secret rapture so that you will
disappear from this earth before it happens.” Well
the Bible doesn’t teach that. The Bible says that all
Christians living in the last time will have to go
through this but they will be delivered by God.

Then there is another group who say, “No, you

need to store up food for two years.” Well, that
sounds like a wonderful plan, except that, in the
Time of Trouble there will still be thieves and
robbers, and they will come and take your food
before you know it, because they will not use
pleading, they will use the point of a gun; so that
810
won’t help.

There are others who say, “No, you must learn

how to survive in the wilderness.” They have this
wilderness survival program. Well, that’s fine,
except the devil will simply move you from this
mountain to somewhere else in the East, where you
have not studied the vegetation there, and you will
say, “Boy, I don’t know which of this is edible and
which is not.” So you will be stuck.

And there are still others who say, “You need

to overcome every inherited and cultivated
tendency to sin because you will have to live
without a Mediator.” Now I have to say something
about that. I believe that the gospel is powerful,
that it is possible to overcome every inherited and
cultivated tendency. But there are two things that
we must see clearly:

1. We will not know it; our nature will remain

sinful until the second coming of Christ. So
we will always feel that we are sinners.

811
 2. We may not have a Mediator, but we will not
be living without a Savior. Impossible! We
don’t need a Mediator because the judgment
is over, the verdict has been given in favor
of the saints. But we will have to live by
faith in a Savior, and the Holy Spirit will not
be taken away from us (maybe from the
world).

But the question is, how do we prepare for this

crisis? Well, I believe that Paul the Apostle has the
answer. For example, in Ephesians 3, talking to a
church that was facing real concerns about a crisis
that was coming, his prayerful answer is, “Only
those whose faith is rooted and grounded in the
love of God will be able to stand” [see Ephesians
3:16-19].

And the reason he gives you is this: that if you

are rooted and grounded in the love of God, you
have the fullness of God in you, you have a faith
that is unshakeable no matter what happens. In
other words, as the book of Revelation says, “You
have the faith of Jesus Christ,” a faith that endured
812
the cross even though He felt God-abandoned. It is
this unshakeable faith, rooted and grounded in the
love of God, that Paul is discussing in our passage
in this study, in Romans 8:31-39.

This is the last section of Romans 8; our next

study will be Romans 9, 10, and 11, which has to
do with the question of the Jews and their problem.
But I want to remind you that Romans 8 is the
chapter on how Christians should live. And his
answer is that Christians should walk in the Spirit
because Christian living is a life by the Spirit.

In our last study I introduced to you the title

that Jesus gave to the Holy Spirit in His work for
the believer and the unbeliever in this world of
ours. Do you remember that title? I gave you the
Greek name, “Paraclaytos.” That is the word Jesus
gave for the Holy Spirit.

What does it mean? It means somebody Who

is by your side, your Companion, as a Helper.
Jesus did not leave His disciples, His church,
without a Helper. He sent the Holy Spirit to be our
813
Paraclaytos, to be by our side to help us.

In our last study we saw that He comforts us,

He teaches us, He guides us, and He intercedes for
us. That is what Paul told us in the previous
section. Now, in Romans 8:31, in view of what he
has told us concerning the Spirit as our Paraclaytos,
he says:

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If

God is for us, who can be against us?

Paul is not saying there will be nobody against

you. We know from Scripture that the Devil, for
example, is against us. He is called in Revelation
12:10, “the accuser of our brothers.”

And the world, when it sees Christ in you, will

turn against you, will persecute you. We know that
the whole world, which has given itself to Satan,
will be the means by which we will have to face
the Great Tribulation. They will be the ones who
will put us through the grill. We will be
persecuted, we will have to face famine, we will be
814
hounded like dogs by the world.

So Paul is not saying that there is nobody

against you. But what he’s saying is this, “If God
is on your side, does it matter if anybody is against
you?”

I want you to look at the word, “God.” Who is

Paul referring to: the Father, the Son, or the Holy
Spirit? And the answer is: all three. He has told
us that the Holy Spirit is our Helper. And, as we
go along in verses 33 and 34, he will tell us that the
Father and the Son are on our side, too. And if the
Godhead, the Lord of the universe is on our side,
does it matter if anyone is against us?

Okay, having made the statement that God is

on our side in verse 31, Paul gives the greatest
evidence that can ever be given in Scripture, how
God is on our side. What is the greatest evidence
that God has given that He is on our side? Well,
look at Romans 8:32:

He [i.e., the Father] who did not spare his own

815
Son, but gave him up for us all — how will he not
also, along with him [i.e., with Christ], graciously
give us all things?

Now I want to look at this verse very carefully.

Turn to Genesis 22. I want you to turn to this
passage because there we will find a word, the very
same word that we find in Romans 8:32, the very
same word at least in the Greek Old Testament
known as the Septuagint, in Gen. 22:16. You
remember, in chapter 22, God was testing
Abraham’s faith, and the test was very severe:
“Take your son, your only begotten son in whom I
have promised salvation, take him and offer him up
as a sacrifice.” That, I think you will all agree, was
a very severe test. No greater sacrifice can be
found in the Old Testament than the sacrifice of
Isaac by Abraham. And in verse 16, after Abraham
passed the test, this is what God said:

...I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that

because you have done this and have not withheld
your son, your only son....

816
 That word, “withheld” is the same word that
you can find in Romans 8:32, “not spared”; it’s the
same Greek word. What is Paul saying in Romans
8:32? God did not withhold from His Son the full
wages of sin that belongs to you and me. “God
spared not His own son but delivered Him up for
us all.”

What did He not withhold from His Son? What

is it that He refused to spare His Son from? Well,
we need to turn to another passage and that is in
Luke 22 in the New Testament. I want you to put
yourselves in the shoes of those three disciples who
witnessed this terrible incident recorded in Luke
22. We’ll begin with verse 42. This is Jesus in
Gethsemane, a stone throw from the three disciples
whom he had asked to watch and pray with Him.
This is His prayer [Luke 22:42, 44]:

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from

me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” And
being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his
sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.

817
 The disciples had never seen Christ in such
agony. The agony was so great that His capillaries
burst and the blood oozed into His sweat glands
and drops of sweat and blood came out of Him.
What was the issue? He was facing the wages of
sin for our sins, for the sins of the world. And
three times He pleaded with the Father, “If it be
possible, remove this cup, remove this cup.”

“No,” says God, “I will not remove that cup, I

will not spare You. I will not withhold from you
what you have to go through.”

Do you know why God did not spare His Son?

It is not because there was enmity between Him
and His Son. More than once the Father
proclaimed to the world that [Matthew 3:17, Mark
1:11]:

This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am

well pleased.

Yet God refused to spare Him the cup for one

reason: because He so loved the world. He so
818
much loved the world that had rebelled against
Him that He would not spare His own Son, “but
gave him up for us all,” says Paul.

Remember Romans 5:8?

But God demonstrates his own love for us in

this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

God demonstrated His love for us that while we

were sinners, while we were enemies, while we
were helpless, while we were ungodly, Jesus had to
die on the cross. And Paul is saying that, if God
did that while we were enemies to Him, if He did
not spare His own Son [Romans 8:32]:

...how will he not also, along with him,

graciously give us all things?

Some translations read he will give us all things

“freely,” which comes from the same root word as
the word “grace,” which means, “How shall He not
graciously give to us undeserving sinners
everything in Christ?” Then he asks the question in
819
verse 33:

Who will bring any charge against those whom

God has chosen? It is God who justifies.

Some translations read, “Who shall bring a

charge against God’s elect,” but those “chosen” or
the word “elect” do not mean those Whom He
predetermined to be saved. He predetermined all
people to be saved, but that salvation is a gift, a gift
that you cannot enjoy if you deliberately refuse it.
The elect are those who by a heart-appreciation
have said, “Thank You God, for Your unspeakable
Gift, Jesus Christ.”

“Who shall accuse the believers?” That’s the

question in verse 33. We know Satan accuses us.
Revelation 12:10 says so: he’s “the accuser of the
brothers.” Sometimes it is your conscience that
accuses you, then there are others who will accuse
you. But there is one Person Who will not accuse
you, and it is God.

Why does God not accuse you? Because He is

820
the One Who justifies you. And He justifies you
not because we deserve it, but because He loves us,
and He gave His Son to die for us. I want you to
be clear on this, so I want to take you to a text that
you have already seen and heard but need to be
reminded of. Turn to Romans 4. So that you are
clear about who does God justify. Romans 4:5:

However, to the man who does not work...

“To him who does not produce righteousness.”

That’s the context.

... but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his

faith is credited as righteousness.

Here is God, Who justifies us rebellious sinners

because of His love and His gift in Jesus Christ,
which we have accepted. How can this God, Who
has justified you in Christ, turn around and accuse
you? Impossible. Because God is not a hypocrite;
He doesn’t do one thing one time and another thing
another time. If He has justified you, He means it.
He doesn’t change His views. So, number one,
821
God is on your side because He justifies you. Now
go to verse 34:

Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who

died — more than that, who was raised to life — is
at the right hand of God and is also interceding for
us.

What is Paul saying? Christ died. Do you

know why He died? That there might be no
condemnation for you. I read in John 3:17:

For God did not send his Son into the world to
condemn the world, but to save the world through
him.

And in chapter 8 of Romans, in this very same

chapter, verse 1, we read:

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for

those who are in Christ Jesus....

How can Christ — Who, at infinite cost to

Himself, liberated us from the condemnation —
822
how can He condemn us? Now there is the law
that condemns you. I read in Galatians 3:10:

All who rely on observing the law are under a

curse, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who
does not continue to do everything written in the
Book of the Law.”

Condemned is the person who does not obey

the law, to keep it in every detail. In this, all of us
have failed. But the good news in verse 13 of
Galatians 3 is:

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law

by becoming a curse for us, for it is written:
“Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”

And it is this that God made Him on the cross.

It is this that God did not spare His Son from. How
can Christ condemn you? But that is not all. Paul
says that not only is there no condemnation from
Christ, but this same Christ, Who has liberated us
from condemnation by His death, Who is now risen
from the dead, is sitting at the right hand of God,
823
making intercession for us.

Why is He making intercession for us if the

Father and the Spirit are on our side? He’s making
intercession for us because you and I have an
accuser. That accuser is Satan. You and I cannot
defend ourselves against that accusation, because
His accusations are correct. We are sinners. But
we have One Who can rightly defend us, because
He is our righteousness and He is our Intercessor.
And I know what He will say. He will say what He
said to Satan when Satan tried to rob Christ of the
body of Moses in Jude 9:

...The Lord rebuke you.

And He will say the same thing that He says in

Zechariah 3:2, which deals with the judgment,
where the angel of the Lord has to stand before the
Lord, and Joshua, which is the Hebrew word for
Jesus, our High Priest is there to intercede for us.
Do you know what He will say? He will say:

The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord, who

824
has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man
a burning stick snatched from the fire?

So, folks, God is on our side. The Father is on

your side, the Son is on your side, and the Holy
Spirit is on your side. Romans 8:31:

If God is for us, who can be against us?

They have no way to win, we are on the

winning side. All this is because God is love, and
so I go to verse 35:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Who will separate us from the love of Christ,

the love that led Him to the cross? The love that
said, while He was in agony [Luke 23:34]:

Father, forgive them, for they do not know

what they are doing.

Who will separate from the love of Christ?

And then he gives a whole host of things:
825
 Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or
famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

Now some of us have gone through some of

these things. But one thing you must be clear on:
all of these things — tribulation, distress, famine,
nakedness, peril — all of it will be heaped on us at
one time in the Great Tribulation. David, who
experienced some of this, makes this statement in
Psalms 44:22 which Paul quotes in verse 36:

As it is written: “For your sake we face death

all day long; we are considered as sheep to be
slaughtered.”

That is how the world will treat the believers in

the Great Tribulation. They will be treated like
sheep that deserve to be slaughtered, because the
whole world will wonder after the beast, who will
receive his power from the dragon. The dragon is
Satan, and Satan and Christ are at war. We belong
to Christ and so we become enemies of Satan,
enemies of the world. In other words, Christians
826
are citizens of heaven living in enemy territory and,
in the Great Tribulation, those enemies will make
their final effort to destroy God’s people. But
because God is on our side, we can read verse 37
with assurance:

No, in all these things we are more than

conquerors through him who loved us.

In ALL these things — not some of these

things — in all these things which we will go
through, “we are more than conquerors through
Him Who loved us.” Not through your
performance, not through your goodness, not
through your might, not through your will power,
but:

...through him who loved us.

In other words, if you and I are to be able to

endure the Great Tribulation, if you and I are to be
more than conquerors through Him, we need to be
rooted and grounded in the love of Christ. Turn to
1 John. Listen to that Apostle, the beloved Apostle
827
John. 1 John 4 and we’ll begin with verse 16. And
I hope by now this verse 16 is true of each one of
you:

And so we know and rely on...

Two things: to know and to believe (or rely

on). What do we know and what do we believe?

And so we know and rely on the love God has

for us.

Now please remember our study on the love of

God: it is unconditional and it is never failing.
God loves us unconditionally. And His love for us
never ceases; our love for Him might, but not His
love for us.

And so we know and rely on the love God has

for us. God is love.

First is the love that God has for us. God is

love. And what John is saying is not that one of
the characteristics of God is love, but “God is
828
love,” period. Everything about Him can be
defined by that one word, “agape.” God is love.

And so we know and rely on the love God has

for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in
God, and God in him.

In other words, our anchor is not us; our anchor

is not even what God does in us. Our anchor is in
Him Who is love. Having made that statement,
John goes to verses 17 and 18 and applies this to
those who know and believe. 1 John 4:17:

In this way, love is made complete among us so

that we will have confidence on the day of
judgment, because in this world we are like him.

How do you know that God’s love has been

made complete, been fully perfected in you? When
you “have confidence on the day of judgment.”
Why should you have confidence, boldness in the
day of judgment? Because, out of love, God has
made you to be righteous in His Christ, because “in
this world we are like him.”
829
 He is love, so we are love. We are filled with
the fullness of God because we are filled with His
love. We are abiding in His love and, therefore, 1
John 4:18 goes on to say:

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives

out fear....

Now let me be clear. From the human point of

view, we will be afraid in the time of trouble. But
deep down in the inner man, in our converted
minds, we know in Whom we believe. And we
know that the love of God is greater than the fear
that is in the flesh because [continuing 1 John
4:18]:

...fear has to do with punishment. The one who

fears is not made perfect in love.

Now please note the context. He is not saying,

“He who fears persecution.” We will be afraid of
the persecution, but what we will not be afraid of is
the judgment and the torment that comes from the
830
judgment. Why? Because the love of God has told
us that we belong to God. He is on our side. He
has justified us and He doesn’t condemn us. And
we have an advocate who will vindicate us and
Who has vindicated us in the judgment.

So, going back to Romans 8, having made that

wonderful statement in verse 37, which is my
prayer for each one of you:

No, in all these things we are more than

conquerors through him who loved us.

I read those two beautiful statements which I

hope you will memorize, not only in your minds
but in your hearts. Romans 8:28-29:

For I am convinced that neither death or life,

neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor
the future, nor any powers, neither height nor
depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able
to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ
Jesus our Lord.

831
 “I am convinced without even the slightest
shadow of a doubt, I am convinced completely and
totally.”

Have you got it? Nothing above, below or

horizontally, nothing in this world, in the universe,
anywhere, can separate us from the love of God
which, of course, was demonstrated in Christ Jesus
our Lord.

Before I came to America, one of my jobs was

chaplain of Nairobi University. We had 250
wonderful young people at that university.

In East Africa, we have the British system: not

everybody can have the privilege of going to
college like you have in this country. Only the
cream of the crop go to university. The
government, not the school, gives the 12th grade
the state exam, and only those who have done
extremely well, probably five to six percent of the
whole student body, will have the privilege of
going to the university.

832
 We had 250 Adventist young people in the
Nairobi University. I had three young kids there
who were excellent men; of these, one was the
president of the university group and one was the
treasurer. These three were all studying medicine
and they were inseparable. Not too long ago, I had
a phone call from the treasurer, who had been
given a scholarship from the World Bank to the
University of California to take his Ph.D. He
called me and gave me some sad news: the other
student, who was the president, had left the church.

“Why?” I asked. He was such a godly young

man. And he told me the sad story. The student
president’s closest friend — the third of the three
— had just finished his medicine degree after all
those years. Just after graduation, he was riding in
a taxi. The taxi was in an accident and he died.

This person who was the president of the group

said, “Why did God allow that?” And he turned his
back on God.

I had to write to him and said, “Please, God

833
never allows anything unless it is for the good.”

We need to remind ourselves of what we read

last study in verse 28 of Romans 8:

And we know that in all things God works for

the good of those who love him....

We may not understand it, but I know one

thing: that young man who died in the crash, died
in Christ; heaven is his. But the thing is this, it’s a
tragedy when people fail to understand that God is
love.

Things are going to happen to you, folks, and

the devil will come to you. I’m talking from
experience. When you face persecution, when you
face tribulation and distress and famine and
nakedness and sword, all at one time, I know what
the devil will do: he will come to you and you
know what he will do? He will try and convince
you that the reason why you are going through this
terrible time is because God doesn’t love you any
more.
834
 I can assure you, you will feel that. You will
feel that God has forsaken you. You will feel that
he doesn’t care what you are going through. And,
unless you are rooted and grounded in the love of
God, you will not make it. We need to realize that
God is love and His love is unconditional.

The same boy who died, this medical student,

came to me one day while I was chaplain at
Nairobi University and said, “Pastor, I have a real
burden.”

I said, “What’s the burden?”

He said, “I have an uncle in the hospital who is

dying of leukemia. The doctors have given him
three months to live. Would you please go and
pray for him? He is in agony.”

So I said, “Sure.” I discovered that the uncle

was the head elder of his church 250 miles away.

As soon as I approached him, he pleaded with

835
me, “Please, ask God to forgive me.”

“What’s the big problem?” I said. “I mean, you

are a Christian; you are the head elder of your
church.”

“Yes,” he said, “but there is one sin I don’t

think He can forgive me. Maybe if you pray, He’ll
forgive me.”

“Boy,” I said, “you’ll make a good Catholic.

What’s the problem?”

He began his confession. It was a terrible thing

he did. His daughter, a teenager in high school,
became pregnant. He was the head elder of the
church; it meant disgrace to his family. So he took
her to a witch doctor to have an abortion, to save
his name. The witch doctor did something that
killed her, and he felt now, two years later, that
God was punishing him for that sin by giving him
leukemia. What a false picture of God he had!

I read to him this text. “Look, Brother, God did

836
not spare His own Son! How can you accuse God
of being such a person?” So I gave him a Bible
study. I spent about two hours with him, showed
him the love of God and the wonderful,
unconditional good news of salvation, and his face
began to smile and he said, “You mean to say there
is hope for me?”

“Yes, Brother,” I said, “there is hope for you.

GUARANTEED.” And I gave him a whole list of
texts and said, “I want you to sit down and read
these texts on your own, so that this truth comes to
you from the word of God, not from me.”

So I left him. About two months later I said to

myself, “Oh, I better go and visit him and say
good-bye to him.” He had already been anointed
by his church pastor, and the doctors had given him
three months, and this was two months later. So I
went to see him and, of course, they have big
rooms there in the hospital, about 50 beds all
squeezed together, and each bed has a number. So
I went to his bed and it was empty. The first
thought that came to my mind was, “He died. I
837
was too late.” But there was a nurse there and I
said to her, “Where is Brother Okello?”

Before she could answer, at the end of the

room, he said, “Pastor, I’m here.”

I said, “What are you doing there?”

Do you know what he was doing? He was

sitting by the side of a Masai. This may not mean
anything to you, but he was of a tribe that were
bitter enemies of the Masai. You see, the Masai
have a belief that all the cattle in the world,
including America, belong to them. So they will
go to a tribe and take the cows that belong to that
tribe because it belongs to them. And, of course, it
ends up in a feud. These two tribes were at
loggerheads; they would kill each other every time
they met. The government had to kind of keep
them apart. And here is this man from the enemy
tribe, giving the gospel to this Masai. I said to him,
“What on earth are you telling him?”

“Pastor,” he said, “I am trying to get into this

838
dumb head of his that it is not the blood of cows,
which he has been drinking all his life, that saves
him, but the blood of Jesus Christ. But I can’t
make him understand the good news. Can you
help me?”

“But,” I said, “you should be in bed.”

“What for?” he said, “I already have peace,

thank you for that. I must give it to Him now.”
You see, he had now a hope, an anchor. No longer
was he afraid to die. His one concern was to bring
the gospel to this poor Masai who was also dying
of a terminal disease.

My dear people, when you and I are rooted in

the love of God, we will be able to say with Paul,
“I am persuaded that nothing in heaven or earth, in
this universe, can ever separate me from the love of
God.”

That is the kind of faith that you and I have to

develop if we are going to go through the time of
trouble. That’s the kind of faith that Jesus had on
839
the cross. He felt forsaken of God, but He knew
one thing: God’s love never forsakes. That He
knew, and that we must know.

“Agape never fails,” says Paul in 1 Corinthians

13:8. In John 13:1, I read:

Having loved his own who were in the world,

he now showed them the full extent of this love.

There will never come a time when God will

stop loving you. Never. Even if you reject Him,
He still loves you. And, please remember, that
love is not simply words. John 3:16:

For God so loved the world that he gave his

one and only Son, that whoever believes in him
shall not perish but have eternal life.

Do you believe that the love of God which led

Him to give His Son has given you eternal life?
Do you believe that when you are facing
tribulation, distress, persecution, famine,
nakedness, and peril that God has not forsaken
840
you? Do you believe that? That is the condition
that you and I have to reach. And that is the great
burden that Paul wants his readers of Romans 8 to
understand.

Folks, you have the Paraclaytos, the Holy Spirit

by your side. He is there to help you, to intercede,
and to convince you that you are a child of God,
and that you are joint heirs with Jesus Christ. It is
my prayer that you will receive and develop such a
faith, a faith that is unshakable because it is rooted
and grounded in the love of God, the unconditional
agape of God which was revealed in His Son, Jesus
Christ. This is my prayer for each of you. Amen.

841
 Chapter 25

The True Israelite, Part 1

(Romans 9:6-13)

In chapters 9, 10, and 11 of Romans, the great

Apostle Paul sidetracks. He doesn’t sidetrack from
his great theme of Romans, which is Righteousness
by Faith, but he sidetracks from his concern for the
Christian church at Rome, and he directs his
concern now to his own people, the Jewish nation.

Even though Paul was called by God, set aside,

to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ to the
Gentile world, he had a tremendous burden for his
own people, the Jews. This concern, this fact is all
the more amazing when we realize that his own
people, the Jews, hated him. They felt that he was
a traitor, and yet Paul loved them, as we shall see
in this study.

But the fact that we are dealing now with three

chapters that have to do with the Jews does not
842
mean that we Gentile Christians should skim over
these chapters, because the same Apostle tells us in
1 Corinthians 10:11 that the history of the Jews has
been recorded in the Bible, for our benefit, upon
whom the ends of the worlds have come.

The famous historian Santana made the

statement once that if we forget history, we are
doomed to repeat it. That’s exactly why God has
recorded the history of Israel, because he doesn’t
want us to repeat what they went through. He
wants us to learn from their mistakes. The Jews
were a very privileged people. In fact, if you look
at Romans 9:4, listen to what Paul tells about his
own people:

Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine

glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the
temple worship and the promises.
He says to these Jews God had given:

1. the adoption,

2. the glory,
843
 3. the covenants,

4. the giving of the law,

5. the service of God, and

6. finally, to them God gave the promises. Or

as Paul put it in Romans 3:2 which we’ve
already covered:

...They have been entrusted with the very

words of God.

They were a blessed people, but what did they

do with this wonderful truth that God gave them?
They perverted the oracles of God and they
rejected the promise of God in Jesus Christ.

Likewise, I believe we, as Adventists, have

been a very privileged people. I believe that God
has given us some wonderful truths. Foremost,
100 years ago he gave us a clear understanding of
God’s unconditional good news of salvation. And
844
if we had not made the same mistake as the Jews,
this earth would have already been lightened with
the glory of Jesus Christ. But we are still groping
in darkness.

Just recently a Calvinist, of all people,

published a book. He’s entitled it What’s Good
about the Good News? At the bottom of the book
is this statement: “The plan of salvation in a new
light.” While I read this book with great delight, it
was also with some sadness, because that new light
God gave this church 100 years ago. So God has
to bring it to the world through a Calvinist. But it’s
not too late, folks.

We are going to study three chapters. Yes, they

are dealing with the Jews, but they have been
recorded for our benefit. According to chapters 9,
10, and 11 of Romans, the Jews failed on two
major counts, and their failure has very important
significance to us. We dare not repeat their same
mistake.

1. They failed to understand what God meant or

845
what constitutes true Israel. They thought that as
long as they were the descendants, the physical
descendants of Israel’s three fathers, Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, that they qualified to be God’s
elect, or God’s covenant people.

And there are many Adventists who think that

just because they have their name in the books,
they qualify to be God’s children. Well, I have bad
news for you: that doesn’t qualify you to be a child
of God. There are some backsliders who have
pleaded with us, “Please don’t remove our names.”
Might as well, they don’t come to church. But they
think that their name in the books gives them some
ticket to heaven. I have sad news for you; the fact
that you belong to God’s remnant church and your
name is in the books does not qualify you for
heaven.

The fact that the Jews had Abraham, Isaac, and

Jacob as their fathers did not qualify them for
heaven. They made this mistake: they had not
understood what God meant by Israel; they had
failed to see why God gave them three fathers.
846
 2. The second mistake, which was, of course,
the result of the first mistake, is they failed to
recognize God’s way of saving sinful man. The
promise that God made is that One of those seed of
those three men would be sent by God to be the
Redeemer of the world and that salvation is by
faith alone in His righteousness, and not by your
own lawkeeping. But they failed there. The result
is that God had to take the keys of the kingdom and
give it to the Christian church.

Now the key statement in Romans 9 is in verse

6, and I want you to look at it. Paul makes a
statement there after expressing His concern for the
Jews, who were blessed, in verse 6 of chapter 9, he
says:

It is not as though God’s word had failed. For

not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.

Now what does he mean by that statement?

God gave Israel many things: He gave them
covenants, He gave them the Sanctuary service,
847
and He gave them promises. Now all those things
were summed up in one promise which He gave
not once or twice or three times but many times
repeated after that. He gave this promise to
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That promise was that
their children, their seed, would be the inheritance
of the New Canaan, the promised salvation.

Then Jesus, at the end of His ministry, turns

around to this very same people — you’ll find this
statement in Matthew 23:37-38 — He turns around
to the Jews at the end of His ministry and He says
to them:

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the

prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I
have longed to gather your children together, as a
hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you
were not willing. Look, your house is left to you
desolate.

In other words, there’s no hope for you. This

has created a problem, because I believe that when
he made that statement in Romans 9:6, Paul had in
848
mind a statement that God made in Numbers 23
and especially verse 19, and that was:

God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son

of man, that he should change his mind. Does he
speak and then not act? Does he promise and not
fulfill?

God is not like man, who breaks promises.

Whatever God promises He will keep. He had
promised that all of the three fathers — Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob — that their children would
belong to Israel, would be the elect, they would be
God’s covenant chosen people. And now Christ
says, “I leave your house desolate.”

And Paul says, “Does that mean that God has

failed to keep His promise?” That is the issue he
discusses in chapters 9, 10, and 11 of Romans.
After the discussion, he comes to this conclusion
(Romans 11:26):

And so all Israel will be saved....

849
 God will keep His promise. That answer to the
question in Romans 9:6 has caused a lot of
confusion in the Christian church. There are some
who believe that after God has dealt with the
Gentiles, He will give the Jews a second chance,
and then the Jews as a nation will no longer reject
the Messiah, they will accept and ALL Jews will
be saved.

But to understand Romans 11:26, we need to

understand the logic of Paul’s argument beginning
with chapter 9. We need to ask the question,
“What did Paul mean by the term ‘Israel’?” What
did He mean by that term? And how is Israel
going to be saved? Because these are the two areas
where the Jews failed. These are the two areas that
Paul corrects, and points out the problem.

With this background, let’s go through chapter

9 now. What I’m going to do is give a general
study, an exposition of chapter 9. Then, the next
three studies will be on this one topic: what
constitutes true Israel. Because we as Christian-
Gentiles need to know the answer to that question.
850
 I’ll tell you why, because God doesn’t have two
people, Jews and Gentiles, God has only one
people, Israel. Either you belong to Israel or you
don’t. But the question is, “What constitutes
Israel?”

In the first five verses of chapter 9, Paul

expresses His concern for His fellow Jews. And I
want to repeat, it is amazing that Paul had a
concern for the Jews when you realize how they
treated Him. Turn to Acts 21; we have here a
historical incident that will show how the Jews felt
about Paul.

In Acts 21, Paul had returned from his last

missionary journey. He had come to Jerusalem to
give a report to the Brethren on what God had done
through his ministry, and James called him aside
and said, “Praise the Lord for what God has done
to the Gentiles through your ministry, but I want
you to know, Paul, that a lot of Jews in Israel have
accepted the Messiah.”

851
 And Paul said, “Praise the Lord!”

“But there’s one problem, Paul,” says James.

“These Jews feel that you are a traitor to Israel.
They feel that you are against them, against their
law, against their system, against their temple. We
know that this is not true. So why don’t you give
them some evidence?”

James gave him some “good advice.” “Go

through the cleansing ceremony, shave your head,
etc.” Well, I would have no problem to do that,
some of you would. But Paul was a good obedient
fellow. I don’t know if He accepted that advice as
good or bad. But since James was a pillar of the
church, he said, “James, I will do what you say,
because I don’t hate these people. I don’t hate my
own people.”

So he did follow the advice, but it backfired.

After he had gone through the cleansing ceremony,
he entered the temple, and listen to what the Jews
did. They grabbed him, first of all. Then, in Acts
21:28, they cried out:
852
 Men of Israel, help us! This is the man who
teaches all men everywhere against our people and
our law and this place [i.e., the temple]. And
besides, he has brought Greeks [Gentiles] into the
temple area and defiled this holy place.

Can you imagine, it is to such people that Paul

is talking about in Romans 9:1-2:

I speak the truth in Christ — I am not lying, my

conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit — I have
great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

“You may think that I’m against you, you may

think that I’m a traitor, but God can read my heart
that I have great sorrow, and continual grief in my
heart for my own fellow Jews.”

Then he makes a statement, a statement that has

caused me to really ponder. Have you ever
wrestled with verse 3? Do you know what Paul is
saying in verse 3? Here is evidence that the gospel
is the power of God unto salvation. For here we
853
have evidence that Paul is not lying, he’s telling the
truth, his conscience also bearing witness in the
Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit would not have
allowed him to record this if he was lying. What is
he saying? He is saying that “I am willing to be
lost forever if this would save my fellow Jews who
hate me.” That is the power of the gospel.
Romans 9:3-4a:

For I could wish that I myself were cursed and

cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers,
those of my own race, the people of Israel.

Do you know what that phrase means,

“accursed from Christ”? It means to be lost
eternally, no more heaven. It means to be burnt up
in that lake of fire. Paul is saying, “I am willing to
do that, that’s how much I love my fellow Jews, if
that would save them.” But he knows it doesn’t,
but that is what he’s willing.

There is only one other man that expressed the

same ideas for the Jews, and that was Moses in
Exodus 32:32, where he said, “Lord, please don’t
854
destroy these rebellious people.”

Because God had told him, “I will destroy them

and make out of you, Moses, the father of a new
nation.”

And Moses said, “Please don’t do that. If you

can’t forgive them, blot me from the book of life.
Wipe me out from salvation that they may live.”

That is the revelation of agape manifested in

the flesh. That is the kind of people God is going
to produce in these last days. Not one or two, but a
whole church of people.

You cannot do it by works. It is by faith alone

that you can experience this power, because you
and I cannot generate this kind of love. The only
love you and I can generate is egocentric love, love
that seeks its own, the love that the disciples
revealed before the cross. They did not accept
Christ because they loved Him; they accepted
Christ because they believed He was the Messiah
and they wanted to be number one in the kingdom.
855
It was only after the cross that they were willing to
die for Christ. But here is Paul, a transformed man,
revealing in His life the power of the gospel. He
says [Romans 9:3-5]:

For I could wish that I myself were cursed and

cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers,
those of my own race, the people of Israel. Theirs
is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the
covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple
worship and the promises. Theirs are the
patriarchs, and from them is traced the human
ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever
praised! Amen.

That’s his introduction for His concern for the

Jews. Then, the first thing he tells his Jewish
brethren, “Jews, I want you to know that God has
not failed to keep His promise. The problem is not
God, the problem is you. You have failed to
understand what God means by Israel.” And so the
second half of verse 6 says:

For not all who are descended from Israel are

856
Israel.

In other words, the fact that you have the blood

of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, doesn’t qualify you
to be an Israelite in my eyes, says God. Look at
verse 7:

Nor because they are his descendants are they

all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is
through Isaac that your offspring will be
reckoned.”

Do you realize what Paul is doing here? He’s

playing with words, with concepts. You see,
Abraham did not have only one son. He had two
sons, at least two initial sons. He had Ishmael, and
he had Isaac. And Ishmael had a legal right to call
Abraham Father.

But Ishmael doesn’t belong to Israel. So Paul

is saying, “The fact that you are a descendant of
Abraham doesn’t qualify you to be Israel because
Abraham also had Ishmael and he could call
Abraham Father but not call himself Israel. You
857
have to have even Isaac as your father.” Now
Ishmael did not have Isaac as his father. Look at
verse 8:

In other words, it is not the natural children

who are God’s children, but it is the children of the
promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.

Esau could claim both Abraham and Isaac as

his father, but Esau doesn’t belong to Israel. By
the way, when you read verse 13:

Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I

hated.”

Please don’t take the English meaning of the

word “hated.” God did not hate Esau; God rejected
Esau and the reason why God rejected Esau is
because Esau rejected God. If you read the whole
history of Esau, you will notice that he sold his
birthright — which means he sold what God had
promised him — for a bowl of lentil soup. But the
word “hated” is the wrong word in English; it
should not have been used. But, anyway, that’s
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what it says here in your Bibles. But please
remember, what is Paul saying here when he says:

In other words, it is not the natural children

who are God’s children, but it is the children of the
promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.

As I read the Bible, both Old and New

Testaments, I come across a phrase that is repeated
time and time again. For example, one day the
Jews came to Jesus, and they asked him a question.
It had to do with salvation, and going to heaven.
Jesus made a very strange reply; I wrestled with it
for a long time. He said [Matthew 22:31-32]:

But about the resurrection of the dead — have

you not read what God said to you, “I am the God
of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob”? He is not the God of the dead but of the
living.

And I said, “What do Abraham, Isaac, and

Jacob have to do with the living? As I began to
wrestle with this, I made a wonderful discovery,
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and that’s what I want to share with you in my next
three studies. I’ll tell you what the discovery is:
that God gave Israel three fathers, for a very
specific purpose. That these three men are to be
the prototype, the pattern, the example of what all
the children of God should be like. In other words,
in order for you to be an Israelite, you have to have
the qualities of these three men.

Abraham stands for faith. He is the father of all

who believe. And we will come to that, we will go
one by one. Isaac, what’s special about Isaac?
You look at the Bible, he did nothing special. So
what does he represent? Very simple, not what he
did, but how he came into this world. He was born
from above. And Jesus said to Nicodemus,
“Unless you are born from above, unless you are
born again, you cannot enter the kingdom of
heaven.

Let me give you a text, we’ll come to it in more

detail. Galatians 6:16. You see, both Romans and
Galatians are dealing with the same topic, just from
different angles. Galatians 6:16:
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 Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule,
even to the Israel of God.

What rule? Verse 15:

Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision

means anything; what counts is a new creation.

That is what Isaac stands for. And, as we will

see in Galatians 4, Paul will say about Christians,
Gentiles and Jews, believers, “We, like Isaac, are
the children of promise.”

So Isaac stands for the New Birth. Now what

about Jacob? Do you know why God changed the
name of Jacob to Israel? Because what did he do?
By the way, do you know what the name “Jacob”
means? It means “schemer.” And human beings
are always trying to scheme one way or the other to
go to heaven. God gave a promise to Rebecca
before Jacob was even born, that Jacob would have
the birthright. But Jacob said, “Boy, my problem
is that my brother was born first. I tried to pull him
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back by the heel but he would not come back. And
so, legally, he has the birthright.”

So he tried to scheme to get that birthright. He

didn’t have to. He had to learn the hard way that
when God promises something, he gives it to you.
All you have to do is believe. Finally, he learned
the hard way that there’s only one way to get the
promise and that is to cling to God. Then God
said, “Because you have prevailed, I will change
your name to Israel.” So Jacob stands for those
whose faith endures unto the end. As Jesus said in
Matthew 10:22:

All men will hate you because of me, but he

who stands firm to the end will be saved.

So these men represent three qualities. It is not

being their literal descendants that saves us. This
is the argument of Paul, verses 6-13, in our study.
It is not those who strive, those who run, who are
God’s chosen people, but those who believe, those
who are born again, and those who through faith
don’t give up but they endure to the end.
862
 Then, in verses 14-29, a big section, Paul
explains that God’s salvation and God’s mercy is
based in His sovereignty and not on human rights.
Not one of us can claim salvation, whether you’re a
Jew or whether you’re a Gentile, as Paul has
already proven in Romans 3:9,

...We have already made the charge that Jews

and Gentiles alike are all under sin.

“There is no difference between Jew and

Gentile because all are under sin.” “There is none
righteous,” there is no one who qualifies to be
saved by native right.

“Whether you are a descendant of these three

men or whether you are not, it doesn’t matter,”
says Paul. “Salvation is based on God’s
sovereignty, which means that He and He alone has
the right to say who is saved and who is not. You
and I have no right to question Him.” He gives
two examples. One example is in Romans 9:17:

863
 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised
you up for this very purpose, that I might display
my power in you and that my name might be
proclaimed in all the earth.”

What is Paul saying here? Because God is

sovereign, everything that happens, happens
because He allows it. He allowed Pharaoh to
become the most powerful person, the head of the
most powerful nation in the world that was known
in those days. Egypt was the most powerful nation
in the world in the Exodus time. God allowed that,
for Pharaoh to become the most powerful.

Then he took a small, insignificant people who

were serving as slaves to this great, powerful
nation and he says, “I am going to deliver these
people with a mighty hand so that I can prove that
even Pharaoh is no match with me.”

Have you battled with sin, and it has knocked

you down? I want you to know, folks, there is a
power, there is One Who is greater than the power
of sin, Jesus Christ. As we saw in Romans 8:3,
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“He condemned sin in sinful man.”

But how do we experience that power, by

trying? No. By paying money? By going on a
pilgrimage to Israel? No, by faith alone. There is
much battle these days over sanctification. I want
to make it clear: justification, sanctification,
glorification — all those three come from God.
Why are we worried about God’s part, as if He
needs help?

But how are these three things experienced?

By faith, folks. Our part is faith. God’s part is
justification; God’s part is sanctification; God’s
part is glorification. You cannot produce any of
those three; it is God Who will do it. Our part from
beginning to end is faith. “The just shall live by
faith.” As Paul says in Romans 3, from beginning
to end it is nothing but faith. I am justified by
faith, I am sanctified by faith, and I am glorified by
faith. My part is to believe and to surrender to the
truth that God has given to us in Christ. The
second example is found in verse 21 of Romans 9:

865
 Does not the potter have the right to make out
of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble
purposes and some for common use?

In other words, when a potter makes a pot, he

may make it for the use of the king, or he may
make it for the use of the menial person down
there. Who decides what kind of pot that clay is
going to be made into? The Potter, folks, and the
clay has no say in the matter. The clay doesn’t say,
“Why did you make me menial?” You and I have
no right to question God. But here is the truth,
folks. Look at verse 22:

What if God, choosing to show his wrath and

make his power known, bore with great patience
the objects of his wrath — prepared for
destruction?

Who are the objects of wrath? Ephesians 2:3b:

Like the rest, we were by nature objects of

wrath.

866
 All of us, Jews and Gentiles, are by nature the
children of wrath. That’s what we deserve, if you
want to talk about what we deserve. But God will
show mercy on whom he will show mercy. As I
read scripture, He has shown mercy not only to the
Jews but also to Gentiles. Look at verses 23 and
24 of Romans 9:

What if he did this to make the riches of his

glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he
prepared in advance for glory — even us, whom he
also called, not only from the Jews but also from
the Gentiles?

Out of His sovereignty, God chose to save all

men in Christ. The Calvinists say, “No, only the
elect, whom He predetermined to be saved.” The
Bible doesn’t teach that. And the Armenians, to
which we belong, say, “No, what God did was only
a provision, but we have to do something before
He will save us.” The Bible teaches neither.
That’s the new light.

But God gave it to this church 100 years ago

867
that, in Christ, God legally justified all people.
And if anyone is lost, it is not because of Adam’s
sin, not because of your sins, but because you
deliberately, wilfully, persistently, and ultimately
said to God, “I don’t want your gift. And I don’t
want You.”

Then God will not force Himself, because there

is a choice that God has given. In other words, in
His sovereignty, God saved all mankind, but in His
sovereignty He also created all people with the
freedom of choice. He will take nobody to heaven
who doesn’t want to go to heaven. But anyone
who rejects heaven needs to have his or her head
examined. That’s all I can say.

Then he gives evidence to the Jews, in verses

25-29. He gives evidence, number one, in Hosea
to show that God planned the salvation of the
Gentiles right from the beginning:

I will call them “my people” who are not my

people....

868
 Then, in verse 27, Paul tells them the sad fact is
that even though He has saved all Israel, only a
Remnant (i.e., the faithful) will be saved. Why? Is
God breaking His promise? No, because of He
says in verses 30-33. I want you to notice why
because now we are dealing with the second
problem, the second failure of the Jews. The first
one was they failed to understand the significance
of the three Fathers. In this they had failed, and
this failure led them to the second major failure:
they had failed to see how God will keep His
promise, how God will save all mankind, how God
will save Israel. Here it is, verses 30 and 31:

What then shall we say? That the Gentiles,

who did not pursue righteousness [who did not try
to save themselves by their own good works], have
obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith [because
that’s God’s way of saving all men]; but Israel,
who pursued a law of righteousness, has not
attained it.

There are two ways that you can try to be

saved: one is God’s way, one is man’s way. God’s
869
way is in Jesus Christ that becomes yours only by
faith. That’s God’s way. Man’s way is how?
What the Jews tried. Why did the Jews fail?
Romans 9:32a:

Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith

but as if it were by works.

There are, sad to say, people in my church who

are trying the same method. Why can’t we learn
from the mistakes of the Jews? They are trying by
the works of the law.

By the way, the phrase “works of the law” is

the New Testament definition of the English word,
“legalism.” Is Paul against the law? No! He’s
against works of the law. He’s against legalism;
he’s not against the law as a standard of Christian
living. He’s not against the law as the fruits of
salvation. He will touch on that when we come to
chapter 13 when he will say, “Love is the
fulfillment of the law.” He’s against anyone trying
to go to heaven outside of Christ. And, by the way,
you cannot have any mixture. You can’t say,
870
“Christ plus me,” or “Christ plus works of the
law.” It is Christ and nobody else. Then he goes
on to say [Romans 9:32b]:

They stumbled over the “stumbling stone.”

Do you know who Paul called a stumbling

stone? Jesus Christ. He is a stumbling stone for
those who want to try to go to heaven by their own
righteousness. Why? Because when you try to go
to heaven by your own righteousness, you are
saying that, “I’m good enough to be saved.” You
are denying what God says, that “You are 100%
sinner. You need a Savior.”

One day, Ellen G. White asked her angel,

“What will be the shaking? What will bring about
the shaking in this church?”

The angel said to Ellen G. White, “It will be

the straight testimony of the Laodicean Message.”

Do you know what the Laodicean message is?

Revelation 3:17-18:
871
 You say, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and
do not need a thing.” But you do not realize that
you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. I
counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the
fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to
wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness;
and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.

“Buy from Me white raiment.” The word

“buy” means “exchange”; it means giving up your
self-righteousness in exchange for Christ’s
righteousness. If you don’t believe me, please look
at Philippians 3:9, where Paul gave up his
righteousness in exchange for the righteousness of
Christ which comes by faith. Philippians 3:8-9:

What is more, I consider everything a loss

compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing
Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all
things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain
Christ and be found in him, not having a
righteousness of my own that comes from the law,
but that which is through faith in Christ — the
872
righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.

After Ellen G. White makes that statement, she

made a statement to the ministers. I have taken
that statement and put in my Bible. I want to read
it to you. I put it there not for you but for me
because it’s for ministers. It’s found in
Testimonies to Ministers, pages 64-65. But this
truth applies to you, also. Regarding the shaking,
she says this is what will cause the shaking, the
presentation of Christ our Righteousness, and I
believe it’s already begun:

“They [i.e., these ministers, who are self-

righteous, who are depending on their
righteousness, or even on what God does in them]
are not willing to be deprived of the garments of
their own self-righteousness, they are not willing to
exchange [that’s what the word “buy” means] their
own righteousness, which is unrighteousness, for
the righteousness of Christ, which is pure,
unadulterated [no mixture] truth.”

The Jews made two mistakes. Must we repeat

873
those mistakes? Why can’t we look at the history
of Israel and say, “Lord, please deliver us from the
same mistakes.”

Let us never get the idea that because God has

given this church wonderful truths that we are
better than the other Christians. We don’t have
that monopoly. Why did God give it to us? I can’t
answer, except that he’s sovereign. Not because
we deserve it.

And please remember, there’s only one way

God has promised to save all mankind, and that is
in His Son Jesus Christ. You can’t buy Him, you
can’t earn Him. The only way that righteousness
can be yours is by faith, by saying like the Publican
said when he prayed, “God forgive me, a sinner. I
am depending entirely on your mercy, on your
righteousness, on your gift, Jesus Christ.”

May God help us that we learn from the

mistake of the Jews, and not repeat it, is my prayer
in Jesus’ name.

874
 Chapter 26

The True Israelite, Part 2

(Romans 9:6-13)

You will remember that I pointed out to you

that chapter 9, chapter 10, and chapter 11 of
Romans is a unit. In these three chapters, Paul
shares his great burden for his own nation, which is
the Jews. I hope that we can share the same burden
for our own nation, the United States. But in these
three chapters he points out the tragic situation of
His own people in the context of the great theme of
Romans, which is righteousness by faith.

According to the arguments of these three

chapters, the Jews had failed on two major counts.
Number one, they failed miserably to understand
the significance of what it means to be a true
Israelite. And number two, they failed to accept
God’s promised way of salvation, which is by faith
in His Son Jesus Christ, and not by their own
performance or anything else.
875
 In chapter 9, Paul will deal with the first
problem, what really constitutes true Israel. But
both the problems are very important to us today.
In fact, if you read 1 Corinthians 10:11, there Paul
tells us that what took place in the history of the
Jewish nation, has been recorded for our benefit,
especially for those who are living at the end of
time, “upon whom the ends of the world have
come.” 1 Corinthians 10:11:

These things happened to them as examples

and were written down as warnings for us, on
whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.

What we’re going to do in this and in the next

two studies is to answer that one question that Paul
raises and answers himself in Romans 9, and that
is; What constitutes true Israel? Let me quickly
review what we already covered in the previous
study.

Number one, we discovered that God gave

Israel three fathers: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
876
Number two, we discovered that to each of these
three fathers God gave, or made a solemn promise,
and the promise is that their children, their seed,
would inherit the kingdom of God. That was the
promise.

But, when Christ was on this earth, at the end

of his earthly mission, He stood up and, addressing
the Jewish nation, He declares in Matthew 23:38:

Look, your house [that means your nation] is

left to you desolate.

If this is true, it raises up a question, it raises up

a problem, and the problem has to do with the
fairness of God. Does this statement that Jesus
made mean that God has failed to keep His promise
that He made to these three fathers? In chapters 9
to 11, Paul answers this primary issue. In chapter
9:6, which we saw last time, Paul says, “No, God
has not failed to keep His promise.” The way that
he puts it is this way [Romans 9:6]:

It is not as though God’s word had failed.

877
 Then after arguing the whole situation, in
Romans 11:26, he’ll conclude:

And so all Israel will be saved....

In other words, God WILL keep His promise.

The question that we need to understand is, “What
did Paul mean by ‘all Israel’? Did he mean all
Jews? Or did he have somebody else in mind?” I
want to start by turning to Romans 2, something
we have already covered. There Paul has already
pointed out in the last two verses of chapter 2 that
there are two kinds of Jews. Look at verses 28,29:

A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly,

nor is circumcision merely outward and physical.
No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and
circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the
Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man’s
praise is not from men, but from God.

In other words, Paul says the person who is a

natural descendent of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is
878
not, in God’s eyes, a true Jew. That doesn’t qualify
you to belong to Israel. These three fathers were
given to Israel by God for a very specific purpose;
they were to be the prototypes of what God’s
children should be like. In other words, it is the
qualities of these three men that qualify a person to
be true Israel.

I would like today to concentrate on the first

one, Abraham. Before we turn to Abraham, I
would like to show you, from the words of Jesus
Himself, that Jesus also, like Paul (and they were,
of course, united: Jesus was the Son of God, Paul
was His messenger), they both teach that these
three men do not represent a literal nation, a
physical nation. In other words, it is not Israel
according to the flesh which is God’s chosen
people, it is Israel according to the Spirit. Not one
who is one outwardly, but inwardly, not in the
letter, but in the Spirit.

So I want to turn to a couple of statements

made by Christ. I can give you others, but two are
enough. Please turn your Bibles to Matthew 8. As
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you turn to this passage, I want to give you the
context, the background; you must always read
texts in their context. The context is a centurion.
He was a Roman centurion, a Gentile, not a Jew, a
Gentile. He comes to Jesus with a request. The
request is that Jesus heal his servant. Now, the
argument of the centurion is this [Matthew 8:8-9]:

“Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under

my roof. But just say the word, and my servant
will be healed. For I myself am a man under
authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one,
‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he
comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does
it.”

“I am a Centurion; I have soldiers under me.

When I speak to them, they obey. But my
authority is only over my soldiers. You, Jesus
Christ, your authority is over everything. You
have authority over sickness, you have authority
over the elements. In fact, you don’t even have to
come to my house to heal my servant. You have
such great authority that you can only speak the
880
word and my servant will be healed.” And when
Jesus heard those words from a Gentile, listen to
His response in verse 10:

When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and

said to those following him, “I tell you the truth, I
have not found anyone in Israel with such great
faith.”

I wonder if Christ would have said the same

thing if He were standing up and addressing us? “I
have not found such great faith as I have found in
this man, a Gentile.” Matthew 8:11:

I say to you that many will come from the east

and the west [in other words, who are not literal
Jews, from every corner of the world], and will
take their places at the feast with [not Me, but]
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of
heaven.

Because these three men represent the

prototype of God’s nation. Matthew 8:12:

881
 But the subjects of the kingdom [the Jews who
were boasting that they were God’s children] will
be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there
will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

They were literal descendants of Abraham,

Isaac, and Jacob, but they did not have the three
qualities that these three men represented. Turn a
few pages to chapter 22 of Matthew; let me give
you another example. These three fathers appear
all through the Bible. We tend to ignore it, but
they have a lesson for us; we just cannot remain
ignorant of it. In Matthew 22, the context is the
Sadducees. The Sadducees were a group within
the Jewish nation who did not believe in the
resurrection of the dead. We would call them the
liberal theologians of Christ’s day. In verse 23 we
get the background:

That same day the Sadducees, who say there is

no resurrection, came to him with a question.

Then they gave a crazy illustration about seven

men marrying the same woman, not at one time but
882
consecutively. And the question is, “Whose wife
will that woman be in heaven, if there is a
resurrection?” In other words, they were trying to
refute the resurrection by this philosophical
argument. But I want you to notice how Jesus
responded, in verses 31 and 32 especially:

But about the resurrection of the dead — have

you not read what God said to you...

Then he quotes Exodus 3:6:

...“I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,

and the God of Jacob”?

That’s the quotation. But I want you to notice

the interpretation that Jesus gives to that quotation:

He is not the God of the dead but of the living.

These three represent the living!

Let us go now to Abraham. The starting point

is Galatians 3:26-29. Remember, the context of
883
our study is Romans 9, where Paul said in Romans
9:6, “Not everyone who belongs to literal Israel
belongs to God’s Israel.” We are expanding on
this one statement on this study on Romans 9, and I
would like to start with Galatians 3:26-29. Look at
two of the verses of this passage. Galatians 3:26:

You are all sons of God through faith in Christ

Jesus....

Remember, the Galatian church was a mixture

of Gentiles and Jews, mainly Gentiles. But He
says, “you are all the sons of God,” not because
you have the blood of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
but because you have faith in Christ Jesus. Then
he explains how this is true, because he says
[Galatians 3:27]:

...for all of you who were baptized into Christ

have clothed yourselves with [have become one
with] Christ.

When you put on your clothes, those clothes

become part of you. If you travel from where you
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are to somewhere else with those clothes, those
clothes go with you, because you put them on.
That’s the illustration that Paul is using here.
“Baptized into Christ” is putting on our Lord Jesus
Christ. And when you put on the Lord Jesus
Christ, you are no longer an American, or an
Indian, or an African, or a Chinese. There is no
Jew, there is no Gentile, there is no male, and there
is no female. Galatians 3:28:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free,

male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

But now look at verse 29, it’s Galatians 3:29 I

want you to look at:

If you belong to Christ, then you are

Abraham’s seed [child], and heirs according to the
promise.

How did you become a child of Abraham?

Because you belong to Christ. How did you
belong to Christ? By faith and baptism. I would
like to give you a couple of more statements from
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the book of Romans, which we covered already.
So this is a reminder. Romans 4. I want to read 4
verses in this chapter: Romans 4:13,16,17,18.
Look at Romans 4:13:

It was not through law that Abraham and his

offspring received the promise that he would be
heir of the world, but through the righteousness
that comes by faith.

The New Testament writers did not have an

equivalent Greek word to our English word
“legalism.” So very often Paul will use the word
“law” or the phrase “works of the law” for our
English word “legalism.” That’s how he uses it
here. He’s not against the law as a standard of
Christian living. In fact, he’s for it; when we come
to Romans 13, we’ll see that. But he’s against the
law as a means of becoming a child of God. He’s
against legalism as a means of salvation. And he’s
saying that the promise that was given to Abraham
and to his children was not through the law but
through the righteousness of faith. And then in
verse 16 he goes on to say:
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 Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that
it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all
Abraham’s offspring — not only to those who are
of the law but also to those who are of the faith of
Abraham. He is the father of us all.

Why are our people still doubting when God

says, “It is sure!” It is sure, or guaranteed, to
whom? It is sure only to the Pastors and those who
are being very good? It is sure to whom? To all
the seed, to all who believe, not only those who are
of the law (i.e., the Jews), but also to those who are
of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.
Who is the “us all”? All who, like Abraham,
believe in God’s promise. That’s the statement.

How did Abraham became God’s prototype for

all believers? We need to understand the details.
We need to understand Abraham because he’s our
father. To the Jews, “father” did not mean
somebody who produced me. In this context, the
word “father” means, “He who is my example, my
prototype.”
887
 Let’s start with Genesis 12:1-4. That is the call
of Abraham. God comes to Abraham and gives
him a call. It’s important that we understand the
call of Abraham. God speaks to Abraham in verse
1, and He says:

The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your

country, your people, and your father’s household
and go to the land I will show you.”

Why? Does God like to break up homes?

There is a text that says that Abraham and his
family, his parents, and his neighbors worshiped
other Gods. Joshua 24:2:

Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the

Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your
forefathers, including Terah the father of Abraham
and Nahor, lived beyond the River and worshiped
other gods.’”

That’s the phrase, “they worshiped other gods.”

888
 Abraham was not raised up a believer; he was
raised up in idolatry. And God said, “Come out of
that environment.” Just like today, God says,
“Come out of the world, come out of your culture,
and enter into my culture, which is in complete
contradiction to human ways of life.” So it’s the
same call; we call it, “The call out of Babylon.”
Jesus said in Matthew 28:19:

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,

baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit....

He meant, “Call them out of the world and into

my camp.” In fact, Jesus said to the disciples in
John 15:19:

...As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I

have chosen you out of the world....

The same thing as with Abraham. Then, in

Genesis 12:2-3, God says:

I will make you into a great nation and I will

889
bless you; I will make your name great, and you
will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse; and ALL
peoples on earth will be blessed through you
[emphasis supplied].

Why did the Jews not see that God had given
Abraham to be the father of the blessing to all the
world, and not just them? But they failed to see
this call right from the very beginning.

Verse 4 tells us that Abraham obeyed the call.

He was 75 years old when he left his country,
Haran. In those days, Abraham at 75 was in the
prime of his life. They lived a little bit longer in
those days than they do now. He was middle-aged,
and I like that. Some of you kids will like it in the
future. Because I sure liked being your age, too.
That’s when you’re young and strong. In 1968, I
climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro at 19,000 feet and had no
problem. Today, I’m like Abraham: I need a stick
to climb to 7,000 ft.

Here was the call of Abraham. Hebrews 11:8-

890
10 says that Abraham obeyed by faith. He did not
obey God because he wanted to be saved, but
because he believed God’s promise. He obeyed.
Hebrews 11:8-10:

By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place

he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed
and went, even though he did not know where he
was going. By faith he made his home in the
promised land like a stranger in a foreign country;
he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were
heirs with him of the same promise. For he was
looking forward to the city with foundations,
whose architect and builder is God.

Abraham responded by faith and his obedience

was the obedience of faith.

Now, Abraham had no children when the

promise and the call were made. He was 75 years
old, he was already married, but no kids. But God
promised him that he would be the father of a great
nation; that meant God had to give him a son. I
can imagine Abraham telling his neighbors and
891
friends, “Do you know something? God is going
to give me a son!”

God promised him a son. One year went by,

two years went by, three years went by, and people
began to ask him, “By the way, where is that son
God promised you? You know we take nine
months to produce a son; surely God should take
less than that.”

Four years went by; it was getting more

embarrassing. Eight years went by, approximately,
and no children. Now Abraham was getting old.
So I come to chapter 15 of Genesis [Gen. 15:1]:

After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram

in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your
shield, your very great reward.”

“Abram” was the name given to him by his

parents. “Abraham” was the name God gave him.
The name “Abram” means “exalted father.”
Hebrew names had meanings that were important.
So he was the “exalted father.” Many fathers, but
892
you are the one that I have exalted. So God said,
“Why are you afraid, why are you doubting? I am
your shield, your exceeding great reward. Depend
on me.”

Abraham said, “Yes, but here’s the problem,

Lord. You have not given me a son. I am
childless. What happened to your promise? The
only son in my household (which is the extended
family in the Jewish system) is Eliezer of
Damascus. Is he the promised son?”

God said, “No way. He is not the promised

son. The son that I have promised will come out of
your loins. He will be your very own child.”

Read Genesis 15:5-6. When God told him that,

He took Abram for a walk. He said, “Look, do you
see how many stars there are in the sky?” (By the
way, in the Middle East, it’s very seldom that you
see clouds. It’s mostly cloudless skies.) God said,
“That’s the number of children you will have.”

Abraham said, “Praise the Lord!” Genesis

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15:6:

Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to

him as righteousness.

Well, two more years pass by, and Sarah, his

wife, comes to Abraham and says, “You know, I
think God needs help. Let’s face it, it’s now 10
years. He did mention two years ago that the child
will come from you, but he mentioned nothing
about me. The fact is, you are still okay, but I am
not. I’m getting old. The doctors are beginning to
tell me, ‘Forget the dream.’ God needs help,
because people are laughing at our God. Why
don’t we do something?”

They did practice surrogate motherhood in

those days; they just used different methods. Sarai
said, “Abraham, I have a suggestion. You go to
my Egyptian handmaid, produce a child, and help
God. We’re tired of people talking about God’s
inability.”

And Abraham said, “That’s an excellent idea.”

894
He meant well. I know that he was at least 85
years old because the last part of Gen.16:3 says this
took place 10 years after he came into Canaan. He
was at least 85 years old; his wife was 75. Well, he
produced Ishmael. And he took Ishmael to God
and said, “God, here is your promised son.”

God said, “No. I didn’t ask for your help. I

asked you to believe my promise, period!” And
you know what God did? He waited, not eight
years, not 10 years, but 14 more years, until it was
scientifically, medically, humanly impossible for
Sarah to have a child.

God now comes to Abraham [turn to Genesis

chapter 17]. When Abraham was 99 years old, the
Lord appeared to Abraham and said to him, “I am
Almighty God.” Do you know what the word
“almighty” means? “I can do anything!”

God said, “I am Almighty God. Walk before

me and be perfect” (or “blameless” as the Hebrew
puts it). Now please read that statement, that word
“blameless” or “perfect,” in its context. He is not
895
talking about being blameless in performance; He
is talking about being blameless in faith. You see,
he had faulty faith. There were obstacles in his
faith. God wanted to remove them. What He’s
asking Abraham is, “Please, I want a faith that is
unshakeable. I want you to have faith in me
irrespective of what the scientists say, of what your
neighbors say, what your doctor says.” Then in
Genesis 17:4-5 I read:

“As for me [that’s God speaking], this is my

covenant with you: You will be the father of many
nations. No longer will you be called Abram
[“exalted father”]; your name will be Abraham
[“the father of a multitude”], for I have made you a
father of many nations.

Then God entered into a covenant relationship.

Genesis 17:9:

Then God said to Abraham, “As for you, you

must keep my covenant, you and your descendants
after you for the generations to come.”

896
 Now here we have a problem. What did God
mean when He said to Abraham, “You will keep
this covenant, but not only you, even your
descendants”? Did he mean his literal descendants
or did he mean his spiritual descendants? Which
ones? Look at the covenant. Genesis 17:10:

This is my covenant with you and your

descendants after you, the covenant you are to
keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised.

Do Adventists practise that? Some do. In

Africa, they do it as part of their culture. If you
haven’t been circumcised, does it mean that you
are not a child of Abraham? Look at verse 11:

You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be

the sign of the covenant between me and you.

Have you got it? Circumcision was to be “the

sign of the covenant between me and you.” It is
not the actual covenant, but it is the sign of the
covenant. What did the sign represent? That’s
where the Jews failed. They took the sign and
897
made it the reality. In fact, one of the first
theological controversies in the Christian church
was over circumcision. Acts 15, where the
Judaizers said to the Christians in Antioch, “Unless
you are circumcised as you read in Genesis 17, you
cannot be saved.”

Paul and Barnabas fought like cats and dogs.

They said, “Nothing doing! We will not allow
such a theology to creep into the Christian church.”
Well, they couldn’t solve that problem, so they had
the first General Conference. And I thank God,
that Peter, James, and John, the pillars of the
church, defended the theology of Paul. You should
read chapter 15 of Acts sometime.

What did the covenant signify, what did it

symbolize? I’ll give you two texts. One is Moses’
statement where he corrects the misunderstanding,
in Deuteronomy 10:16:

Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not

be stiff-necked any longer.

898
 The other one is Jeremiah 4:4:

Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, circumcise

your hearts, you men of Judah and people of
Jerusalem, or my wrath will break out and burn
like fire because of the evil you have done — burn
with no one to quench it.

Both these texts are saying the same thing.

What God is asking in truth is to circumcise your
heart. In other words, remove unbelief.
“Abraham, you have had doubts about Me and My
promise. I want you to remove all your doubts. I
want you to take Me at My word. And I’m going
to enter into a covenant with you.”

I want now to turn to the New Testament and

give you the New Testament application of
circumcision. Of course, Paul is the great
interpreter. Turn to Philippians 3:3. What does
Paul say there? Talking to the Christian church in
Philippi, which is made up primarily of Gentiles,
he says:

899
 For it is we who are the circumcision, we who
worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ
Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh [in
our own human ability]....

So the true circumcision, the act, simply

symbolized a truth. It is not the act that saves you,
it is the truth. And what is the truth? “Not I, but
Christ.”

Go now to a passage that you need to analyze

because it’s a difficult passage; at least, it’s caused
problems in interpretation. But I want to point out
to you the background. Colossians 2:11:

In him [Christ] you were also circumcised [past

tense, talking to believers], in the putting off of the
sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the
hands of men but with the circumcision done by
Christ....

That applies to both men and women. Then in

verse 12, he links this truth with baptism. Baptism,
today, has the same meaning as circumcision did in
900
the Old Testament. It is saying, “Not I, but
Christ.” Colossians 2:12:

...having been buried with him in baptism

[because when Christ died on the cross He died to
sin, we covered this in Romans 6] and raised with
him through your faith in the power of God, who
raised him from the dead.

Now, that is what Abraham’s faith stands for,

folks. It’s faith without any doubt. Now I’m going
to give you two statements. These two statements
will disagree with rationality, disagree with
scientific method, but I want you to remember,
Abraham did not ask for scientific proof. He
believed against all hope. The two statements are
found, one in Romans, one in Galatians. Romans
13:14:

Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus

Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the
desires of the sinful nature.

Galatians 5:16:
901
 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not
gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

Do you believe, on the basis of those two

statements, that God can give you total victory over
sin? Do you believe that? The issue is not, “Show
me somebody!” or “I have tried and I have failed.”
Abraham tried for 25 years and failed to produce a
child. But when God came to him when it was
impossible by trying, he believed. Do you believe
what God says in His word? That’s the issue, that
is what qualifies you and me to be a child of
Abraham.

Abraham stands for faith that is unshakeable.

How do I know it? Because after He entered into
this covenant and gave him a child the next year —
Isaac, who we will study next — 17 years later,
when Isaac was a young strapping teenager, God
said to Abraham, “Kill him!” Let’s read it, as we
conclude. Hebrews 11:17, this is what God said to
Abraham:

902
 By faith Abraham, when God tested him,
offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received
the promises was about to sacrifice his one and
only [which means special] son....

God said to him, “Take that son, in whom I’m

going to bless the whole world, and kill him!”

Did Abraham say, “Well, if I kill him, how are

you going to keep the promise?” No, Abraham did
not question God. This is what he rationalized in
his mind. Hebrews 11:19:

Abraham reasoned that God could raise the

dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive
Isaac back from death.

In other words, “If God gave me Isaac when it

was impossible, God can raise him up. No
problem, God. You want me to kill him, I’ll kill
him. I know one thing: your promise never fails.
And I believe you, God, that you will keep your
promise.”

903
 Can God produce such a people today? I mean,
we have more evidence that Abraham had. Why
can’t we believe God when He says, “You are my
child”? Why can’t you believe God when He says,
“I look at you as if you had never sinned”?

“But I feel a sinner.” I don’t care what you

feel, folks. What does God say? John 5:24:

I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and

believes him who sent me has eternal life and will
not be condemned; he has crossed over from death
to life.

“He who believes in Jesus Christ has already

passed from death to life.” Do you believe that?

Abram was the father of the literal Jews.

Abraham is the father of all believers.

I want to conclude with Galatians 3:6-9. I want

you to listen to this very carefully, because here is
the sum of the matter. Galatians 3:6:

904
 Consider Abraham: “He believed God, and it
was credited to him as righteousness.”

How was Abraham righteous? Not by

performance, but by believing God’s promise.
Galatians 3:7-8:

Understand, then, that those who believe are

children of Abraham. The Scripture foresaw that
God would justify the Gentiles [not singular, but
plural, it includes every nation in this world] by
faith, and announced the gospel in advance to
Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through
you.”

Did Abraham know the gospel? Sure enough.

Not as a literal fact, but as a promise. Galatians
3:9:

So those who have faith are blessed along with

Abraham, the man of faith.

If you believe that God has redeemed you, if

you believe that God has given you a new history,
905
a new identity in which you have already been
justified unto life, you are Abraham’s child. If you
believe that God can dominate you through His
Spirit and give you total victory over sin, you are a
child of God. God is not asking you for
performance; He’s asking you for faith. He does
the performance: first in Christ and then in you.

All He’s saying is, “I want a people who will

believe My word without a shadow of a doubt.”

Whether it comes in terms of justification, or

whether it comes in terms of sanctification, or
whether it comes in terms of glorification, my part,
your part is faith alone! God does everything else.
He justifies the ungodly, thank God for that. He
sanctifies the believer, and He glorifies us at the
end of time.

It is my prayer that you will do what Paul did,

the one whom God used to expound this truth.
Paul’s name used to be Saul. As Saul, he was a
son of Abraham and a persecutor of the Christian
church. But when he found the gospel, do you
906
know what he said? “I take all my righteousness,
all my attainment, even my inheritance as a child
of Abraham, and I count it as dung, as refuse, that I
may win Christ and be found in Him, not having
my righteousness but His, which is mine through
faith alone.” And when he did that, he changed his
name from Saul to Paul.

It is my prayer that you will change your name,

not literally, because there are legal ramifications
in this country, but you will change your position
from doubt to belief. And it is my prayer that each
one of you will be a true child of God, through
faith alone.

907
 Chapter 27

The True Israelite, Part 3

(Romans 9:6-13)

The fundamental issue in the three chapters of

9, 10, and 11 of Romans is, if some Jews are going
to be lost as the New Testament writers declare,
even Jesus Christ, then hasn’t God failed to keep
his promise? He promised Israel and the fathers of
Israel, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that all Israel
will be saved. If all Jews are not saved, then God
has failed to keep His promise. As we have seen in
the past two chapters, the answer of Paul is an
emphatic “No.” But you can only understand
Paul’s answer when you realize what he is trying to
get across, especially in chapter nine. That is, that
God’s promise was that all spiritual Israel will be
saved. In other words, not the natural descendants
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob constitute Israel in
God’s eyes, but the spiritual descendants of these
three men. The question is, “What do these three
men represent?”
908
 We saw in our last study that Abraham
represents faith. Now, I want to turn to Isaac. He
represents the new birth, the second prerequisite to
being an Israelite. In the next study we will look at
Jacob, who represents the perseverance of the
saints whose faith endures unto the end.

The only thing special about Isaac was not

something that he did or performed. The only
thing special about him recorded in scripture was
his birth. God has a very special lesson for us. Let
us begin with Romans 9. We will look at three
verses but we will concentrate on verse 8 here. Let
us start at verse 6 to get the whole context. In
Romans 9:6, Paul says that God has not failed to
keep His word but it is not that the word of God
has taken no effect. God has not failed to keep His
promise, but here are the facts:

It is not as though God’s word had failed. For

not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.

In other words, it is not the natural, or Israel

909
according to the flesh, that constitutes God’s elect.
Then in Romans 9:7 he says:

Nor because they are his descendants are they

all Abraham’s children....

Just because you may have Abraham’s blood in

you doesn’t make you a child of God. Ishmael was
a child of Abraham. So what constitutes true
Israel? Look at the last part of verse seven:

...On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your

offspring will be reckoned.”

He’s quoting from the Old Testament and He’s

saying, “In Isaac your seed shall be called.” Then
he explains that in Romans 9:8:

In other words, it is not the natural children

who are God’s children, but it is the children of the
promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.

What does Paul mean by that? He spends a

whole section in Galatians 4 explaining. Before we
910
turn to Galatians, I think we need to be familiar
with the background. Paul is taking for granted
that his readers understand the Old Testament. (In
Paul’s day, there was no New Testament.) Let me
give you a couple of texts that we need to be clear
about concerning Isaac. The first one is Gen.
12:4:

So Abram left, as the Lord had told him, and

Lot went with him. Abram was 75 years old when
he set out from Haran.

There we are told that Abraham was 75 years

old when God came to him and called him out of
his country and from his pagan environment and
promised him that he would be the father of a
special nation. God promised him that in him all
the families of the earth would be blessed. He was
75 years old. Abraham had no children when the
promise came so the promise was through his son
Isaac, who was still to come.

Then turn to Genesis 21. There we are told

how old Abraham was when the promised son
911
actually came. He was 75 when the promise was
made and 100 years old when the promise was
fulfilled. I read it in Gen. 21:5:

Abraham was a hundred years old when his son

Isaac was born to him.

Why did God wait 25 years to keep His

promise? It was very embarrassing, very
frustrating. It was very hard for Abraham to wait
that long. Why did God wait 25 long years? Is it
because God was incapable of giving him a son
earlier? The answer is, “No.” Because He gave
him a son when it was impossible to get a son by
the natural means. But why did God wait 25
years? Well, there is only one reason. It was
essential for Abraham to be exhausted in terms of
producing a son. When the natural ability to
produce a son through Sarah had come to an end,
then and only then God said, “I will give you a
son.” That is because Isaac represents something
very special: he represents those who, like him, are
born not the natural way but from above.

912
 This is a lesson that Jesus tried to teach
Nicodemus. Turn to John 3 and listen to a dialogue
that took place. Nicodemus was one of the
theologians of Judaism. He was a member of the
Sanhedrin. If he was living today he probably
would be a professor at Walla Walla College or
maybe Andrews University. He was one of the
members of the Sanhedrin. He with his church had
gone astray in terms of the truth as it is in Christ.
But He recognized in Jesus Christ a very special
person. So he comes to Jesus at night. He says,
“Jesus, nobody could do such miracles as you are
doing unless he was from God.”

Jesus ignored his question and, in John 3:3,

Jesus answered and said:

I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom

of God unless he is born again.

In other words, you cannot belong to God by

natural birth, you have to be born again. This
made no sense to Nicodemus. His theological
school had not studied the new birth issue. So
913
Nicodemus asked in John 3:4:

How can a man be born when he is old? Surely

he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s
womb to be born!

Nicodemus had missed the point. Jesus was

not talking about a second natural birth. And so
Jesus answered in John 3:5:

I tell you the truth, no one can enter the

kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the
Spirit.

Water represents baptism and baptism

represents burial. “The natural life must go,” says
Christ, “that the new life might come. It is not a
repetition of the old life. It is a new life in
exchange for the old.” Then, in John 3:6, Jesus
makes it very clear:

Flesh gives birth to flesh...

The flesh life cannot change. That’s all it will

914
be. It is born flesh, it will be flesh, and it will die
flesh.

...but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.

They are two different things. You can’t mix

the two. This is what Isaac represents. Let me put
it this way: God told Adam and Eve in Gen. 2:17
that the day they sinned they would die. We know
that Adam and Eve did not die the day they sinned,
i.e., they did not die physically. Their physical life
did not die that day. It began the processes of
death but it did not die. But Adam and Eve did die
that same day. They died spiritually. The Holy
Spirit, which was dwelling in them, left them and
their life was plunged into darkness. And since
God had established a law that each would produce
its own kind, the children that Adam produced
were born spiritually dead. I read this, for
example, in Ephesians 2:1:

As for you, you were dead in your

transgressions and sins....

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 What he meant was, “You were dead
spiritually.” Then in verse five he adds:

[God] made us alive with Christ even when we

were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you
have been saved.

Even when we were dead spiritually, he made

us alive together with Christ. Here he is not
referring to our experience; he is referring to an
objective truth that took place in Christ when
Divinity was united to humanity. You see, the
humanity that Christ took came from Mary. It was
spiritually dead, but the moment that it was united
with the Divinity of Christ, it became spiritually
alive. That, by the way, is the basis of the new
birth experience. In other words, we experience
nothing in the Christian life apart from the finished
work of Christ. The new birth was not something
added to Christ’s earthly mission. It was the
beginning of His earthly mission when divinity and
humanity were joined together in the womb of
Mary.

916
 But, because we are naturally born spiritually
dead, we have a problem, and the problem is found
in Romans 7:14. Here Paul gives us the problem:

We know that the law is spiritual; but I [that’s a

corporate “I,” refering to every human being born
in this world] am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.

In other words, my natural life is a slave to sin.

In fact Romans 7:5 brings this out:

For when we were controlled by the sinful

nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were
at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for
death.

In other words, our natural life does not have

the capacity, the ability to keep the law of God.
Why? Because the law is spiritual and my natural
flesh life is carnal. He brings this out clearly in
Romans 8:7:

...The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not

submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.
917
 So here am I born with flesh, a life that is
enmity with God, a life that is sold under sin, a life
that can never please God. And here was
Nicodemus trying to please God through his
natural life. He had failed and he was coming to
God at night for some counsel.

When we were in Ethiopia, we were acquaited

with a young man. He was a Communist
professor. In other words, he taught Marxism
during the special sessions that they had. He was
an instructor of Marxist philosophy. But there
were questions he had in his mind, so he would
come to us at night. My wife nicknamed him
Nicodemus. She was not sure whether he was
genuine or if he was a spy to get hold of me so they
could get rid of me. I was willing to take the risk
because I knew that if he is really searching, then
he needs to know the gospel. I studied with him
several nights. He would only come at night
because he dared not come to a pastor in the
daytime. He was a Marxist. He was an atheist
outwardly.
918
 When we left Ethiopia a few years later, I
wondered if anything happened out of this. Years
later we received a letter while we were in the
States and he said, “By the way, I want you to
know that I have accepted Christ and have been
baptized.” The same thing happened to
Nicodemus. Do you know that he became a
follower of Christ after the resurrection?

So please remember that there are men and

women out there who are searching because they
have tried. There are our own people who have
tried to be good by their natural powers. They
have made promises. They have made resolutions
and they have discovered that the law is spiritual
but they are carnal. Well, I have good news for
you. The natural life can never please God. That
is why Jesus said, “Nicodemus, your foundation is
wrong. You need to be born again.” You need to
be a child of Isaac. That’s the whole issue.

Now, because of what Christ has done, He has

given us a new hope. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians
919
15:50 that flesh and blood — by that he means this
natural life with which we are born through Adam,
that we receive through our parents — this flesh
and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God:

I declare to you, bothers, that flesh and blood

cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the
perishable inherit the imperishable.

Do you know why? Because corruption cannot

inherit incorruption. That’s why there will be a
change.

In the incarnation, God made the new birth

possible for the human race but the new birth
becomes a reality in you and me when we have
experienced conversion. When do you become a
child of Isaac? Turn to 1 Peter as well as 2 Peter.
I’m going to read chapter one of both epistles. In 1
Peter 1:3:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord

Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us
new birth into a living hope through the
920
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead...

You see, Christ took our condemned life and

surrendered that life to the cross where it died, and,
in exchange, he gave us His own life so that we
could rise again in newness of life. That’s what
Christ accomplished. Now Peter is saying, “Thank
God, bless His name, praise His name, for giving
us a new hope with a new life which became ours,
was offered to the human race, through the
resurrection of Christ.” Then in verses 4 and 5 he
says:

...And into an inheritance that can never perish,

spoil, or fade — kept in heaven for you [i.e., those
who accepted these promises], who through faith
are shielded by God’s power [please notice it is
God who keeps you, not you; our part is faith] until
the coming of the salvation that is ready to be
revealed in the last time.

In other words, salvation is ours who are

Isaac’s children through a promise. We are the
children of the promise. The reality will take place
921
at the second coming of Christ. Now turn to 2
Peter 1:2:

Grace and peace be yours in abundance through

the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

I could preach a whole sermon on that text. I’ll

tell you why. There are many who think that the
way to build up Christians is to give them
instructions on do’s and don’ts. But Peter says
here that grace and peace are multiplied through
the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ. That’s
why I believe in expository preaching, that you
may have increased knowledge, because it gives
you better hope and peace and stronger power.
“You shall know the truth,” says Jesus, “and the
truth shall make you free.” And we are learning
the truth of the new birth today. Verse three:

His divine power has given us everything we

need for life and godliness through our knowledge
of him who called us by his own glory and
goodness. Through these he has given us his very
great and previous promises, so that through them
922
you may participate in the divine nature and escape
the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

This new life gives you two wonderful things:

1. It gives you eternal life.

2. It gives you godliness.

Through this new life you are able to reflect the

character of God. Not only heaven is yours but
godliness is yours through this new life.

Please notice it is the knowledge of Christ that

gives us exceedingly great and precious promises.
You may be part of that new life that Christ gave to
you on the cross. So conversion is a new
experience.

Conversion is giving up something you have in

exchange for something you want. You were born
with the natural life: a life that is sold under sin, a
life that is incapable of keeping God’s law, a life
that stands condemned, a life that must die. That is
what you were born with. That is your natural
923
inheritance. And now God says, “I have made a
way of escape. You can give this up in exchange
for the life of my Son, which is righteous, which is
immortal, which gives you the right to stand just
before God’s law.” And if you refuse it, all I can
say is you need to see a doctor. Only a fool will
reject such an exchange or somebody who is crazy
in the mind. But some of us have not understood
the good news.

When you accept Christ, you become a

partaker of the divine nature. You are a new
person, a born again person in Christ. The issue is
not whether you have your name in the books of
the church. That won’t save you. It is whether you
have the new life in Christ that qualifies you to be a
child of Isaac.

With this background, let us turn to Galatians

4. Galatians was the province of Galatia. The
churches there were evangelized by Paul himself
through the preaching of the gospel. But after he
left, some false teachers called Judaizers came and
said to them, “You know, Paul gave you an
924
incomplete gospel. He told you that you have to
accept Christ to be your Righteousness. That is not
enough. It is only part of the truth. The other part
is that you must be circumcised and keep the law.
It is not enough simply to accept the gift. The gift
is incomplete. You must also do something.” And
the poor Galatians fell for the trap.

I remember several years ago, in the late 1960s

and early 1970s, there was an African from South
Africa, an ex-pastor who was disfellowshipped and
his credentials were removed. He came to our
churches in Kenya and he said to them, “You
know, the missionaries brought to you the gospel
but they brought to you only half the truth. They
have not brought to you the other half.”

Our people said, “What’s the other half?”

He said, “The sanctuary message.”

You see, our people were not preaching the

sanctuary message in the 1970s because of
Brinsmead. They were afraid to be labelled as a
925
Brinsmead so they kind of pushed that message
down. So this African said, “I am going to bring
you the sanctuary message. They will give you
one half and I will give you the other half.
Therefore, you pay the church half tithe and pay
me half tithe.” What a bargain! And they fell for
it. This man went back to South Africa quite rich.
Anyway, here the Galatians were trapped into what
we call Galatianism: “partly by Christ and partly
by your works.”

When Paul heard about that, he did not waste

time. He sat right down and wrote this letter to the
Galatians. This is a book that we as a people need
to understand. Many Adventists are trapped in
Galatianism. That’s why it was the main book
used in 1888. Paul wrote his hardest letter in
Galatians. In Galatians 4:21, he is asking the
Galatians a question:

Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are

you not aware of what the law says?

Now there are two systems that you can be

926
under. If you read Romans 6:14, Paul tells us there
that the born again Christian is no longer under the
law but under grace. Why? Because in chapter
seven he says we have died in the body of Christ
under the law. He did not mean that the law was
done away with. He simply meant that we are no
longer living under the jurisdiction of the law.

What does it mean to be under the law? It

means to live under its rulership. The word
“under” means “to be ruled by.” How does the law
rule a person? Well, it is very simple. The law
says, “If you obey me perfectly, you may live. But
if you disobey me, even in one point, only one, you
are under the curse.” If you don’t believe me, read
Galatians 3:10 where Paul quotes [from
Deuteronomy 27:26] the law:

All who rely on observing the law are under a

curse, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who
does not continue to do everything written in the
Book of the Law.”

So Paul is saying to these Galatians, “You who

927
desire to be under the law, don’t you know what is
found in the book of the law? Do you not hear the
law?”

The people in Paul’s day did not make that big

distinction that we do: moral law, ceremonial law,
health laws, and civil law — all of them were
under one umbrella called “The Book of the Law.”
And in the book of the law, in the book of Genesis,
which is the first book of the law, there is the story
of Abraham. Paul refers to this in Gal.4:22:

For it is written that Abraham had two sons,

one by the slave woman and the other by the free
woman.

Notice how Paul defines the wife of Abraham:

he calls Sarah “the free woman.” (So men, please
don’t make your wives slaves.) God looks at the
real wife as a natural woman. He looks at the
surrogate wife, that is Hagar, as a bondwoman.
She was a slave; in fact, she was a slave of Sarah.
Now, why does Paul bring up Abraham’s two
sons? In Galatians 4:23 he says:
928
 His son by the slave woman was born in the
ordinary way; but his son by the free woman was
born as the result of a promise.

Abraham did not produce Isaac. He couldn’t.

It was medically, scientifically impossible. Sarah
had passed the age of childbearing. That was
absolutely clear. Isaac was born according to the
promise of God. Now, having reminded them of
these facts, Paul goes on to Galatians 4:24:

These things may be taken figuratively, for the

women represent two covenants. One covenant is
from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be
slaves: this is Hagar.

This is an allegory or symbolic; these things

have spiritual significance. Ishmael represents
those who are under the law. Why? Because the
old covenant made at Mt. Sinai was the following:
God gave the law at Mt. Sinai and the people said,
“All that You have said we will do.”

929
 In other words, the old covenant is where God
gives the law and man promises to keep and fulfill
that law. And if he fails? To use a good German
word, “kaput.” That’s the end of him. Galatians
4:25:

Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia

and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem,
because she is in slavery with her children.

Hagar represents legalism, which the Jews are

still under in Jerusalem. In 1980, I had a workers’
meeting with the pastors of Egypt. I tried to give
them the gospel because, if you want legalism at its
very best, go to the Middle East. The place the
gospel began is where the falling away has taken
place most. As an appreciation for my studies,
they gave me a trip to Mount Sinai and I’ll tell you
what I saw: nothing but barren rocks and rocks
and rocks.

One dear, dear monk many years ago, who was

a real Galatianist, carved out of those rocks steps
from Mt. Catherine right to the top of Sinai. It
930
took thirty years. I thanked him for the steps
because it made it easier for me to climb. But he
did it as a way of salvation. He thought that God
would give him a special ticket to heaven for
spending thirty years carving those steps on the
rocks.

There are some Adventists who are like that,

who have tried and tried to go to heaven under the
law. If you are doing that you belong to Ishmael,
not to Isaac. For I read in Galatians 4:26:

But the Jerusalem that is above [God’s

children] is free, and she is our mother.

“Our” means both Jews and Gentiles who have

accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior. Then you
have this famous quotation [Isaiah 54:1]:

Sing, O barren woman, you who never bore a

child....

Are you barren? Have you tried to be good and

have failed? That’s because the natural life “does
931
not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.” If you
want to be godly, if you want to please God, then
the only life that can do it is the life of Christ that
comes in you through the new birth experience.
And in this context he says in Gal.4:28:

Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of

promise.

But he doesn’t stop there. He introduces

another problem which I will discuss in detail in
our next study but will only introduce today.
When you accept Christ by faith, which is
Abraham’s child, then the Holy Spirit comes and
dwells in you and you become now a child of
Isaac; you experience the new birth. But the old
life that you were born with, the natural life that is
under sin, doesn’t disappear. You have said
goodbye to it by faith and faith is not reality. So
actually a born-again Christian lives two lives: the
flesh and the spirit. And these two lives are a
contradiction to each other. In fact, in Galatians
5:17 Paul brings this out:

932
 For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to
the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the
sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other,
so that you do not do what you want.

In other words, there can be no partnership

between flesh and Spirit. Both these are trying to
dominate you. That is a struggle you will go
through all of your life, even after probation closes.
I’m not saying you will fall, but I am saying that
the flesh and the Spirit will continually struggle in
you. When will you get peace? Not until the
second coming of Christ or until we bury you
physically in the grave. That struggle will go on.

What I want you to know today is what your

attitude toward the flesh should be. Look at
Gal.4:29:

At that time the son born in the ordinary way

persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit.
It is the same now.

In other words, he is taking the literal incident

933
in Abraham’s life and he applies it to the Christian
life and says the struggle between the two also will
be experienced by you.

Go back to Genesis 21 to get the whole picture.

In verse 5, we read that Abraham was a hundred
years old when he Isaac. He was approximately 85
or 86 when he had Ishmael. So Ishmael was a
young teenager when Isaac was born. I want you
to get the picture. As long as Isaac was not born,
Ishmael was number one and when the doctors
announced that Sarah can no longer have children,
I can imagine Hagar sighing a sigh of relief. “Now
my son is permanently number one.” Well, she
had bad news because one year later Isaac was
born. You can imagine how she felt.

Isaac was born and then he was weaned and

now I want you to go to Gen. 21:8. This incident
is important because it also has spiritual
significance. Paul is taking for granted that we are
familiar with the background. Since we are not,
living 2,000 years later, we need to remind
ourselves. Gen. 21:8,9:
934
 The child grew and was weaned, and on the
day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast.
But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the
Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking....

Some Bibles say mocking and some say

scoffing, some say laughing and some say joking,
but the Hebrew text says, “He was teasing him
maliciously.” “You rascal, why were you born?
Don’t you realize that you have put an end to my
wonderful hope?” So what did Sarah do when she
saw Ishmael mistreating her son Isaac? Verse 10:

...And she said to Abraham, “Get rid of that

slave woman and her son, for that slave woman’s
son will never share in the inheritance with my son
Isaac.”

The two cannot dwell in the same camp. And

Abraham didn’t said, “Sarah, that’s an excellent
idea.” No, folks, I want you to notice how
Abraham reacted. When Sarah said to Abraham,
“Please go to Hagar and produce a child,”
935
Abraham said, “That’s a wonderful idea.” He
never even consulted God. But when Sarah says,
“Get rid of this woman and her son....” Verse 11:

The matter distressed Abraham greatly because

it concerned his son.

“This is my own flesh and blood; I produced

him. I can’t get rid of him; he is mine.”

We have the same problem with our self-

righteousness. This is something we produced.
But there is no way that self-righteousness can be
mixed with Christ’s righteousness. It is all of Him
or none of Him. So he took it to God, hoping that
God would agree with him. Listen to what God
said to Abraham in verse 12:

But God said to him, “Do not be so distressed

about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to
whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through
Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.

“Whatever Sarah says to you, this time, listen

936
to her voice for in Isaac your seed shall be called.
She is right this time. She was wrong the first time
and you never consulted me but this time she is
right.” Paul takes this in Galatians 4:29-30:

At that time the son born in the ordinary way

persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit.
It is the same now. [The flesh will give you no
peace. It will want to dominate you all your life.]
But what does the Scripture say? “Get rid of the
slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s
son will never share in the inheritance with the free
woman’s son.”

If you want the application, look at Gal.5:24:

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have

crucified the sinful nature with its passions and
desires.

Every day, tell the flesh it belongs to the cross:

“Not I, but Christ.” So Paul concludes in Gal.4:31:

Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the

937
slave woman, but of the free woman.

So my question today is not “Are you a

member of the Adventist Church?” Not “Is your
name in the books?” Not “Have you been
physically baptized?” My question is, “Are you a
born-again Christian?” If you are not, all these
other things are of no value because only the
children of Isaac, those who are born from above,
have a right to the kingdom of God. First, you
must believe the gospel. Secondly, you must
surrender to the gospel by faith. And the surrender
means: “Not I but Christ.” In other words, “I am
crucified with Christ but I am still living. It is not
I. The life that I now live I live through that which
I receive from Isaac which is the new life in
Christ.”

Our next study will discuss the struggle that

Jacob went through. It was not until Jacob’s faith
prevailed that his name was changed from Jacob to
Israel. It is my prayer that your faith will endure
unto the end also. May God bless you.

938
 Chapter 28

The True Israelite, Part 4

(Romans 9:6-13)

We are studying the three fathers of Israel in

the context of Romans 9. Let’s begin at Romans 9.
The key text in this chapter is verse 6:

It is not as though God’s word had failed. For

not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.

Here Paul tells us two things:

1. God has not failed to keep His promise. We

have looked into this in our last three
studies.

2. Not everyone who belongs to Israel is part of

Israel. That is, not every one who belongs to
natural Israel — that is, the natural
descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
— really belongs to true Israel. As he
939
 mentioned in Romans 2:28,29:

A man is not a Jew if he is only one

outwardly, nor is circumcision merely
outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if
he is one inwardly; and circumcision is
circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not
by the written code. Such a man’s praise is
not from men, but from God.

As we have said, to be part of Israel you have

to have the spiritual qualities of these three fathers.

We have already touched on Abraham.

Abraham stands for faith. I want to remind you of
the words of Jesus to the Jewish nation. In John
8:56, this is what Jesus said to the Jews:

Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of

seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.

You see, Abraham represents faith and being a

Christian begins with faith. (And, by the way, it
ends with faith, too.) Faith is obeying the call of
940
God as it is in Christ. Abraham obeyed God and
he became the father of all like him who believe.

This genuine faith results in what we call the

new birth, regeneration, being born of the Spirit or
being born from above like Isaac was. Isaac was
the result of a faith relationship with Jesus Christ.
In the new birth experience, the Holy Spirit, who
represents Christ, comes and dwells in you. In
fact, in Romans 8:9 Paul tells us that he who does
not have the Spirit of Christ doesn’t belong to
Christ. Now in Galatians 4:28, which we saw in
our last study in which we dealt with Isaac, Paul
tells us that:

Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of

promise.

We believers, who are born again as Isaac was,

are the children of the promise. If you have
experienced the new birth, you are part and parcel
of true Israel. But Israel doesn’t stop there. God
gave a third father. But before we go to the third
father, which is Jacob, there is one thing that we
941
need to be clear on that takes place in our lives as a
result of the new birth experience. The new birth
brings about a radical change in every one of us
and in at least four areas:

1. In terms of citizenship,
2. In terms of status,
3. In terms of dominion, and
4. In terms of nature.

I want to touch on this before we go on to

Jacob.

1. Citizenship

Please turn to John 15 and notice what Jesus

says to His disciples. What he says to His disciples
is true of each one of us. John 15:19:

If you belonged to the world, it would love you

as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world,
but I have chosen you out of the world. That is
why the world hates you.

942
 The call that God gives you in Christ is to be
separated from the world and become part of His
kingdom. In other words, when we were born we
were born citizens of this world which, speaking
spiritually, is under Satan. When we accepted
Christ, there was a change in citizenship. We have
changed our citizenship through the new birth
experience from under the world to citizenship in
the Kingdom of God, which is now under Christ.
For example, in Philippians 3:20-21, if you look at
a modern translation, it says:

But out citizenship is in heaven. And we

eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus
Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring
everything under his control, will transform our
lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious
body.

Turn to 1 John 5:19 and you will notice that,

ultimately, the whole human race is divided into
only two camps. There will be no three camps,
only two camps, and each one of us will belong to
one or the other. Talking to believers, the apostle
943
John says:

We know that we are children of God [i.e., we

Christians who have experienced the new birth,
who by faith have become one with Christ are
belonging to God], and that the whole world [that’s
the rest of the world] is under the control of the evil
one.

In other words, we Christians are under Christ,

His kingdom. We are children of God and the rest
of the world is still under the sway of the wicked
one. So, number one, the radical change is in
citizenship.

2. Status

There’s a radical change in status. In Romans

3:19, Paul tells us the whole world is guilty. The
whole world (in Romans 5) stands condemned.
We are by birth and by performance under
condemnation of death; but when we accept Christ
we experience subjectively what is already true of
944
us in Christ and that is: we move our status from
condemnation to death to justification to life. That
is, the legal justification that Christ accomplished
on the cross becomes effective. Turn to John 3:36:

Whoever believes in the Son has [please notice

the verb: not WILL have, but ALREADY has]
eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not
see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.

The wrath of God is, of course, good-bye to life

forever. Another text that brings this out clearly is
in John 5:24:

I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word

[who hears the call of the gospel] and believes him
who sent me has [past tense] eternal life and will
not be condemned; he has crossed over [past tense]
from death to life.

When you experience the new birth, you have

passed from condemnation to justification, from
death unto life. So this is the second wonderful
change that takes place in the new birth experience.
945
 3. Dominion

The third change is in dominion and this one is

a bit hard. It is hard for us who uphold the law
because we have not understood the distinction
between the law as a standard of Christian living
and the law as a ruler. As I mentioned, in Romans
3:19 Paul tells us that:

Now we know that whatever the law says, it

says to those who are under the law, so that every
mouth may be silenced and the whole world held
accountable to God.

The whole world under the law stands

condemned, guilty before God. But the good news
is for those who are believers, those who are the
children of Abraham and Isaac. I read in Romans
6:14:

For sin shall not be your master, because you

[i.e., you believers, you Christians] are not under
946
law, but under grace.

Briefly, that means that the law no longer rules

over the Christian. Do you know what it means to
be ruled by the law? It means several things:

A. It means that you have to obey the law

perfectly in every detail. If you fail once,
the law will condemn you.

B. It means that nobody else can do anything

for you. The law demands the individual
who is under it to obey.

C. It means that the law does not know how to

sympathize with you or to help you. The
law can command but it cannot sympathize,
it cannot help.

So this is what it means to be under the law.

But Christians are no longer under the law. Yes,
the law is still there as a standard of Christian
living, but we are no longer under it. We are under
grace. And chapter seven of Romans, which we
947
have already covered, deals with this. It talks in
verse four and six about this change of status.
Look at Romans 7:4:

So, my brothers, you also died to the law...

Please notice how God delivered us from under

the law. He did not deliver us from under the law
by doing away with the law. That is a heresy.
What He did away with was us. We died to the
law. Not that the law died. We died. How?

...through the body of Christ, that you might

belong to another, to him who was raised from the
dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.

It is only under grace that we can bear fruit.

Romans 7:6:

But now, by dying to what once bound us, we

have been released from the law so that we serve in
the new way of the Spirit [that is the new birth
experience], and not in the old way of the written
code.
948
 What does Paul mean by “the old way of the
written code”? He means serving out of fear.
Serving as a requirement. Serving as in do’s and
don’ts. But under grace we serve God, not because
we have to but because we love Jesus Christ. We
do not serve Him out of fear but we serve Him out
of love. And that is the change of status that we
have come under.

I want to give you one more text about this.

Turn to Galatians. Galatians also deals with this
issue in chapter four. Read first Galatians 3:24-25
where Paul talks of the law as our school master or
custodian that we are under:

So the law was put in charge to lead us to

Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that
faith has come, we are no longer under the
supervision of the law.

But when we come to Christ we are no longer

under that schoolmaster. Now look at Gal. 4:4-6:

949
 But when the time had fully come, God sent his
Son, born of a woman, born under law...

Christ came where we are. He joined Himself

to us under the law. Why did He do it? Verse five:

...to redeem those under law, that we might

receive the full rights of sons.

Have you got it? We have been redeemed from

under the law that we might receive the adoption of
sons. And then in verse six:

Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his

Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out,
“Abba, Father.”

That’s the new birth experience (Isaac). You

have been born from above and now you are a
child of God. You can cry to God, not in fear, but
call Him “Dear Father,” because Christ has
adopted us into that family.

4. Nature
950
 Then we come to number four. The next
radical change we have is in terms of nature.
Please turn to 2 Peter. There is a radical change in
nature and you need to be aware of that. You
know, through Christ, God has given us some
wonderful promises. Listen here to what Peter
says. 2 Peter 1:4:

Through these [i.e., through the promise of the

gospel, through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ]
he has given us his very great and precious
promises, so that through them you may participate
in the divine nature and escape the corruption in
the world caused by evil desires.

Please notice that we become partakers of the

divine nature in the new birth experience.

So there are four radical changes. But

remember in John 3:6, Jesus said to Nicodemus:

Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives

birth to spirit.
951
 You need to be born from above, you need to
be a child of Isaac, you need to be born of the
Spirit. That’s in John 3:3-8. But these radical
changes bring about some real problems, and you
must be aware of these problems, because Jacob
represents the struggle that is the outcome of the
problem. And the main problem that you will face
as a born again Christian is that you have become
an active participant, you have become a part of the
firing line, you have become actively involved in
the great controversy between Satan and Christ.
And that is what the experience of Jacob is all
about.

You see, when you become a Christian, you

change your citizenship from the world, under
Satan, to the Kingdom of God, under Christ. But
you are still living in Satan’s territory. You are
still living in the world. In John 17:15, Jesus
prayed to His Father. He said:

My prayer is not that you take them out of the

world, but that you protect them from the evil one.
952
 If Satan hates anything, he hates losing a
citizen. He gets mad when you change your
citizenship. Some time ago I was looking at the
news. There was a young man who had sold some
of the secrets of the United States government to
the Russian government. He was caught and this
news item was showing him coming out of a car
handcuffed to a policeman. What impressed me
was the Americans standing around that car who
were watching him. They were mad. They were
mad because he was a traitor. That’s exactly how
Satan, the ruler of this world, looks at you when
you become a Christian: “You’re a traitor and I’m
going to make life hell for you.”

Now the experience in this struggle is really the

conflict between the flesh and the Spirit. When
you are born again, what happens is your
citizenship changes, your status changes but you
still have the flesh. Yes, in your mind you have
said “goodbye” to the flesh, but in reality it is still
there and it will be there until the second coming of
Christ. So the unconvertible flesh and the Spirit,
953
which now dwells in you, are in constant struggle.
Paul brings this out in Galatians 5:17. He talks
about the flesh and the Spirit being contrary to each
other:

For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to

the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the
sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other,
so that you do not do what you want.

This struggle between the flesh and the Spirit is

what Jacob is all about. No other Bible character
represents more fully the spititual battle, the
conflict in the lives of the saints between the flesh
and the Spirit than does the life of Jacob. You read
his history. At times we see him sinking down to
the depths of despondency and despair. At other
times he rises up to the glorious heights of the
kingdom of God. It’s up and down.

Has your Christian experience been up and

down? Don’t be discouraged. You are going
through Jacob’s experience. The wonderful thing
about Jacob is that he prevailed. He finally
954
emerged at the very last upon the plains of
triumphant faith. Then, and then only, did God
change his name from Jacob, which, by the way,
means “schemer,” to Israel, “the one who
prevailed.”

I want to look at Jacob by first turning to

Romans 9 because that’s the context of our study.
Then we’ll go quickly through his life and come to
a conclusion. Having made the statement in
Romans 9:6 that not all who are of Israel belong to
true Israel, Paul takes us step by step. He goes
through Abraham. He goes through Isaac. Then,
finally, he deals with Jacob. Jacob is dealt with in
Romans 9:10-13:

Not only that [not only must you be a child of

Abraham and Isaac], but Rebekah’s children had
one and the same father, our father Isaac. Yet,
before the twins were born or had done anything
good or bad — in order that God’s purpose in
election might stand: not by works but by him who
calls — she was told, “The older will serve the
younger.” Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but
955
Esau I hated.”

To appreciate what Paul is saying here, you

must be familiar with the background. We don’t
practice today the birthright system as the Jews did.
The first-born had the birthright in the Jewish
culture. That meant special privileges. One of the
privileges was, of course, that he got a double
portion of the inheritance. If there were three sons,
the father would divide his inheritance into four
parts. The first son would get two of the parts and
the rest would get one each.

But in the case of Jacob and Esau, the issue was

not so much the inheritance. The issue was the
promise of God. Remember what God promised to
Abraham and then carried on to Isaac? Genesis
12:3:

...All peoples on earth will be blessed through

you.

In other words, what God promised Abraham

was that one of his children — one of his
956
descendants — would be the Messiah. This was,
of course, the greatest privilege that any man could
have. This privilege was passed on, not to Ishmael
but to Isaac, he who was born from above.

According to the Jewish culture, according to

the law of the land, this privilege should have been
passed on to Esau. Why? Because he was the first
born. But God was trying to teach a lesson and
that lesson is that the promise of God is not based
on natural inheritance or through works, something
you do, but according to the promise, the election
of God.

Paul is not discussing here the salvation of all

men but the New Testament tells us that God has
called all people to be saved. When you read that
text which has confused so many people, Matthew
22:14:

For many are invited, but few are chosen.

please remember that that is in the passive. It is

not God who does the choosing. It is God who
957
does the calling. It is man who does the choosing.
Many are called but few choose that call. That’s
what Jesus meant.

Did God offer Esau the promise? Yes. Did

God offer Esau salvation? Yes. But what did Esau
do with his birthright? He despised it. When you
read Romans 9:13, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I
hated,” you must remember that’s a quotation. It’s
a quotation from Malachi 1:1-3 and, in that
context, God is saying to Malachi, “I have loved
you, Israel. You don’t deserve to be loved but I
have loved you.” And then it uses Jacob and Esau
as an example.

What he is saying is, “Look, Esau deserved the

birthright, but I gave it to Jacob.” He is using this
as an example, but please remember that the reason
why Esau was rejected — because the word
“hated” means “rejected” — was not because God
said to Esau, “I will not save you.” It was because
Esau did not want the birthright. We will see this
again in Hebrews.

958
 Here is the problem. The promise that Jacob
would have the birthright was made to Rebekah
before Jacob was born. The problem is that all his
life Jacob tried to fulfill God’s promise. And that’s
the struggle; the flesh will be your greatest
hindrance. I’ll tell you why, because when God
produces righteousness in you, who gets the credit?
Not you, but Christ. And the flesh doesn’t like
that. The flesh doesn’t like getting no credit.

In Africa, the “Third World,” the majority of

people who come into this church are brought in
not by pastors or evangelists but by lay people.
The lay workers are the ones who do the soul
winning in Africa. I wish it was that way here [in
the U.S.A], too. That’s how it is in Africa. But
here’s the problem: it is not the laymen who
baptize. It is the pastors who baptize. And when
they photograph the baptized people with the
pastor, the lay workers get no credit. Read the
Review and Herald and see all those people
baptized in Africa and see the pastor. It was not he
who gave them the studies, it was the lay workers.

959
 So the lay workers got together and they looked
at their Bibles and they said, “In the Bible it
doesn’t say that only pastors should baptize. Look
at Philip. He was a deacon. He baptized. Why
can’t we baptize?”

In a big committee meeting, I asked the

laymen, “Are you fighting for your rights or are
you fighting for the truth? Are you fighting for the
flesh which wants to be honored or are you trying
to uphold the word of God?” Well, they were not
willing to answer that question.

The thing is this: “Is it the flesh or is it the

Spirit?” The issue is not one or the other. The
issue is: what is motivating you to do God’s will?

All his life, right from his birth, Jacob was

trying to use the flesh to fulfill God’s promise. Do
you remember what Jacob was doing when Esau
was being born? He was holding unto his heel. Do
you know what Jacob was saying to Esau? “You
have no right to be born first. It’s me. Come
back!”
960
 Did he succeed? No. He failed miserably,
because it was Esau who had the hair on the chest.
Jacob was mother’s boy. Then, a few years later,
Esau went hunting. In those days, they did not
have telescopic lenses, so he came back empty-
handed. He was starving. (He didn’t live in Kenya
as I did. We never came back empty-handed.
Thank God for the American government which
stopped hunting in Africa. I don’t know why I did
it but it was the flesh in me that enjoyed to see an
animal come down.)

Esau became hungry one day and he smelled

lentil stew. I don’t know what lentil stew here
smells like compared to the Middle East. There
people use a lot of spices and it does have a
wonderful flavor. His stomach began to rumble
because he was starving. And he said, “Jacob, can
you share some of that lentil stew with me?”

Jacob had only one thought in mind: now was

the opportunity to get the birthright. Why couldn’t
he trust in God’s promise? Why was he scheming?
961
Because the flesh is always there, in your life and
mine, to “try” and do God’s will. So he said,
“Esau, I’ll give you some lentil stew on one
condition: you give me the birthright.”

Esau said, “What good is the birthright if I’m

dead?” So they came to an agreement and Jacob
thought he had won. But after his stomach was
full, Esau changed his mind.

Then we come to a third experience. You

remember that Isaac, if he had his own way, would
have given Esau the birthright. Isaac struggled
with the flesh as did Jacob. Isaac only represents
the new birth. You see, God takes each individual
and gives him or her a definite experience but all
three men faced the same dilemma. Each man
stands out separately because of God’s purpose to
demonstrate the qualifications of being a true
Israelite.

Isaac wanted to bless his son Esau. Remember

what Jacob’s mother did? She schemed with him
and, finally, Isaac, by mistake because he was half
962
blind, blessed Jacob and gave him the birthright.
Now the final barrier was removed since the last
stage of the birthright fulfillment is when the father
blesses his son. We would call it writing his will.
But do you think the flesh took it sitting down? No
way.

Esau said, “You are not going to get away with

this alive.” So what did Jacob do? He fled for his
life. Here is Jacob trying and trying and trying.
Finally, he decides to come back home. All he can
think of is Esau. If Jacob had only rested in Christ!
1 Thess. 5:24:

The one who calls you is faithful and he will do

it.

Faithful is He who has called you. God doesn’t

want you to try to fulfill God’s purpose in you but
the flesh always wants to try. Gal.6:12:

Those who want to make a good impression

outwardly are trying to compel you to be
circumcised. The only reason they do this is to
963
avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ.

“Those who want you to do this and that want

it so that they can glory in the flesh.”

But I’ll tell you, folks, that struggle is there.

You can’t help it. The flesh will not take second
place sitting down.

Let us come to the final struggle. Jacob

returned home. On the way, he prays to God
earnestly and says to God, “Please help me through
this experience.” And he begins planning once
again. The flesh takes over. “How shall I appease
Esau? I have an idea. I’ll give him some good
gifts.” Bribery and corruption. So he sends some
gifts to his brother, hoping that it will appease him.
Have you ever tried to appease God by your good
works, hoping that God will not be angry at you?
God says all the time, “I’m not angry with you. I
love you. Why are you afraid of me?”

Then Jacob said, “What happens if Esau

doesn’t accept the gift?” So he took his family and
964
he put them on one side of Jabbok and he left them
there and he went to the other side. Now, I’m sure
that Esau had no desire to punish his wives and his
children but I think Jacob had something in mind.
I may be wrong, but I have a feeling, knowing the
eastern mind, that he was saying to himself, “If
Esau doesn’t accept the gift, the next people he has
to contend with are my family and I know what
they will do. They will scream. That’s my alarm
bell and I’ll take off. They have to cross the river
before they reach me.”

He had confessed. He had prayed. He was

sincere, but he was still trying to use the flesh,
conniving, scheming all the time. After he said his
prayer, he went to sleep.

We had a missionary in Africa, a very good

friend of mine. During the Mau Mau division in
Kenya, they were killing all kinds of people and he
was visiting in a school. This school had no walls,
just poles. He looked around and saw fires,
different houses being burnt, and here he had no
protection; he had just taken his little sleeping bag.
965
So what he did was take a lot of pots and pans and
put them at the entrance. He said, “If the Mau Mau
come for me, they will hit against those pots and
they will clamor and I will jump over and escape.
So he went to sleep like Jacob. In the middle of the
night, he heard this terrible clatter of noise and
sweat began to pour down his brow. He thought
the Mau Mau were coming for him and he had no
courage to even stand up, he was so scared. There
he was, waiting to be killed. And then slowly he
put his hand under the bed and got the flashlight
and waited. Finally, he shone the light towards the
entrance and the pots and pans were still there. It
had been a nightmare.

Well Jacob, after saying his prayer, made all

provisions and went to sleep. Somebody touched
him and guess whom he thought it was? He
thought that he was so sound asleep that Esau had
passed by the family and he hadn’t heard a sound
and now he was touching him. So his immediate
reaction was to fight for his life, to defend himself.

Don’t ask me how he did it. As a kid I used to

966
wrestle. I was still weightlifting and wrestling and
boxing and I tell you if, you wrestle for five
minutes it is pretty exhausting. He wrestled all
night long. He must have been desperate, like the
flesh normally is. Finally, at daybreak, he
discovered that his enemy was really God who was
coming to bless him, to give him assurance and
hope. The mighty angel did something to him. I
don’t know how many of you have experienced the
dislocation of any part of your body. It is very
painful, excruciatingly painful. If I was wrestling
with someone and he dislocated my hip, I would
have let go. But did Jacob let go when he
discovered who it was? Genesis 32:26:

...I will not let you go unless you bless me.

God said through the angel, “What is your

name?” God knew his name.

Do you know what Jacob replied? “My name

is schemer.” The name “Jacob” means nothing to
you but to the Jew it means “schemer.” “I’m a
crafty schemer.”
967
 God said, “I know that. But now, because you
held unto Me and did not let go, even though you
failed many times — the flesh has failed but you
would not let go of me — I will bless you and I
will change your name.”

God takes this experience and He applies it to

the last generation of Christians. In Jer.30:7, where
He talks of the great tribulation, He says, “This last
generation of Christians will go through a time of
trouble that has never been experienced by any
other generation before. It is even like the time of
Jacob’s trouble. And Jacob prevailed. Jer.30:7:

How awful that day will be! None will be like

it. It will be a time of trouble for Jacob, but he will
be saved out of it.

I want you to go to Matthew and see how Jesus

applied this in Matthew 24. He, Jesus, is giving the
prophecies of the last days in Matthew 24:9-11:

Then you will be handed over to be persecuted

968
and put to death, and you will be hated by all
nations because of me. At that time many will turn
away from the faith and will betray and hate each
other [within the church], and many false prophets
will appear and deceive many people.

This is a wonderful picture of what is

happening today. There are offshoot movements
by the dozen coming up and telling us to come out
of the church to do this and that. All kinds of
problems. Verse Matthew 24:12-13:

Because of the increase of wickedness, the love

of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to
the end [through this time of trouble] will be saved.

Endure what? If you look at the passage

carefully, you can divide it into three parts:

1. Those who endure persecution.

2. Those who endure the chastening of the
Lord.
3. Those who endure false doctrines.

969
 Let me amplify on these three points from
scripture:

1. Enduring Persecution

In Matthew 10:17-22, Jesus said that father will

betray son and mother will betray daughter and so
on. You will be brought before governors and
kings but he who endures unto the end shall be
saved. Matthew 10:17-22:

Be on your guard against men; they will hand

you over to the local councils and flog you in their
synagogues. On my account you will be brought
before governors and kings as witnesses to them
and to the Gentiles. But when they arrest you, do
not worry about what to say or how to say it. At
that time you will be given what to say, for it will
not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father
speaking through you. Brother will betray brother
to death, and a father his child; children will rebel
against their parents and have them put to death.
All men will hate you because of me, but he who
stands firm to the end will be saved.
970
 Paul says the same thing in 2 Thessalonians
1:4:

Therefore, among God’s churches we boast

about your perseverance and faith in all the
persecutions and trials you are enduring.

You must endure the persecution that will come

one of these days.

2. Enduring the Chastening of the Lord

We are going through a refining process. God

is refining Jacob. Do you know that? The Bible
says so. And that refining process it is very
painful. Turn to Hebrews 12:7:

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating

you as sons....

Are you a child of Jacob? Then you must

endure the chastening of the Lord. Is it pleasant?
No.
971
 ...For what son is not disciplined by his father?

Chastening is never pleasant. But look at verse

11.

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but

painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest
of righteousness and peace for those who have
been trained by it.

If you refuse the chastening of the Lord you

will not endure. And I’ll tell you, there are too
many that do not endure the chastening of the
Lord. It may come to you as a shock. Do you
know that there are more nonattending Adventists
in the North American Division than attending
Adventists? There are more Adventists who do not
attend church on Sabbath than those that attend.
For every one of you here, there are more than one
out there who are not attending church. This is a
tragedy. This is not true in the Third World. It is
the opposite but it is the tragedy in the North
American Division. Where have we gone wrong?
972
Where have we failed to produce the Jacobs? It
doesn’t take much. All the pastor has to do is say a
wrong word to a member and they stop coming to
church. Or the school does something wrong and
they stop coming to church. When will we learn to
endure like Jacob did?

3. Enduring False Doctrine

And then, of course, there is the false versus

sound doctrine. Please take two texts with you.
The first is 2 Tim. 4:3-5:

For the time will come when men will not put
up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own
desires, they will gather around them a great
number of teachers to say what their itching ears
want to hear. They will turn their ears away from
the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep
your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the
work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of
your ministry.

Because today there are many offshoot

973
movements who claim to be right and say, “Come
out of Babylon,” when they themselves are in
Babylon. Babylon is not a denomination. It is a
system where self, the flesh, is still ruling.
Ephesians 4:14 says the same thing:

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back

and forth by the waves, and blown here and there
by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and
craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.

But I won’t tell you what Jacob did. I’m going

to read you a quotation from The Great
Controversy, page 523:

“Through humiliation, repentance, and self-

surrender, this sinful, erring mortal prevailed with
the Majesty of Heaven.”

That is the description of Jacob in The Great

Controversy: “this sinful, erring mortal.” Have
you got it? He was an erring mortal who
“prevailed with the Majesty of Heaven.”

974
 Yes, he was a failure in his own eyes, but he
never gave up his faith in the promise of God. He
held unto God and that is why he is remembered in
the book of Hebrews. In chapter 11 of Hebrews,
Paul gives us a string of men and women who went
through all kinds of crises: men and women who
were destitute, who were sawn in half, who were
put in the lions den, but they all had one thing in
common. They endured to the end. Their faith
held on. Hebrews 11:39-40:

These were all commended for their faith, yet

none of them received what had been promised.
God had planned something better for us so that
only together with us would they be made perfect.

They did not give up. They held unto God.

Then, in verses one and two of chapter 12, Paul
makes this statement:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a

great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off
everything that hinders and the sin that so easily
entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race
975
marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the
author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy
set before him endured the cross, scorning its
shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne
of God.

976
 Chapter 29

The Jewish Tragedy

(Romans 10)

If there is any church or denomination that

faces the great danger of repeating the sad history
of Israel, it is ours, because we have so much in
common with them we are vulnerable to follow the
same mistakes that they have made. That is why I
think it is important that as we look at the sad
history of Israel in studying Romans 10 that we
take heed to the words of the great man Santana
when he said, “If we fail to know history, we are
doomed to repeat it.”

I would like to begin by pointing out three main

areas wherein the Jews failed. Then I would like to
analyze how Paul brings out this problem in
Romans 10. Then we will apply it to ourselves.
The Jews failed in three main areas:

1. The main thing they failed in was to not

977
realize God’s purpose in giving them three fathers.
God gave Israel three fathers: Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob. The Jews understood by that: anyone who
is a natural child or a natural descendant of these
three men constituted God’s elect or God’s Israel.
But we saw in our last three studies that is not what
God intended. God gave Israel three fathers that
they may represent the spiritual children of His
people. In other words, it is only those who have
the faith of Abraham, are born from above like
Isaac was, and whose faith endures unto the end
like Jacob’s did who constitute true Israel. But the
Jews failed to see this.

2. This failure led them to even a greater

tragedy and that is the gospel itself. They thought
that when God said to Abraham, “All peoples on
earth will be blessed through you” [Genesis 12:3]
that He meant them, the natural descendants of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But God did not mean
them.

What did God mean? Turn to Galatians 3 and

there the apostle Paul tells us what God actually
978
meant when He gave Abraham the promise in
Genesis 12:3. Galatians 3:16:

The promises were spoken to Abraham and to

his seed. The Scripture does not say “and to
seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your
seed,” meaning one person, who is Christ.

Because the Jews felt that salvation was by

inheritance and by the works of the law which God
gave the Jews through Moses, they failed to see
that Christ was the fulfillment of the promise.
Therefore, they rejected the gospel and they
perverted the promise to salvation by works and by
inheritance.

3. The third problem, which is also a very

serious problem the Jews committed, was that,
even though God tried several times to correct the
problem, to rectify their mistakes, the Jews
stubbornly rejected Him so that, at the end of His
ministry Jesus had to say these words as recorded
in Matthew 23. Jesus arrived at Jerusalem for the
last time. He’s now at the very top of the hill. He
979
looks down to the great city and with tears in His
eyes He makes this statement in Matt. 23:37,38:

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the

prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I
have longed to gather your children together, as a
hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you
were not willing. Look, your house is left to you
desolate.

This is the tragedy of Israel, literal Israel. And

their history has been recorded in Scripture that we
may avoid this tragedy. That is why I want you to
turn now to Romans 10 and we are going to look at
this chapter. We are going to look at it in great
detail because it has some very important lessons
for us. Notice how Paul begins Romans 10:

Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God

for the Israelites is that they may be saved.

The word “desire” actually means “good will”

so he’s saying, “My sincere good will for my
people, my supplication, my prayer to God is that
980
my own people, literal Israel, may be saved.” Now
he’s simply repeating his concern which he
expressed in Romans 9:3, where he said:

For I could wish that I myself were cursed and

cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers,
those of my own race....

We may look at this statement and say, “Well,

after all, Paul was a Jew and it was natural for him
to have a burden for the Jews.” But when you look
at the facts, this is quite amazing because his own
people, the Jews, hated Paul. They looked at him
as a traitor. They were the ones who actually
nabbed him and grabbed him and handed him over
to be killed. He was hated by the Jews. He was
despised by them because they looked upon him as
a traitor. You only have to read the book of Acts
and you will find this is true. But in spite of this,
Paul had a tremendous burden for his fellow Jews.

It is my prayer that we may have a similar

burden for our fellow Adventists. I was going to
say “fellow Americans,” but do you know
981
something? In the North American Division, we
have more Seventh-day Adventists who no longer
attend church than those who do. And unless you
and I have the burden that Paul had, these folks
will remain out and, eventually, Satan will pull
them out of Christ. It is my prayer that we may
have the same desire, the same good will, the same
supplication and the same concern that our people
may be saved.

Then in Romans 10:2-3 he pinpoints, he nails

down the problem:

For I can testify about them that they are

zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on
knowledge. Since they did not know the
righteousness that comes from God and sought to
establish their own, they did not submit to God’s
righteousness.

They did not lack zeal but they did lack

knowledge and I want to spend some time on that.
I’ll tell you why. Today there are many Seventh-
day Adventists who have a tremendous zeal for
982
God but without knowledge. This is one of the
reasons why there are so many offshoot
movements cropping up all around us. These
people are not bad people. They are sincere. They
really want to do the will of God. They see the
church failing, they see all kinds of weaknesses.
They see standards coming down in the church
and, out of zeal for God, they are trying to do their
best, but the question is, “Is it according to
knowledge?”

Let’s remember, Paul knew what he was

talking about because he was a victim to this
problem himself. Turn to Philippians 3, where
Paul describes his own situation as a Pharisee
before his conversion. First look at verse three
because that’s the statement that we need to remind
ourselves constantly in terms of what it means to
be a Christian. Philippians 3:3:

For it is we [Christians] who are the

circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of
God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no
confidence in the flesh [their own nature]....
983
 And then in verses four to six he tells the
Philippians, “Look, if anyone can boast about what
they are and what they have accomplished, I can do
more than you.”

Then he gives a list of things that he was and

what he had accomplished as a Pharisee before his
conversion. Look at the first part of verse six:

...As for zeal [for God], persecuting the

church....

When Paul instigated the stoning of Stephen,

when Paul was going on his way to Damascus to
take captive the Christians, do you realize that, in
his heart, he thought he was serving God? He had
a zeal for God but was it according to knowledge?
The answer is no. When God confronted him on
the Damascus road and said, “Paul you are not
persecuting my enemies; you are persecuting Me
when you touch my people,” it came as a shock to
Paul. But I’ll tell you, Paul was one Jew who was
willing to repent, and I thank God for it.
984
Otherwise, we would have had half the New
Testament missing in the Bible.

The Jews had a zeal for God but zeal without

knowledge can be dangerous. It can be futile.
That’s exactly what happened. A zeal for God will
not save them, otherwise Romans 10:1-2 is
meaningless. “I want my fellow Jews to be saved.
They have zeal for God but, unfortunately, it is not
according to knowledge.”

Then, in verse three, he pinpoints where they

failed in their knowledge:

Since they did not know the righteousness that

comes from God and sought to establish their own,
they did not submit to God’s righteousness.

You will notice the word “righteousness”

appears twice in verse three. Here Paul is
pinpointing two systems of salvation. We can say,
“the right way or the wrong way,” but I prefer to
say, “God’s method of salvation and man’s method
of salvation.” Let us be absolutely clear that the
985
two cannot be mixed together. They cannot be
married together. It is one or the other.

For example, take Paul’s own incident. We

read Philippians 3:3, but if you read verses 7-9,
Paul tells us in this letter that when he discovered
Christ he realized that his own righteousness not
only could not save him but was like filthy rags. It
was dung. It was refuse. He was willing to give
all of it up that he may win Christ and be found in
Him, having His righteousness which is through
faith and not through the works of the law.
Philippians 3:7-9:

But whatever was to my profit I now consider

loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I
consider everything a loss compared to the
supassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my
Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I
consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and
be found in him, not having a righteousness of my
own that comes from the law, but that which is
through faith in Christ — the righteousness that
comes from God and is by faith.
986
 So he is saying here that the Jews did not
accept God’s way of salvation, and this is because
they failed to see the purpose of the three fathers.
The outcome was that they failed to understand
what these three fathers meant and the next thing
they failed to understand was why God gave them
the law. We can make the same mistake because
God has restored the law in our church. But have
we understood the significance and purpose of that
law? Or are we making the same mistake as the
Jews?

They failed to accept God’s righteousness

because they had established their own
righteousness and, therefore, they refused to give it
up in exchange for the righteousness of Christ.
Now I am emphasizing this because God is saying
the same thing to us through the message of the
Laodicean Church: “You have to buy from Me
white raiment.” Revelation 3:17-18:

You say, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and

do not need a thing.” But you do not realize that
987
you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. I
counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the
fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to
wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness;
and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.

Do you know what the word “buy” means in

the Middle East? To this day, in many of the
remote areas, you do not buy with money but you
exchange. Buying means giving up what you have
for what you want. If you want to buy a pair of
shoes and you look at the tag and it says $50 and
you have $50 but you can’t keep that $50 and have
the shoes. Otherwise, you are a thief. And like
giving up the $50 in exchange for the shoes, you
have to give up your righteousness in exchange for
Christ’s righteousness.

Galatians 5:4 makes this absolutely clear:

You who are trying to be justified by law have

been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away
from grace.

988
 I want to emphasize that Paul is discussing here
the method of salvation. He is not discussing here
the law as a standard of Christian living. We will
come to that when we come to Romans 13 where
Paul will say that the true Christian does fulfill the
law because in him there is love and love is the
fulfillment of the law. But he is discussing here the
law as a method or system of salvation. And he is
saying in Galatians 5:4 that, if you accept Christ,
the law method is out. If you accept the law
method, then you are fallen from grace and Christ
has become of no effect.

Going back to Romans 10:3, I want to look at

the word “ignorant” or “they did not know”:

Since they did not know the righteousness that

comes from God and sought to establish their own,
they did not submit to God’s righteousness.

In English, the word “ignorant” means “not to

be aware of.” But that’s not what Paul meant. Did
the Jews not know the gospel? When we come to
the end of chapter 10 you will discover that they
989
knew the gospel. Their ignorance was deliberate
and persistent. It was not that they did not know.
They knew, but they deliberately refused to
acknowledge, to submit to the righteousness of
God which saves us. In Romans 10:4, Paul makes
a very difficult statement:

Christ is the end of the law so that there may be

righteousness for everyone who believes.

Why is this verse difficult? Because of the

word “end.” The Greek word tellos has two
meanings. It can mean fulfillment or it can mean
termination. Which did Paul mean? Did he mean
that Christ fulfilled the law for righteousness to
those who believe, or did he mean that he
terminated the law for righteousness?

Bible scholars have wrestled with it and you

have one thing in this camp and another in another
camp and there are some very reliable scholars
who take both camps. And that’s the camp to
which I belong. But I need to explain it because, if
I stop there, you will go and tell the brethren that
990
Pastor Sequeira teaches that Christ did away with
the law. I am not teaching that, but I do believe
that Paul had in mind “termination” because I feel
that, as I read Paul, he often would use words that
have more than one meaning because he tried to
squeeze an awful lot of thought in a short
statement.

Let us look at both meanings. First the word

“fulfillment.” Christ is not like human beings. He
is righteous. God is righteous. He’s perfect and,
therefore, God cannot save us bypassing the law.
When the policeman stops me for speeding (which
he hasn’t yet), but when he catches me and
forgives me he is doing a wonderful thing but he is
not doing a righteous thing. Because he is not paid
to forgive me. He is paid to uphold the law. And
the law says that if you break the speed limit you
should receive a citation.

God cannot do that. He cannot say, “I love you

human beings and since I’m sovereign, I’ll forgive
you.” He can’t do that. He’s not only a God of
love but He is a righteous, He’s a holy, He’s a just
991
God. So, in order to save us, Christ first of all had
to qualify to be our Savior.

How did He qualify? He joined Himself to us.

He became one with us and that took place at the
incarnation. Having done that, qualifying now to
be the second Adam, He had to do two things to
save us in order to satisfy the law. We covered this
when we studied Romans 3:31. He obeyed the law
perfectly because the law of God says, “If you
obey me perfectly, you can live. Otherwise you
cannot live.” In Christ, we have perfect obedience
to the law, but that obedience could not cancel our
disobedience.

Christ did not come to save the righteous. He

came to save sinners. He did not link Himself to
sinless men. He linked Himself to fallen mankind
that He may redeem us. Then he took that
humanity to the cross and He surrendered it and, at
infinite cost to Him, because He’d joined Himself
to us, He surrendered that cross to the full wages of
sin: God abandonment. By His doing and dying
He fulfilled the law perfectly so that He became
992
our righteousness. He fulfilled the law that
everyone who believed Christ is the end of the law,
the fulfillment of the law for righteousness to all
who believe. That, folks, is good news.

But what did he mean when he said, “Christ is

the end of the law”? First of all, I need to point out
a problem. It is in your Bible but not in the
original. You will notice in verse four the word
“law” is preceded by the definite article and also in
verse five. It does not exist in the original. So
what did Paul mean by law? The word legalism in
English has no similar word in the Greek language.
They had no word in Greek called “legalism” in
Paul’s day, so Paul would often used the word
“law” to mean “legalism.”

Legalism is when we try to save ourselves by

our own works. Christ brought that to an end.
Why? Because, as I read Romans 5:18:

Consequently, just as the result of one trespass

was condemnation for all men, so also the result of
one act of righteousness was justification that
993
brings life for all men.

If all men were reconciled to God, were

justified by the doing and dying of Christ, then
legalism was terminated. So Christ, on the one
hand, fulfilled the law for righteousness for us and
He terminated the works of the law, which is
legalism as a means of salvation. The reason I
know that this is what he has in mind is because the
context is dealing not with the law as a standard of
Christian living but as a method of salvation which,
in English, we call legalism.

Now we go to verse five of Romans ten and

there is a problem here.

Moses describes in this way the righteousness

that is by the law: “The man who does these things
will live by them.”

Again, the word “law” does not have the

definite article. “The man who does these things
will live by them.” Now what’s the problem with
this text? Well, it is not a problem, really, but it is
994
a problem if you misuse this text. So I want to
remind you. I have covered it many times and I
want to repeat it again: please don’t read a text out
of context. I’ve had more than one person come to
me with Romans 10:5 and read the last part of
verse five and say “Look, even Paul teaches that
we must keep the law in order to live.” Paul said
nothing of the sort.

What Paul is doing here is contrasting

righteousness by faith with righteousness by law
keeping. That’s what he is doing here. And he
says, “This is the difference: if you want to be
saved by the law, you can’t be saved by the law
through faith but by performance.” In other words,
you can’t go to the law and say, “Law, I have heard
you. I believe in all the Ten Commandments.”
The law will not say back to you, “Since you
believe in all the Ten Commandments, you may go
to heaven.” The law will not do that because that’s
not the platform upon which the law works. The
law says, “If you believe in me, that means nothing
to me. My rule is: If you obey me, if you do what
I tell you, then you can live.” So you cannot have
995
righteousness by faith through the law because the
law demands performance. He is quoting here, of
course, from Leviticus 18:5:

Keep my decrees and laws, for the man who

obeys them will live by them. I am the Lord.

“If you Jews want to be saved through the law,

two things are required:

1. You must obey the law.

2. You must obey it perfectly 24 hours a day,

seven days a week, for the rest of your life.

If you fall on one point, I will condemn you.”

Gal.3:10:

All who rely on observing the law are under a

curse, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who
does not continue to do everything written in the
Book of the Law.”

That is how you are saved through the law.

996
 But verse six contrasts the righteousness of
faith in this way. There are two methods here he is
discussing. He is not preaching salvation by works
of the law. He is simply saying in verse five, “If
you want to be saved by the law, you must do what
the law requires.” But if you want to be saved by
faith, this is the way [Romans 10:6-8]:

But the righteousness that is by faith says: “Do

not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into
heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down) “or ‘Who
will descend into the deep?’” (that is, to bring
Christ up from the dead.) But what does it say?
“The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in
your heart,” that is, the word of faith we are
proclaiming....

Now Paul is using typical Middle Eastern logic.

This is not Western logic, so let me explain to you
in very simple terms what Paul is saying here.
There are two ways to be saved. This is man’s
way. According to man’s way, God is up there or
God is down there, He is somewhere, and, if you
997
want to be saved, you have to come up to His level.
In other words, God is not saying, “I feel sorry for
you. I’ll try to help you.” No.

This is the foundation of every pagan religion.

Man must do what God wants him to do. Then he
will say, “Heaven is yours.” For example, what’s
the difference between the cross of Christ and
pagan sacrifices? Some of them were human
sacrifices. What was the difference? When pagans
offered sacrifices, they were doing it to appease an
angry god. When Christ died on the cross, He was
not dying to appease an angry god. God was
already in Him, reconciling the world to Himself.
The eros religion is man trying to reach up to God,
people trying to seek God that they might be saved.
Remember what I said? Roman Catholics go to
Rome that they may find God. The Muslims go to
Mecca that they may find God. and Adventists go
to camp meetings that they may find God.

But Paul says, “You don’t have to go to find

God, He comes to you through the message of the
gospel.” This is the way, says Paul in verse eight,
998
“The word is near you.” In other words, God, first
of all, did not ask you to come up. I want to
remind you of Romans 5:6-10:

You see, at just the right time, when we were

still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very
rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though
for a good man someone might possibly dare to
die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in
this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for
us. Since we have now been justified by his blood,
how much more shall we be saved from God’s
wrath through him! For if, when we were God’s
enemies, we were reconciled to him through the
death of his Son, how much more, having been
reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

“For while we were helpless, while we were

ungodly, while we were sinners, while we were
enemies, God redeemed, reconciled. Christ died
for us while we were sinners.”

God doesn’t say, “You do your best and I will

make up the difference.” No. God said to His Son,
999
“Go down there while they are still helpless, while
they are incapable of saving themselves, and
redeem them.” John 3:17:

For God did not send his Son into the world to
condemn the world, but to save the world through
him.

On the cross, Jesus said, “It is finished.” When

He prayed in John 17:4, He said:

I have brought you glory on earth by

completing the work you gave me to do.

But Christ did not only save us. That was

wonderful, but now, having gone to heaven, He
doesn’t believe in retirement. He is working up
there, interceding for us. But He did something
else. He sent the Holy Spirit down here. “Please,
Holy Spirit, convict these people about my good
news. Convict them that without Me they cannot
be saved.”

And so it is all of God and all I can do is to say,

1000
“Thank you, God for your salvation.” That is
righteousness by faith. And out of a grateful heart
I will say, “For me now to live is Christ.” This is
the difference.

And then he expounds on this in Romans 10:9-

10:

...If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is

Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised
him from the dead, you will be saved.

Jesus being raised from the dead is the greatest

evidence that God gave that sin was conquered. If
it wasn’t, Christ would have remained in the grave.

...You will be saved.

Not you may be saved but you will be saved.

Romans 10:10:

For it is within your heart that you believe and

are justified, and it is with your mouth that you
confess and are saved.
1001
 This confession is not what some Pentecostals
do, raising the hands and saying, “Praise the Lord,
I am saved.” The confession is going and telling
others about what you have received through Jesus
Christ. The confession is witnessing Christ. But it
is not enough to believe in Jesus. It has to come
from the heart. It is not enough to say, “I believe
in Jesus. I confess him.” There has to be a heart
response, for I read in Romans 10:11:

As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in

him will never be put to shame.”

I have heard something that is horrifying to me.

I have been given to understand that some folks
believe that, when we go to heaven, all our sins
will be displayed during the thousand years for us
to criticize each other. I want to give you two
texts. Please let the Bible speak to you. James
5:19,20:

My brothers, if one of you should wander from

the truth and someone should bring him back,
1002
remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the
error of his way will save him from death and
cover over a multitude of sins.

If there is a person who has left Christ who has

gone out of the way and you, as a believer, go and
find him and bring him back to the church, you
have done two wonderful things:

1. You have saved a soul through witnessing.

2. You have covered a multitude of sins.

The second text I want to give you is a

statement that is addressed to us: Revelation 3:18.
There are three things Christ is offering to the
Laodicean Church. I want you to look at the
second one.

I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in

the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes
to wear, so you can cover your shameful
nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you
can see.
1003
 The white clothes is the righteousness of
Christ. Why should we buy from Him? Why
should we exchange our righteousness for His
righteousness? Why? Please look at the text:

...Buy from me white clothes to wear, so you

can cover [with His righteousness, not ours] your
shameful nakedness....

Yes, your sins and mine will come up in the

investigative judgment, which is taking place now,
but you will not be there. The only ones who will
see it are the angels and, by the way, they already
know all of your sins. So that is nothing new to
them. But thank God He will never display our
sins before the universe or before the believers.
Why? Because in Christ our sins will be blotted
out completely.

Here is another text. In Romans 9:30-32 it

explains that the Jews rejected righteousness by
faith but the Gentiles accepted it:

1004
 What then shall we say? That the Gentiles,
who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it,
a righteousness that is by faith; but Israel, who
pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it.
Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but
as if it were by works. They stumbled over the
“stumbling stone.”

So they were saved while the Jews were lost.

Look at the last part of Romans 9:33, talking to the
Jews who had allowed Christ to be a stumbling
block:

...And the one who trusts in him will never be

put to shame.

I thank God that my sins will not be displayed,

because you may think I’m a good fellow. All you
know is the outward Sequeira but you don’t know
me inside. I tell you, I’m rotten inside just like you
are. We all wear the same cap.

Look at Romans 10:12 onward:

1005
 For there is no difference between Jew and
Gentile...

In Galatians he adds even more, like there is no

difference between male and female or between a
slave and free person. We will come to that in
chapter twelve, too.

...The same Lord is Lord of all and richly

blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who
calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

It doesn’t matter who you are. God has the

greatest desire that everyone will be saved. But He
will not force that salvation upon you, because He
has given you a free will. But He wants to save
you.

Then he goes through a list of questions

[Romans 10:14-15]. The answers are obvious:

How, then, can they call on the one they have

not believed in?

1006
 You can’t call on somebody’s name and not
believe in it.

And how can they believe in the one of whom

they have not heard? And how can they hear
without someone preaching to them? And how can
they preach unless they are sent? As it is written,
“How beautiful are the feet of those who bring
good news!”

May I remind you that today we have in the

western world the idea that a preacher is somebody
who is employed by the denomination to preach
the gospel. That is not the New Testament
teaching. The work of preaching is the work of
every member. Read Acts 8 and see what the early
Christians did. The members scattered and went
about preaching Christ. I’ll tell you, we need that
desperately in this country.

We think about the mission field. I spent 18

years in Africa. Our young people there are on fire
for Christ. It is here that I have the problem. We
don’t have that incentive.
1007
 When I was chaplain in Nairobi University and
the university was closed down because of a strike,
these kids went out on their own, without
incentive, without a budget, without promotional
programs from the brethren. They went out and
baptized a hundred souls in three months because
they were on fire for Christ. That’s true.
Economically, they have no future. I’ll tell you,
their economic loss is a blessing in disguise.

I pray for the day when this country collapses

economically; then maybe our people will be
turned on. It’s a tragedy that we have to face crises
to bring life into the church. But I pray that we
will see what these folks are doing. Can we have
frontier missions in America for our own people?
We need that, too. I pray for this country. It gave
me status privileges but I want Americans to be
turned on for Christ.

Where did the Jews go wrong? Look at

Romans 10:16:

1008
 But not all the Israelites accepted the good
news. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed
our message?” Consequently, faith comes from
hearing the message, and the message is heard
through the word of Christ.

But here comes the question. Are the Jews lost

because they have not heard the gospel? Are the
Jews actually ignorant about the good news of
salvation? The answer is “no.” Romans 10:18:

But I ask: Did they not hear? Of course they

did: “Their voice has gone out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.”

Of course, to Paul that meant the Roman

Empire where the Jews were scattered. Romans
10:19:

Again I ask: Did Israel not understand? First,

Moses says, “I will make you envious by those
who are not a nation; I will make you angry by a
nation that has no understanding.”

1009
 Yes, the gospel has gone to all the world but
what has happened? The Gentiles said, “Thank
you, God!” But the Jews said, “We don’t want
Him.” Romans 10:20-21:

And Isaiah boldly says, “I was found by those

who did not seek me; I revealed myself to those
who did not ask for me” [the Gentiles]. But
concerning Israel he says, “All day long I have
held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate
people.”

Please don’t tell me we are not like the Jews.

“What greater deception can come to those who
think they are all right when they are all wrong.”
I’m quoting Ellen G. White about our church. If
we were not obstinate, the work would have been
finished long ago. As my professor Heppenstall
said, “If the Adventist Church had done its job, we
would not have had the last two world wars.
Therefore, we must take the blame to a large
degree.”

Go to 1 Corinthians 10:11-12. It is my prayer

1010
that we will take heed to this counsel (he was
speaking about the Jews and their history):

These things happened to them as examples

and were written down as warnings for us, on
whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. So, if
you think you are standing firm, be careful that you
don’t fall!

1011
 Chapter 30

God Keeps His Promise

(Romans 11)

We have come to the final study in the section

of Romans that deals with the situation of the Jews.
Chapter nine began with Paul’s heartfelt concern
for his own people, the Jews. Here the apostle tells
us that God has not failed to keep His promise to
Israel, which is salvation, but the problem was that
the Jews had failed to realize what God meant by
“Israel.”

It is not the natural descendants of Abraham,

Isaac, and Jacob that constitute Israel, says God. It
is those who are spiritual descendants. We covered
this in detail. You need the faith of Abraham; you
have to have the new birth experience, born from
above, as was Isaac; and you have to have the
perseverance of your faith like Jacob, before you
qualify to be true Israelites.

1012
 Then, in chapter 10, Paul goes on to explain in
detail that, if the Jews are lost, it is entirely their
fault. Why? Because, number one God kept His
promise. He promised salvation and fulfilled it in
Christ. They are lost because they have
deliberately, persistently, and ultimately said, “No,
we don’t want your gift. We don’t want your
salvation,” through unbelief. So they must take the
blame.

Now there is chapter 11. Paul concludes his

discussion regarding the Jews by pointing to two
important facts, facts that have a lesson for us
which we need to keep in mind in terms of our
mission:

1. Fact number one is that literal Israel’s

rejection is not total. That’s in verses one to
ten of chapter 11.

2. The second thing that Paul points out is that

Israel’s rejection is not final. It is not total
and it is not final.

1013
 With this in mind, let us look at chapter 11.
Christ declared to the Jews just before His
crucifixion [Matthew 23:38]:

Look, your house is left to you desolate.

He did not mean that, when probation closed

for the Jews as a nation, that no Jew could be saved
after that. He did not mean that. Simply what He
meant was that, from now onwards, the Jews will
no longer be the ones who will represent Him. He
had taken the torch from them and given it to the
Christian Church, which was primarily Gentiles.
In other words, what Paul is saying in this first part
of Romans 11 is that the rejection of the Jews is not
total. There will be many Jews like there were in
the past until the end of time who will accept Jesus
Christ as their Savior. And the best example he
can give is himself. Paul was converted after the
stoning of Stephen, after the rejection of the Jewish
nation. So in verse one of chapter 11 he says:

I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no

means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of
1014
Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin.

So there’s still hope for the Jews, he says.

Then in Romans 11:2a:

God did not reject his people, whom he

foreknew.

I need to pause here because you see there is

much confusion today even within our own ranks
between foreknowledge and foreordination. The
word that Paul used comes from the two Greek
words pro and ginosco. Pro means “before” and
ginosco means “to know.” Therefore, what Paul is
saying is that God did not cast away those He knew
beforehand who would accept His Son Jesus Christ
as their Savior. He has never rejected any Jew who
said, “Thank you God for your gift, Jesus Christ.”
And then he gives an illustration in the rest of
Romans 11:2:

Don’t you know what the Scripture says in the

passage about Elijah — how he appealed to God
against Israel....
1015
 Here is Elijah talking to God about Israel. Do
you know what Elijah said to God? Look at verse
three; Paul is quoting from 1 Kings 19:10,14. He
says:

“Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn

down your altars; I am the only one left, and they
are trying to kill me”

Who is the “they” that Elijah is talking about?

He is talking about the Jewish nation. He is talking
about Israel, God’s covenant people. He is saying
to God, “God, do you know that all your people
have forsaken you? They have become Babylon
and I’m the only faithful one.” Was he right? He
was a prophet, but was he right? No. Why not?
He was judging by outward appearance. May this
be a lesson to us. Let us never judge people by
their outward appearance.

I have learned this in Africa when the

communists took over, when we had the Marxist
revolution in Ethiopia. The ones we thought would
1016
give in were the ones who were loyal. The ones
we thought would be upholding the truth were the
ones who gave in. So never judge people. Elijah
made that mistake. He judged His people. But
what does verse four, the divine response say to
you?

And what was God’s answer to him? “I have

reserved for myself seven thousand who have no
bowed the knee to Baal.”

“Elijah, you do not realize,” He says, “I have

reserved for myself not two or three or a handful
but seven thousand men.” Please notice that, in
those days, “men” was referring to not individuals
only but to their families. Seven thousand men
who had not bowed the knee to Baal. Who is
Baal? You may say today, “I have never bowed
my knee to Baal.” The word “Baal” simply means
“Lord.” That’s all it meant. Then what’s the
implication here? The word “Baal” is when you
make yourself lord and replace yourself or your
mind or your works, anything that is true of you,
you replace God’s salvation in Jesus Christ with
1017
that. For example, Marxism is Baal worship today.
Humanism is Baal worship today. Liberal
theology is Baal worship today because in liberal
theology you make your mind the measuring stick
of truth. Wherever there is self, there you have
Baal worship.

But God is saying to Elijah, there are seven

thousand. Now how does Paul define those faithful
seven thousand? See verse five:

So too [just like the faithful believers in the

days of Elijah], at the present time there is a
remnant chosen by grace.

There are two important things that I want you

to notice here in verse five. We need to get clear
the definition of the word “remnant” in the New
Testament. Sometimes we give it a wrong picture.
We say that we are the remnant. What does the
Bible mean by the word “remnant”?

The word “remnant” used in this context and

also in the book of Revelation refers to those who
1018
are faithful to God and to His truth in the midst of
apostasy. Israel as a nation had apostatized in the
day of Elijah but there were seven thousand Jews
who did not yield to Baal worship. They were still
faithful in the sense that they believed that their
salvation was not in themselves but in the promise
of God in Jesus Christ. They are called the
remnant and they are also called “the election of
grace.”

The word “elect” means to be chosen. How

many did God elect to be saved in Christ? All
people. Not only all Jews but all people. But God
will not force that choice upon you. God is not a
Marxist. When I was in Ethiopia, one of the
Russian Marxists said to me, “You Adventists have
tried desperately to help these people to give up
smoking through your five-day program.” He was
familiar with our program because he was in the
medical line. “But,” he said, “we have a better way
of solving the problem.”

I said, “Really? Will you tell me your way?”

1019
 “It is simple,” he said. “We pass an order, a
law that there should be no more smoking in the
country of Ethiopia.”

I asked, “What happens if a person doesn’t

want to do that, he wants to smoke?”

He said, “You don’t understand. When we say

there is no smoking, there is no smoking, period.
Otherwise he swallows lead” [is shot].

God doesn’t do that. He doesn’t say, “I have

chosen all of you to stop smoking and because I’m
sovereign, and I have chosen you, you will be
saved.” That is Calvinism. That is not Biblical.
God doesn’t say that because He has elected you
and because He is sovereign, you will be saved.
He has chosen all people to be saved but if you
refuse the choice, His choice for you, which is the
only way you could be saved, He will give you
what you have chosen, which is death. Because if
you reject Christ, you have chosen death. How do
I know this? Look at verses six:

1020
 And if by grace, then it is no longer by works;
if it were, grace would no longer be grace.

Please notice God has elected all people to be

saved by grace. That’s what the Jews rejected.
They rejected grace in place of works.

May I remind you that Paul is not discussing

here the fruits of salvation, which involves lots of
works. He is not talking about works or faith.
He’s talking about works as a means, a method of
salvation. When we study chapters 12, 13, 14, and
15, Paul will discuss the fruits of salvation which
produces a lot of works. But they are the evidence,
never the means. Here the Jews did not choose
works as simply the evidence of being children of
God but as a means of salvation, which is Baal
worship. All pagan religions are based on
salvation by works. Verse seven:

What then? What Israel sought so earnestly it

did not obtain, but the elect did. The others were
hardened,....

1021
 What was Israel seeking? They were seeking
salvation. Why did they not obtain it? May I
remind you of chapter nine, verses 30-33. They
sought by the wrong method, by works of the law,
and they failed. The Gentiles sought it by faith and
they succeeded. So Paul is saying here: “What
then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks but the
elect, those who have accepted salvation by grace,
have obtained it. ”

The rest of the Jews have been hardened. Then

he quotes from different passages of the Old
Testament that God was not taken by surprise. But
I want you to notice the first part of verse eight:

As it is written: “God gave them a spirit of

stupor, eyes so that they could not see and ears so
that they could not hear, to this very day.”

Now this is one of the statements that are

difficult. There are several statements made in the
Bible that are difficult. If you take that statement
at face value, it gives you the impression that God
is the one who gave them a spirit of stupor. He
1022
was the One who closed their eyes and their ears.
It sounds that way. There are other texts, “God
hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” And there is even a
text in the Old Testament where God said, “I
created evil.” Of course, we Western people read
that text and say, “See, God is to blame.” We need
to understand this in the Middle Eastern concept.
There are two things we must keep in mind.
Number one, God is sovereign. Do you know what
that means? It means that nothing happens without
God’s permission.

If I am at the edge of a cliff, let’s say the Great

Escarpment, the Rift Valley of Kenya. There’s a
big drop, thousands of feet. The Rift Valley begins
in Israel and goes right through Africa. And there
is a family who’s visiting that area, too, and they
have a little two-year-old baby. While they are
watching the animals with their binoculars, the
baby begins to crawl towards the edge of the cliff.
The parents don’t see this happening, but I see it.
Now I know very well that if they allow the baby
to keep on, it will go over the edge of the cliff and
drop to its death. I simply watch, knowing very
1023
well what is going to happen and I could do
something about it but I did not do anything about
it. Who is to blame if that baby falls over the cliff
and dies? I must take some of the blame because I
saw it happening. I did not warn the parents. I did
nothing about it. I just waited and watched it
happen.

Now there are many terrible things that have

taken place in this world. The holocaust, for
example. Couldn’t God stop it? Satan tempting
Adam. Couldn’t God stop Satan from coming to
this world and tempting our first parents? Yes. He
could have stopped all those things. He didn’t do
it. And so He assumes the blame because He’s
sovereign. He only assumes the blame but, in the
judgment, every knee will confess because it’s only
in the judgment that God will reveal to the universe
why He held back. And so the Bible says in the
judgment every knee will bow down, including
Satan, and will confess that God is right.

So God is not the One who put the spirit of

stupor into the eyes, minds, and hearts of the Jews.
1024
He’s saying that because He allowed it. Why?
because God never forces anyone to accept His
salvation. Then Paul quotes David saying the same
thing. In other words, the Jews were all — without
exception — elected to be saved. But the reason
why many are lost is because they hardened their
hearts. So God had to say to them, “I leave your
house desolate.” But is this rejection final? No.
Verse 11 onward says, “No, it is not final.”
Romans 11:11:

Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall

beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of
their transgression, salvation has come to the
Gentiles to make Israel envious.

You know, I’m amazed at my God. Do you

know what Paul is saying here in verses 11 to 14?
Here God had chosen all the Jews to be saved but
many of them have rejected it. What does He do?
He takes their failure and He turns it into good.
How? Two ways:

1. Since the Jews have rejected the gospel, it is

1025
 a wonderful opportunity to take it to the
Gentiles. So He used this as a means of
turning the disciples’ ministry which was
limited only to the Jews. He says, “Now,
take it to the Gentiles.”

2. By taking it to the Gentiles He is hoping that

the Jews will get jealous. They missed
something and will say, “We better go and
accept it.” I’m amazed how God will try
any method to save us. He saves us only in
Christ but He will try any method to get us
to accept His salvation.

I’m going to be honest with you. Both my wife

and I joined this church out of fear. I was scared of
the judgment which I was told began in 1844,
which I believe is correct. But I was scared
because I was a Roman Catholic who was keeping
Sunday and I would be judged by the
commandments. Here I was breaking one, which
meant breaking all. The Bible says so in James
2:12 and so, out of fear, I joined God’s
commandment-keeping people. I’m still looking
1026
for them but I joined people who claimed to be
keeping the commandments. But I still see fighting
and jealousy in my church so I am still waiting for
God to produce a people who will love each other
in spite of what they are. That’s keeping the
commandments.

But I thank God that I have discovered it. I

discovered this five years after I was ordained a
minister. Terrible! That we are sinners saved by
grace entirely and that works are the fruits.
Anyone who says the gospel makes you lazy is a
liar. If I were to have a time sheet, some of you
would be surprised. I don’t believe in resting. Ask
my wife. Our vacation this year was in meetings
all over the country. Not because I’m good, but I
cannot keep quiet. I want the world to know that
there is a hope for everyone of us.

So God has taken this occasion and given the

Gentiles a chance. In verse 14, God is saying, “I
want even to use jealousy if it will save some
Jews.” Romans 11:13-14:

1027
 I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am
the apostle to the Gentiles, I make much of my
ministry in the hope that I may somehow arouse
my own people [i.e., the Jews] to envy and save
some of them.

In the judgment, God will say like Jesus said to

the Jews, “I did everything. I even used jealousy to
get you to accept my gift, and you would not. So
you have forced me to leave you desolate.” Then,
in verses 15 to 24, he brings out an illustration. It
is an olive tree. Romans 11:15-24:

For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the

world, what will their acceptance be but life from
the dead? If the part of the dough offered as
firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if
the root is holy, so are the branches. If some of the
branches have been broken off, and you, though a
wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the
others and now share in the nourishing sap from
the olive root, do not boast over those branches. If
you do, consider this: You do not support the root,
but the root supports you. You will say then,
1028
“Branches were broken off so that I could be
grafted in.” Granted. But they were broken off
because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not
be arrogant, but be afraid. For if God did not spare
the natural branches, he will not spare you either.
Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of
God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to
you, provided that you continue in his kindness.
Otherwise, you also will be cut off. And if they do
not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for
God is able to graft them in again. After all, if you
were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature,
and contrary to nature were grafted into a
cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will
these, the natural branches, be grafted into their
own olive tree.

All I will do here is to explain the significance

of it. It’s a symbol. He’s using the olive tree as a
symbol to explain a truth.

1. The roots and the sap, which some

translations call the fatness, is Christ, because
Christ is the source of life. He is the source of my
1029
hope, my peace, my righteousness, you name it.
My ticket to heaven.

2. The natural branches are the Jews because

salvation comes through the Jews. Jesus Himself
took the human race as a Jew. But those branches
which represent the Jews are in two camps:
believers, which are the remnant, and the
unbelievers, which are the unfaithful. What does
He do with the unfaithful, because the believers
had no problem. They are part of Israel. The tree
is Israel. He takes branches representing the
unfaithful and breaks them off. And what does He
do? He grafts the wild olive branches, which
represent us Gentiles. So we are joined together to
Israel and we enjoy the fatness and the roots which
is Jesus Christ. Why did God break off the
branches? In verse 18 He says to the Gentiles:

...Do not boast over those branches [have been

broken off]. If you do, consider this: You do not
support the root, but the root supports you. [It is
Christ who is your Savior, not you who saves
yourself or Israel.] You will say then, “Branches
1030
were broken off so that I could be grafted in.”

Did God say, “Well, I don’t have room for

everybody, and if I take all the Jews to heaven
there will not be room for the Gentiles, so let me
get rid of some of the Jews so that I may take some
of the Gentiles”? No, that’s not the reason, Paul
says. Why? Because there is room in heaven for
everybody, Jew and Gentile. Then why did He
break off the branches? Look at Romans 11:20:

...But they were broken off because of

unbelief....

Unbelief is the willful, deliberate rejection of

the gospel. Unbelief is the only sin that God will
not pardon. Every sin against the law is forgivable,
but the sin against grace God cannot forgive
because His love will not use compulsion. He will
not force people into heaven who have said, “No, I
don’t want it.”

So Paul says, “Because of unbelief they were

broken off and you Gentiles stand by faith. Do not
1031
be haughty or proud but remember, what happened
to the unfaithful Jews can happen to you.”

It’s a lesson for us, folks. Please don’t say that

because you’re an Adventist that you are beyond
making the mistakes of the Jews. We can repeat
the same mistake and God forbid that we should
become proud and self-righteous and look upon
ourselves as if we were the only true Christians and
the others are not. Be careful lest we find
ourselves in the same shoes as the Jews. Verses
21-22a say:

For if God did not spare the natural branches,

he will not spare you either. Consider therefore the
kindness and sternness of God....

God is merciful, but He’s also just. Consider

that. If you continue in His goodness, there’s no
problem. If you are faithful unto the end to the
truth in Christ, there is no problem because, as a
child of Jacob, you belong to Israel. Verse 23:

And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will

1032
be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.

If the Jews today would turn back and say,

“God, we made a mistake; we did crucify the
Messiah,” what will God do? Would He say, “It’s
too late!”? No, folks, He will take the Jews and
graft them back into the olive tree. That is why we
have a mission to the Jews, also. Have you ever
been to our church in Jerusalem? It’s the worst
church I’ve ever been to. When I was there in
1975 there were 13 members. The youngest was
65. Terrible!

It’s true that it’s hard to win souls in Israel but

I’ll tell you, the Pentecostals are having
tremendous success. How? Because they are
infiltrating the Jewish community. You can’t win
the Jews by simply holding evangelistic meetings.
You have to infiltrate them. You have to love
them. You have to admit that you are as much a
sinner as they are and that we are both saved by
grace. That’s how Paul concludes in verse 24:

After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree

1033
that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were
grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more
readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted
into their own olive tree.

God is still concerned about the Jews today.

Now we come to verse 25, the conclusion:

I do not want you to be ignorant of this

mystery, brothers, so that you may not be
conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in
part until the full number of the Gentiles has come
in.

I wrestled with that one. I’m going to give you

some texts and I hope that you will wrestle with it,
too. What Paul is saying here is the Jews as a
nation have rejected the Messiah. That was way
back in 31 A.D. and 34 A.D. when Stephen was
stoned. That was the final stroke. What did God
do? He took the gospel and He gave it to the
Gentiles. How long is He going to give it to the
Gentiles? Until every Gentile gets a chance to
accept or reject the gospel. How long will that be?
1034
Turn to Luke 21. In this chapter, like Matthew 24,
you have Christ giving the prophecies of the last
days, our time. He makes a very interesting
statement that I hope will give you some food for
thought. It begins in Luke 21:20-24. This is in the
context of Christ saying to the Jews, “I leave your
house desolate.” Here Jesus is explaining to His
disciples the reality of that. Luke 21:20:

When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by

armies, you will know that its desolation is near.

In other words, when you see Jerusalem

surrounded by the Roman army, you know that the
reality of that desolation will become history.
Luke 21:21:

Then let those who are in Judea flee to the

mountains, let those in the city get out, and let
those in the country not enter the city.

Luke 21:22:

For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment

1035
of all that has been written.

What does it mean? God has removed His

protection. Chapter one of Romans, God
withdraws because they have rejected Him. Now
look at Luke 21:23:

How dreadful it will be in those days for

pregnant women and nursing mothers! There will
be great distress in the land and wrath against this
people.

I wish I had time to explain what this is all

about in history but it was terrible. The Jews were
actually eating rats. They were actually eating
their own babies that had died in order to keep
alive in Jerusalem. That’s how bad it was. And
verse 24 adds to that:

They will fall by the sword [the Roman sword]

and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations.
Jerusalem will be trampled on [occupied] by the
Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

1036
 The Romans took Jerusalem in 70 A.D. They
drove the Jews out. They were followed by the
Saracens, Ottomans, then the British, Palestinians,
all Gentiles, until 1968 when the Jews came back
to Jerusalem. Now they didn’t occupy all of
Jerusalem. Forty-five percent of the inhabitants of
Jerusalem are still Palestinians. Does that not tell
us that we are approaching the fullness of the time
of the Gentiles?

But in terms of Paul’s writing, we must be

honest with Paul. The Jews returning back to
Jerusalem is not the main issue. The main issue is
that God will not close probation for the Gentile
world until this gospel has been preached to every
nation, kindred, tongue, and people. What we are
seeing in Israel is only warning us that the end is
about to come. The reason why the Palestinians in
Jerusalem have not been driven out is because we
as a people have not done our job. We have not yet
preached the gospel to the whole world. In fact,
we have not even preached the gospel completely
to our own people. Most Adventists are still in
legalism or some subtle form of it, like
1037
Galatianism. They are insecure about their
salvation.

But, my dear people, when God has given the

Gentile world every opportunity to hear the gospel,
do you know what He’s going to do? He’s going
to step back and say to the Jews, “I want to give
you one more chance.” And He will give the Jews
another chance. Not those who are dead but those
who are living at the end of time. He will say to
the Jews, “Please, you have turned your backs on
Me for so long, won’t you accept Me?” When I
read the concluding verses of Romans 11, this is
what comes across. Verse 25b says:

Israel has experienced a hardening in part until

the full number of the Gentiles has come in.

Hardness has happened to the Jews not

permanently, not finally, but until the fullness of
the Gentiles has come in. Come into what? Come
into Israel by faith. And so all Israel will be saved.
Romans 11:26-27:

1038
 And so all Israel [that means all the believing
Jews from Abraham right up to the end of time]
will be saved, as it is written: [then he quotes the
Old Testament] “The Deliverer will come from
Zion; he will turn godlessness [which has taken
place in the last 2,000 years] away from Jacob.
And this is my covenant with them when I take
away their sins.”

Then in verses 28-31 he says:

As far as the gospel is concerned, they are

enemies on your account; but as far as election is
concerned, they are loved on account of the
patriachs, for God’s gifts and his call are
irrevocable. Just as you who were at one time
disobedient to God have now received mercy as a
result of their disobedience, so they too have now
become disobedient in order that they too may now
receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you.

“Look, concerning the gospel, they are

enemies. They rejected the gospel. They became
enemies of the gospel but, because of this, you got
1039
the gospel, Gentiles, for your sake, but concerning
the election they are beloved for the sake of the
fathers. God promised the fathers — Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob — that all of those who qualify to
be Israel will be saved. For the gifts and the
calling of God are irrevocable.”

God never changes His mind about your

salvation. It is you who can change your mind. He
will never change. He will never say, “I don’t
want to save you.” He will say at the end of time,
“How often I tried to show you. How often I
pleaded with you to accept My Son, but you would
not, so you have to get what you have chosen, not
what I have chosen for you.” Verses 30-31:

Just as you who were at one time disobedient to

God have now received mercy as a result of their
disobedience, so they too have now become
disobedient in order that they too may now receive
mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you.

Both Jews and Gentiles are sinners. None of us

deserve salvation. We are all in the same camp.
1040
There is no difference, says Paul, in Romans 3:23:

...For all have sinned and fall short of the glory

of God.

Romans 3:9:

...Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin.

We have no right for salvation. We all are

disobedient. Romans 11:32:

For God has bound all men over to

disobedience so that he may have mercy on them
all.

The Jews and the Gentiles are saved by grace

alone. Then he has this song of praise in verses 33
to 36:

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and

knowledge of God! How unsearchable his
judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
“Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who
1041
has been his counselor?” “Who has ever given to
God, that God should repay him?” For from him
and through him and to him are all things. To him
be the glory forever! Amen.

1042
 Chapter 31

Born Crucified
(Romans 12:1-3)

Romans 12:1-3 is the introduction to Paul’s

final discussion of the gospel in Romans. In fact, it
is the final unit. It begins with chapter twelve and
goes right up to chapter sixteen. This section deals
with Christian ethics or Christian living. In order
for us to really understand this section, to
appreciate it and even to experience it, it is
important that we study this section in the context
of the whole theme of Romans. Otherwise, we will
go wrong.

Christian ethics to Paul is the practical

application, the outworking of righteousness by
faith. It is the fruits of the gospel. That is why, as
we begin this section, I would like, first of all, to
make a summary of the whole theme of Romans so
that we really understand where we are coming
from and where we are going.
1043
 The central theme of Romans is expressed in
Romans 1:17, in the introduction, where Paul says:

For in the gospel a righteousness from God is

revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first
to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live
by faith.”

Now this theme is taken out from an Old

Testament statement from Habakkuk 2:4. In order
to understand what the theme of Romans is, it
would be wise for us to look at Habakkuk 2:4 since
Paul does not quote the whole text because he
assumes that the people to whom he is writing were
familiar with it. In Paul’s day, there was no New
Testament. All they had was the Old Testament.
So I would like you to turn to Habakkuk 2:4:

See, he is puffed up; his desires are not upright

— but the righteous will live by his faith...

The reason why I think Paul uses this as his

theme, there may be more than one reason, but one
1044
reason why he uses it for his theme of Romans is
because the Jews had misinterpreted this text. The
word “faith” in Habakkuk 2:4 could be translated
from the Hebrew text as “faithful” and, because of
this, the Jews interpreted Habakkuk 2:4 like this.
They said, “He who is just by his or her
faithfulness [in other words, “man’s” faithfulness]
lives.”

They had twisted Habakkuk 2:4. They had

turned it from righteousness by faith to
righteousness by works. And, of course, Paul was
aware of this. Unfortunately, too many Adventists
have fallen into the same trap. So Paul gives the
correct meaning of this text in the whole of
Romans. It is not our faithfulness that saves us. It
is God’s faithfulness that saves us. And I’m glad
that it is that way, because none of us have been
really faithful, but God is always faithful. He
keeps His promise. The only reason why people
are lost is because they deliberately, willfully reject
that promise. But God is faithful and that’s what
Romans is all about.

1045
 Now how does Paul explain this theme? In the
first few chapters, the first section of Romans,
chapter 1:18 to 3:20, Paul proves from every
conceivable angle that man is spiritually bankrupt,
therefore, he cannot save himself by his
faithfulness. Why? Because all are under sin.
There are none good. There are none that can do
righteousness. Man stands guilty before God. So
anyone whose heart is lifted up and thinks he’s
faithful and that he can save himself by his
faithfulness has misunderstood Habakkuk 2:4.

Then, after doing that, after spending

considerable time in this, Paul turns to the gospel
itself: righteousness or justification is through
God’s gift, Jesus Christ. Paul introduces the gospel
in Romans 3:21 as “the righteousness of God”
obtained for us in the holy history of our Lord
Jesus Christ, His doing and His dying. This is in
chapter three, verse 21, right up to the end of
chapter seven, verse 25. But this whole section,
which is the heart of the book of Romans, which he
explains from every angle, can be summed up by
Romans 3:28:
1046
 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith
apart from observing the law.

A person is justified by faith in God’s

provision, apart from his or her own faithfulness or
performance.

Then, in chapter eight, Paul deals with the way

this righteousness becomes ours through faith and
is experienced in the life of the believer. He says
that this righteousness is ours by faith and is
reflected in us and experienced in us through the
power of the Holy Spirit that dwells in every
believer. This is the foundation of chapters 12
through 16. In fact, we could go from chapter
eight right up to chapter 12 and not miss the logic
of Paul’s argument.

But, in chapters nine, 10, and 11, he turns his

attention to the Jews. Why? Because it was the
Jews who misinterpreted Habakkuk 2:4. In these
three chapters, which we studied in detail, Paul
goes to show that the Jews had missed the point.
1047
They were trying to attain righteousness by works
of the law when all the time what God was trying
to get across in Habakkuk 2:4 was righteousness by
faith in Jesus Christ.

Finally, in chapters 12 to 16, Paul concludes

with this important truth of how the glorious
message of righteousness by faith is to affect us in
our daily Christian living. In other words, we
could divide Habakkuk 2:4 into three sections and
we could divide Romans into three sections.
Section number one is: “Behold the one who is
proud, the one who is self-righteous, his soul is not
upright, he is not honest with himself.”

Paul expounds it in a general way in Romans

1:18 to 3:20 and in a specific way in Romans 9, 10,
and 11 when he applies it to the Jews.

The second part of Habakkuk says, “But the

righteous will live by his faith.” The only way you
and I can be righteous is by faith alone. There is
no other way. This, of course, is the central theme
of Paul’s message in Romans 3:21 to 7:25.
1048
 Finally, he concludes in Romans 8 as an
introduction and chapters 12 to 16 with “shall
live.” In other words, he who is righteous by faith
shall live. It is this section that we are going to
study now. In dealing with this section, we need to
answer two very important questions:

1. When does a Christian who is justified by

faith, who has accepted Christ and been
baptized into Christ, begin to live?

2. How should a Christian who is justified by

faith live?

The theme is, “He that is righteous by faith

shall live.” When do we begin to live? How do we
begin to live?

We will be spending the rest of the studies on

how we begin to live, but I would like to begin this
section with when we begin to live.

The reason I’m doing this that there is

1049
confusion on this point. Many Christians believe
that because the word “will” (or “shall,” in some
translations) is in the future tense, they interpret
Habakkuk 2:4 and Romans 1:17 to mean that only
when Christ comes the second time and this
mortality will put on immortality, then, and then
only, we shall live. But Paul does not give us that
answer. Paul says that the moment you have
accepted Christ, the moment you are converted, the
moment you are baptized into Christ, it is from that
time on onward that the just by faith shall live.
Turn to Romans chapter six where he reminds the
believer that justification by faith begins at
conversion or baptism.

Legally, God has justified all men in Christ.

But all men will not go to heaven because that
legal justification has to be made effective. The
reason for that is because God is love. He will not
force down our throats what He has paid for us in
Christ. When does that legal justification become
effective? The moment we believe. Baptism is a
confession, a public confession of that faith. Listen
to what Paul says in verses three and four of
1050
Romans six, about the experience of baptism. Not
the act, because the act sometimes does not always
go along with experience. It is the experience that
saves us. The act is only an outward confession.
Look at Romans 6:3:

Or don’t you know that all of us who were

baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his
death?

So baptism is always into Christ. A true

baptism is a funeral service because of
identification with Christ and Him crucified.
Romans 6:4:

We were therefore buried with him through

baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was
raised from the dead through the glory of the
Father, we too may live a new life.

When should we begin to live? The moment

we rise up out of the water we should walk in
newness of life. So whoever is just by faith should
begin living the new life from the moment of
1051
baptism, not wait until Christ comes. God wants us
to move to that new life right now. Then, in
Romans 6:10-13, he takes this truth which we have
covered in detail and tells us what its significance
is to Christian living:

The death he died, he died to sin once for all;

but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same
way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God
in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in
your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.
Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as
instruments of wickedness, but rather offer
yourselves to God, as those who have been brought
from death to life; and offer the parts of your body
to him as instruments of righteousness.

“The death he died, he died to sin once for all.”

Christ brought sin to an end on the cross. Once
and for all He brought it to an end.

...But the life he lives, he lives to God.

You mean He did not live to God before He

1052
died? No. He lived to God from the time He was
on this earth. But all during His earthly life there
was something in Christ that was in contradiction
to God and that is the humanity that He assumed:
our nature, which Paul says in Romans 8:7 is
enmity with God. He had a nature that He
assumed. It was not His. It was ours. He took it
upon Himself, but this nature was constantly
pulling Him away from God. It was pulling Him
away from the cross. But Christ never yielded to
that nature. So there was always this barrier with
which He struggled. All His life, Jesus fought with
self the battle that you and I must fight. He never
yielded to the self but He fought against it. So all
His life He would have to say, “Not my will, but
God’s.” How do I know this? Jesus Himself said
in Luke 9:23:

If anyone would come after me, he must deny

himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

In other words, “if any man follow me, let him

do what I did: let him deny himself, take up the
cross and follow me.”
1053
 The word “cross” is made up of two pieces of
wood and, when you put those two pieces of wood
together, you have the cross. One piece, the
vertical piece, represents God’s will. The
horizontal piece represents my will. And these are
always in contradiction. That is what the cross
stands for. A true Christian who carries the cross
says “Not I” and that is what Christ said all His
life.

But this flesh with its law of sin and death was
condemned on the cross. Romans 8:3:

For what the law was powerless to do in that it

was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by
sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man
to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in
sinful man....

Christ condemned it forever so that, in the

resurrection, Christ did not rise with the same
human nature. He rose with a glorified nature that
is in perfect harmony with God. And that nature
1054
you and I will have at the second coming, but now
we must carry the cross in order for God to live in
us. “If any man follow me, let him deny himself.”
We will come to that when we go to the first three
verses of chapter twelve.

Paul is saying in verse ten of Romans six that

Christ’s death brought to an end the separation
between God and man. He removed once and for
all the barrier between people and God and now
there is no separation ever to take place between
God and mankind. And now in verse eleven of
chapter six he says:

In the same way, count yourselves [you who

have been baptized into Christ] dead to sin but
alive to God in Christ Jesus.

You must consider yourself dead because,

literally, you are not dead in yourself. You are
dead in Christ but not in yourself. So you must
consider yourself (1) dead to sin and (2) alive to
God in Christ Jesus because it is in Christ Jesus
you have been baptized. And then the application
1055
of that truth in Romans 6:12-13:

Therefore do not let sin reiign in your mortal

body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer
the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of
wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as
those who have been brought from death to life;
and offer the parts of your body to him as
instruments of righteousness.

Is sin still dwelling in your mortal body? Yes,

but don’t let it rule you. He equates this human
body as an instrument. And he says, “Don’t use it.
Don’t allow the sin driver to control it.”

Now this truth Paul expounds in Romans 12 to

16. So when does a Christian begin living? A
Christian who stands justified by faith no longer is
worried about going to heaven. He has been
justified and it is made effective by faith. When
does he begin living the Christian life? Now. The
moment he is baptized, or the moment he is
converted. Now Paul says this in many ways in
many places. I can’t read all the texts, but I will
1056
give some to you. Romans 8:9-14, which lays the
foundation for this, also presents the same thought:

You, however, are controlled not by the sinful

nature but by the Spirit, if the Spiirit of God lives
in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of
Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ
is in you, your body is dead becasue of sin, yet
your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And
if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead
is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead
will also give life to your mortal bodies through his
Spirit, who lives in you. Therefore, brothers, we
have an obligation — but it is not to the sinful
nature, to live according to it. For if you live
according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if
by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the
body, you will live, because those who are led by
the Spirit of God are sons of God.

Then Romans 13:14 puts it all in a nutshell:

Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus

Christ [which you should have done at baptism],
1057
and do not think about how to gratify the desires of
the sinful nature.

Galatians 5:16:

So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not

gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

Ephesians 4:1 says that:

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to

live a life worthy of the calling you have received.

Colossians 2:6 puts it very nicely:

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as

Lord, continue to live in him....

1 John 2:6 is also a good text from the Apostle

John:

Whoever claims to live in him must walk as

Jesus did.

1058
 Now all of this is in harmony with what Christ
said in John 5:24:

I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and

believes him who sent me has enternal life and will
not be condemned; he has crossed over from death
to life.

And if justification means you have already

passed from death to life, then when do you begin
the life of justification by faith? Now! That is
Paul’s presentation.

There are some who are saying, “No, we have

to wait for the second coming of Christ when this
corruption puts on incorruption, then we shall be
able to live.” No, folks. God wants you to live
now, because the greatest evidence that we can
give to the world that we are justified by faith is by
our life. Or as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4:20:

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk

but of power.

1059
 The world wants to see justification by faith.
May I repeat something very important? Why has
Paul reserved this wonderful truth to the end? And
why is this his pattern? All through his epistles he
deals with Christian ethics always at the end. I’ll
tell you why. It is because he is opposing legalism
in all of his writings. Legalism says, “You must
live a good life first, then I will justify you.” The
gospel says, “I justify you first, then I want you to
live the Christian life.” It is the opposite. As one
theologian puts it very nicely:

God gave us the law that we may be directed to

Christ and, when we come to Christ, He turns us
around and turns us back to the law as a standard of
Christian living.

That was by an evangelical scholar and his eyes

were surely open to the truth. Another text that
puts this truth nicely is in 1 John 5:11-13:

And this is the testimony: God has given us

eternal life [notice it is not future tense but now He
HAS given us eternal life], and this life is in his
1060
Son. He who has the Son has life [not future tense
but present tense: he already has life if he is in the
Son]; he who does not have the Son of God does
not have life. I write these things to you who
believe in the name of the Son of God [So when
does the believer have life? Now!] so that you may
know that you have [not WILL have but you
HAVE] eternal life.

As long as you believe, you have life. The

trouble is the world needs to see that life. The
world doesn’t need to see how good you are. The
world needs to see Christ in you. Or, as Paul puts
it in Colossians 1:27:

To them God has chosen to make known

among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this
mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

“Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Now lets go

to Romans 12:1, where he’s saying, “I entreat you,
I beseech you, I appeal to you, I exhort you...”:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers [believers in

1061
Christ], in view of God’s mercy, to offer your
bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to
God — this is your spiritual act of worship.

“In view of God’s mercy,” in view of

righteousness by faith. Please remember, we are
not saved because of our righteousness but, by His
mercy, He saves us.

There are three words here that we’ll look at in

more detail. The first is the word “offer,” or
“present” in some translations. “Therefore, I urge
you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer.”
This is in what we call the aorist tense. To
correctly interpret that word, we should say, “make
a decisive decision.” Believers, make a decisive
decision, a decision of the will. What is the
decision you must make?

The decision you must make is to offer up your

body not to be sacrificed on a cross or to be
beheaded or shot as a martyr — that may come in
the future — but to present your body as a living
sacrifice.
1062
 Why does he call it a living sacrifice? When
you accepted Christ the only change that took place
in you was the change in your mind, in your will.
The word “repentance” comes from two Greek
words, meta noia. Noia comes from the word nos.
You get the word “knowledge” from that. Meta
noia means a change of mind. But your nature has
not changed one iota. In other words, you have a
mind that wants to follow God but you have a
nature that is anti-God and not subject to His law.
When you present this body, which is dominated
by the law of sin, it does not have to be controlled
by it, but it is dominated, you are presenting as a
living sacrifice. Hebrews 2:18:

Because he himself suffered when he was

tempted, he is able to help those who are being
tempted.

How often was Christ tempted? Hebrews 4:15

tells us that He was tempted in all points such as
we are:

1063
 For we do not have a high priest who is unable
to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have
one who has been tempted in every way, just as we
are — yet was without sin.

How often are you tempted? I don’t know

about you but I am tempted day and night.
Sometimes even in my sleep I’m tempted. The
devil doesn’t believe in giving us rest. Hebrews
2:18 says He suffered:

Because he himself suffered when he was

tempted, he is able to help those who are being
tempted.

Why did He suffer being tempted? And what

does the suffering signify? Well, Peter answers
that question in 1 Peter 4:1:

Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body [in

His humanity], arm yourselves also with the same
attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is
done with sin.

1064
 What is Peter telling us? What kind of mind
did Christ have? He had a mind that was totally
surrendered to the will of God. Remember, in
Gethsemane, His flesh said, “Why should you go
to the cross?” And it produced drops of blood, but
Jesus responded, “Father, not my will but thine be
done.”

He was presenting His body. He presented His

body all through His life as a living sacrifice.
Then, on the cross, He presented His body as an
ultimate sacrifice. Do you know why He did it? In
order to save us. By presenting His body as a
living sacrifice, God produced righteousness in
Him. By presenting His body as an ultimate
sacrifice, God met the justice of the law for us.
Thus, by His doing and His dying, we have a
perfect Savior.

But God is not asking you to present your

bodies as a living sacrifice in order that you might
be saved. Then why should we do it? By the
mercies of God. If God gave Himself for us, then
we, in turn, should be willing to offer ourselves for
1065
His cause. Turn to 2 Corinthians 5:14:

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are

convinced that one died for all, and therefore all
died.

The love of God constrains us. It compels us.

It drives us to do what? Once we recognize that
when One died, all died, what does the love of God
revealed on the cross compel us, constrain us to
do? Let us read it from the Bible itself. 2
Corinthians 5:15:

And he died for all, that those who live should

no longer live for themselves but for him who died
for them and was raised again.

He died, not the first death for all, but the

second death for all. That’s why Revelation 20:6
says that the believers will never have to
experience the second death themselves. He died
for all. Why? Not only to save us, but that we
should live for Christ.

1066
 The question I want to ask you is, “Are you
willing to present your bodies a living sacrifice?”
Romans 12:1:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of

God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living
sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your
spiritual act of worship.

In other words, for me now onward is not to

live for myself but for Christ. Because of this, Paul
says in Romans 12:2:

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this

world, but be transformed by the renewing of your
mind. Then you will be able to test and approve
what God’s will is — his good, pleasing and
perfect will.

In other words, “do not fit yourself into the

world’s mold.” This is one of the biggest problems
we face here.

It wasn’t long after coming to America I

1067
discovered this was one of the major problems that
we face here in America. I’ll tell you why. When
I go and preach the gospel to the pagans in Africa,
to the Animists, and they become Christians, they
know that they are saying good-bye to paganism in
exchange for Christianity. Sso it is a common
practice among Africans when they are baptized to
actually change their names. They actually change
their names, just like Paul did when he was
converted from Judaism. He changed his name
from Saul to Paul. What does this signify? It
means that they are no longer belonging to the
world.

But here is the problem in this country. For

years in school every morning, public or private
school, we have to say, “This is one nation under
God.” So it has caused a problem because we
make no distinction between our culture and
Christianity. Because it’s “one nation under God.”
But let me ask you a question. In practice, is this
really one nation under God? Because we have not
made a distinction between the cultural patterns of
our country and the Christian lifestyle, whatever
1068
the trend is of the culture, the church follows. You
look at the culture of the country and look at the
direction of the church. It doesn’t take long for the
church to change. And we follow in the same
footsteps, whether it’s divorce, lifestyle, you name
it, and this has caused a major problem.

I want to repeat there are two things of which

you must be aware as a Christian.

1. You have died to the world.

2. You no longer belong to the world system.

You are living in the world, but you are not of

the world. When Jesus prayed, in John 17:15, He
said:

My prayer is not that you take them out of the

world but that you protect them from the evil one.

Now what’s the difference. Is the difference

only in outward acts? No. We need to go deeper
than that. I want to give you some texts. First go
to 1 John 2, where we see the difference between
1069
the world and the church. I will expound on this in
more detail as we go along but I’m just laying the
foundation. What’s the foundation? Every
Christian must realize that when you is born in the
kingdom of God, you are born crucified. That’s
the title of this chapter. I’ve taken it from a French
theologian. He said, “Every Christian is born
crucified.” 1 John 2:15,16:

Do not love the world or anything in the world.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is
not in him. For everything in the world — the
cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes, and the
boasting of what he has and does — comes not
from the Father but from the world.

Now what did he mean by “Do not love the

world”? He did not mean don’t love the people of
the world. We must love the people of the world
because they are children of God at least by by the
cross, even though they don’t recognize it.

You cannot belong to this worldly kingdom and

the kingdom of heaven at the same time. They are
1070
two opposite kingdoms. What does he mean by
“the world”? Verse sixteen mentions the three
driving forces that control the worldly person.

1. “The cravings of sinful man,” in some

translations called “the lust of the flesh.” What he
feels he wants. He wants everything.

2. “The lust of his eyes.” What he sees, he

wants. He’s keeping up with the Joneses.

3. “The boasting of what he has and does,”

sometimes called “the pride of life.” He always
wants to go up and up and up. He’s not willing to
go down. If you don’t believe me, ask an eighth
grader, “How would you like to go to seventh
grade next year?” I have yet to see a young pastor
of a big church who voluntarily wants to go to a
small church. Even in the church, we want to go
up and up and up.

We have three kinds of missionaries. I worked

18 years in Africa and observed three kinds of
missionaries. One is the “tourist missionary.”
1071
They are always carrying their camera. Africa has
a lot of game to offer them. The second kind I call
“political missionaries,” because you cannot rise to
the General Conference unless you have mission
service. So some come there for one term to
qualify for promotion. But there is a third group,
“genuine missionaries” who come there to witness
Christ and forget self. That is the problem with the
world. It’s looking for self. Now turn in contrast
to Galatians 5:24:

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have

crucified the sinful nature with its passions and
desires.

That’s the mentality of the Christian. Please

turn to chapter six of Galatians. In Galatians 6:12
Paul says:

Those who want to make a good impression

outwardly [legalists] are trying to compel you to be
circumcised. The only reason they do this is to
avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ.

1072
 Do you know what Paul is saying here? Those
who are legalistic are following rules because they
want to give glory to themselves. The gospel, the
cross gives glory to God and, therefore, it means
swallowing your pride. But now look at verse
fourteen. Verse twelve is dealing with the legalist
but verse fourteen is dealing with the true
Christian. Galatians 6:14:

May I never boast except in the cross of our

Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has
been crucified to me, and I to the world.

A Christian is born crucified. Back to Romans

12:2-3:

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this

world, but be transformed by the renewing of your
mind. Then you will be able to test and approve
what God’s will is — his good, pleasing and
perfect will. For by the grace given me I say to
every one of you: Do not think of yourself more
highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself
with sober judgment, in accordance with the
1073
measure of faith God has given you.

Paul is saying, “Please, don’t fit into the

world’s mold but be transformed by the renewing
of your mind.” What God wants to see in you and
me is a transformation of the mind. The
performance will take care of itself. There are too
many Adventists who are trying to get perfection
of performance in preparation for the second
coming of Christ, or the time of trouble.

So one day I sat down and I spent hours

looking at every statement in the Spirit of Prophecy
where the word “character” appears. I discovered
that what Ellen G. White also teaches — which is
in harmony with Paul — is the perfection of the
human mind-character. In other words, the mind
set needs to be perfected, the performance God will
take care of. She calls it the cleansing of the soul
temple. Not the performance, but the soul temple.

In other words, we need to have a mind that is

totally surrendered to Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. The performance God will take care of.
1074
So what Paul is saying here is, “Don’t conform to
the world but be transformed by renewing the
mind.” Philippians 2:5:

Your attitude should be the same as that of

Christ Jesus.

“Let this mind be in you which was in Christ

Jesus.” But also read verses one to four of
Philippains 2:

If you have any encouragement from being

united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if
any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness
and compassion, then make my joy complete by
being like-minded, having the samve love, being
one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish
ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider
others better than yourselves. Each of you should
look not only to your own interests, but also to the
interests of others.

When you have the mind of Christ, God will

reveal to you what is the good and acceptable
1075
service that He expects from you. He doesn’t
expect the same thing from everybody. Different
people have a different measure of faith.
Therefore, he concludes (Romans 12:3):

For by the grace given me I say to every one of

you: Do not think of yourself more highly than
you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober
judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith
God has given you.

What’s the foundation of Christian living? It’s

back to the formula, “Not I, but Christ.” That is
what you need to remind yourself of daily. A
Christian is justified. He stands perfect before
God. But when does he begin to live as a justified
Christian? Now! Daily! Renew your minds and
pray to God, “Father, you have given me your Son.
I am crucified with Him and now I want Him to
live in me, and the life I now live I live by faith in
the Son of God who loves me and gave Himself for
me.” May this be your prayer, I pray in Jesus’
name.

1076
 Chapter 32

The Body of Christ

(Romans 12:4-8)

“When does a Christian who is justified by

faith begin living?” There are many Christians
who say that we begin living at the second coming
of Christ. But that is not Paul’s teaching. We
begin living the “justified by faith” life the moment
we are converted, from the moment we have been
baptized by faith into Jesus Christ. In other words,
the moment we accept Christ as our righteousness,
the moment we surrender this Adamic, sinful life to
the cross where it belongs and in exchange accept
the life of Christ, that moment we begin to walk in
newness of life.

From Romans 12:3,4 onwards, right up to the

end of chapter 16, Paul is giving us a series of
exhortations. How should a person live who is
already justified by faith? In other words,
Christian living is the fruits of justification by faith.
1077
In our passage today, verses four to eight, Paul is
beginning with the church because Christian living
begins in the church first. Then it goes out in our
relationships to the world, towards our
government, towards different people and different
situations.

I want you to look at verse three. It is the

transitional text. In verses one and two Paul
reminds us that we, as Christians, should no longer
walk in the course of this world. We need to be
transformed by reminding ourselves that we are no
longer of the world. We are walking in newness of
life. Then in verse three he goes on to say:

For by the grace given me I say to every one of

you: Do not think of yourself more highly than
you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober
judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith
God has given you.

That word “faith” needs to be explained

because the word “faith” has more than one
meaning in the New Testament. We need to get
1078
the correct definition of faith here because in this
verse Paul is not talking about the believer’s faith
in Christ. That’s the primary meaning of faith but
the word is used in many other ways in the New
Testament. For example, when we studied Romans
3:31, there the word “faith” was referring to the
doctrine of justification by faith. And if you go to
Galatians 3:24,25, there the word “faith” is used to
refer to Christ Himself. When he said, “now that
faith has come,” he meant before Christ came.
What about the word “faith” in verse three of
Romans twelve? The word faith here, according to
the context, is referring to the spiritual gift that you
and I received, every believer received, at
conversion which is to empower us to function
within the church which is the body of Christ. For
example, look at Romans 12:6:

We have different gifts, according to the grace

given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him
use it in proportion to his faith.

The word faith here is a gift, the gift of the

Holy Spirit. Now we are coming here to a very
1079
important section, because the gospel is not a
theory. It is not an idea. It is a truth that has to be
experienced. We are spending so much time
discussing justification by faith, we are spending so
much time arguing about justification by faith, but
in the New Testament the doctrine of justification
by faith is not something to be argued about or
discussed but to be experienced. Paul is giving us
some very good counsel on how we can experience
this. First, I want you to look at what he says in
verses four and five, because that’s the key
statement in our passage today:

Just as each of us has one body with many

members, and these members do not all have the
same function, so in Christ we who are many form
one body, and each member belongs to all the
others.

Let us study this step by step. First of all,

baptism in the New Testament as a subjective
experience. I’m not talking about the experience in
which the pastor puts you in the water, but as a
spiritual experience is always into Christ. We saw
1080
this when we studied Romans 6. Baptism is
always into Christ.

Another passage dealing with the same area is

found in 1 Corinthians 12. In verse thirteen of
chapter twelve, Paul makes this statement:

For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one

body — whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free —
and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

In other words, Christianity is entering into

Christ. When we are baptized into Christ, we are
identifying ourselves with Jesus Christ and Him
crucified, which means His death is our death, his
burial is our burial, and His resurrection is our
resurrection.

Therefore, when a Christian is baptized into

Christ, subjectively, two things take place in his
mind. That’s why Paul says we need to renew our
mind, to remind ourselves who we are. Number
one, we have said good-bye, by our faith and
baptism, to our Adamic life that we were born
1081
with, which stands condemned and which did die
on the cross. So we have said “goodbye” to that.

In exchange, we have accepted the life of

Christ, which becomes ours through the new birth
experience. We have accepted this life of Christ
now as our life. This exchange brings about a
tremendous and dynamic change in us, in our
status, in our position, and in the way we look at
things and the way we do things.

When we were unconverted, when we were

still living in the old life, we belonged to the world.
I am not talking of the physical or the political but I
am talking of the spiritual world. We belonged to
the world that was under Satan, the evil one. When
we became Christians, we said good-bye to that
citizenship and we became members of the body of
Christ, which the New Testament defines as the
church. In fact, the word “church” comes from two
Greek words ek klesia, which means “a called-out
people.” We are a special people of God. This
means that we must now have a different attitude.

1082
 While I was of the world I belonged to a nation,
I belonged to a society, I belonged to a tribe. I
could belong to a class, I could belong to a group
and, therefore, the world is full of distinctions.
You had to belong to a certain clique to belong or
you have to have some qualifications to belong to a
certain clique. The rich have a clique, the educated
have their certain clique, and, in fact, if you don’t
have a Ph.D., you don’t belong to their clique.
You are looked upon as an outsider. So in the
world we have all kinds of distinctions, all kinds of
factions, but when you become a Christian, all
distinctions must go. Why? Well, lets see what
the text says. 1 Corinthians 12:14:

For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one

body — whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free
and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Now
the body is not made up of one part but of many.

He on goes to explain that, just as the human

body has many members or parts, the church has
many members but we are one body. There must
be no distinction in the church. Paul says in
1083
Galatians 3:27-28 that, when you are baptized into
Christ, you have put on Christ:

...For all of you who were baptized into Christ

have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is
neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor
female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

There is no male, there is no female. There is

no slave and there is no master. We are all one in
Christ. This is radical, but this is one of the major
distinctions.

When we are baptized into Christ, not all of us

belong to the same part of the body of Christ. One
may be the hand. One may be the ear. One may be
the eye. How are we to function in the body of
Christ? God has given every member a gift. The
next thing I want you to notice is the reason that
God gave you that gift. 1 Corinthians 12:7:

Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit

is given for the common good.

1084
 In other words, God has given each believer a
gift so that he or she may function within the
church so that the whole church may benefit. I
have a hand but, I’ll tell you, this hand is essential
not only for the hand but for the whole body. I
have eyes and my eyes are essential to the whole
body. That’s what Paul expounds in 1 Corinthians
12:15 and onwards:

If the foot should say, “Because I am not a

hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for
that reason cease to be part of the body.

Then he goes to the ear and he goes to the

hearing. Imagine that I see something very
important in the distance. I can’t see it properly
and I need to get closer. What do I need to get
closer? The eye can’t go by itself. It needs the
legs.

There is something that you need to know

which is very important. There was a time when
the political scientist was trying to prove evolution
would use the argument of what they called the
1085
vestigial organs, i.e., the organs of the human body
that are no longer essential. I believe in the 19th
Century there were approximately 100 vestigial
organs, “organs that used to be useful while we
were animals but now we don’t need them”: the
appendix, the tonsils, the coccyx — they had a
whole list of them. The problem was that it wasn’t
because they weren’t useful but medical men had
not discovered their use. That was the problem.
Today they have been reduced to almost nothing.

What I’m saying is that there is no member of

the church that is a vestigial organ. Every member
— irrespective of the age, or of qualifications, or
education — has a part to play and we must restore
this. We must not get the idea that the work of
running the church is the work of the pastor and we
are only spectators. That is so in football but not in
the church. In the church, every part has to
function.

Tell me, what would happen if one of your

human parts did not function? Let us say your legs
no longer could walk. Who suffers, only the legs?
1086
No, the whole body suffers. So please remember,
Paul is saying that every member has a part. Look
at the counsel he gives in Romans 12:6-8:

We have different gifts, according to the grace

given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him
use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let
him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is
encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing
to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it
is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is
showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.

Here we are told we all have different gifts,

according to the grace, not according to your
natural ability, but “according to the grace that is
given to us let us use them.”

Then he gives a list of gifts. If you have the

gift of prophecy, use it. If you have the gift of
ministry, use it. If you have the gift of teaching,
use it. If you have the gift of counseling, use it.
God has even given some the gift of giving. God
has given some members extra wealth that it may
1087
be used for the glory of God.

Then God has a gift of mercy. It’s a special

gift. We need it in the church. Remember, Paul
and Barnabas argued over Mark. Paul was a very
strong-minded, strong-willed person. He did not
believe in failure. So when Mark failed the first
time, he would not give him a second chance. But
Barnabas had the gift of mercy. He said, “Look,
man, this is just a young kid, give him another
chance.”

Paul said, “Nothing doing.” So they separated

and Barnabas took Mark and gave him a second
chance and Mark did prove that, given a second
chance, he was a faithful servant. But I thank God
for Paul. Years later he said, “Mark, please come
to me. I need you.” What would Paul have said if
Barnabas wasn’t there. We thank God for those
who take people under their wings and are patient
with them.

But what is Paul saying to us in this passage we

are covering? He’s saying that the church is the
1088
body of Christ. He is also saying, “This body has
many members and this body, in order for it to
function as a unit, must have all its members, all its
parts in working order.” This is the crying need of
our church today. I don’t mean just the local
church but the Christian Church.

I want to give some practical counsel coming

from the word of God on how we should apply this
truth to ourselves. First, let us be very clear that
when you accept Christ you are accepting
salvation. Salvation is not only from death to life.
It is not only from condemnation to justification.
The first experience subjectively of salvation is
from the world into the church and the church is
the body of Christ. In John 15:19, Jesus talking to
His disciples says:

If you belonged to the world, it would love you

as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world,
but I have chosen you out of the world. That is
why the world hates you.

“You no longer belong to the world. You

1089
belong to Me.” In 1 John 5:19, John tells us:

We know that we are children of God, and that

the whole world is under the control of the evil
one.

In Galatians 6:14 Paul says:

May I never boast except in the cross of our

Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has
been crucified to me, and I to the world.

“I don’t belong to the world because by the

cross of Christ I have been crucified to the world
and the world has been crucified to me.” We are a
special people, a peculiar people. That’s number
one. Number two, we belong to the body of Christ.
Now, everybody needs a boss. Who is the boss? If
you turn to Ephesians 5:23 and Colossians 1:18,
Paul tells us that the boss of this body is Jesus
Christ:

For the husband is the head of the wife as

Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which
1090
he is the Savior.

And he is the head of the body, the church; he

is the beginning and the first-born from among the
dead, so that in everything he might have the
supremacy.

I would like to emphasize our loyalty to Christ.

It took me four years from the time I gave up

my Roman Catholic faith to become an Adventist.
One of the things that kept me back was my loyalty
to the church, the organization. Here was the
oldest church in history. Here was the largest
church in Christendom. How can they be wrong
and these few people, the Adventists be right? It is
important that our loyalty is to Jesus Christ. Every
other loyalty will take place correctly if our loyalty
to Christ is correct. Because He’s the One who
will direct us. We must be loyal to Christ because
the church as an organization will disintegrate in
the time of trouble but Christ is our Lord and
Master. Our loyalty must be to Him. If our loyalty
is correct to Him, He will be sure that our loyalty
1091
to the brethren, to the organization will be correct
because He will lead us.

Before our conversion, we could do what we

liked because, under the world, the principle of self
is the principle of Satan’s kingdom. Each one lives
for himself and herself. In the church, the principle
is: “Not I, but Christ.” He’s the head. I am the
servant. He is my Lord and Master and, therefore,
I do not have the freedom to do what I like. I have
to be led by Him. If He says to me, “I want you to
go to Uganda,” I don’t say, “But there are snakes
there.” He takes care of snakes. He took care of
the one that bit Paul. And if He wants me to die of
a snake bite that’s His problem, not mine. But I
know one thing. He has conquered death so why
should I worry? All I must do is obey Him.

But to obey Him we must come to the next

point. It is not enough to be having Christ as the
head. We must have a living connection to Christ,
just like my members have a living connection
with the head. What would happen if the nerve
that connected my hand to my head was severed?
1092
What would happen? I would still have a hand but
it would be dead for it would be useless. It would
be cumbersome. It would be a nuisance to our
body. It would be paralyzed. There are too many
paralyzed members. That’s why the church is not
functioning as it should.

Remember what Jesus said in John 15:4:

Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No

branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the
vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain
in me.

He’s the vine and we are the branches and these

two need to be connected, linked together vitally
through prayer, through communication. You
don’t have to go on your knees all the time. A
wonderful thing is that God can read your thoughts.
He is the only One who can read your thoughts.
Thank God for that. That’s one thing you can’t
hide from. And you can talk to God with your
thoughts. You can keep a link to Him with your
thoughts. You live for Christ and you die for Him
1093
and you connect yourself with Him. But that is not
the way of the world, it is the way of the church.

When we went to Ethiopia, the famine was

terrible there. You are familiar with the famine.
The Swedish government sent some young pilots
because they were unable to take the food to the
area of starvation, the roads were so terrible. Even
the best trucks with high clearance could not make
it. So they sent these small engine planes with
daring pilots and they had little hooks under the
wings where they would hook bags of wheat and
they would fly just like the crop dusters here, very
low, and drop those bags and take off. The only
trouble was that Ethiopia is very mountainous. The
air currents are terrible. So it is a very risky
business, just like crop dusting is risky. These
young Swedish pilots were doing this.

I spoke to one of them and said, “This is a very

risky job. Why are you doing it? There must be a
reason. Are you doing it to help these people?”

“Well,” he said, “yes, but that’s not the main

1094
reason.”

I asked, “What’s your main reason?” Well, the

Swedish government gave each of these pilots a
trip around the world at no charge on any airlines
they chose. They also gave them a full scholarship
to any university in Sweden. I said to this young
man, “If the government wrote to you a letter and
said, ‘I’m afraid our budget has to be cut and we
cannot give you these blessings,’ would you still
serve these people who are starving?”

He answered, “I’m not a fool.” But Christians

are fools; they serve for nothing. That is the
wonderful privilege of being a Christian.

There is a final point, a very important point.

Just like the human body must grow, so must the
church. When I say “grow,” I’m not talking
numerically. We can increase from one million to
six million and still not grow spiritually. There has
to be spiritual growth. These are related. If all of
us would do our part, if all of us were linked to
Christ vitally, we would grow spiritually and that is
1095
one of the main reasons God has given us the gifts.

Let us go back to Ephesians 4:11-13

concerning the gifts which we are studying. Why
has God given me the gift? He has given me a gift
for the blessing of the church, not for my personal
blessing. So when God gives you the gift of
tongues, it is not so that you may become
convinced that you are saved. That’s a misuse of a
gift. God gave you a gift so that the church may
benefit. But here it is in Ephesians 4:11-13:

It was he who gave some to be apostles, some

to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to
be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people
for works of service, so that the body of Christ may
be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and
in the knowledge of the Son of God and become
mature, attaining to the whole measure of the
fullness of Christ.

That is God’s goal for this church, to grow

spiritually, that in unison together we reflect the
character of Christ. That is God’s goal for this
1096
church.

Here is an opposite example. What happens

when we do not use our gifts? We remain
stagnant. May I ask you mothers something? It’s
wonderful to have babies and it’s a great privilege
for some to even change diapers but tell me how
would you like to change the diapers of a baby for
10, 15, or 20 years? You laugh, but that is
sometimes what a pastor is faced with. He is
changing diapers of members that have been in the
church for 20 years. Of course, I’m not talking
physically, but spiritually. And I say to my Lord,
“When are my members going to grow up? Why
are they behaving still like babies?”

Well, we are not the only ones. The Corinthian

Church faced the same problem. Turn to 1
Corinthians 3. Paul was the one who evangelized
the Corinthian Church but 10 years later he wrote
this tough letter to them. In verse one he says:

Brothers, I could not [past tense] address you as

spiritual but as worldly — mere infants in Christ.
1097
 “When you first accepted Christ, you were a
baby in Christ. I accepted that; I fed you with
milk. Verse two, I could not give you solid food,
that was fine”:

I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were

not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.

“But the tragedy,” he says, “even now, ten

years later, you are still not able to take solid food.
I have to feed you with milk.” Now remember, in
those days they did not have blenders and they did
not have supermarkets where they could buy soft
food for babies. They had to mash it. It is one
thing to do it for a one-year-old baby but when you
do it for a ten-year-old baby it gets a bit too much.
Don’t you think so? Now look at verse three:

You are still worldly. For since there is

jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not
worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?

I expect babies to fight like cats and dogs,

1098
pulling each other’s hair, but when I see grown up
people doing it, verbally, it bothers me. When will
we grow? If we don’t grow, then we are still
carnal and, if we are still carnal, we are behaving
like (1 Corinthians 3:3) mere men. What did he
mean by “mere men”? What he meant was our
behavior, our performance, is no different from the
worldly people. In other words, the world cannot
see the distinction between the church and
themselves. This is the greatest stumbling block to
evangelism.

People are not converted primarily by the

message. They are converted by what they see
today. We are living in the scientific age and
science demands a demonstration. Paul tells us in
1 Corinthians 4:20:

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk

but of power.

There were two great Germans in the last

century. One was Detriech Bonhaufer. He was
raised a Lutheran but he saw where his church had
1099
failed miserably but he did not look at the church.
He looked at the word of God and was
transformed. He was a wonderful Christian. When
he was in this country lecturing at Princeton and
Harvard universities, World War Two broke out.
His colleagues said, “Please don’t go back to
Germany.”

He said, “If I don’t go back to Germany, how

can I tell my people to stand up for Christ even
though it may cost your life? How can I do that
when I myself am remaining in this wonderful free
country?” So he gave up the privileges of this
country and went back to Germany, was captured
by Hitler’s men, and, two months before the end of
the war, he was executed as a martyr at the age of
39.

There was another German by the name of

Frederick Neitzche who was also raised a
Lutheran; in fact, his father and his grandfather
were both pastors in the Lutheran Church. And he
looked at the church and all he saw was hypocrisy.
He saw corruption and he gave up the Christian
1100
church and wrote the book AntiChrist and in that
book he condemned the Christian Church. He
condemns God as a myth. Then he made this
statement to the Christian Church: “If you
Christians expect me to believe in your Redeemer,
you will have to look a lot more redeemed!”
Tragedy! How long are we going to be superficial
Christians? For as long as we are, the world will
not see God in the flesh. They will not see Christ.
They will see only human beings who are
outwardly trying to behave like good people but
inwardly are no different from them. So it is my
prayer that as the end of this section that we will
remind ourselves of two things:

1. I am dead and my life is hid in Christ.

2. From now onward it is no longer I that the

world must see but Christ in me.

When Christ lives in us, His love will permeate

through us and we will love each other, for Jesus
said in John 13:35:

1101
 By this all men will know that you are my
disciples, if you love one another.

“Everyone will know that you are My disciples

when you have love, when you have agape for one
another.” We may not see eye to eye in many
things but love doesn’t look at differences. It loves
in spite of what we are.

I was at Andrews University on furlough. They

used to have what they called Eventide at Friday
sunset. The young people would gather around and
play the guitar and sing. My wife and I joined
them and, as we looked in the crowd, we saw a
young man. He had long hair that had probably not
seen a comb for months. He looked like what we
called a hippie. He looked like a real tramp, but his
face looked very familiar. I said to Jean, “You
know, that fellow looks like Torry Paulson.” He
was my roommate at Newbold College. His father
was the president of the Norwegian Mission.

She said, “He looks like him.”

1102
 He kept looking at us. So we wormed our way
gradually right to his side. I turned to him and
said, “Are you Torry Paulson?”

He said, “Yes.” We took him home and we

had supper together. He told us a very sad story.
He said, “I came to this country and I saw so much
hypocrisy. Here is the headquarters of the
Adventist Church. I expected something better, but
I saw hypocrisy. So I gave it all up.” He was at
Andrews University, and he gave up his studies
there and went to Notre Dame and there he got
mixed up with a crowd of young kids that were full
of drugs and he joined them and became one of
them. After six months, he became very lonely.
He found that there was no joy and no peace in
that. He wanted to come back to the church. So
one Sabbath he crawled and sat in the back. He sat
next to a young couple. The lady opened her purse
and pulled out a comb and said to him, “Maybe
you’d like to use this before you come in.”

He walked out and he said, “I don’t want to

step into this church. Where will I go?” Three
1103
months later he came back and said, “Let me try.”
That’s when we met him.

Stop looking at people from the outside! They

are children of God. Let us remember that God
works from inside and He will clean the outside as
we grow. It is my prayer that each one of us will
function in the work that God has given us to do. I
do not know what gift you have been given. There
are now programs that tell you which gift you
have. I don’t know that we need programs to
discover that. God will tell you. But I’ll tell you
one thing, the problem is not knowing your gift.
The problem is using it.

Remember that that gift has nothing to do with

your natural ability. I’m an introvert by nature. I
dreaded the thought of standing behind this pulpit
but, by the grace of God, I am what I am. I pray
that you will be the same. That’s my prayer for
this church that we will grow, not numerically only
(that is not the most important part), but we will
grow spiritually. When we grow spiritually, the
numerical numbers will come. It is a natural result
1104
of it. May God bless this church that we may
remember who we are. We are members of the
body of Christ and, therefore, members of each
other. We need each other. In closing, look at 1
Corinthians 12:25-27:

...So that there should be no division in the

body, but that its parts should have equal concern
for each other. If one part suffers, every part
suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part
rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ,
and each one of you is a part of it.

We must have the same concern for each other.

There must be no schism in the church. If one
suffers, all suffer. If one rejoices, how many get
jealous? None. We all rejoice with that person.

May God bless you.

1105
 Chapter 33

Into His Likeness

(Romans 12:9-21)

Have you ever looked at Romans 12:9-21

seriously enough? When you look at it, you will
wonder how on earth it is possible for anyone to do
what Paul is suggesting for the Christian to do. But
to understand where Paul is coming from, we need
to remember that chapter 12 really is a continuation
of chapter eight. Chapters nine, 10, and 11 are like
an appendix in the middle of the book. You could
go directly from chapter eight to chapter 12.

What Paul is doing here in chapter 12:9-21 is

expounding two verses that he has written down in
chapter eight. So I want you to turn to chapter
eight first to get the background to where Paul is
coming from. Verses 29 and 30 are the two
relevant texts, so let’s look at them. We have
covered these two verses but I want to remind you
so that you realize where Paul is coming from.
1106
Verse 29 reads like this:

For those God foreknew he also predestined to

be conformed to the likeness of his Son [i.e.,
Christ], that he might be the firstborn among many
brothers.

We have already dealt with those two words

found in verse 29, words that have brought a lot of
controversy, a lot of problems, a lot of issues in the
Christian Church. This is one of the key texts used
by the Calvinists. The Calvinists believe that God
had elected only a certain segment, a certain
number of the human race to be saved. And this is
one of the verses they use to prove their point.

I would like to remind you what we looked at

concerning these two words. The word
“foreknew” does not mean “to choose.” Some of
your modern translations will use the word
“choose,” but that is not what the Greek word
means. It means “to know beforehand.” The word
“predestined” does mean to choose. So what is
Paul saying here in verse 29? Those whom He
1107
knew beforehand concerning what? When Jesus
came into this world, He came to save who? All
people. The New Testament is absolutely clear:
God’s purpose is that all people should be saved
and, on the cross, Jesus died for all mankind. But
will all people go to heaven? The answer is no.
Why not? Because this salvation fulfilled in Christ
for all people is God’s gift to the sinful human race
and, like any gift, you cannot enjoy it until you
receive it. And since God created us with a free
choice, and since God is love, He will not coerce,
He will not force us to accept that gift.

But God knows beforehand those who will

accept the gift. That doesn’t mean He hasn’t saved
the others. It doesn’t mean that He doesn’t plead
with the others. He knows beforehand because He
is God, He knows beforehand who will accept that
gift. Verse 29 is dealing with those people, that is,
with believers.

So Paul is saying in verse 29, “Whom God

knows beforehand will accept the gift, He has
something for them in mind. He has predestined,
1108
He has chosen them to be conformed to the image
of His Son.”

You see, God has chosen all men to be saved.

So the issue here is not God’s choice in terms of
salvation but He is dealing here with God’s choice
for those who would accept the gospel whom He
foreknew. In other words, God’s plan for the
world is salvation. What is God’s plan for the
believer? Only to take them to heaven? No. That
is His plan but that is not all; He has more than that
in His mind.

God’s plan is for those who accept their

salvation in Christ is that their characters are
transformed until they reflect the image of His Son,
Jesus Christ. He calls Christ “the Firstborn”
among the brethren. In English, the word
“firstborn” simply means the first child among
many children. But, in the Bible, the word
“firstborn” has a deeper meaning than simply the
first. In this context, it means the prototype.

When the U.S. Navy brings out a new plane,

1109
they first make a prototype and they test it. If it
works, and if it is financially possible, then they
make many of them. Jesus is presented here not as
a Saviour, because He is the Saviour of all people,
but, to the believer, He is not only a Saviour but He
is a prototype. He’s our example. Please
remember that we must never, never use Christ as
an example in terms of salvation. He is not our
example in terms of salvation. Salvation is a gift
for sinners. But He is an example for Christian
living.

That’s what chapters 12 through 16 of Romans

are dealing with. Christian living has a pattern and
the pattern is Christ. Therefore, he says in verse
30:

And those he predestined [i.e., chose to

conform to the image of His Son], he also called;
those he called; he also justified; those he justified,
he also glorified.

So the first thing that God does when you

accept His gift is that He wants you to know that
1110
you stand perfect in His eyes in His Son Jesus
Christ. He has justified all men legally but that
justification becomes effective the moment you
accept Christ. But He doesn’t stop there:

Those he justified, he also glorified.

The question is, when does He glorify the

believer? Most Christians say when He comes the
second time. And Paul says “No, what He does at
the second coming is only glorify our bodies, when
this corruption puts on incorruption.”

But He begins glorifying us in terms of our

character, in terms of our performance, the moment
we believe. And we covered this, we established
the fact that the just by faith shall live and the
living of the just by faith begins at conversion.

In Romans 12, Paul explains how a Christian

should behave. So Romans 12:9-21 is a revelation
of what should characterize a true Christian. It is
impossible for us to imitate Christ. The flesh
cannot imitate Christ. It can camouflage itself to
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look like Christ. The only way we can fulfil in our
lives what Paul is suggesting here is when we walk
in the Spirit, when we allow Christ, who is now
dwelling in us, to walk in us. What does Paul say
first? I’m reading from the New King James
Version, which is identical to the Greek. Romans
12:9a:

Let love be without hypocrisy.

The New International Version says:

Love must be sincere.

There are two kinds of love. Human love is

hypocritical, even at its very best. I’ll you why:
because human love is always polluted with self,
even though sometimes the self is hidden in our
subconscious and we ourselves may not be aware
of it. Paul is not asking for us to love like human
beings. He says “let agape, God’s love, be
manifested through us.” When God’s love is
manifested through us, it is genuine. Let the love
of God be manifested through us. Let genuine love
1112
be seen among you. Remember what Jesus said in
John 13:35:

By this all men will know that you are my

disciples, if you love [have agape for] one another.

The second thing is that a person who’s

controlled by this love will hate evil. Romans
12:9b:

Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.

Do you know God hates sin? He loves the

sinner but He hates sin. Do you know why?
Because He loves the sinner. What does sin do to
the sinner? It destroys him. It hurts him. God
cannot love sinners and not hate sin. We should
hate evil not because it punishes us. We should
hate evil because we love Christ. Why? What did
our sins do to Christ? It crucified Him. If you love
Christ, you must hate sin.

A legalist doesn’t hate sin. What he hates is the

punishment of sin. But a true Christian should hate
1113
evil. Instead, he should “cling to what is good.”

That word “cling” is the same word used for

the word “glue.” Glue yourself to good or to
righteousness.

One day at a workers’ meeting, I cracked the

frame of my glasses. One of the workers had a
little tube of glue. He said, “This will work.”
What he did not tell me was that it was super glue.
So I put some on my little finger and then I put my
thumb there by mistake and guess what? It took
me ages and much struggle to separate those two.
Now I’m sure Paul did not know what super glue
was. He was living before the technological age.
This is what he meant, though: “Let us glue
ourselves to that which is good.” Then in verse 10
he uses a very interesting word when he says:

Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.

Honor one another above yourselves.

He takes two Greek words and joins them

together. You see, there are four words in Greek
1114
for “love.” He takes two of them — “phileo,”
which is affectionate love between two people, and
the other word is “storgay” — and he joins them
together and in English we have two different
words, “kindly affectionate” [as some translations
put it], and he says let the love between Christians
be the mixture, the joining of these two. The word
“storgay” is love between the family members:
brother, sister, cousins, relatives. We say in
English, “blood is thicker than water.” That’s
“storgay.”

What he is saying in this text is that Christians

are not simply members of a church, they belong to
the same family. We are one family and, as family
members, we should stick to each other, we should
love each other as if we belong to the same family.

In this country, Americans may fight among

themselves and they say bad things about their
government. They may burn flags and other things
but, you know, overseas where you are living,
where people will down the Americans, the
Americans are perfectly united. They stand for
1115
their country. They are one. We need to be one.
We are one family, folks, because we share the
same life, the life of Christ. When you gossip
about another member, you are gossiping about
your own family. We are one family, Paul says.

Romans 12:11:

Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your

spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.

Some translations say, “not lacking in

diligence.” Well, that’s not the best translation.
He said, “Stop being lazy. Work for your living.”
Of course, in this country, we have some
wonderful programs. We have welfare, we have
social security. We don’t realize the problems that
we face in other places. But in the days of Paul,
like it is today in the Third World, people take
advantage of Christians.

When you go to any part of the Third World,

people recognize that you are new. The first thing
they do is to find out how kind you are. Normally,
1116
missionaries are kind-hearted. They have been
taught and trained and convinced that Christians
should be kind and compassionate. These dear
folks know that, so they come to see how kind you
are. When they see that you have a compassionate
heart, they begin squeezing. They begin taking
everything they can: the clothes that you have, the
food that you have. They will play on your
kindness. We had one lady who was very kind by
nature and, after six months, she was exhausted.
She nearly had a nervous breakdown. We had to
ship her back.

The Christians in Paul’s day had the same

problem. Some of those Christians were not
working. So they were going to church members
and saying, “Please, I haven’t eaten for two days.
Could you please give me some food? I don’t have
a job.” Well, you know human nature hasn’t
changed over two thousand years. They do the
same thing in the Third World. So I had an answer
since God gives us instructions.

They would come up to me and say, “You’re a

1117
pastor aren’t you?”

“Yes,” I would answer.

“Well, you should be kind and helpful.”

I knew immediately that they wanted

something. “What do you need?” I would ask.

“Well, I haven’t eaten for two days. Would

you please give me food?”

I said, “Sure, but as a pastor I must follow the

Bible.”

“Yes,” they would say, “and the Bible says if

people hunger, feed them.”

“Let me see what my Bible says,” and I would

turn to 2 Thessalonians 3:6-10:

In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we

command you, brothers, to keep away from every
brother who is idle [sponging on others] and does
1118
not live according to the teaching you received
from us. For you yourselves know how you ought
to follow our example. We were not idle when we
were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s food
without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked
night and day, laboring and toiling so that we
would not be a burden to any of you. We did this,
not because we do not have the right to such help,
but in order to make ourselves a model for you to
follow. For even when we were with you, we gave
you this rule: “If a man will not work, he shall not
eat.”

“How do you like that?” And these people

would look. They had never read that before. No
one ever taught them that. Reading on, in verses
11-12:

We hear that some among you are idle. They

are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we
command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to
settle down and earn the bread they eat.

I said, “Well, in the light of this passage, I have

1119
to give you work first before I give you food. I
have a garden in the back full of weeds.”

“Oh,” they said, “my back hurts.”

“O.K. I have another job that doesn’t involve

the back.” Much of the grain in the Third World is
not dried by machines. It is dried on the ground by
the sunshine and, when you pick up the grain,
guess what you pick up with it? Rocks. So you
dare not cook your lentils or your rice without first
going through it and picking out the rocks.
Otherwise, you will have something to crunch on.
It takes time. So I say, “Can you separate, take out
the stones?”

“Well,” they would say, “I have an

appointment.”

“Best of luck, brother,” I would respond.

That is the way I could sift the genuine from

the spongers. Paul is saying here in Romans 12,
“Please Christians, do not sponge on others.” Do
1120
not sponge; that is not Christlike. In other words,
“Serve hard. Work fervently in spirit, not
outwardly but from the heart, in serving the Lord.”

Romans 12:12:

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful

in prayer.

Christians sometimes come under tribulations.

The word tribulations means they are mistreated
and, sometimes, because they are Christians.

We are living in a sinful world. There is

exploitation. There is mischief and you name it.
There is no way you can escape it. We are living
in a sinful world and this is what Karl Marx tried to
solve. His big question was, “Why are there so
few that are living at the expense of so many?”
That’s what exploitation is, when you benefit at the
expense of somebody else’s work. How do you
solve the problem? Karl Marx said, “Fight back.”
Paul says, “No. Be patient. Continue steadfast in
praying. Ask God for strength.” In the meantime,
1121
verse Romans 12:13:

Share with God’s people who are in need.

Practice hospitality.

So there are two things. To “share with God’s

people who are in need” means that there are
church members who genuinely need help. We
should help them. So let us give to the church fund
that is set up for that purpose. The work of the
Christian is not only giving to non-Adventists in
community service programs but even our own
people need to be helped at times. And we need to
do that.

Now look at verses 14, 17, and 19. This is a

hard one. They all go together. Romans 12:14:

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do

not curse.

Have you ever tried that? “Bless those who

persecute you. Bless and do not curse.” There are
Christians who bless because the Bible says so but,
1122
under their breath, they curse. Bless them
outwardly and as well as inwardly. Romans 12:17:

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to

do what is right in the eyes of everybody.

Have you ever tried that? Romans 12:19:

Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave

room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine
to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.

You will say, “But when?” God is patient and

He wants us to be patient. Romans 12:20:

On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry,

feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to
drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals
on his head.”

This is a quotation from Proverbs 25:21-22.

Proverbs is full of good advice. Please remember
that good advice is for believers. Have you ever
tried to put all this into practice? Have you ever
1123
tried to bless those who persecuted you? Well, I’ll
tell you, you will meet with nothing but failure.
Then how are we to follow this counsel?
Remember to whom Paul is talking. He is not
talking to men in general. He’s talking to believers
who are already justified by faith. How then, is
this possible for a Christian? By saying, “Not I,
but Christ.” You will find in Hebrews 10:8 God’s
desire is not only to dwell in you through the Holy
Spirit, but to walk in you. What the world needs to
see is not how good we are but how good Christ is.

I’d like to connect this counsel with the Sermon

on the Mount. Therefore, turn to Matthew 5:14,
which is the foundation to the counsel that He will
give later on in this chapter. Jesus is saying to the
disciples, to the believers, to those who are
justified by faith, who already have peace, who are
no longer worried about going to heaven, He is
talking to such a group and He says:

You are the light of the world....

Then in verse 16 He says:

1124
 In the same way, let your light shine before
men, that they may see your good deeds and praise
your Father in heaven.

To understand this, you need to look at the

statement Jesus made in verse 14. The English text
is not clear, the grammar is not clear so I need to
help you. The word “you” in verse 14 is in the
plural form. So “you” is plural but the word
“light” is singular. So we are many, but we are not
many lights. We are one light. Who is that light?
If you go to the book of John, chapter one, you will
find out who that light is. You will find that light
is not John the Baptist but Jesus Christ. Turn to
John 1:4-5:

In him was life, and that life was the light of

men. The light shines in the darkness, but the
darkness has not understood it.

This, of course, is refering to Christ. John 1:9-

10:

1125
 The true light that gives light to every man was
coming into the world. He was in the world, and
though the world was made through him, the world
did not recognize him.

But I want you to look at verse four again:

In him was life, and that life was the light of

men.

When you accept Christ, He gives you life.

The believer who’s justified receives new life.
That life comes from Christ. Now this life needs to
be revealed to the world. As Paul puts it in 2
Corinthians 4:7:

But we have this treasure [this light] in jars of

clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from
God and not from us.

Going back to Matthew 5, how is this light to

shine? Jesus gives many examples, but I want to
look at one main example in verse 43. He says, “It
must not shine like it shines out of the Pharisees.”
1126
The Pharisees were legalists. They rejected Christ.
What kind of love did they have? Look at
Matthew 5:43 in describing the scribes and
Pharisees:

You have heard that it was said, “Love your

neighbor and hate your enemy.”

That is human love. You don’t have to be a

Christian to do that. But verse 44:

But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for

those who persecute you....

“I say to you, you Christians, love your

enemies.” Exactly what Paul is saying: “Bless
them who curse you. Do good to those who hate
you and pray for those who despitefully use you
and persecute you.” Why? That you may go to
heaven? No. Heaven is a gift. Why? He explains
why in the next verse:

But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for

those who persecute you that you may be sons of
1127
your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on
the evil and the good, and sends rain on the
righteous and the unrighteous.

When Christ was on this earth, He revealed the

Father. He said to Philip and the disciples, “He
who has seen Me has seen the Father.”

He is saying to the believers, “The world needs

to see Me in you.” Christ revealed the Father and
Christ wants us to reveal Him and, thereby, reveal
the Father, that we may be the children of our
Father in heaven. Christ then describes the
Father’s love: “He makes His sun rise on the evil
and on the good.” Please notice: God never
discriminates His love. He doesn’t say, “Well, I’ll
bless the Christians because they are my children.
I will not bless the world.” God’s love is agape.
It’s unconditional. He brings the rain on the just
and the unjust. Then, in verses 46-47, Jesus says:

If you love those who love you, what reward

will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing
that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are
1128
you doing more than others? Do not even pagans
do that?

In other words, you don’t have to be a Christian

to love your friends. But look at verse 48, a verse
that many misunderstand because they take it out
of context. Matthew 5:48:

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father

is perfect.

What did Christ mean by the word “perfect”?

In what context did Jesus use that word? He used
the word in the terms of love. Jesus loved without
discrimination, therefore, we should love without
discrimination, just like the Father.

Can you do it by yourself? No. But as you

walk in the Spirit, as you renew your mind daily —
which is the instruction Paul gives in the early part
of chapter twelve — as you allow Christ in you, the
hope of glory to walk in you, then you will live like
Paul is instructing here in chapter 12, verses nine to
21. You will not be indolent. You will work for
1129
your living. You will help others. You will be
patient in your suffering. You will help the needy
in your church. You will help the needy in the
world. You will bless those who persecute you.
You will bless those who curse you. That is simply
revealing Christ. In other words, what is God’s
desire for Christians? That we conform to the
image of His Son, Jesus Christ.

In Romans 3:23 Paul tells us that sin has not

only robbed us of heaven and of life, but it has
robbed us of the glory of God:

...For all have sinned and fall short of the glory

of God....

Sin has robbed you and me of the glory of God.

Now what is the glory of God? John tells us in
John 1:14 that the Word became flesh and dwelt
among us and we beheld His glory, the glory of the
only begotten Son:

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling

among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the
1130
One and Only, who came from the Father, full of
grace and truth.

The glory of God is His self-emptying love.

The work of the gospel is not only to save us, not
only to take us to heaven, not only to deliver us
from condemnation and death, but the gospel also
restores in the believer the glory of God.

Once I had to call a student. The way to find

his telephone number was to look in the student
directory and I did. These kids have little captions.
Some of them are meaningless, some of them are
crazy, but they have all kinds of captions. This one
had: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” It’s a
quotation from Colossians 1:27:

To them God has chosen to make known

among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this
mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

It is my prayer that every one of you will have

that as your motto: “Christ in me, the hope of
glory.”
1131
 When we covered chapter five of Romans, we
were given the three blessings of justification by
faith:

1. Peace with God.

2. We are standing in grace.
3. Because we are standing in grace, now we
have a hope and the hope is to arrive at the
glory of God.

In other words, glorification doesn’t begin at

the second coming of Christ. It begins at
conversion.

What is God trying to do in the life of the

believer? He’s glorifying your character that it
may conform to the image of His Son, Jesus Christ.
At the second coming of Christ, He will glorify
your bodies which are sinful and replace them with
His glorified body. It is my prayer that this
experience will take place now.

So, I’m going to do something I have never

1132
done. I’m going to read from my paraphrase of
Romans. I want you to see how I put it in the
paraphrase because this is what Paul is saying in
chapter 12. I’m going to close by reading the
section, “Characteristics of a True Christian”:

“What I am saying,” says Paul, “is that the

unconditional, self-emptying agape love of God,
manifested in Christ’s holy history, now flows into
you through the Holy Spirit. And this must be
witnessed through your Christian behavior.”

This is God’s purpose for each one of us.

The world desperately needs to see Christ.

They can’t see Him in person. Why? Because
He’s in heaven. But His body is not in heaven.
His body, the church, is on earth. And Christ is
saying to the church, “You are the light of the
world.” You are not many lights. The song This
Little Light of Mine is a contradiction of the
gospel. Christ is not little nor do we all have little
lights. All of us have only one light in us and that
is Christ. And when that light shines, a prophecy
1133
will be fulfilled. Revelation 18:1:

After this I saw another angel coming down

from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth
was illuminated by his splendor.

“The earth will be lightened with His glory.”

And when the world sees the glory of the gospel in
you, when they see Christ in you, then they will
say, “This is now proof that the gospel is the power
of God unto salvation.”

Karl Marx was sincere when he tried to redeem

the world from selfishness. He came up with the
philosophy of Marxism. He produced a book
called The Communist Manifesto. I don’t know
how many of you read it, but I went through it very
carefully in Ethiopia. I realized one thing: his
objectives were good. This is the statement he
made: “Each according to his ability; to each
according to his need.” In English it would be,
“Those who have must share with those who do not
have.” What’s wrong with that? Where he went
wrong was in his method. He thought his method
1134
was scientific, therefore, it would work. Today
Russia is admitting, Poland is admitting, East
Germany is admitting that it doesn’t work.

Do you know why these countries turned to

Marxism? All these countries were Christian
countries. Do you know why they turned?
Because the church had lost its saltiness. The
church had failed to reveal the love of God. There
was exploitation in the nineteenth century in
Europe. The church had failed, so they said, “Let’s
try this scientific method.”

My question today is, “Where will they turn

now?” They are trying now a compromise
between Marxism, Socialism, and Capitalism. I
guarantee that it will fail, too. The only way it will
succeed is if they accept Christ. But they will not
accept Christ unless the church proves that the
gospel is the power of God.

Are you willing to be a tool in Christ’s hands?

Forget about salvation; that is yours as a gift. Are
you willing now to be used of Christ to lighten this
1135
earth with His glory? Are you willing to let Christ
live in you and show the world that it is only when
Christ lives in you, that only then we have
redemption from selfishness? That is my prayer
for you, and for this church, because the world
desperately needs to see the power of the gospel. If
they don’t, then they have nowhere else to turn.
They are groping in darkness. They need the light.
Will you be willing to be the earthen vessel
through which the light shines? I hope you will.

1136
 Chapter 34

Loyal Citizens
(Romans 13:1-7)

When I was in Ethiopia, under the Marxists,

some of our young people were leaving the church
and espousing Marxism. We were concerned.
How could we restore these young people? So I
felt the only way was to read what Karl Marx had
to say, because all I had heard about communism
was from people who opposed it. So I sat down
and read The Communist Manifesto, co-authored
by Karl Marx and Frederick Engles, and I was
quite amazed that they had some very good things
to say:

1. They claimed that all men are equal. I

thought that was pretty good and I could see
how this pastor felt about it because we were
having in those days two policy books: one
for national workers and one for
missionaries and there was a discrepancy
1137
 between them. And here was communism
saying, “We are all equal.”

2. The second thing that impressed a lot of

these young people was that Marxism
claimed to be a scientific solution for a
scientific age. And that made sense to a lot
of them.

3. The third thing they said that was very

attractive was that there should be equal
distribution of wealth, that those who had
must share with those who do not have. And
I said this is also in harmony with what the
Bible teaches. But as I began to examine
their teaching, I realized that there were
some weaknesses.

I realized, number one, that this was not a

scientific solution for a scientific world. I realized
that there were a lot of ideas that were theories but
not proven. For example, Karl Marx believed that
man was simply moving matter and that, basically,
man was good. I felt that was one of his primary
1138
mistakes. He said: “Man is good. The reason why
he is selfish is because of his environment, i.e.,
capitalism.” So his gospel was: “Change the
environment, the political and economical
environment, and you will redeem man.”

So I looked at these weaknesses and I began

having studies with these young people.
Gradually, the other churches heard of it and so I
was being invited to all kinds of places. One day,
the Norwegian Mission, a Lutheran movement,
asked me to come and speak in their area. So they
rented a huge auditorium and it was packed. When
I stepped in there, the Norwegian missionary spoke
to me. He pointed out a man in the middle of the
auditorium and asked, “Do you know who he is?”

“No,” I said.

He said, “He’s a diehard Marxist, so be very

careful what you say.” In a Marxist country, you
don’t have the freedom to say what you want.

I told him, “I’ll do my best.”

1139
 I gave them a talk and, after it was finished, I
gave them time for questions. I noticed that this
man wrote something on a piece of paper and
handed it to a young kid about 13 or 14 years old in
front of him. The kid read the note and put it down
and stood up and said, “I have a question.”

I asked, “What’s the question?”

“Please explain Romans 13:1,” he said.

Well, I was not happy to see this Marxist using

a kid to do his dirty work. So I thought, “I’ll teach
this young fellow a lesson.” Even though I had my
Bible with me, I said to him, “What does Romans
13:1 say?”

He didn’t know what it said, because he just

read the note: “Please ask this pastor to explain
Romans 13:1.” He paused and he was embarrassed
and finally said, “Well, I can’t remember.”

I said, “If you can’t remember what it says,

1140
then how can you ask me to explain it? It doesn’t
make sense.” At that, everybody laughed and he
got more embarrassed. So I said, “Let me help
you. Does anyone have a Bible and will you lend
him your Bible?” So one young man took his
English Bible and gave it to this young man. I
said, “Would you please read for me Romans
13:1?”

Apparently, I had guessed correctly; this kid

had never seen a Bible before. He turned to the
beginning of the Bible and looked at the contents to
find where Romans was. Many Bibles have at the
beginning the contents of the Old Testament and
the contents of the New Testament at the beginning
of the New Testament. He looked in the Old
Testament contents for Romans and couldn’t find
it. He looked and looked. I said to him, “Are you
having difficulty finding Romans?”

“Yes,” he said, “it is not here.”

I said, “It’s there all right, but you don’t know

where to find it, do you?”
1141
 “No,” he said.

I said, “I’m sorry to embarrass you, young man,

but next time if somebody wants to use you to do
their dirty work, tell him to do it himself. Why
don’t you hand that paper to the one who gave it to
you?” Of course, he gave it to the man behind him
and this man was mad because his secret ways
were exposed. Then I read the the beginning of
Romans 13:1:

Everyone must submit himself to the governing

authorities....

I said, “Obviously you believe in this

statement.”

“Yes,” he said, “by all means.”

“In that case,” I said, “you also believe in the

second half of the verse”:

...for there is no authority except that which

1142
God has established. The authorities that exist
have been established by God.

To a communist who is an atheist, that is not

acceptable. He said, “In no way do I accept the last
half of the verse.”

I said, “You can’t do that. If you accept the

first half, then you have to accept the second half.”
He was taking a portion of scripture and using it to
get the Christians to obey an atheistic government
and to do what they were saying to do. At that
time, they were saying that we should not go to
church and that we should not have Bibles and that
we should reject Christ.

This is not something new. All through the

history of the Christian Church we have faced this
problem. In the Reformation, there were many
who felt that now that they had been liberated from
the authorities of the government, they could do
what they liked. Luther had a hard time trying to
get them to toe the line.

1143
 In World War II, there was a movement in
Germany during Hitler’s time called “The German
Christians.” That’s what they called themselves.
They taught and insisted that every Christian must
give absolute obedience to the governing authority.
Of course, there were other Christians who fought
against that idea. But these German Christians
even quoted from Martin Luther. This is what
Luther said (and he was trying to counteract the
other camp): “Christians should not refuse under
the pretext of religion to obey men, especially evil
ones.”

So here comes the question: Is Paul teaching in

Romans 13 that a Christian must give absolute
obedience to the governing authority? This is an
important question because one day this country is
going to make Sunday laws and enforce them. I
have a suspicion that they will use Romans 13:1 to
hammer you on the head. So it is important that
we understand what Paul is saying.

Let’s look, first of all, at the context of this

passage. Please remember that, when Paul wrote
1144
that statement to the Roman Christians, he was
writing to Christians whose government was anti-
Christian. In fact, persecution had not yet really
begun, but later on it was this government that
martyred the Christians. But why then did Paul
make this statement? Why did he say, “You
Christians must be subject to the governing
authority”?

He made a statement in Romans 12:2 which he

knew could be misunderstood. The statement is
that, “We must not be conformed to the world”:

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this

world, but be transformed by the renewing of your
mind. Then you will be able to test and approve
what God’s will is — his good, pleasing, and
perfect will.

Paul realized that statement could be

misunderstood. He realized that the Christians in
Rome would say, “Since we don’t belong to the
world and we are not to conform to the world, we
don’t have to obey the governments of this world.
1145
And we don’t have to pay tax.”

Wouldn’t that be wonderful? So Paul is trying

to make it clear. But I want you to know in which
context he makes that statement because we need
to read that admonition in the context in which he
is saying it.

Paul is not discussing the Christian attitude

towards governors and governments in every
aspect, in this passage, but in a specific area, the
area of law and order. What Paul is saying here is
that, because of the sinful human world in which
we live, it is essential that God puts restrictions and
begins to curb evil. Because if God did not put
restrictions, we would have wiped ourselves out
long ago. Let me give you an example.

Over the period of just a few months, we in

America faced two major disasters: Hurricane
Hugo and an earthquake in San Francisco
[California]. In both cases, the government sent in
soldiers and the police force was increased. Why?
Because of what people would do. They would
1146
take advantage of the situation and there would be
looting. That is sinful nature in man. What Paul is
saying here is that God had ordained civil
authorities to keep this world in law and order. In
other words, to curb crime. Can you imagine what
would happen to a country without civil authority?
We faced that in Uganda for a while and, I’ll tell
you, it was anarchy. Even the worst government is
better than no government at all. But what Paul is
saying is in verse two onward. Romans 13:2-4:

Consequently, he who rebels against the

authority is rebelling against what God has
instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment
on themselves. [Then he explains what he meant.]
For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but
for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free
from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is
right and he will commend you. For he is God’s
servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be
afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing.
He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring
punishment on the wrongdoer.

1147
 In other words, as soon as this world became
sinful, God ordained governments. He ordained
civil authorities to restrict the evil practices of
sinful man.

We know that communism is an atheistic

system, but do you know that in China today there
is no stealing, there is no prostitution? Do you
know why? Because the government has put a stop
to that. The method they used was brutal, but they
have put a stop to it. What God is saying here,
through Paul, is that He has not only ordained civil
authorities but He has also given them the right to
execute judgment when people disobey the rules of
the country.

I go to the prison ministry once a month and I

go to the area where most of the prisoners are hard-
core criminals. Most of them are there for life.
Three of them have told me that there is no way
that they can even have a parole. The tragedy is
that they are all young fellows. They will spend
the rest of their lives in a penitentiary. One of
them came to me and asked, “Do you believe in
1148
capital punishment?”

Of course, I did not know what crime he had

committed and I didn’t know if he was sentenced
to some kind of electric chair or something but he
asked me this question. He was very sincere. I
asked him, “What does the Bible say?”

He said, “The Bible says, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’”

“You are right,” I said, “but remember, that

God has given the government, the civil authority
the power to execute capital punishment.”

“Show it to me,” he said.

“Sure,” I said. So I took him to Leviticus 24

when Israel was a theocracy and I read to him
Leviticus 24:17:

If anyone takes the life of a human being, he

must be put to death.

“I didn’t write that,” I said. “Moses wrote it

1149
and it was given to him by God.” Leviticus 24:18-
20:

Anyone who takes the life of someone’s animal

must make restitution — life for life. If anyone
injures his neighbor, whatever he has done must be
done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye,
tooth for tooth. As he has injured the other, so he
is to be injured.

That was God’s instruction to the civil

authorities. That is what Paul is saying:

He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring

punishment on the wrongdoer.

So when the government practices capital

punishment, God has given it this authority. This
prisoner did not like that. He said “No.” I said,
“Then, you are going against the word of God.” I
told him, “Maybe if this country practised more
punishment as the Bible says, maybe we would
have less crime.”

1150
 I said, “You know, I can’t understand this
place. You can watch T.V. You have books to
read. They pay you for the work you do and they
give you excellent food. This, to me, is not
punishment. This is enjoying life at the expense of
my tax money.” I said, “I wish you were in Africa.
They would put sense into your head. You
wouldn’t need all these years.”

Paul is saying here that Christians should be

good, loyal citizens. He gives the reason why in
verse five:

Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the

authorities, not only because of possible
punishment but also because of conscience.

In other words, a Christian must do what is

right because he wants to do what is right, not
because he’s scared of the policeman. He must pay
his taxes because he believes that these men, even
though some of them do evil things, are agents of
God.

1151
 But now comes the real question: Should we
obey the government in every respect? Paul is not
discussing that. Paul, himself, did not obey the
government in every respect. The early Christians
did not obey in all respects. Write these two texts
next to Romans 13:1 because you need to realize
that there is a fundamental principle taught in the
New Testament. First, listen to the words of Jesus
Christ in Mark 12. Here is a group of pharisees
who came to Jesus. They are not sincere, but I
want you to notice how Jesus responded. Mark
12:13-17:

Later they sent some of the Pharisees and

Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words. They
came to him and said, “Teacher, we know you are
a man of integrity. You aren’t swayed by men,
because you pay no attention to who they are; but
you teach the way of God in accordance with the
truth. Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?
Should we pay or shouldn’t we?” But Jesus knew
their hypocrisy. “Why are you trying to trap me?”
he asked. “Bring me a denarius and let me look at
it.” They brought the coin, and he asked them,
1152
“Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?”
“Caesar’s,” they replied. Then Jesus said to them,
“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what
is God’s.”

“Should we pay taxes?” That was the question.

Of course, Jesus saw through it and realized that
they were trying to trap Him.

There are two kingdoms in this world: the

kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world.
We have to be subject to both. But here comes the
problem. Which is superior, the kingdom of God
or the kingdom of man? That’s the number one
question that we must have fully in our mind.
Obviously, the New Testament is clear. Question
number two: What happens when the kingdom of
God and the kingdom of this world clash in their
demands?

Look at Acts 5:28 and onward. The Sanhedrin

was the governing body of the Jewish nation. This
is what the Sanhedrin said to the disciples.

1153
 “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this
name,” he said. “Yet you have filled Jerusalem
with your teaching and are determined to make us
guilty of this man’s blood.”

That’s a command that came from the highest

authority. Did the disciples obey them? Verse 29:

Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must

obey God rather than men!”

When there is a clash between God’s ways and

men’s ways, then you must put God first. They
had a committee meeting and then Gamaliel spoke
to them and, in verse 40 of chapter five we read:

His speech [Gamaliel’s] persuaded them. They

called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then
they ordered them not to speak in the name of
Jesus, and let them go.

And did the disciples say, “Yes, council, we

will obey you and never preach Christ again”? Did
they do that? No! Verse 41:
1154
 The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing
because they had been counted worthy of suffering
disgrace for the Name.

Not only should we put God first, but, if it

involves punishment, if it involves imprisonment,
we should be happy to suffer for His sake. Paul,
himself, was flogged. He was imprisoned because
he preached Christ and because he disobeyed the
government in that area. But they were not only
rejoicing. Look at verse 42:

Day after day, in the temple courts [not in some

hidden place but in the temple] and from house to
house, they never stopped teaching and
proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.

Paul is saying here that God has ordained the

civil authorities to keep law and order in every
country and every state. How should Christians
relate to those rules and regulations which keep
law and order? We should obey them, not out of
fear only but because we Christians believe in good
1155
and not in evil.

But when the time comes when the government

goes beyond that authority and makes laws that
oppose the God of heaven, then we have to do what
Daniel did and what the apostles did and what Paul
himself did: we have to obey God rather than men,
no matter what it costs us.

On the one hand, Christians should be loyal

citizens but they should be loyal citizens as long as
their loyalty does not infringe on their loyalty to
God. That is what Paul is saying in Romans 13.
On the one hand, let us be looked upon as loyal
citizens of America and, on the other hand, when
the blue laws do come and the government says to
us that we have to work on the Sabbath, then we
should say, “We have to obey God rather than
man.”

Paul is not saying here that we ought to give

implicit obedience, unquestioning obedience but
only obedience in terms of right and wrong. So
may God bless us that we as Christians are
1156
recognized in this country not only as loyal citizens
but genuine Christians. That’s my prayer in Jesus
name.

1157
 Chapter 35

Fulfilling the Royal Law

(Romans 13:8-14)

In the previous chapter, we studied the first half

of Romans 13 where Paul discussed the Christian’s
relationship to the civil authorities or to the
government. Now, we will study the second half
of Romans 13, beginning with verse eight and
ending with verse 14 where Paul discusses the love
relationship that Christians should have towards
their neighbors. A neighbor can be someone who
lives next to us or anyone we come in contact with,
at work or in our daily lives. Jesus was clear that
anyone who needs our help or anyone we are
confronted with in our sphere of living becomes
our neighbor.

How should Christians deal with their

neighbor? What should be the relationship of a
Christian to his or her neighbors? Let us read
Romans 13:8-14:
1158
 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the
continuing debt to love one another, for he who
loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The
commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do
not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and
whatever other commandment there may be, are
summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor
as yourself.” Love does no harm to its neighbor.
Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. And
do this, understanding the present time. The hour
has come for you to wake up from your slumber,
because our salvation is nearer now than when we
first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is
almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of
darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us
behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies
and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and
debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy.
Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus
Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the
desires of the sinful nature.

This is a tremendous passage when it comes to

1159
Christian living. It relates to our relationship to
each other and to our fellowmen. As mentioned
before, a Christian is not of this world but is still
living in this world. Because the Bible teaches that
we are not of this world, there are many Christians,
especially in the past, who went to monasteries to
live in seclusion where they would have no contact
with the world. But this is not God’s intention for
the Christian. In Jesus’ prayer to His Father in
John 17:15, He clearly said:

My prayer is not that you take them out of the

world but that you protect them from the evil one.

One of the great purposes God has for every

Christian is to reflect, to the world, to our
neighbors, the love that we have experienced
through the gospel. In Romans 13:8, Paul clearly
states that he who loves another has fulfilled the
law. There are two ways to look at the law of God
— in the letter or in the spirit. Or, to put it another
way, we can look at the law as a method of
salvation or as a standard of Christian living.
Unfortunately, the Jews looked at the law as the
1160
letter or as the method of salvation. To them, the
law was “do this” or “do not do that.”

We find an illustration in Matthew 22:36,

where some great scholars of Judaism approached
Jesus to ask Him a question:

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment

in the Law?”

The book of the law is the Torah. Instead of

giving rules, Jesus said [Matthew 22:37-40]:

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart

and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
This is the first and greatest commandment. And
the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as
yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on
these two commandments.”

To God, the law is not a set of rules. This is

what man has turned the law into, but, to God, the
law is a relationship of love towards God and
towards our fellow men.
1161
 We will study the distinction between the law
as a method of salvation and the law as a standard
of Christian living. Here, Paul is saying that the
fulfillment of the law, as God looks at it, is loving
your neighbor as yourself [Romans 13, last part of
verse nine].

To understand the meaning of this statement,

we must understand that human love is a U-turn of
God’s unconditional love. When God created
Adam and Eve, the book of Genesis tells us they
were created in God’s image. Genesis 1:26:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our

image, in our likeness....”

In 1 John 4:8, John tells us that God is love:

Whoever does not love does not know God,

because God is love.

So when God created mankind, He created us,

in Adam, with a nature which was in harmony with
1162
God’s nature and character. This is God’s
unconditional love which is self-emptying and
changeless.

Unfortunately, when Eve sinned and brought

the forbidden fruit to Adam, he realized that Eve
had committed the act of sin and that she was to
die. But he loved her even more than himself,
because his very nature was this unconditional
love. So he was willing to die with her. This is
how much Adam loved his wife before the Fall.
But the moment he ate the forbidden fruit, his
nature made a U-turn so that the love, which went
out unconditionally to Eve and others, now
changed its direction to himself. This is what we
were born with, a nature which is egocentric.

Then, when God came to visit Adam and Eve

that evening, this love was no longer towards Eve
but to himself. So, when God asked Adam, “Why
did you sin?” Adam blamed God for giving him a
defective wife. Genesis 3:11-12:

And [God] said, “Who told you that you were

1163
naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I
commanded you not to eat from?” The man said,
“The woman you put here with me — she gave me
some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

What happened to his love for Eve before his

Fall? It made a U-turn. Therefore, human love has
all the qualities of God’s love except the direction.
It is towards self so that we love ourselves
unconditionally, everlastingly, and more than we
love anyone or anything else. This is our human
predicament. Paul says here that genuine law-
keeping is loving our neighbor in the same way
that we love ourselves: unconditionally and
everlastingly.

Unfortunately, man cannot do this in and of

himself. An example of this is found in Matthew
19:16. A young man asks, “What good thing must
I do to get eternal life?” Here was a sinner, trying
to do good, in order to be saved. Jesus tried to
correct him by saying that there is nobody good
except God. “But,” He added, “if you want to go
to heaven by being good, keep the
1164
commandments.” The young man asked, “Which
ones?” Then, Jesus quoted to him the
commandments that Paul is quoting here, in
Romans 13:9. Matthew 19:18-19:

Jesus replied, “‘Do not murder, do not commit

adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony,
honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your
neighbor as yourself.’”

This commandment refers to our relationship to

our neighbors. Jesus completed His statement the
same way Paul does, “Love your neighbors in the
same way that you love yourself.” In other words,
we love our neighbors spontaneously and
unconditionally just as we naturally love ourselves.

The young man, not realizing what Jesus was

really saying, said:

“All these I have kept,” the young man said.

“What do I lack?”

Jesus tested him as to whether he really loved

1165
his neighbor as himself. Matthew 19:21:

Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go,

sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you
will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow
me.”

Jesus, to prove to the young man that he did

not, said, “Take your wealth, which means so much
to you, and give it to the poor, your neighbors, then
follow Me and I will give you My wealth.” This
was a great bargain, but this young man had not
accepted Jesus as the Son of God, the Messiah, so
he did not consider this a bargain. He considered
giving his wealth to the poor as a sacrifice which
he was not willing to make. So, he left Jesus
sorrowfully.

Jesus took this opportunity to show the

disciples that it is impossible for man to love his
neighbor in and of himself, the same way that he
loves himself. Matthew 19:23-24:

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the

1166
truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom
of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a canel
to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich
man to enter the kingdom of God.”

But Paul is advising Christians to love their

neighbors in the same way as we love ourselves.
The only way we can do this is to follow the
counsel Paul gives in Romans 13:14:

Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus

Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the
desires of the sinful nature.

Only through the indwelling Spirit of Christ,

which is His Representative, can we love our
neighbors in the same way we spontaneously,
unconditionally, and everlastingly love ourselves.

In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul spells out the supreme

gift of the Holy Spirit to every believer. This is the
love of God, His character. 1 Corinthians 13:1-8:

...If I speak in the tongues of men and of

1167
angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding
gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of
prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all
knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move
mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I
give all I possess to the poor and surrender my
body to the flames, but have not love, I gain
nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not
envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not
rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not
delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always
protects, always trusts, always hopes, always
perseveres. Love never fails....

Having said this, let us go to the distinction

between the law as a method of salvation and the
law as a standard of Christian living.

We will begin with an example. A pastor, in

1980, attended a World Council of Churches
Conference, held only for pastors, in Nairobi,
Kenya. The speaker was the famous John Stott.
The attendees were about 1,500 from
1168
approximately 83 denominations. John Stott gave
us a series of studies from the book of
Thessalonians. In the third study he said, “We
evangelicals know how to preach the good news
but we have failed to preach the good life. The
reason for this is that we have done away with the
law.” Then he added, “The law was never done
away with as a standard of Christian living.”

The New Testament makes a distinction

between the law as a method of salvation and the
law as a standard of Christian living. In Romans
3:28, and in chapter 9, Paul makes it clear that God
never gave the law as a method of salvation. This
was the mistake of the Jews.

But, when Paul comes to Romans 13, he is now

lifting up the law as a standard of Christian living.
What is the difference?

Let us examine four major differences between

the law as a method of salvation (works of the law)
and the law as a standard of Christian living. Paul
opposed the use of the law as a method of salvation
1169
in Romans 13.

1. The first distinction is that, when we keep

the law as a method, then we are using the law as a
letter only. That is, the law comes to us in terms of
“do this” or “do not do that.” The Jews made the
law of God into rules. For example, in Matthew
23:23, Jesus speaks about these rules:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees,

you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices —
mint, dill, and cummin. But you have neglected
the more important matters of the law — justice,
mercy, and faithfulness. You should have
practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.

The Jews had 248 rules and 369 prohibitions in

terms of the law. But, when we keep the law as a
standard, motivated by faith that works, love
becomes the fulfillment of the law. The gospel
creates in us a deep gratitude for what God did to
us in Jesus Christ. He redeemed us; He reconciled
us so we now respond by a faith motivated by or
that works by love. The Holy Spirit brings this
1170
important ingredient of God’s love into us. Then,
the love of God constrains us and reproduces in us
the character, the life, of Christ which is in
harmony with the law.

In Galatians 5:22 onwards, Paul talks about the

fruits of the Spirit which are love, joy, peace, long-
suffering, and so on. Then he concludes by saying
that against such there is no law. Galatians 5:22-
23:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,

patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self-control. Against such things
there is no law.

In other words, these fruits of the Spirit are the

fulfillment of the law. The law does not condemn
the fruits of the Spirit; they are in perfect harmony
with its requirements. Therefore, law as a method
is keeping the law in the letter: “do this” or “do
not do that.” Law in the spirit is keeping the law
from the heart, motivated by love.

1171
 2. The second distinction is that when the law
is kept as a method of salvation, it produces only
external righteousness. Jesus made a statement in
Matthew 15:8-9, quoting from the book of Isaiah:

“These people honor me with their lips, but

their hearts are far from me. They worship me in
vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.”

The Jews took the law, which is based on the

love of God, and turned it into rules, regulations,
and prohibitions. By keeping these rules, they
thought they were keeping the law. But their law
obedience, this keeping of the rules, was only an
external righteousness. Their hearts were far away
from God.

But, when we keep the law as a standard, the

law first becomes a delight. It does not become a
set of rules. Second, it becomes a delight in terms
of an inward obedience. In other words, a person
who keeps the law as a standard, controlled by the
Holy Spirit, motivated by love, keeps the law from
the heart.
1172
 A pastor gave a week of prayer at a Christian
college which had very strict rules. He preached to
the students for a whole week on the wonderful
message of salvation by grace. One of the faculty
said to him, “How do we, as an institution, practice
righteousness by faith?” The pastor said to him,
“First, you must make a distinction between the
rules your college has set up and Christianity.
Every college has rules, including government
colleges. Let the students realize that these rules
are those of the college. Do not link them with
Christianity because, if you do, the students will
look upon these rules as Christianity. But
Christianity is not a set of rules. It is a relationship
with God and our fellowmen. It is justification by
faith. The fruit is holiness of living. Then give
them Christ so they are converted men and women.
Give them Christ in such a way that the love of
Christ constrains them, so that they can say with
Paul, “For me to live is Christ.”

During this week of prayer, the pastor ate with

the students and he discovered two groups in the
1173
college. About 90 percent of the students had
come to this college with its strict rules because
they wanted to be there. The other 10 percent
came there because they were sent by their parents
to be reformed. Those who came by their own free
will did not need the rules. They were already
converted Christians. They were already living a
life in harmony with the rules of the college;
therefore, they did not need the rules. But the 10
percent of them who were sent there by their
parents, to them the college was, as one student
said, “hell.” She said to the pastor, “Please do not
tell my mother that this is a wonderful college.”
He said, “Why not?” She said, “I do not want three
more years of hell.” To her, being in this college
was like being in a prison.

Righteousness by faith begins from the heart.

God works from the inside outward. Legalism —
that is, the law as a method — is only concerned
about external performance.

3. The third distinction is that this external

righteousness — which the law keepers produce
1174
when they keep the law as a method of salvation —
may look good to men but, to God, it is an
abomination. In Isaiah 64:6, we are told that all
our righteousness is, in God’s eyes, “filthy rags.”

Then, in Luke 16:15, we read what Jesus said

to the Pharisees:

“You are the ones who justify yourselves in the

eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is
highly valued among men is detestable in God’s
sight.

God looks at our hearts; man looks at the

external performance. This is the distinction.

When a Christian, saved by grace, controlled

by the Spirit, motivated by love in his behavior,
obeys the law, it is not a set of rules. It is not
simply external righteousness; it is God, Christ,
living in us by faith. Hebrews 8:10-13:

“This is the covenant I will make with the

house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I
1175
will put my laws in their minds and write them on
their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be
my people. No longer will a man teach his
neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the
Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the
least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive
their wickedness and will remember their sins no
more.” By calling this covenant “new,” he has
made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete
and aging will soon disappear.

Ezekiel 36:25-28:

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will

be clean; I will cleanse you from all your
impurities and from all your idols. I will give you
a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will
remove from you your heart of stone and give you
a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit in you and
move you to follow my decrees and be careful to
keep my laws. You will live in the land I gave
your forefathers; you will be my people, and I will
be your God.

1176
 The writer of Hebrews tells us the meaning of
the New Covenant. In legalism, the law is written
on tables of stone. In the gospel, the law is written
in our hearts. God promises to write the law in our
hearts. He promises to put the ingredient which is
the basis of all law keeping, His love, in our hearts,
so that we may have a relationship with our
neighbors as God has with us, a love relationship.

4. Finally, the righteousness of the law, when it

is used as a method of salvation, is a righteousness
that glorifies man. Remember Jesus’ parable about
the Pharisee who prayed in the temple? Luke
18:10-14:

Two men went up the temple to pray, one a

Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The
Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: “God,
I thank you that I am not like other men — robbers,
evildoers, adulterers — or even like this tax
collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all
I get.” But the tax collector stood at a distance. he
would not even look up to heaven, but beat his
breast and said, “God, have mercy on me, a
1177
sinner.” I tell you that this man, rather than the
other, went home justified before God. For
everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and
he who humbles himself will be exalted.

Man is only concerned about himself, how

good he looks to others, but a Christian who is
keeping the law as a standard considers himself a
sinner and does not look down on others but is
living a life of love towards others.

Paul is saying here in Romans 13:8 onwards

that a true Christian looks at the law not as a
method of salvation, since he has already been
justified in Christ. He looks at the law as a
standard of Christian living and allows the Holy
Spirit to produce, in him, the obedience which
reflects the love of God, the character of Jesus
Christ.

In Romans 13:11, Paul makes the statement:

And do this, understanding the present time.

The hour has come for you to wake up from your
1178
slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than
when we first believed.

Paul is saying that, even though we are saved in

Christ, the consummation, the reality of our
salvation, is future. It is important as we close the
study of this passage that we realize the New
Testament teaching about salvation. There are
many Christians who claim that they are saved and
who stop there. No, salvation in the New
Testament is presented in all three tenses — the
past, present, and future. A person who has been
justified by faith, a person who has received the
gospel by faith and has accepted Christ as his or
her Messiah and Saviour, can confess, “I am
saved.” A Christian is already saved in terms of
the guilt and punishment of sin. But a Christian
must not stop there. We must go on and say, “I am
being saved,” in the continuous present tense. We
are being saved from the power and slavery of sin.
This is what God saves us daily from through the
Holy Spirit as we put on the Lord, Jesus Christ.

And, finally, the Christian must also say, “I will

1179
be saved” from the nature and the presence of sin.
A Christian, therefore, is saved because he or she is
justified by faith. We are being saved because
sanctification is a daily process that goes on
throughout our life spans. We can say, “I will be
saved” in terms of glorification because, when
Christ comes, this corruption will put on
incorruption and this mortal will put on
immortality. In Jesus Christ, we have salvation full
and complete. It is not enough for us to say simply
say, “I am saved.” The world needs to see that
salvation in our daily lives is keeping the law as a
standard, loving our neighbor in the same way that
we love ourselves. When this happens, the world
will realize that the gospel is the power of God
unto salvation.

Let us not be Christians just in word but in

action and we will look forward to the day when
Christ will come and take us home.

1180
 Chapter 36

Dealing with the Weak

(Romans 14)

I have just come from one of the greatest events

in the history of the Adventist Church. In fact, it
was so important and the General Conference got
so excited that they actually sent a reporter to
observe and to write a report in the Review and
Herald. What was this event?

For the first time in the history of the North

American Division, the white pastors of the South
Carolina Conference and the Black pastors of the
South Atlantic Conference met together in a
combined workers meeting. This may not mean
anything to you because we don’t have regional
conferences in this part of the country. In the
south, it is very different.

I took my field school in Charlotte in 1964, 25

years ago. In those days, black was black and
1181
white was white and the twain never mixed. And
they were fighting with each other like cats and
dogs.

I remember one young man from Southern

College [in those days called Southern Missionary
College] said to me, “God never intended the
blacks to ever be brought to the United States.”

I said, “Where did you get that from?” He

could not give me a Bible answer.

And the Blacks kept saying, “We have an equal

right to this country.”

I said to myself, “Whatever your argument, one

thing is clear: this issue is a contradiction of the
gospel of Jesus Christ.”

But when I saw these two groups of pastors 25

years later meeting together, eating in the same
cafeteria, living in the same cabins and
fellowshipping as if there was no difference, I said
to myself, “The gospel is still the power of God.” I
1182
tell you, any distinctions in the church is a
contradiction of the gospel. On the cross, Jesus
abolished all enmity, all partition walls, all
distinctions, all separation between a holy God and
sinful man and between man and man. Wherever
we have distinctions in the church, we are failing to
reveal to the world the power of the gospel.

Unfortunately, this problem of relationships has

always been a major problem in the history of the
Christian Church. You only have to read 1
Corinthians 3:3-4 and you will discover that the
church was divided over leadership. Some were
for Apollos, some were for Paul, and Paul is
rebuking them for this:

You are still worldly. For since there is

jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not
worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? For
when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I
follow Apollos,” are you not mere men?

Sounds very familiar today, doesn’t it? Some

are for Ron Spear, some are for Wieland, some are
1183
for Sequeira, some are for Gibson. That is a
contradiction of the gospel. There is only one Lord
in the church: Jesus Christ.

If you turn to the Epistle to the Galatians and

read chapter five verse 15, Paul says,

If you keep on biting and devouring each other,

watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

“You are biting and devouring one another.”

Terrible! Then you turn to Ephesians and
Colossians and Paul is reminding the Christians
that there has to be unity in the Christian Church.
Then go to Philippians 4:2-3 and you will find that
there were two women who were at odds with each
other, Euodia and Syntyche.

I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche

to agree with each other in the Lord. Yes, and I
ask you, loyal yokefellow, help these women who
have contended at my side in the cause of the
gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my
fellow workers, whose names are in the book of
1184
life.

They were at odds with each other and Paul is

saying, “No. This is not as it should be.”

Now, as we come to Romans 14, we discover

likewise in the church of Rome we had divisions.
Some thought in that church it was a sin to eat meat
and so they ate only vegetables. Others thought
that it is a sin not to observe the Old Testament
feast days and they also insisted that everybody
follow them. Now if each believer had kept his
own personal convictions to himself, there would
be no problem. But the trouble is they were
insisting on their own ideas being pushed upon
others. When that happens, you have division.

Now we must be absolutely clear that some

activities we know are wrong. The Bible says so.
And we know that some that some activities we
must do because they are right and because the
Bible says we must do them. But what Paul is
discussing in chapter 14 in the last part of verse
one are issues that in the New King James Version
1185
says “over doubtful things.” If he was writing
today, he would use the phrase that we normally
use: “grey areas.” Romans 14:1:

Accept him whose faith is weak, without

passing judgment on disputable matters.

I have a policy and I know some of you don’t

follow it. It’s obvious. But I have a policy that in
fundamentals we must be united but in
nonfundamentals, these grey areas, we must have
charity. It is impossible for sinful human beings
like us to see eye to eye on everything. Even in the
best of homes, even in the best of marriages, there
is always sometimes some disagreement. If there
isn’t, then one partner is acting like a slave. But
the moment each person acts as a human being,
you will always have things upon which to
disagree.

What Paul is doing is discussing how do we

deal with relationships over these problems of the
grey areas. Unfortunately we have similar
problems today in the church, right here in this
1186
church. In all the churches we have problems over
theology, we have problems over reforms, diet or
dress reform. That’s why this chapter is extremely
significant for us today.

With this in mind, let us look at the chapter.

You can divide Romans 14 into two sections. In
the first 12 verses, Paul is counselling the members
at Rome. The counsel that comes through him is
“receive one another.” We will look at that in
detail. The second counsel that Paul gives is found
in verses 13 to 15 and that is that we need to edify
one another. Receive one another and edify one
another. Now let’s take each of these sections.

The first section is receiving one another and

he is using an example in the grey areas. I would
like to say right at the outset that Paul is not
discussing here the health message. That’s not the
issue. The health message never was an issue in
New Testament times. What is the issue? He is
dividing the church members into two camps:
those who are weak in faith and those who are
strong in faith. It is extremely interesting to see
1187
how he defines the weak in faith, because we
would tend to disagree with him. He says those
who are very scrupulous about the details of
Christian living are weak in faith. Those who have
found their freedom in Christ are not those who are
always going into guilt trips and condemning
themselves and others. Look at verse two:

One man’s faith allows him to eath everything,

but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only
vegetables.

The King James Version says “eats only

herbs.” The modern translation says “only
vegetables.” The Greek word that Paul used is
referring to things that are grown from the ground
which would be vegetables in contrast to those who
are eating by killing, which is animals and meat.

What was the real issue? There were two

groups of Christians in the Roman Church. One
group was those who were victims of Judaism, that
is, they were converted from Judaism and came
from a very strong legalistic background. The
1188
other were mainly the Gentiles who came from a
very Greek-minded people. The Greeks,
Hellenists, believed that the body, that all matter is
evil. When these people became Christians they
said, “We must never pamper the body. We must
deprive it of good food. We must live on
vegetables.” Vegetables, especially in those days,
meant food that was tasteless. There are a lot of
Americans today who think that way. They think
that the vegetarian diet is tasteless. That’s why we
as Adventists have to prove to them that the
vegetarian diet can be very tasty. They only need
to come to one of our potlucks.

But the issue was not health reform, the issue

was those who were scrupulous about what they
ate were weak in faith and those who enjoyed their
food without wondering whether or not it was
offered to idols or not or whether it’s good or bad,
they were considered strong. The issue here is we
must not begin judging each other on this grey
area. That’s the issue. Look at verse three:

The man who eats everything must not look

1189
down on him who does not, and the man who does
not eat everything must not condemn the man who
does, for God has accepted him.

We have as Christians no right to judge. Why

not? Look at the last part of verse three:

...For God has accepted him.

Let’s go back to the argument. There are two

groups of Christians in the church: the weak in
faith and the strong in faith. As far as God is
concerned, both have been accepted by Him. And
since God is Boss and He has accepted both, so
should we. Look at his argument in verse four:

Who are you to judge someone else’s servant?

To his own master he stands or falls, And he will
stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

Who are you? When we went to the mission

field, we were shocked to discover that there in the
mission field in Africa we had two policy books:
one for the nationals, they called it section one, and
1190
one for the missionaries, section two. In this policy
book, there was a different scale for wages, moving
allowance, etc. It was always a bone of contention.
I don’t blame the nationals because, in the
beginning, we gave the argument that we
missionaries were educated. “You are savages so
you don’t need that much money.” But what
happened? When these Africans got educated and
came back with Master’s degrees and Doctoral
degrees, we had to find another excuse. So the
battle went on and on until finally we were forced
to do away with the two-section books. It was a
tragedy that we had to be forced to do it.

In that hot argument, one day the president of

our union, who was a national, a Ugandan, stood
up and he said, “I don’t know what you are fighting
about.” They were fighting over the wage scale.
Just like we fight here over women’s ordination,
they were fighting over wage scale there. The
president, who was a fine, godly Christian man
made a statement and I praise him for that
statement. He said, “If somebody out there sent his
shamba boy [which means his garden boy] to come
1191
and dig my garden and plant vegetables for me, I
am not going to ask that man, ‘How much are you
paying your servant?’ I couldn’t care less how
much he is paying him even though he may earn
more than I. But the fact that he has sent his
servant to work in my garden, all I can do is say
thank you for such a kind action. This is what I do
to the missionaries. I don’t pay them. The General
Conference pays them. They bring their salaries
with them, but I know one thing: they are working
in my country and all I can say to them is, ‘Thank
you for coming here.’ ”

Now here’s a man who understood the gospel.

That doesn’t mean that it was right but he was not
fighting for his rights. He realized that God has to
solve this problem.

We will never agree on everything. Some

believe that we should not even touch eggs. Some
believe that we should not even touch cheese.
Fine. But please don’t impose your views on
others and say, “If you don’t do this, you are not a
good Christian.” It is God who judges. Look at
1192
verse five:

One man considers one day more sacred than

another; another man considers every day alike.
Each one should be fully convinced in his own
mind.

If you look at the historical context, you will

see that it is dealing primarily with the feast days.
Some Christians would like to say that it includes
the Sabbath but the fact is that even New
Testament scholars who are Sunday-keepers say
that they believe through the word of God that the
Gentiles in the early Christian Church kept the
Sabbath. These are Sunday-keeping scholars. The
reason they give is that if the Gentiles were not
keeping the Sabbath, the Judaizers would have
kicked up a stink about it. But there is not a single
ripple there of any opposition against the Gentiles
for not keeping the Sabbath. There was an issue
about feast days all along in the early church. So
what Paul is saying is, “Some Christians believe
that we must keep all feast days.”

1193
 In our own church, we have some people who
say we must keep the jubilee. When it doesn’t
happen as it is supposed to, they fade into the
distance without any apology for their error.

One man considers one day more sacred than

another; another man considers every day alike.
Each one should be fully convinced in his own
mind.

Now remember the context. This is over grey

areas. That’s how he begins the chapter. Romans
14:6:

He who regards one day as special, does so to

the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for
he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does
so to the Lord and gives thanks to God.

Now here is a fundamental truth: every

Christian is bought or redeemed by the Lord. The
church is defined in the New Testament as the
body of Christ. Every human body has a head; that
means he has a boss. Do you know who the head
1194
of the church is? It isn’t your pastor. It isn’t the
conference president. It is Jesus Christ. Paul is
saying that everyone of us must live according to
the way the Lord is directing us. By the way, He
doesn’t direct each of us the same way. He knows
our background. He knows where we are coming
from. He guides each of us differently. But we, as
human beings, have no right to judge others. Verse
seven:

For none of us lives to himself alone and none

of us dies to himself alone.

In other words, what Paul is saying is:

Both the weak in faith and the strong in faith

have been received and accepted by God, therefore,
we should accept them too. That’s in the first three
verses.

In verses four to nine, Paul is saying, “Jesus is

the only Lord in the church over all believers and
we are to live under His guidance, under His
direction.
1195
 Verse eight:

If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die,

we die to the Lord. So whether we live or die, we
belong to the Lord.

Do you know that God has bought you, not

with silver and gold but with His precious blood? I
want to remind you of what we covered in the
second half of chapter six of Romans, that to
whomsoever you surrender yourselves as slaves to
him you belong, either to sin, which is by nature, or
to God who is the author of righteousness. Verse
nine says:

For this very reason, Christ died and returned to

life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead
and the living.

That is, He is the Lord of everyone who accepts

Him, whether that one is dead or alive, because He
will raise him up. Now verse ten:

1196
 You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or
why do you look down on your brother? For we
will all stand before God’s judgment seat.

If there was ever a time that this church needed

this counsel, it is now. That is why, when you and
I disagree on nonfundamentals, I will respect you
for your position. Please respect me for my
position. If you want to ask me for the reason why
I take my position, I will be more than happy to
give it. But to condemn me because I don’t believe
that there are two rooms in the heavenly sanctuary
is a nonfundamental area. I believe there is a
sanctuary in heaven. I believe there is a two-
phased ministry of Christ in heaven. That is a
fundamental teaching of this church. This
denomination does not teach as a fundamental truth
that there are two rooms because there are real
problems with that position. I’ll be happy to
expose you to it one of these days.

But I do believe that the two rooms in the

earthly sanctuary have a spiritual significance
1197
which are fulfilled in the heavenly ministry of
Christ. You may disagree, but please, I will
respect you and you respect me. We do not fight
over it. We don’t condemn each other over it
because that is what brings division into the
church. Let each one be persuaded what is truth. I
have to answer to God. I believe there is a
judgment. I will have to stand there. Look at
verses 10, 11, and 12. But each of us will have to
stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Look at
verse 11 where Paul quotes from the Old
Testament:

It is written: “‘As surely as I live,’ says the

Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every
tongue will confess to God.’”

I don’t have to answer to you but I do have to

answer to God. I do have to answer to you in the
sense that I have to give you a Bible reason why I
believe what I believe. So then each of us shall
give an account of himself to God. I’m perfectly
aware of that and, therefore, I dare not say
something that I don’t believe in from the heart
1198
because I know that one day I have to stand before
God. And He will say to me, “What did you do
with the texts that I gave you? What did you do
with that text?”

And I will say, “God, when I studied that text, I

went on my knees, I asked you for guidance, I used
all the rules of interpretation, I took my Greek
Bible and I studied it and I looked at the context
and I did everything that You want me to do and I
came to this conclusion. If I was wrong, why
didn’t you correct me? You know my heart.”

You folks don’t know my heart and I don’t

know your heart. But we have to be honest with
what we believe. We must never take a position
because we want to win a debate. That’s not the
purpose of Bible study. We have to believe from
the word of God, honestly following the rules of
interpretation to find out what to believe. And we
must be able to give an answer. Verse 12:

So then, each of us will give an account of

himself to God.
1199
 Verse 13:

Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one

another. Instead, make up your mind not to put
any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s
way.

This brings us to the second area of the chapter

and that is: edify one another. Look at verse 14:

As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully

convinced [not by human beings but by the Lord]
that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone
regards something as unclean, then for him it is
unclean.

This statement was a tough one because when I

look at the word “unclean,” I discover that it is the
same Greek word as is found in Acts 10:14 where
Peter had to face the unclean animals. It is the
same word.

But if anyone regards something as unclean,

1200
then for him it is unclean.

Now if you take this statement as a blanket

statement, you will go the wrong way. You need
to keep in mind what the context is in which you
read this text. There were many Christians in
Paul’s day who were saying that food that was
offered to idols was unclean. So the issue here is
not clean and unclean meats. That is not the issue.
The issue here is that some people were saying that
some foods were clean and some were saying that
it was unclean. There were factions. Verse 15:

If your brother is distressed because of what

you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not
by your eating destroy your brother for whom
Christ died.

Every one of us as Christians, whatever we

may do, always affects our fellow Christians.
Whatever you eat or drink, do it in relationship to
God. Whatever you do, whatever you say,
whatever your behaviour may be does affect your
fellow believers. Paul is advising us here that we
1201
must do nothing that will bring stumbling to our
brother, nothing that will grieve our brother, and
nothing that will cause our brother to give up his
faith.

One day I had a seminar in the highlands of

Ethiopia. It does get cold there in the highlands.
This was a town that was 9,000 feet above sea level
and, believe me, it gets pretty cold. Even with a
fire, warm clothes are necessary in such heights on
the equator.

I arrived on Friday just before sunset and, by

the time I pitched my tent in the bush, it was
sunset. There was to be a meeting an hour later.
There was a cold wind blowing and the church was
made of poles with a grass roof. No heat in that
church. The wind was passing through and
everybody who was there was shivering. They
were huddled up together trying to gain some
warmth.

Before the service began, I said to the pastor,

“Why don’t we make some hot drink and give the
1202
people something before the service? That would
help to put some heat into us.”

He was horrified. “Pastor, do you realize what

you said?”

I said, “Yes, I realize. What’s the problem?”

“If we make a fire and make a hot drink, that is

sin,” he replied.

I realized immediately that these people did not

believe in kindling a fire on the Sabbath day, even
for a hot drink. In fact, the pastor told me that all
they did was done on Friday and they ate the food
cold. If you know African food, it is not meant to
be eaten cold. It has to be eaten hot, otherwise it is
tough. But they ate it cold on Sabbath. And they
did not eat it with joy. They forced it down
because they had to keep alive.

I had in my little bag a little gas fire. All I had

to do was turn the knob and have a fire and I would
have a hot drink, not for the whole church but for
1203
myself. But I realized immediately that there
would be problems with that.

You see, when you pitch a tent, you have no

privacy. It is not America. They come to the
windows to see you getting undressed. What’s this
foreigner like? What does he sleep in? They have
never seen a sleeping bag. They have never seen
an air mattress. They look and they talk and they
say, “What wonderful things these people have.”

I knew if I made a hot drink for myself I would

have no problem between me and God. No
problem. But I knew that there would be a
problem between me and them. So, for their sake,
I said, “No, I will shiver with them.”

We spent a whole week on the gospel and they

found liberty in Christ. Guess what? The next
Friday we had hot drinks before the service. The
Sabbath was no longer a burden.

But we have problems because we keep

judging each other. Every country has its own
1204
rules on how to keep the Sabbath. Go to
Bacchiocchi’s country, Italy. They play football on
the Sabbath. Go to Scandinavia and they go
swimming on the Sabbath. Of course, if you go to
England, they drink tea on the Sabbath, besides
other days. Then come to America and they take
long rides for pleasure on the Sabbath. Each
country has their rules and they stick by those
rules. The problem is when you send missionaries
to Africa from these countries.

As one Ethiopian said to me, “I never learned

how to swim until I learned it from a missionary.”

I knew immediately that missionary came from

Scandinavia. I said to him, “Make sure that
missionary is your advocate in heaven.”

What Paul is saying here is, “We must do

nothing that will stumble or grieve or offend or
lead somebody astray.”

Do you remember when Paul took Timothy to a

synagogue one day? The people said, “We will not
1205
listen to you.”

“Why?” he asked.

“You are bringing Timothy who’s half a Jew

and who is not circumcised.”

He said, “No problem. Bring me a knife.” He

had him circumcised and then said, “Now are you
willing to listen to me?”

They said, “yes.”

Paul was against circumcision as a means of

salvation but when it was putting up a barrier he
said, “I’ll circumcise you.”

Timothy said, “Okay. If I have to go through

this agony for their sake, I’ll do it.”

My dear people, that is what Paul is saying.

The next thing he is saying in verses 16 to 18 in

chapter 14 is that Christians must have priorities:
1206
 Do not allow what you consider good to be
spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a
matter of eating and drinking, but of righeousness,
peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone
who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God
and approved by men.

We are experts in “majoring in minors.” At

this workers meeting, the black brethren were
having a hot discussion. I had a hard time when I
preached there. Only two of us were speaking.
One was a black minister from the General
Conference and the other one was myself.

Have you ever preached in a black church? I’ll

tell you, it really turns you on or it makes it
difficult. They don’t keep quiet. “Preach on,
brother. Give it to us.” It wouldn’t be bad hearing
that once in a while in a white church.

The meetings were long. I preached for two

hours at a time and they just gave me the
encouragement but I didn’t need it. Then they had
1207
devotionals in the morning. They had a white
pastor first morning. They had a black pastor the
next morning. There was a world of difference.
The black pastor spoke so loudly that it was like
thunder in my ears. The white one said, “Boy, I’m
having noise pollution coming out.”

I said, “Yes, we all come from different

cultures.” The blacks love this dynamic preaching.
They respond in the church. The whites are very
conservative. Here at home, I have a hard time
finding people to pray in prayer meetings. I would
have no problem in the black churches. They
would all pray, maybe all at the same time. They
are very outgoing. We have differences but no one
is allowed to condemn the others. The whites have
no right to say, “You blacks do not speak correctly
because you are so boisterous.” The blacks have
no right to say to the whites, “You are dead in
church.” Let each one be perfect. We need to
remember, we need to put our priorities first. We
need to refrain from majoring in minors.

I spoke of the black workers arguing among

1208
themselves, and they finally called me to solve
their problem. They asked, “Will there be babies
in the New Earth? Will babies be born in the New
Earth?” Can you imagine them majoring in such a
minor?

I said to them, “You mean to tell me that you

spent an hour so far on this issue when there is
such wonderful truth in the Scripture about Christ
that we should know first? Why don’t you wait
until you go to the New Earth and settle this
problem there? It’s not important now whether
there are babies born in the New Earth or not. But
we will argue, we will fight over things that are
insignificant when we should be lifting up Christ.
Please turn to 1 Corinthians 8:8. It’s the same
issue:

But food does not bring us near to God; we are

no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.

Have you got it? The fact that you are

following meticulously the health reform message
does not make you a better Christian. You follow
1209
it because you want to live for Christ, not to have a
few stars in your crown. But food does not
commend us to God for neither if we eat are we the
better nor if we do not eat are we the worse. Please
remember that our standing before God has to do
with our position in Christ, not in our performance.
Our performance has to do because we are living
for Him and if He says to me, “I want you to have
this diet,” I would say, “Yes, Lord. I’ll do it
because I love you. You have redeemed me and I
belong to you.”

One year I worked for a summer in the logging

part of Sweden. I was a student at Newbold
College [in the U.K.] and I went selling books 150
miles north of the Arctic Circle. The natives of
that area were called Laps. I’m convinced that
they are definitely connected with the Eskimos of
Alaska because they have the same features with
high cheek bones and they have the same culture
and patterns of life. But there’s one problem there:
it is too cold to grow vegetables even in the
summer. We had a snow storm when I was there
on the twenty-third of June. It was a snow storm.
1210
The ground below a certain level is permanently
frozen. You can’t even grow fruit trees. No
vegetables there. The diet is fish, rain deer meat,
and milk. If you went as a missionary and said to
them, “I will not touch your food even though it
kills me,” I’ll tell you, this is not practising health
reform. The purpose of health reform is not to kill
you.

I had one missionary say that: “I will not touch

it even if it kills me.”

I said, “It will kill you. Because you do need

nourishment.” By the way, you wouldn’t go to
heaven because it killed you. You may stay there
forever because we are not saved by what we do.
This is what Paul is saying. Let’s go back to
Romans 14 and read verses 19 and 20 and onward:

Let us therefore make every effort to do what

leads to peace and to mutual edification. Do not
destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All
food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat
anything that causes someone else to stumble. It is
1211
better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do
anything else that will cause your brother to fall.
So whatever you believe about these things keep
between yourself and God. Blessed is the man
who does not condemn himself by what he
approves. But the man who has doubts is
condemned if he eats, because his eating is not
from faith; and everything that does not come from
faith is sin.

We must not bring factions into the church

because we have disagreement in this grey area.
The issue is not whether it is right or wrong. The
issue is: “Are you following the counsel of God
between you and Him?”

Yet I am concerned. I am burdened that we

solve this problem. We had a workers meeting in
Ethiopia one day. There were about 50 pastors
with three speakers. There was a General
Conference [Adventist World Headquarters] man,
Paul Gordon; there was a division man; and myself
— three speakers.

1212
 Ethiopians don’t have much money. The
average family in Africa has meat about five times
a year. Even then, it’s a scrawny old chicken for a
family of 10 or 15. All each one gets is a small
piece.

This meeting we had was in a small town

where we had a very rich business Adventist man.
Out of love for us he had a banquet in the middle
of this workers meeting. Guess what he did? He
had the fattest calf. This was a polite way of
saying, “I welcome you in Ethiopia.” It is almost
unethical to have a banquet without killing the
fatted calf. The pastors were really enjoying
themselves.

My boss, the division man, was furious. In

fact, he was so furious that he could hardly enjoy
his own cabbages and potatoes.

“What’s bothering you?” I asked.

He said, “Can’t you see what they are eating?”

1213
 I said, “Look, brother, when you came here the
G.C. gave you a freight allowance. You brought in
Loma Linda Foods. You brought Linkettes and all
this plastic food so that you may have a variety in
your diet. How much of this have you shared with
them? You know very well what they eat day in
and day out. In fact, one of the biggest problems in
Africa is a protein deficiency. Why are you
grudging them a little meat, man? Why are you
making it such a big issue?”

Well, he wouldn’t listen to this bush preacher

so when the afternoon meeting came he stood up
and said, “Not one of you will make it to heaven.”
Even the G.C. man was horrified at that statement.

Now, Ethiopians are a very polite people but

there was one African pastor who could not take it.
He stood up and said, “Brother, how come Jesus
went to heaven? He did eat meat, you know.” To
make matters worse, the other pastors clapped their
hands.

And I said, “They’ve got you.” Now I agree

1214
that it was the wrong attitude, but they got him.

This man did not come down. It was like

adding fuel to the fire. He became so hot that I had
to stand up and say, “Look, I don’t care what you
two are saying but one fact is true: I am in charge
of this part of the vineyard.” So I said to my
boss,“You keep quiet and let me speak.”

I said to the pastor who spoke, “Let’s be

absolutely honest. You did not eat that meat
because Christ ate it. You ate it because it was
tasty.”

And he said, “Yes.”

I turned to my boss and said, “You did not give

up meat because you wanted to serve God. You
gave up meat so that you could go to heaven.
That’s how you are coming across. What is the
difference? He’s serving self and you’re serving
self. You are both in the same camp. You’re
doing opposite things.”

1215
 He had no right to condemn the African
pastors. If he was in their shoes, how many
missionaries from this country are willing to go to
Africa, live in their homes and live like them and
eat their food? The Peace Corps will do it but how
many missionaries do it? Then we have a right to
condemn them? You try eating like they do.
They’re struggling for survival. Why do we
begrudge them? What is Paul saying here? There
are two principles that I want to mention:

1. Whatever your lifestyle and whatever you

do, you must do it because of a faith
relationship with your God. If I practice the
health message, it is not because I want to
live seven years longer. I may have to die
tomorrow as a martyr, some of you may
even want to shoot me. If I practice the
health message, it’s because this body is a
machine and I want God to use it to His
glory. It does save me hospital bills in this
country but that’s not the reason that I’m
doing it. Whatever we do it for has to be
based on a faith relationship to God, and our
1216
 faith is based on knowledge, not on what
you tell me or on what you do or don’t do.

2. We must do nothing — even though in our

minds it’s okay — we must do nothing that
will cause a fellow believer to either stumble
or be grieved or to take the wrong direction
and be destroyed.

These are the two principles. In closing, I

would like to read a verse that will put it together.
1 Corinthians 10:31-33 and the first part of chapter
11:1:

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you

do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause
anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks, or the
church of God — even as I try to please everybody
in every way. . For I am not seeking my own good
but the good of many, so that they may be saved.
Follow my example, as I follow the example of
Christ.

We belong to God. We must live for Him.

1217
Don’t do anything because of your rights. Please
remember that the church of God, your fellow
believers are important. We must live in love. We
must do nothing that will in any way hinder the
spiritual growth of our fellow believers. Then he
closes with these words:

Follow my example, as I follow the example of

Christ.

May we all imitate Christ who went about

doing good and never condemned the publicans
and sinners but accepted them and said, “Come
unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and
I will give you rest.” Gradually, He began to
change them outwardly. May God help this church
that we will be united in love. We may not see eye
to eye in these grey areas but we will be united in
love because we all belong to Christ and have been
accepted by Him and, therefore, we are all in the
same boat. We’re one hundred percent sinners. I
don’t care who you are, we’re one hundred percent
sinners saved by grace. May God bless you.

1218
 Chapter 37

Bearing One Another’s

Burdens
(Romans 15)

We are coming to the end of the book of

Romans. I will never get tired of preaching from
this book. Luther called it “The clearest gospel of
all.” And E.J. Waggoner said, “This book can
never be separated from the Three Angels’
Messages.”

The first seven verses of chapter 15,

unfortunately, do not belong to chapter 15. They
should belong to chapter 14 because it’s dealing
with relationships. Remember, chapter 14 dealt
with relationships and we saw that in the first 13
verses of chapter 14 that Paul was admonishing the
believers that we need to receive one another.
Why should we receive one another? Because
Christ has received us. And if Christ has received

1219
us, who are we to question? That’s the first half of
chapter 14. The second half of chapter 14 is that
we need to edify one another. Now, in chapter 15,
in verse one Paul says:

We who are strong ought to bear with the

failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.

In Romans 14:1, he spoke about two groups of

people: the weak in faith, in contrast to the strong
in faith. Here in chapter 15, it is not the same two
groups but he is dealing with the mature Christian
in contrast to the babe in Christ.

You see, when a person accepts Christ, it

doesn’t matter how old he or she is, but the
moment that we accept Christ we are babes,
spiritually, in Christ. Like human babies, we have
to learn to walk. The trouble is that some of the
mature Christians tend to look down upon the
babes in Christ. “I don’t see why they are having
so many difficulties. I can do it.” But let me
remind you that when you were a baby, you did not
learn to walk straight away. You fell many times.
1220
If you didn’t, boy, you were a genius. But you see,
a babe in Christ will fall many times.

What should be the attitude of a mature

Christian towards a baby in Christ? The answer is
in verse two:

Each of us should please his neighbor for his

good, to build him up.

When a baby falls, what do the parents do? Do

they kick it? Do they yell, “You get up”? No.
They go down and lift the baby and help the baby.
And that’s exactly what Paul is saying. To do that,
we need an ingredient which we don’t have
naturally. The Bible calls it agape. When we have
this gift, which comes from God, we will be able to
practice what Paul is teaching here.

Before Jesus left this world, He made a

statement to His disciples. You’ll find it in John
13:34-35. He said:

A new command I give you: Love one another.

1221
As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
By this all men will know that you are my
disciples, if you love one another.

“I want you disciples to love one another just as

I loved you.” At that time, when Jesus spoke these
words, they were not loving each other. They were
fighting against each other. They were fighting as
to who will be the greatest. Jesus said, “That is not
the kingdom of God. You must love one another
just as I love you.”

But that kind of love doesn’t come

automatically, so I want you to turn to 1
Corinthians 13. There Paul describes that love as
the greatest gift. Now we must get the context,
because He’s talking in terms of spiritual gifts.
The greatest gift, we all know, is Jesus Christ. But,
in the context of spiritual gifts, the greatest gift is
agape. Notice what happens when that gift is
manifested in the church. Note 1 Corinthians 13:4-
6:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy,

1222
it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is
not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no
record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but
rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always
trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

If you have love, you will not “delight in evil,”

or “rejoice in iniquity” [as some translations read],
which is of course sin. Why not? Not because sins
condemn you, but because something took place on
the cross. I want to remind you what took place on
the cross. If you read Isaiah 53, which is the
chapter on the cross, there we read (verse 6):

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us

has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on
him the iniquity of us all.

We must hate iniquity because of what it did to

our Lord Jesus Christ. Every time you sin, it is like
putting a knife into Him. That’s how the Old
Testament taught what sin is in a Christian
experience.

1223
 We do not rejoice in iniquity, but we rejoice in
the truth. And what is the truth? That’s the
question Pilate asked, “What is truth?” [John
18:38]. And Jesus said, “I am the truth” [John
14:6, 18:37]. So a Christian who rejoices in Christ
will hate sin. A Christian who has love in his heart
will “suffer long, not be envious, not puff himself
up, not be rude, not seek his own.”

That is exactly what Paul is admonishing.

Going back to chapter 15 of Romans, I want you to
look at verse three. I want now to bring out a very
important point. Here, Paul is using Christ not as a
Saviour but as an example. The New Testament
presents Christ in two ways: as a Saviour and as an
example. What comes first? Did Christ come to
this world primarily to be our example or did He
come primarily to be our Saviour? That needs to
be emphasized because there are many who tend to
emphasize Christ as an example.

Yes, He is our example but FIRST He’s our

Saviour. He first redeems us, He first gives us
peace, He first gives us justification. That’s what
1224
Paul has been dealing with in the first half of
Romans. Now he’s saying, “Having accepted
Christ as your Saviour, having accepted Christ as
your life, I want to present Him as your example.”
Romans 15:3:

For even Christ did not please himself but, as it

is written: “The insults of those who insult you
have fallen on me.”

Paul is quoting from Psalms 69:9, one of the

Messianic prophecies. What is this text saying?
All the blame, not only the sins, but all the blame
that is heaped upon God, Jesus took. All the blame
that was heaped upon the human race, Jesus took.
I want you to notice what Paul is doing here. He is
using Christ as an example. How is it possible that
Christ could take our reproaches and the
reproaches that are on God?

We face the same problem today. There are

many people today who are cursing God, blaming
God for all the terrible things that are happening in
this world. Of course, we are sinners, too, and
1225
some of us are blaming God. “I can’t help it; God
made me this way.” But the big issue is that Jesus
was willing to take blame for something that He
had not done. That’s the issue I want to bring to
your attention. It’s one thing to accept the blame
for something you have done but it’s another thing
to accept the blame for something you have not
done.

Paul is saying, “I want you to take the blame of

the mistakes done by those baby Christians. I want
you to take the blame of those who have done
something wrong.” We are experts at pointing out
the things that others have done that is wrong. But
to take the blame of somebody else, we cannot do
it naturally. It takes the grace of God.

I would like to lay some very important rules.

First of all, we must remember that, if we are to
take the blame of each other, we must stop looking
at ourselves as individuals. That’s a humanistic
approach. We must look at ourselves in the
context of corporate identity. What do I mean by
that? I’ll give you an illustration.
1226
 We arrived in Ethiopia in 1973. When we
arrived, there was a real problem. It was not
between members and members; it was even
worse. The problem was between workers and
workers. The national workers of Ethiopia for this
denomination and the missionaries for this
denomination were at loggerheads. It was a real
crisis. So much so that the division had to step in.
The union president called me to his office.

“Well, Jack,” he said, “you have an advantage.”

I asked, “What’s my advantage?”

“You were born in Africa,” he said. “You can

consider yourself to some extent as a national. But
you also are a missionary. You are both, and here
we have these two groups fighting like cats and
dogs. Also, you are new to Ethiopia, so why don’t
you please try to solve this problem? We have
tried desperately.”

“Well,” I said, “I’ll do my best, but I want you

1227
to know that all those three advantages that you
have pointed out to me are of no value because it
will take the grace of God to solve the problem.”
Just like it would take the grace of God to solve the
problem of South Africa. It took the grace of God
to bring the pastors of the black churches in South
Carolina and the white churches together. It took
the grace of God. You cannot do it by promotional
programs.

He said, “You try whatever method, as long as

we can solve this problem, because it is destroying
our work in Ethiopia.” The communists had not
come in there yet. It was a year later that the
Marxist revolution took place.

The first thing I did was to bring the two

groups together. Now here was the problem. Two
cultures think differently. The Africans have a
solidarity concept of society. They came up with
30 grievances. Some of them were very
insignificant from our point of view. One
missionary called an African a donkey. That was
an insult. We had a missionary who would come
1228
and visit us and she always called our son, when he
was a little baby, “How are you doing, little
monkey.” The Africans thought that was an insult
but the Americans didn’t think of it as an insult. It
was just a term that we use for little kids because
sometimes they are mischievous. So they came up
with 30 grievances. Some of them were tough
ones and some genuine and some
misunderstandings.

I looked at the grievances and I noticed part of

the problem. All these grievances were done by
the previous missionaries, most of whom came
from Europe. So the American missionaries were
saying, “Why are you accusing us of something we
never did?”

And the Africans said, “Yes, you did it.”

But the Americans said, “We weren’t here

when these things took place.”

“But aren’t you missionaries?” They put all

1229
missionaries into one basket because they thought
in terms of solidarity.

So the American missionaries said, “No, why

should we repent for something we have never
done?” And, of course, they began finding fault
with the nationals and they were pointing their
fingers.

I said, “The issue is not who is right and who is

wrong.” I asked a question of both the groups.
“Tell me,” I said, “How many of you have seen a
human being whose legs are American and whose
hands are Ethiopian?”

“Impossible,” they said.

“Why not?” I said. “Why is it impossible?”

“Because it is impossible to have legs that are

American and hands that are Ethiopian. You are
either all American or all Ethiopian.”

I said, “Let us go to the Bible.” So I took them

1230
to 1 Corinthians 12. I took them to Ephesians,
Galatians, and then I said, “Look, the Bible is clear
that, when you become a Christian, you are
baptized into the body of Christ. There is no
Ethiopian, there is no American, there is no Jew,
no Greek, no male, no female. We are all one in
Christ. Therefore, your behavior is a contradiction
of the gospel and you are supposed to be workers.
What are you preaching to your churches?”

I gave them a second illustration. Ethiopia

follows the Bible methods. Christianity came into
Ethiopia by the Third Century A.D., so they follow
a lot of the laws of the Old Testament. One of the
laws that they practice in Ethiopia is, if you are
caught stealing, the punishment is forty strokes but
one. Here’s the problem. Stealing is done by your
hand. The forty strokes are given on your sitting
department.

I said to them, “Why should the sitting

department suffer for the mistake of the hand?”

“Because it is one body,” they said.

1231
 “Very good,” I said. “Therefore, you
missionaries, the mistakes of your predecessors are
your mistakes. The mistakes of the nationals are
your mistakes because you are one body.”

And I said to the nationals, “If you have seen

mistakes in the missionaries, you need to identify
yourselves with those mistakes.”

Have you ever read Daniel’s prayer in Daniel

nine, the prophet of God? He does not say, “The
church has gone wrong.” What did he say? “We
have gone wrong. We have sinned.” He identifies
himself with the church. Are you willing to
identify yourself with the mistakes of your fellow
believers? If you are going to use Christ as an
example, the answer is yes. If you are going to
behave like a human being, the answer is no. But
the question is, “What are you, a Christian first or
an American first?” That’s the question that you
need to ask yourselves.

But I know one thing and that is that if Christ

1232
took my reproaches, then He wants me to do the
same. He wants me to identify myself with the
mistakes of my members. And you must be
willing to identify yourself with my mistakes. Are
you willing to do that? That is what Paul is saying.
Then in verse four, having quoted Psalms 69:9, he
says:

For everything that was written in the past was

written to teach us, so that through endurance and
the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have
hope.

In other words, “I am not teaching you

anything new.” The words “written in the past”
means the Old Testament. All the things that were
written in the Bible were written for our learning...

...so that through endurance and the

encouragement of the Scriptures we might have
hope.

In other words, the Bible and the Bible only

must be the guide line, the standard, the direction
1233
for us.

This brings me to two important points. Let us

turn to 2 Timothy 3:16-17:

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for

teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in
righteousness, so that the man of God may be
thoroughly equipped for every good work.

“All scripture” to us would mean both Old and

New Testament. When Paul wrote this, he was
referring to all of the Old Testament. The New
Testament had not been canonized at that time.

This brings me to the second problem. In the

days of the Bible, the majority of the members
could not read and write. Therefore, the only way
the scriptures could be explained and expounded
and studied to the people was through the
preaching of the Word. Well, the church
multiplied through the preaching of the apostles. It
grew in size and then problems came. The apostles
began to get involved in the problems because they
1234
had a burden for the people. They began looking
after tables. They became involved in all of the
administrations of the church and the ministry of
the Word suffered. The apostles realized that and
they immediately decided to do something about it.

So in Acts 6:2-4 we are told that they called the

church together and said, “Look, it is not right for
us to serve tables and leave the ministry of the
Word. Therefore, here is a solution. I want you
members to choose seven men of honest and good
report and let them deal with these needs. We will
take care of the ministry of the Word and pray.”
And the church developed strongly that way.

One morning, the Sabbath School

superintendent came to me and said, “We need to
do something about the early teens. Here we have
a church full. Is there anybody who is willing to
say, ‘I want to sacrifice for the sake of our kids’?”
We need desperately such people.

I’ll tell you what the problem is today. It is the

same problem that the apostles faced. Do you
1235
know why the South Carolina Conference called
me? They gave me the topic; I did not choose the
topic. They said, “We want you to teach our
pastors how to preach Biblically because our
members are starving.” Now the situation is
different here. Today most people, the majority of
people, can read and write. The trouble is that they
don’t make the time or take the time to study this
book. And whatever they do do is very superficial
and the result is that preaching is still the most
important part of feeding the flock.

Please don’t ask me to stand here and give you

do’s and don’ts. My job is expounding scripture to
you because I know one thing: it is the Word of
God that is the power in the life of a Christian.
You have to take it. You have to absorb it. You
have to apply it, not to somebody else but to
yourself. We need to spend time with the Word of
God. Paul says here that this is where we get
comfort. This is where we get power. This is
where we get direction. So in verses five and six
he goes on to say:

1236
 May the God who give endurance and
encouragement give you a spirit of unity among
yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with
one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

“Once the word of God has gripped you, you

need to learn to accept each other, just like Christ
has accepted us.” Then this section comes to an
end in verse seven:

Accept one another, then, just as Christ

accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.

How did Christ receive us? Turn to Luke 15:1:

Now the tax collectors [this is the Internal

Revenue Service people, whom nobody likes] and
“sinners” [whom everybody despises] were all
gathering around to hear him.

Here are the tax collectors and the sinners —

the rejects — come to hear Him. Now listen to the
religious leaders of Christ’s day. Luke 15:2:
1237
 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law
muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats
with them.”

How terrible! But Paul is saying, “We must be

like-minded.”

I want to share something with you that has

really touched me. Some time ago I received two
letters, rather one letter and one note. The letter
was from a man in the penitentiary who is there for
committing murder. I’ve been studying Romans
with them, too. He said, “Pastor, thank you for
opening my eyes. There is hope for me. I’m going
to enjoy this Christmas and I’m hoping that God
will overrule and that I will come out and I will
visit your church, I will come to your church.”

My question is, “Will you accept him, an ex-

convict, a man who is accused and sentenced for
murdering somebody? Will you accept him?”

The other incident took place the same week. I

1238
was asked to teach a class in a college on “The
Sermon on the Mount.” When I first went there,
there was a young man. If I were to judge him by
the outward appearance, he would belong not only
to purgatory but to hell. This is not a woman. This
is a man. He had an earring on and his hairstyle
was very much that of a punk. But at the end of
the exam he wrote a note: “Thank you, pastor, for
bringing me back to Christ.”

What would have happened if I had said to

him, “Look, brother, do you not know that the
policy, the rule of this college, is that you can’t
wear earrings?” Where would that have led him
to? I received him because we both are sinners,
saved by grace. I thank God that he has found
Christ. “Accept one another, then, just as Christ
accepted you.” When we have that attitude, many
of the backsliders will come back. Many.

I think of one more experience. One day a little

boy came into my office. I was the ministerial
secretary of the Ethiopian Union. He came into my
office and said to me, “There is a young man out
1239
there who would like to see you.”

“Sure,” I said, “Bring him in.”

“He won’t come in here,” he said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Well, he did not tell me why not.”

I said, “Please plead with him.”

So he went and the boy wrote me a little note:

“I cannot come. I’ll explain why. Please come and
meet me here.”

So I went. He was the accountant for our

hospital. He was desperate and he stole some
money and was caught. The pastor of that church
told him, “I don’t want you ever to step in this
compound.” That’s what the pastor told him.

He wanted to come back to Christ. He left the

church and went into the world and realized, like
1240
the prodigal son, that the world was out to get him
and not to help him. He wanted to come back but
he could not step in because the pastor told him not
to.

So I put my arms around him and said, “You

walk with me. If the pastor touches you, he will
have to touch me and I’m his boss.” That man
wanted to come in but there was no one to
welcome him. Just like the scribes and Pharisees.

Paul is saying, “Please let us receive one

another just as Christ also received us.” Now
please remember that Jesus did not condone sin.
He told Mary, “I do not condemn you. Go and sin
no more.” Now I don’t know that she followed
Him, she wanted to, but I’m told He had to cast out
the devil six more times. But I’ll tell you, we need
to welcome our people. Look at Romans 15:8-9; it
comes up with a new section:

For I tell you that Christ has become a servant

of the Jews on behalf of God’s truth, to confirm the
promises made to the patriarchs so that the Gentiles
1241
may glorify God for his mercy, as it is written:
“Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles; I
will sing hymns to your name.”

Now you may not realize what Paul is saying

here because he is dealing with a faction that
existed in his day and not in ours. It is the faction
between Jews and Gentiles. God had given a
promise to the fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
They are the fathers not of the Jews only, as the
Jews thought, but they are the fathers of all who
believe, all who are born again, and all who endure
to the end. Anyway, God made promises to them
and the promise was of the Messiah. The Jews felt
that salvation belonged only to them because the
Messiah had to be a Jew. That’s what is meant in
this verse by “the Jews” or, in some translations,
“the circumcision.” Christ came to be a human
being as a Jew to save who? Only the Jews? No.
The whole human race. And that’s why the
Gentiles should glorify Him for His mercy.

He then gives us a string of quotations from the

Old Testament in which he gives us a progression
1242
of promises that we should apply. Let’s go quickly
through this progression.

1. The second part of verse nine, which is a

quotation:

“Therefore I [that is, a Jew] will praise you

[God] among the Gentiles; I will sing hymns to
your name.”

In other words, the gospel was to come to the

human race through the Jews. Salvation is from
the Jews because Christ was a Jew. What were the
Jews supposed to do with this gospel? They were
to take it to the Gentiles. They were to declare the
name of Jehovah to the Gentiles in Jesus Christ.
Well, Paul did that. But many Jews did not. Peter
did not want to do it in the beginning but he
realized that he had to do it because God convinced
him that they were saved also.

2. Verse 10: The Gentiles should rejoice with

the Jews in this promise which they had received
from them:
1243
 Again, it says, “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his
people.”

“His people” refers to the Jews. How should

the Gentiles respond to this good news? They
should rejoice. With whom? The Jews. Not fight
with them but rejoice with them. Not put them in
the gas chamber, but rejoice.

3. Verse 11:

And again, “Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles,

and sing praises to him, all you peoples.”

Jews and Gentiles should offer praises together

for the Saviour. No more fighting. No more back-
biting, no more slanderous remarks, no more
accusing each other, no more despising each other.
Together we praise God.

4. In verse 12:

And again, Isaiah says, “The Root of Jesse [that

1244
is, one will come up from the Jews since Jesse was
the father of David] will spring up, one who will
arise to rule over the nations; the Gentiles will hope
in him.”

In other words, God uses the Jews to bring

redemption to the Gentiles and the Gentiles, in
turn, must rejoice with the Jews and they both must
accept Christ as their Lord and Saviour. Verse 13:

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and
peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow
with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

He came to bring hope. He came to bring joy.

He came to bring peace. Do you have it? Are you
rejoicing in Christ or are you still fighting among
yourselves?

Then, in verse 14 to the end, Paul talks about

his plan and his ministry. There are some very
important lessons in this section. Verses 14-16
tells that Paul is ministering to the Gentiles:

1245
 I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you
yourselves are full of goodness, complete in
knowledge and competent to instruct one another.
I have written you quite boldly on some points, as
if to remind you of them again, because of the
grace God gave me to be a minister of Christ Jesus
to the Gentiles with the priestly duty of
proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles
might become an offering acceptable to God,
sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

His ministry was not something he ordained

himself but he was called by grace to be an apostle
to the Gentiles. The last part of verse 15 says
“because of the grace given to me by God.” “I
have come to you because God has sent me to
you.”

Why has God sent me to you? Verses 17-19:

Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service

to God. I will not venture to speak of anything
except what Christ has accomplished through me in
leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have
1246
said and done — by the power of signs and
miracles, through the power of the Spirit. So from
Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have
fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ.

Verses 20 to 24:

It has always been my ambition to preach the

gospel where Christ was not known, so that I
would not be building on someone else’s
foundation. Rather, as it is written: “Those who
were not told about him will see, and those who
have not heard will understand.” This is why I
have often been hindered from coming to you. But
now that there is no more place for me to work in
these regions, and since I have been longing for
many years to see you, I plan to do so when I go so
Spain. I hope to visit you while passing through
and to have you assist me on my journey there,
after I have enjoyed your company for a while.

According to God’s plan. Do you know that

God’s plan is that all people should be saved? Not
just the elect.
1247
 Then in verses 25 to 28, the Gentiles, in turn,
minister to the Jews in appreciation. Look at
verses 25-27:

Now, however, I am on my way to Jerusalem in

the service of the saints there. For Macedonia and
Achaia were pleased to make a contribution for the
poor among the saints in Jerusalem. They were
pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them.
For if the Gentiles have shared in the Jews’
spiritual blessings, they owe it to the Jews to share
with them their material blessings.

The Gentiles were so appreciative of the gospel

that they said, “No longer do we look at Jews as
our enemies. We want to help them. They are
suffering in Jerusalem. Here’s some money; take it
to them.” And Paul said in verses 28-29:

So after I have completed this task and have

made sure that they have received this fruit, I will
go to Spain and visit you on the way. I know that
when I come to you, I will come in the full
1248
measure of the blessing of Christ.

“But I know that when I am come to you —

when I finish my job, when I bring this help to the
Jews in Jerusalem — when I come to you, I shall
come in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of
Christ. I am not wanting to come to Rome because
I am a tourist.” Rome was a very attractive city
and many people, even today, go to Rome as
tourists. But Paul did not want to come to Rome as
a tourist. Do you know why he did not come
before that? Because he was laboring in Asia
Minor.

And now he concludes in verse 30:

I urge you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ

and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my
struggle by praying to God for me.

Please, let us not fight. Let us not have

division. Let us together pray for each other.
Verse 31:

1249
 Pray that I may be rescued from the unbelievers
in Judea....

The Judaizers who were self-righteous people

who thought they were right and Paul was wrong.
“Please deliver me from them.” Unfortunately,
God did not answer this prayer in the affirmative.
The Judaizers did get him in Jerusalem. He did go
to Rome, no longer as a missionary nor as an
apostle but as a prisoner. But he prayed, verses 31-
32:

Pray that I may be rescued from the unbelievers

in Judea and that my service in Jerusalem may be
acceptable to the saints there, so that by God’s will
I may come to you with joy and together with you
be refreshed.

Jews, please don’t be so proud as to say, “We

don’t want this help from the Gentiles here at all.”
And now he concludes, verse 33:

The God of peace be with you all. Amen.

1250
May God bless us.

1251
 Chapter 38

One in Christ
(Romans 16)

It was Paul’s purpose in the closing of his letter

to the Roman Church that he might impart to them
some spiritual gift or truth that they might be
established in Christ. You will notice that he gives
a benediction at the end of this letter. In Romans
16:25, Paul repeats the same concern. He says:

Now to him who is able to establish you by my

gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ,
according to the revelation of the mystery hidden
for long ages past,....

We have spent 38 studies on this book now.

That may seem a long time to some of you. The
famous preacher Martin Lloyd Jones spent five
years preaching on the book of Romans every
Sunday. My purpose in spending so long on this
book it twofold. Firstly, I want you to be
1252
established in Christ. I want your faith to become
so strong that nothing can shake you. And there is
nothing like the book of Romans to do that, if you
really understand the book. But there is another
reason that I covered this book, and that is, I am
hoping that a clearer understanding of the gospel, a
clearer understanding of Christ Our Righteousness
will so excite you that you will want to share this
wonderful truth, this everlasting gospel, with
others. It is my prayer that both these objectives
will be reached: that you will be rejoicing in Christ
on the one hand and that you will be witnessing
about Him on the other.

Our study today is Romans 16, the last chapter

of this book. I don’t know how many of you have
read this chapter, but those of you who have read it
may turn around to me and say, “Is there anything
we can learn from this chapter? After all, it’s full of
greetings.” Well, nothing has been recorded in
Scripture simply to fill space. There is a purpose.
What I would like to do is to look at the whole
chapter as a unit and then turn to one specific area
which I believe is significant in this chapter.
1253
 We can divide this chapter into four parts. The
first part is verses 1-16, where Paul greets 26
people by name and then two others for whom he
mentions no name but he greets them. Now what
does this tell us? What does this big section of
Romans 16, 16 verses tell us? It tells me something
that really makes me rejoice. It tells me that
wherever Paul went and preached the gospel, there
were loyal supporters. There were men and
women who were saying good-bye to Paul and
some of these were willing to die with Paul. I
thank God for men and women who stand by the
truth. But, unfortunately, not everyone stood by
Paul. For when I go to the next section, verses 17
to 20, I notice that Paul is warning the believers in
Rome to be careful. Let’s read it. Romans 16:17:

I urge you, braothers, to watch out for those

who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way
that are contrary to the teaaching you have learned.
Keep away from them.

He’s talking here about false teachers, men and

1254
women who were dogging his steps and who were
always trying to split the church over theological
issues. Then, in verse 18, he says:

For such people are not serving our Lord

Christ, but their own appetites [that is, their own
interests]. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive
the minds of naive people.

In other words, Paul is saying that, “I thank

God that you have obeyed the gospel.” Romans
16:19-20:

Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I

am full of joy over you; but I want you to be wise
about what is good, and innocent about what is
evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan
under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be
with you.

Unfortunately, the problem hasn’t stopped with

Paul. We still have people today who like to divide
the church, who would like to split the church over
theological issues. Please notice what Paul says:
1255
“It is a contradiction of the gospel.” I will have to
say more about this as we go along. Paul says that
these people are contrary to Christ because Christ’s
greatest concern for the church is that we are
united.

Let us turn to one of the last prayers that Jesus

ever prayed publicly, in John 17. He has come
now to the end of His earthly mission and He
unburdens Himself to His Father. In verses 20 to
22 I read these words, recorded for our benefit.
This is Christ praying to the Father concerning all
believers. John 17:20-22:

My prayer is not for them alone [that is, for the

disciples]. I pray also for those who will believe in
me through their message [and that includes you
and me], that all of them may be one, Father, just
as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be
in us so that the world may believe that you have
sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave
me, that they may be one as we are one....

As long as we have division, we are not

1256
witnessing the truth. God wants us to be one. That
is one of the greatest evidences of the gospel. John
17:22-23:

I have given them the glory that you gave me,

that they may be one as we are one: I in them and
you in me. May they be brought to complete unity
to let the world know that you sent me and have
loved them even as you have loved me.

The word “glory” refers to God’s self-emptying

agape love. The love of God must unite us, folks,
and this unity must be the witnessing of the gospel.

Let’s go back to Romans. After warning them

about these false teachers, which in Paul’s days
were the Judaizers, he turns to greeting the Roman
Christians from his fellow workers. That’s verses
21 to 24. He talks about Timothy, “my fellow
worker,” and other men. Tertius, in verse 22, was
the secretary who wrote this epistle. Paul dictated
his letters. The only part of the book of Romans
that he actually wrote with his own hand was the
benediction. The rest was dictated to Tertius, so he
1257
is the one who wrote the letter, but it was Paul’s
words that he wrote.

So we have these nine faithful co-laborers with

Paul. So, on one hand, we had supporters who
supported Paul and, on the other hand, we had co-
laborers. This work will not be finished until the
lay members join hands with the ministers to
preach the gospel. It is my prayer that we will no
longer be seat warmers but we will go out and
witness the gospel to our neighbors and to those
around us. We will join hands in preaching the
everlasting gospel.

Then, of course, verses 25 to 27 is the longest

benediction that Paul ever wrote in the New
Testament. He begins with his great concern that
the believers in Rome should be established in the
gospel and in Jesus Christ. And that is my prayer
for you. Then he gives all the glory to God. I must
say a word about the benediction because he goes
on to say:

Now to him who is able to establish you by my

1258
gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ,
according to the revelation of the mystery hidden
for long ages past, but now revealed...

What was this mystery that was kept secret and

now is made known? What is Paul talking about?
Well, if you read the next sentence, it comes out:

...and made known through the prophetic

writings by the command of the eternal God, so
that all nations might believe and obey him — to
the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus
Christ! Amen.

What is this mystery? The mystery is that the

plan of salvation was not reserved only for the
Jews but for all nations. The gospel is to go to all
people of all classes and of all nations. Every tribe,
nation, and creed must hear the gospel and that
commission God has given us.

God has raised the Advent Movement to

present to the world the matchless charms of our
Lord Jesus Christ. The reason why He hasn’t come
1259
is not because He has delayed His coming or has
failed to keep His promise, but because we have
failed to send this message to the world. Please
remember, Paul is saying this gospel is not limited
to the Jews. It is for all nations, for all people.
God wants all men and women to accept this
gospel through a heart obedience to the truth as it
in Christ.

As I read this chapter, there were two phrases

that had the same meaning that kept hitting me in
the face, two phrases that had been repeated time
and time again in this chapter. Those phrases are:
“in the Lord” and “in Christ.”

Let’s start with Romans 16:1:

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant

of the church in Cenchrea.

The first person he sends greetings to is

Phoebe, who is a servant of the church. Look at
verse two. What does he say to the church at
Rome?
1260
 I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way
worthy of the saints and to give her any help she
may need from you, for she has been a great help
to many people, including me.

“Receive her in the Lord.” Now what did Paul

mean? What did Paul mean when he said when he
says in verse three:

Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow workers

in Christ Jesus.

“My fellow workers in Christ Jesus.” And so

he repeats this. In verse seven you have:

Greet Andronicus and Junias, my relatives who

have been in prison with me. They are outstanding
among the apostles, and they were in Christ before
I was.

“They were in Christ before I was.” In verse

eight, you have “in the Lord.” In verse nine, you
have “workers in Christ.” In verse ten, you have
1261
“in Christ.” And so on. He is repeating these
phrases “in the Lord” and “in Christ.” For every
person he mentions, he mentions this phrase. What
did he mean by that?

Let’s look at the first one and that will give us

the clue to all the rest. He says to the church at
Rome, “Please receive Phoebe in the Lord.” Each
one of us has a dual identity. First is what we are
in ourselves. We may be poor, we may be
uneducated, we may be educated, or we may be
rich. We may all have different identities
personally, but Paul is not asking the church at
Rome to accept her as she is in herself. He’s
asking them to accept her as she is in Christ. In
other words, “I want you to receive Phoebe as if
she is Christ.” You will notice that this is the clear
teaching of the New Testament.

Here are two examples. There is a chapter in

the book of Matthew where Jesus divides the
human race into two camps, the sheep and the
goats. Matthew 25:31-36:

1262
 When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and
all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in
heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered
before him, and he will separate the people one
from another as a shepherd separates the sheep
from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right
and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to
those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by
my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom
prepared for you since the creation of the world.
For I was hungry and you gave me something to
eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to
drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I
needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and
you looked after me, I was in prison and you came
to visit me.”

Notice what He says to the sheep: “Come and

inherit the kingdom of My Father which was
prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
I was hungry and you fed me. I was naked and you
clothed me. I was in prison and you visited me.”
He did not say, “My followers were hungry and
you fed them.” He said, “I was hungry and you fed
1263
me. I was naked and you clothed me.” Christ has
identified Himself with every human being.

And when the believers said to Jesus, “But

when did we do these things to you?” he replied
[Matthew 25:40]:

I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of

the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.

Christ became one with us when He came to

this world. One of His names was Immanuel,
which means “God with us.” In Hebrews 2:11 we
are told that:

Both the one who makes men holy and those

who are made holy are of the same family. So
Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.

He has identified Himself with the human race

and so, when you mistreat any human being, you
are mistreating Christ. If you reject any believer in
the church, you are rejecting Christ. We covered
this in chapters 14 and 15. If God has received
1264
you, who am I to reject you?

Here is another example. Paul was persecuting

the church. You are familiar with that fact and
know that it was before he was converted. He was
a man of whom the Christian church was afraid.
With all authority from the Jewish leaders, he was
going to Damascus to persecute the Christians in
Damascus and Christ met him on the road. Do you
remember what Christ said to him? Acts 9:4:

He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to

him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

Not the church, but “why do you persecute

me?” Every time you say anything negative about
a fellow believer, please remember, you are saying
it against Christ. This is the whole emphasis of
Paul. Paul is saying, “Please, I want you to greet
this people, I want you to accept them.” Why?
Because we are all one in Christ. That is the key
emphasis of chapter 16.

It has been recognized by many Bible scholars

1265
today that the “in Christ” motif is the central theme
of Paul’s theology. As I bring this book to an end,
I want to emphasize this in our closing study
because we need to realize that, even though we
are many individuals in this church, we are only
one, one body.

First, I want to remind you what Paul has

already taught you in chapter six of Romans, verse
three. What Paul is doing is summing up
everything that he taught. I am simply going to
remind you. Chapter six of Romans verse three.
The first thing that every believer must recognize is
this: when you were baptized you were not
baptized into a denomination, you were baptized
into Christ. Romans 6:3:

Or don’t you know that all of us who were

baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his
death?

“Do you not know (says Paul to the believers)

that all of us who were baptized into” what? Not
the Seventh-day Adventist Church but “into Christ
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Jesus.” This is a key teaching of Paul. If you look
at Galatians 3:27, He says the same thing:

...For all of you who were baptized into Christ

have clothed yourselves with Christ.

Now, if that is true, if all of us have been

baptized into Christ, the next thing that comes up
to us is that we are all one body. And if we are one
body, then we are members of each other. Turn to
chapter 12 of Romans, verse five. This is what
Paul brings out in the ethical section of Romans:

...So in Christ we who are many form one

body, and each member belongs to all the others.

So we, being many, are one body in Christ. We

may not be one body in this town. We may not be
one body in this nation, but in Christ we are one
body. And because we are one body in Christ, we
are individually members of one another. I would
like to add to this 1 Corinthians 12:12-13. There
Paul is saying the same thing. He puts it in very
clear words so we will read it:
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 The body is a unit, though it is made up of
many parts; and though all its parts are many, they
form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were
all baptized by one Spirit into one body — whether
Jews or Greeks, slave or free — and we were all
given the one Spirit to drink.

This wonderful truth so gripped the early

Christian Church that they would meet together.
Please remember, if you think we have class
distinctions today, you should have lived in the
days of Paul and of Christ. The gap between the
haves and have-nots, the gap between the social
classes, was far greater in the days of the early
Christians than it is today. We are living in a
capitalistic society. The early Christians were
living in a slave society. Forty to 60 percent of the
population of the Roman Empire were slaves. The
rest were masters. Between the two was a wide,
wide canyon. They never met together socially.

Then there was another division, a very big

division, and that was between the Jews and
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Gentiles. These believers — Jews and Gentiles,
slaves and masters — met together in a home.
They worshipped together. They ate together and
they called it the “agape feast,” the “feast of love”
that brings men and women together, all classes
and all distinctions together. You have the
educated and you have the slaves, eating together
at the same table. So that even the enemies of the
gospel, historians like Cicero and Celsus, had to
confess, “These Christians know how to love each
other.” That is what it means to be one in Christ.

Now how can we make this practical? How

can the body of Christ be one? How can we be
united? You will discover that, in the New
Testament, Romans 12 brings this out and also
Ephesians chapters four and five and also 1
Corinthians 12. Paul will use the human body as
an example, as a metaphor for how the church
should function. Now we have a wonderful human
body in the sense that your body and my body are
perfectly united with itself. I have never, in all my
years had the problem where my hands and my
legs fought against each other. Never! And I’m
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sure you have the same experience. Why is it that
our human bodies are perfectly united and perfectly
coordinated? Why? Two reasons. There are other
reasons, but two main reasons:

1. In my body, there is only one boss: my

mind. The rest of my body — my arms, my ears,
my eyes, my legs, my stomach — are slaves to the
mind. What the mind says, the body does. No
question. If my mind says to the hands, “Wash the
feet,” my hands don’t say, “Why should I wash
those ugly feet?” No questions.

For the church to experience the same unity,

you and I must become slaves of Jesus Christ
because the church is the body and Christ is the
head. If all of us were slaves to Christ, we would
solve a lot of problems. One of the key terms used
in the New Testament for Christ is “Kurios,” which
is the Greek word for Lord. It is much stronger
than the English word “Lord.” It means that Christ
is not only the Saviour of the church, but He is its
Lord. He is our Lord and Master. He wants every
believer to live in total subjection to Him. That’s
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why, in many of Paul’s epistles, he introduces
himself as a slave of Jesus Christ. This is what
Jesus prayed for. He said, “Father, just like I am
united to You, totally dependent on You, living in
total subjection to You, I want My believers to live
in total subjection to Me.”

There will be times when you will not agree

with the will of God. What do you do then? What
does a slave do when his master says not to do
this? He may mutter under his breath, but he’d
better do it. The humanity of Christ did not want
to go to the cross. Three times He prayed
[Matthew 26:39-44, Mark 14:35-41], “Father, if it
is possible, remove the cup.” But Jesus was a slave
of God, so He said,

Yet not as I will, but as you will.

Turn to Ephesians chapter four. This is God’s

desire for this church and I pray that it will become
a reality. Ephesians 4:1-6:

As a prisoner for the Lord [“the Kurios”], then,

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I urge you [beseech you, plead with you] to live a
life worthy of the calling you have received. Be
completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing
with one another in love. Make every effort to
keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of
peace. There is one body and one Spirit — just as
you were called to one hope when you were called
— one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and
Father of all, who is over all and through all and in
all.

What is Paul saying here? There is only one

Saviour and only one Lord in the church and if we
were all subject to that one God instead of dividing
ourselves — one for this man and one for the other
man, like the Corinthians were doing — we will
never be able to reveal the power of the gospel.

2. But there is a second requirement, a second

principle of the human body. That is the reason
why the human body is in perfect unity, perfect
coordination: there is a living connection between
the human body and the mind. My hands, my legs,
my eyes, my ears have a living connection to the
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mind through the nerves, so that there is a constant
communication between the two.

When I hurt my toe, the toe sends a message to

the head, “I’m hurting, I kicked a stone.” The head
sends a message to the hand, “The toe needs help.
Go to its aid.” That is how the body works. If you
and I keep a living connection with Christ, besides
being slaves to Him, then, when a person is
hurting, Christ will come to another member and
say, “Look, that person is hurting, go and visit him.
Help that person.” The church would then be
working in unity and love.

Now there is one difference. My hands, my

legs, my eyes do not have the power of choice.
They are simply automatic slaves to my head. But
believers, the body of Christ made up of believers
who do have their own minds, have the power of
choice and it is possible for Christians to disagree
with the Lord. It is possible for Christians to
disagree with each other and that’s the problem.

So I realize that it was true in the New

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Testament and it was true through the history of the
Christian Church and it is true now. It is
impossible for all of us to see eye-to-eye on
everything. It’s impossible. We will disagree.
What do we do with a disagreement? Do we knock
each other down? I have a little quotation for you.
By the way, this quotation is reproduced in the
Sixth [SDA] Bible Commentary, page 1083. But I
want you to read with me the first five or six lines:

“The strength of God’s people lies in their

union with Him through His only begotten Son and
their union with one another.”

The strength of this church is based on two

things: our unity with Christ and our union with
one another. This is a fundamental truth of the
New Testament. This is one of the great truths of
the “In Christ” motif. We are all one in Christ,
therefore, we are all members of each other. Now
listen to the next statement:

“There are no two leaves of a tree precisely

alike, neither do all minds run in the same
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direction, but while this is so, there may be unity in
diversity.”

That is why, when people in the church try to

divide the church over theology, I know for a fact
that they are not studying Jesus Christ. We may
disagree. What do we do? If we go to Matthew
18:15, it gives us some counsel:

If your brother sins against you, go and show

him his fault, just between the two of you. If he
listens to you, you have won your brother over.

If you disagree with your pastor, please come

and see him. Please don’t tell others that, “My
pastor won’t see me.” That’s a lie. I have never
refused to see anybody. I have never refused to
discuss theology or Bible with anybody. That’s my
calling. I love to discuss Bible. In fact, I have
spent much time discussing the Bible;
unfortunately, most of the people involved were
not members of my church. If I am going to give
time to nonmembers, I am more than willing to
give time to my own flock. Just come and see me.
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We may not agree in everything, but I know one
thing: I will respect you for where you stand and
please respect me.

Yes, we must be united in fundamentals and,

by fundamentals, I mean the 27 beliefs that are in
our church manual. I have no problem there.
When it comes to nonfundamentals, we need to
learn to respect each other. It isn’t that some
believe in the Bible and some don’t, or some
believe in the Spirit of Prophecy and some don’t.
That’s not the issue. The issue is that we may not
agree in interpretation of Scripture or of Spirit of
Prophecy and that’s because I don’t interpret the
same way as you. You can’t accuse me of not
believing. That’s not being fair. That’s judging.
We need to realize that we need not see eye-to-eye
in everything, but we need to learn to respect each
other. We will never grow in Christ as long as we
are fighting like cats and dogs.

Our church today — I’m talking of the

denomination — is polarizing over theology. We
will not solve the problem by talking about each
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other. I mentioned an illustration in the past and
will mention it again. In 1980, the Pentecostal
Church of Addis Ababa [Ethiopia] of 800 members
asked me to take a week of prayer in their church.
That is something of a miracle for a Pentecostal
Church to ask a Seventh-day Adventist preacher
whom they accuse of being “Old Covenant” to
preach in their church.

I took the week of prayer and gave them a

series of studies on the gospel. The pastor came to
me just before the end of the week of prayer and he
said, “We would like you to preach on the Sabbath
because my members are confused as to what
Adventists teach on the Sabbath. Most of us
believe that you are keeping the Sabbath
legalistically, but, from what you have preached to
us, you have given us clearly the impression that
Adventists believe in the gospel. So could you
please give us a study on the Sabbath and relate it
to the gospel you have preached here?”

I said, “Surely, I’ll be more than happy to do

that.” I gave them a study on the Sabbath as the
1277
seal of righteousness by faith. Do you know what
the church board did? They met together and the
pastor said, “What shall we do with this?” And the
board took an action. The action was that, “From
now on, we shall keep the Sabbath.” They changed
the name of their church. They called their church
the Seventh-day Pentecostal Church.

Well, I came under fire from my own brethren.

The fire was, “Why did you allow them to do that?
Why didn’t you bring them to our church? Can
you imagine? Our membership would have
increased by 800!” I kept quiet. I didn’t know
how to explain it to them. I knew what the
problem was. But three months later, the pastor of
the Pentecostal Church, now the Seventh-day
Pentecostal Church, came to hear me preach in our
own Adventist Church and, when the service was
over, I introduced him to the Sabbath School
Secretary of our Union. The Sabbath School
secretary said to this Pentecostal pastor, “I hear that
you people have changed your name to ‘Seventh-
day Pentecostal Church.”

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 The pastor replied, “Yes, that is right. You can
blame this man,” and he pointed to me.

Then the Sabbath School secretary said to him,

“Why did you change your name? Wouldn’t it
have been better for you to join our church?”

The pastor didn’t know what to say. In fact, he

was embarrassed. I said to the Pentecostal pastor,
“Go ahead, tell him. They need to know.”

“Well,” he said, “we came and looked at your

church. We discovered two things. Number one,
your church is dead. There’s no life in it. Number
two, when you Adventists learn to love each other,
we’ll join your church.”

Now that was a slap in the face, but what he

said was honest. We were fighting like cats and
dogs. The fight was between the nationals and the
missionaries and it was very obvious for visitors
that had their ears open. So, my dear people, as
long as people see division in our church, we will
never be able to witness the gospel.
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 Not too long ago, a young theology student
came up to me and said, “Pastor, I was told by one
of your members not to come to this church
because I would hear heresy, and I came just to
hear what heresy you were preaching. Now I
would like to join your church.”

Folks, if I am preaching heresy, please come

and see me. I want unity in this church. If you
disagree with me, I’m willing to sit down with the
Word of God and tell you where I stand.

My prayer for this church is that we’ll be one in

Christ; even though we may not see eye-to-eye in
everything yet, we’ll have unity in diversity; that
our love for each other will be so great, so strong,
that our differences won’t matter. It is my prayer
that others will see a church that knows how to
love and how to care.

God gave us a special message a hundred years

ago. That message was to lift up Christ as the
Saviour of the world. But that message was also to
1280
bring unity and love into this church.
Unfortunately, it did not work out that way. Sister
White had to rebuke our brethren many times. But,
after 100 years, God has turned to a Calvinist — a
Calvinist, of all people — and has given him this
message, the truth as it is in Christ. One of those
men who read that book by this Calvinist, Neal
Punt, was our own ministerial secretary of the
General Conference, Bob Spangler. He said, “This
book has done something for me. Now I look at
every human being in a different light than I used
to.”

Every human being you see — whether he’s in

the gutter or if he is on the throne — please
remember one thing and that is this: every human
being is a soul that has been purchased, that has
been redeemed by Jesus Christ. And when you see
each one of us, it doesn’t matter how we appear to
each other, we may not like each other by our
feelings, we may not agree with each other, but one
thing is true: we all belong to Jesus Christ.
Therefore, we all belong to each other.

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 Therefore, there is no such thing as Jew or
Gentile, male or female in the Christian Church.
We are one in Christ. But it is not enough to
preach this. The world must see this. I close with
the words of Jesus Christ once again. I repeat what
Jesus said in His prayer to His Father, that we may
be one that the world may know that He has sent
us.

Jesus said to His disciples, “By this the world

will know that we are His disciples: when we have
agape, when we have love one for another.” It is
my prayer that we will put aside our differences
and, if we disagree, we will come and speak to the
one with whom we disagree and try to hash this out
as Christians. And we will grow as Christians and
anyone who comes to this church as a visitor will
see in us a united church lifting up Jesus Christ.
That’s my prayer in Jesus’ name.

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