Setting Our Stage for Romans 8
Notes
Transcript
There is a certain challenge when working as carefully and as intimately through Scripture as we do here in Christian Life Hour, in that such an examination can at times be in danger of missing the general theme or context of the larger passage.
For indeed, many have failed to see the line of Scripture, through not only their present text but also the whole Bible, and have gone horridly astray from the truth, leading others down that same path, “among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus”, Paul had written to Timothy, and so we are admonished in 2 Timothy 2:15, to “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.” Literally, to “cut it straight”, to not deviate from the course of things by godless, empty chatter.
It is of these people, where it could be said that their “life verse” is to be found in Ego 1:1, “I can do all things through a verse taken out of context.”
And so, as we begin our careful exposition of Romans 8, it is absolutely vital that we understand the context in which it is found. For just as a verse may be taken out of context and so thought to say something it does not, so can an entire chapter.
And so, our purpose this morning is to set our stage. Just as a theater production prepares their props, their set-pieces, their costumes, gets the lights set just so, so that when the curtain is opened to reveal it all the audience is immediately taken to a different time and place and prepared to receive the story, so we too need to set our stage so that we may rightly understand the enormity of what the Holy Spirit will say through Paul in this eighth chapter of Romans so that we will “cut it right” in our own individual understanding, that we will “line everything up” in our spirit to rightly understand what is being said.
Let’s pray before we begin:
O Lord our God, You, o Lord, have installed Your King upon Zion, Your holy mountain. You have said to our Lord, “You are My Son, today I have begotten You, ask of Me and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as Your possession.” O Lord God, they are Yours and Yours alone to give, for You have established them, You alone have appointed their times and the boundaries of their habitation, as You have appointed us to be here in this time, in this place. We pray that You lift the gates of our souls, that our Lord may show us Himself in Your holy scripture this day. O Lord God, let the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all as we open Your word, that our response to it may bring glory and honor to Your blessed Son, in whose mighty Name we pray. Amen!
Now Paul has laid his essential message to the Roman believers in the first chapter, the most succinct telling of the gospel of Jesus Christ, saying…
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous will live by faith.”
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.
For remember, the gospel begins with the glory of God and the sinfulness of man, and then its declaration of the Lord Jesus Christ, and salvation from the righteous and just wrath of God through faith in Him. People go wrong when they begin and end the message of the gospel by simply saying to believe in Jesus – it certainly must include that, but there is no “good news” without a corresponding declaration of the bad news.
And so, starting with these verses, Paul has gone on to demonstrate what he declares most forcefully in Romans 3:10, “as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one;” we are not obedient to the truth, but instead obey unrighteousness, and so “store up wrath [and anger] for [ourselves] [for] the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgement of God, who will repay each according to his works”, to paraphrase 2:5-7. Romans 2:9 declaring of this future judgement, “There will be affliction and turmoil for every soul of man who works out evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek,” meaning to the Jew and to the non-Jew alike, but everyone of every race and tongue and creed is included in this condemnation – even the Jew, who has the great advantage of having been entrusted with the oracles of God! Does not God declare that He is pouring out His wrath now, in 1:18 where He declared “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness”? Yes, but to a far greater, far more obvious extent then, in that day.
But there is good news, also, for both Jew and Gentile, because even though all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, even though every member of both groups can in no way merit God’s favor, even though each person who has ever lived is deserving only of the eternal punishment from God for sin,
But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Now, this idea that justification coming by faith sounds absolutely unthinkable to those whose entire concept of acceptance by God was based upon keeping a law, by those who on the one hand grew up with the Law as a continual, solid, unchanging backdrop, being told and reminded continually the words of Deuteronomy 27:26, “Cursed is he who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.”
Likewise, the Gentile who has grown up far off from God, not having the Law, whose entire life was spent doing this and that for the various pagan “gods” to curry their favor, likewise had a hard time with this thought.
And of course, it certainly led to accusations against Paul, Romans 3:8 revealing that he had been slanderously reported as saying “Let us do evil that good may come”.
But of course, Paul had already laid the groundwork in 3:20 by saying that this justification by faith had already been witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, just as he had reminded us in Romans 1:2, that this same gospel “which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures.”
And the apostle is compelled then to fully establish this for us, which he does in Romans 4, using the two primary figures in Jewish history to do so, Abraham and David. First laying down the facts of Abraham, saying…
For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about—but not before God! For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”
For of course, the Jews looked to “our father Abraham”, “we are Abraham’s seed” when arguing with Jesus in John 8:33, they were always praising and lauding him, their very identity was bound to Him.
And Paul points out that “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. This account we could read for ourselves in Genesis 15:6, but for our purposes now it is important for us to understand that this is not simply a matter of intellectual assent; no, the belief of Abraham is bound up in the trust and committal of himself wholly and completely to God, he accepted God’s word and God’s promise as true and Abraham placed his entire confidence in the word God had given to him.
Abraham believed the promise, he trusted the promise, he was unwaveringly certain in it and rejoiced in it. Jesus spoke of this in John 8:56, saying “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”
And this was “counted to him as righteousness”; in the same way that Paul would later write to Philemon of Onesimus saying in Philemon 19 that if Onesimus had wronged Philemon in any way or owes Philemon anything, “I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand, I will repay it” – the same root word as used here.
in other words, although he was not righteous, God had imputed righteousness to his account.
But Paul didn’t stop there, but went on to speak of David the King, wrote,
just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, And whose sins have been covered. “Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.”
He is of course saying much the same thing as Abraham – by faith we are given what we do not deserve, and that is the only way God’s gift of righteousness may be obtained. This “righteousness of God apart from the Law” was indeed “witnessed by the Law and the Prophets”!
But, he wrote, it wasn’t only for Abraham or David that these things were written, that these things occurred, but for all men,
Now not for his sake only was it written that it was counted to him, but for our sake also, to whom it will be counted, as those who believe upon Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, He who was delivered over on account of our transgressions, and was raised on account of our justification.
And so, then, with this firmly established now, Paul turns a corner at the beginning of chapter 5 to glory in the fullness and finality of this imputed righteousness, a glorying that will carry him all the way through to the end of chapter 8, commencing with a sweeping declaration in the first two verses:
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we boast in hope of the glory of God.
Now, I tend to agree with Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones that, although we are greatly helped, exhorted, and built up in our most holy faith by the gem that is Romans chapter 8, the greatest chapter in the entire epistle is probably chapter 5, in that it is this chapter in which the truly momentous occurs, our being transferred out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love, to borrow a phrase from Colossians 1. As great as it is, chapter 8 in a sense merely describes what is true of the man or woman who has undergone the enormous change here in chapter five.
For in the fifth chapter, “we were enemies” with God, 5:10 declares; “we were still weak”, 5:6 says; “we were sinners” 5:8 records.
What happened? What was this momentous thing which took place? Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the eternal Son of God, the perfect lamb, died for the ungodly (5:6), he died for us (5:8),
For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
We were justified by faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ, who though Himself perfect and blameless, died once for all, a perfect sacrifice.
And it is by faith that we have “obtained our introduction… into this grace in which we stand.” The very nature of grace is that it is completely and entirely undeserved and unearned, and we stand before the king and creator God, Moses singing in Exodus 11 that He alone is “majestic in holiness, fearsome in praises”, there is “none like Him”, and we who are His, who have been justified by faith alone, were “reconciled to God through the death of His Son.”
You surely must see, that it is not us who have done this, but God. And because it is God who has done this, it is guaranteed, it is absolute, and nothing can shake us out of it. Surely, that is what he is saying in verses 3 through 5, that no matter what trial or tribulation, no matter the affliction, our salvation is based upon none other than God’s love, His immutable character. We were without strength, and even enemies, and therefore if God loved us then, now that we have been reconciled will He now cease to love us? Never! Such a thing is preposterous!
And not only this, but we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not put to shame, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
And then, this argument for the fullness and finality of our justification by faith is continued in the last half of Romans 5, in verses 12 through 21, by declaring that just as we were once in Adam, and thereby condemned in Adam, Romans 5:12 “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—”, Romans 5:14, “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the trespass of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.” Even so, we who are justified by faith are now in Christ Jesus.
And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the gracious gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.
And again in verse 19,
For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were appointed sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be appointed righteous.
When you are justified by faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ, in faith like that of Abraham, we who were once set down under the realm and rule of Sin, appointed sinners, were then transferred and now appointed righteous, we are now under the rule and dominion of righteousness!
But wait! What about the Law, you may ask! Wasn’t that given so that men knew how to please God?
Now the Law came in so that the transgression would increase, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
What a momentous thing! What a phenomenal, amazing truth! The Law was never meant to save us, that was never its purpose! Instead, its purpose was so that sin and transgression would increase…
Wait… what?? You’re telling me that the Law came in so that sin would increase?? That when sin increases, then grace super-increases??
You see the dilemma Paul has created for everyone here, right?
And so he of necessity has to take us to an aside, away from his main line of argument regarding the fullness and finality of salvation by faith, to deal with these two problems that he of necessity presents in these verses.
And so, in chapter 6, we see a parenthesis to deal with the question of sin –
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?
Shall we sin more so that there is more grace? Absolutely not – to even think that with any degree of seriousness at all is to completely misunderstand the gospel! We died to sin!
Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
Now, to be clear we’re not talking about a baptism of water but of immersion into Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit, 1 Corinthians 12:13 declaring “For also by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” The idea of being immersed in Christ is the heart of what it means to be in Christ!
Our “old man”, verse 6 cries out, the me that was, is no more, and the me that is has been united to Christ Jesus!
And it is on account of this, that I now am able to meet the first command of Romans here in verse 12, to not let sin reign in my mortal body, in my flesh, in my faculties, in my emotions, in my heart. Why? Because sin is no longer master over me, I am not under Law, but under grace.
But not only that, he goes on, even in 6:17–18 declaring “But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were given over, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.” I am no longer a slave to sin leading to death!
But remember, the question of sin was only the first issue brought up by Romans 5:20-21, the other issue was that of the Law. And it is to this question, that Paul devotes chapter seven, declaring in
So, my brothers, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.
While we were yet under the reign and rule of sin, we, as it were, were married to the Law; and just as a wife is under the rule and authority of her husband, so we, too, were under the rule and authority of the law.
But since a law is master of a person only so long as they live, we may be then be separated from the rule and authority of the Law by death, just as a wife and her husband are separated by death.
But the Law cannot die, it is God’s Law, it is eternal and unchangeable, God Himself gave it and declared it to be just and holy; He can not, and will not, simply set it aside, to deny it would be to deny Himself, for in it his holy character is revealed.
And so, we were “made to die to the Law”, “through the body of Christ”. We had been joined to Christ, Romans 6 had told us, before His death and burial and resurrection, so as He died to the Law, we also died to the Law.
But it was not for us to continue to declare ourselves as master, no! Instead, the vital purpose for this was that we “might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead”! And even that had a particular purpose, “in order that we might bear fruit for God”!
“Yes,” you might say, “that explains why we had to die to the Law, but wasn’t the point Paul made in chapter 5 that the Law was that “the transgression would increase”? Where does that come in??
And so, Paul begins in verse 7, and on through the end of the chapter, to reveal most fully and most carefully for us the whole purpose of the Law:
What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! Rather, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law. For I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “You shall not covet.”
He goes on to say that sin “takes opportunity” through the commandment, through the Law, to increase itself, culminating in the terrible realization about my sin,
For sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.
And so, I begin to be awakened to my inability to present myself as holy to God by means of the Law, in 7:19 realizing “For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.” And then, coming face to face with my utter inability to fulfill God’s holy, righteous, and good Law:
I find then the principle that in me evil is present—in me who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in my members, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a captive to the law of sin which is in my members.
I see the Law clearly, and I see myself clearly. The Law has done its work, it has completed its primary task, to bring me to the point where I look about in anguish, having tried everything on my own and failed, and realizing that I am wretched, that although I in my mind am serving the law of God, I cannot do so. Romans 7:24, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?”
Beloved, thank God for this realization, thank God – through Jesus Christ our Lord – that it is the Law which brings us to realize our great need of deliverance,
Now the Law came in so that the transgression would increase, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
And so now, having concluded both parentheses, having resolved the objections related to Paul’s teaching regarding Sin and Law, we are now ready to begin realizing, at long last, what it truly means that “grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” That was the change, that is what “therefore” refers to when we read in 8:1,
Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Lord willing, we will begin the exposition of Romans 8 next time, as we revel in the fullness and finality that this change from death to life, from the reign of sin to the reign of righteousness and grace brings to all who are “in Christ Jesus.”
Let us pray.